on this edition for sunday, october 27, immigration is back in the spotlight as competing visions work their way through the house of representatives. in our signature segment, risk and reward. the new government rules that would allow more americans to invest in start-up businesses. >> i think it's going to launch a new way of entrepreneurship across the nation. and millions go missing from american non-profits. next on pbs news hour weekend. >> "pbs news hour weekend" is

made possible by jodi westin, the wallach family, the sherry millstein family. mutual of america, designing customized, individual and group retirement plans. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support is provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tish wnet studios in new york, arnie sreenivasan. >> good evening. we look at the effect of the shutdown on congress. president obama has pressed the republican-led house of representatives to follow the senate's lead and pass a

immigration reform bill. speaker boehner says immigration reform is an important subject that needs to be addressed and said he was, quote, hopeful. this weekend the governor from california became the first republican that said he would sponsor legislation that would give millions of undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship. for more on immigration reform this year, we're joined by washington from alan gomez. alan, first question. how significant is this announcement by the california republican congressman yesterday that he'll co sponsor legislation with democrats, talking about immigration? >> if you're a democrat in the house, it's very significant. they're hoping he's first of several that will be coming on board. they have a most wanted list of about a dozen house republicans that are interested in some sort of bill that includes a pathway to citizenship. but that's always going to remain in the minority in the house. there's still that large conservative base of the house that is just uneasy about any kind of bill that passes

citizenship for undocumented immigrants. it's a big step for them. they're seeing this as a way to push for an immigration package that includes that pathway. they're hoping to get the speaker to do something along the lines of what we just saw with the shutdown, where you saw democrats and a small group of republicans voting to pass something, but like i said, there is still a big chunk of that house that's resistant to this. it's a small step but definitely the right direction for the house democrats. >> so they only need three dozen votes for republicans to switch sides? are there other pieces of legislation that are winding their way through about immigration? >> yes, there is quite a few, and this is what makes things in the house so complicated, as always. you have this bill, it's a democratic bill. it's got about 180 democratic co-sponsors and now the one republican one. then you kind of move into the middle of the spectrum a little bit where you got somebody like representative darrell isa, also from california, who should be introducing this week a bill that would allow for the nation's undocumented immigrants

who apply for legal status for a period of six years. that would be sort of an intermediary way of approaching it, and that's something i know a lot of house republicans have been interested in because they don't want to see all 12 million as one big block. they kind of want to split it up in little groups and treat them differently. then on the other end of the spectrum, you have the house republican leadership. they've been pushing this piece by piece approach. they've been advancing smaller bills that deal with small sections of the immigration issue, so border security, more visas for high-tech workers, more visas for low-skilled workers, and they're trying to proceed with that so that they can kind of address separate parts of the immigration issue without having to do it all at once. >> so is this key idea of pathway to citizenship likely to cause a similar rift within the republican party between moderates and more conservative republicans? >> absolutely, absolutely. i mean, we look at the

immigration debate as it's changed over the last year. the magic number remains for republicans the 27% of hispanic voters that mitt romney got a year ago in the election. so when you look at the gop from a national perspective, senator mccain, other senators in the republican party who were thinking on the broader scale, on the national scale, for them it's very important to include something that includes a pathway to citizenship so they can start having a better conversation with hispanic voters who continue to increase, who continue to be a bigger portion of the electorate. but at the same time, when you look at these house members, a lot of them, just from 2010 to 2012, after redistricting, house republicans represent 6.6 million fewer minorities. now their districts are, on average, up to 75% white. so there are just dozens and dozens and dozens of house republicans who have just a tiny, tiny fraction of minorities in their district, so for them, this idea of the

grander party trying to appeal to hispanics is not as important for them. it doesn't really resonate back in their home district, so for them it's not that important. so i would say there is a good, good chunk of that house that is just resistant to anything that includes a pathway to citizenship as many of them refer to it as amnesty, so there is absolutely going to be that friction. house speaker boehner is back where he needs to be these days trying to corral different sides of his caucus. >> what's the likelihood? they have such a small window left. >> they do. there's only, i think, about 14 legislative days left in this calendar year. obviously, that can stretch into next year a little bit. the likelihood, if i knew that, i would be writing that story right now at my desk. it's very difficult to get this through, but they do have some time, and they have a lot of bills teed up ready to go, ready to be introduced on the house floor and to be voted on. if it happens, it could happen very quickly. we should know a lot more in the

next couple weeks. >> alan gomez from usa today. thanks so much. >> thank you. new revelations today about the extent of u.s. spying on german chancellor angela merkel. the german magazine said merkel's phone first appeared on a list of spying targets in 2002. a german newspaper quotes u.s. intelligence officials as saying president obama was informed of the spying operation in 2010 but let it continue. here in new york, as the anniversary of superstorm sandy approaches, the state has announced creation of a 3-million-gallon gasoline reserve. there was a shortage for weeks after the storm. new york is creating its own reser reserve. another wave of violence in iraq. people were killed and dozens wounded after a car bomb. al qaeda affiliates were thought

to be responsible. from saudi arabia tonight, some of the women who protested the ban against driving in that country yesterday have been fined or arrested. one newspaper said 14 women were detained. other reports said at least 16 were fined the equivalent of nearly $300. women activists vowed to continue their acts of defiance. a setback to arrange an international peace conference to end the civil war in treaty. nine rebel groups issued a statement saying the proposed meeting in geneva next month would amount to a treason and those who attended would be held accountable. the president of iran said it would participate if invited. in a sign of changing times in iran, the municipal government of tehran has voted that billboards denouncing the united states be taken down. the local government said they were put up without official authorization. and finally, an important figure in rock and roll. guitarist and songwriter lou

reed has died. he was 71 years old. reed had undergone a liver transplant last spring. among his greatest hits was "walk on the wild side." ♪ a walk on the wild side ♪ baby, take a walk on the wild side ♪ and now to our signature segment, original in-depth stories about important but underreported topics. this evening we look at efforts to boost the prospects of new businesses, a move that could lead to more job creation. this past wednesday, the sec proposed rules that would allow anyone to buy a stake in small, private companies. it's a form of what's known as crowd funding, raising a big pool of money on line from many small contributors. it represents a big change to depression-era laws designed to protect small investors from risky investments. special correspondent carl woy h

worthy has our story. >> reporter: he's trying to raise money for his start-up company. it's called juicy canvas, an on-line business that allows users to customize original artwork, to make prints, sheet cases or mobile equipment. it's an idea he thinks could be huge, so he's doing what most start-ups do at this stage, trying to sell his idea to big investors, venture capitalists. but competing for their money is a time-consuming and difficult process. it takes face-to-face meetings, networking and luck to hook in an investor with big bucks. >> there is only so much they're going to invest per year, and every hour, there is exponentially more and more and more start-ups getting into the market, so it's going to be harder for us to kind of bubble up. >> overall new businesses account for -- >> reporter: but now start-up businesses could soon have another form of cash. >> for start-up businesses, this

bill is a potential game changer. >> reporter: that's because a little known provision in the 2012 jobs act signed by president obama allows non-publicly traded companies to use the internet to raise investment capital. it's a practice known as crowd funding, raising a large pool of money for many small contributions. companies could raise up to a million dollars a year. before the jobs act, to invest in most start-ups, an individual had to be accredited, meaning that they earned more than $200,000 a year, or worse, at least a million dollars. now even if you earn less than $100,000 a year, you'll be allowed to invest up to $2,000 or 5% of your annual income in these new companies. >> for the first time, ordinary americans will be able to go on line and invest in entrepreneurs that they believe in. >> reporter: the question is this. will it provide an opportunity for someone of ordinary means to get in early on a potentially lucrative investment, or is it a

disastrous rollback of laws minute to protect investors from risky inventions that often fail? steve case co-founded aol and is now ceo of evolution, an investor firm in washington, d.c. he is convinced the law would encourage the creation of more start-ups. >> i think it will unleash a new way of entrepreneurship across the nation. >> reporter: case was on president obama's jobs council and was a major supporter of the jobs act. >> the jobs act will help provide more entrepreneurs in more places and in more sectors of our economy the ability to raise the capital, to get started or to grow their company. >> reporter: arturo says this new law could help him raise money. >> it will allow us to focus on growth much faster and not have to deal with the standard angel

funding ventures we would have to go on. >> reporter: is this also going to create more jobs? >> absolutely. if we want to get our economic growth up, the place to start is start-ups. to make sure we're competitive, the focus is start-ups. >> reporter: according to the bureau of labor statistics, each year since 1994, start-ups gained more of all u.s. businesses. to upgrade the law so anyone can raise money over the internet, entrepreneurs will have more access to capital and will, in turn, create more jobs. >> the internet didn't exist 80 years ago. most people didn't have television 80 years ago. most people didn't have cars 80 years ago. the world has changed, and we need to reflect that. >> reporter: but what about the risk to investors? businesses who may have failed to raise enough money from venture capitalists. >> the issue is is it a good

idea for investors? and i think the answer to that is a resounding no. >> reporter: attorney mark stocker represents investors. he says the new provision under the jobs act has protection put in place during the great depression. >> if we change them now, we're forgetting not only what we learned then but what we learned in this great recession we just came through. >> reporter: people are saying we're just bringing these laws into this century. the internet wasn't around back then, and we really just need to update these laws to reflect the way business works now. what's your response to that? >> that's certainly been a part of the huge mass appeal to crowd funding. it sounds kind of sexy and kind of 21st century, and most importantly, kind of democratic because everyone can get involved. the thing that they are actually asking to be updated is traditional limitations on the ability of small private companies to raise money from mom and pop retail investors.

those restrictions have been in place historically because those are very risky investments. >> reporter: isn't there some benefit to having this open to credit investors that are more wealthy and more sophisticated and know what's entailed in the risk and more knowledgeable in investing? >> i understand the concern, but we don't have that limitation in terms of letting people buy a house, which is risky. we don't have that limitation letting people invest in the stock market, which is risky. we don't have that limitation in terms of people gambling in las vegas, which is really risky. why should we tell people they can't invest in start-ups. 80 years ago, you essentially had to be a millionaire to invest in start-ups. >> reporter: i know some skep c skeptics are worried about fraud and protecting the investors. is that something you're concerned about, that some of these mom and pop investors might get fleeced? >> there is always the risk of

that. the right protectors are being put in place. 80 years ago, the internet was just starting to be an idea. when people talked about e-commerce and put their credit cards on the internet, people said, that's never going to happen. over time people got comfortable that they would be protected. these new ideas will take some time to really settle out and have the impact they can have. >> but there's a catch. even though start-ups were supposed to be able to use this new tool to raise money the past january, the sec still hasn't completely analyzed the crowd data of the jobs act. >> there are companies growing and providing jobs but they can't do that because they don't have the capitol.

>> reporter: arturo will be pre-selling t-shirts to fund his business. >> reporter: what kind of impact is that going to have on your company? >> it would have a major impact. it would let us do what we really want to do much faster. you're just going to have a lot more einsteins that would never see light of day be able to get into the market. this country is built on that. >> despite the rules proposal from the sec this week, crowd funding for investing is still months away. the rules are open for public comment the next 90 days and then the commission will decide whether or not to adopt them. see how one small business owner is attracting investors by exercising his new freedom to advertise. visit newshour.pbs.org. a startling report in

today's "washington post." the newspaper says more than a thousand of the nation's non-profits have each acknowledged losses of a quarter million dollars or more because of theft, investment fraud, embezzlement. each exposed the problem by checking a box on the tax form indicating what's called a significant diversion of funds. for more on this, we're joined in washington by chris stevens. he's the co-author of today's piece. your article says just the ten largest losses you've identified out of $500 million. give us some examples. >> that's right, almost half a billion dollars. they're all across the board, all kinds of non-profits in major amounts. the potential loss we had was this one and they got caught up

in the bernie madoff ponzi scheme, which is pretty famous. a lot of non-profits got caught up in that and lost tens of thousands of dollars to that ponzi scheme. so that was a major sense of losses. however, there are a lot of large losses from different scams and schemes. there is the global fund to fight aids. they had a problem. they found tens of millions of dollars had gone missing through a whole range of financial problems. they're working on getting some of that money back. there are jewish material claims against germany which it pays republic ration of the sort. he was involved with some insiders and he took mill yonds of dollars that were supposed to go to holocaust survivors. some of them are horrified to hear about it. the group says they involved.

directors, bookkeepers, very long. but it also goes all the way down to your neighborhood groups: boy scout groups, volunteer firpts. . this hasn't been known, because to begin with, in the past before 2008, they didn't have to disclose like they do now. they also, what we found now is the new reporting requirements require you not only to check that box, that you attach a description of what happened to your annual disclosure form. what we found is -- >> sorry. in your reporting there, it actually shows that not everybody chose to disclose what was happening. and so when you look at even these findings, which are startling, but this is of the people who chose to disclose it, of the people that actually checked the box, of the people

who are registered of all the non-profits that are out there. so really, how much bigger is this problem? >> that's exactly right. more than a thousand, we found, is just a sliver of the total universe, and it makes it absolutely impossible to estimate how big the losses are. but they obviously are larger than we had known and a lot of kind of gritty details in these reports. but the other major finding of our investigation is that an awful lot of these groups aren't giving out many details. even the one that checked the box. saifl we had a major diversion. they don't really disclose what happened. a lot of them don't even give. many so it raise az lot of questions of what really is going on out there, how bad is it. but what we've seen is bad

enough. >> do you think this could turn and let people be smarter about it and hold the organizations they donate to more accountable. >> just because a group has been victimized in and of itself doesn't mean it's a bad organization or they did anything wrong. but the experts say this should be a sign to donors, to supporters, to volunteers, if you see this on your form and, and what have you done to make sure that they get there. readers can go to the website. we put together the first public searchable database of the significant diversion. you can put in the yam of your city, your state. it blows a significa-- bodes a

significant way to look at it. >> thank you, steve, very much. >> thank you. obesity is hardly just an american problem. mexico has a high obesity rate and great britain struggles with that problem, too. now great britain has gotten 12 of its largest food manufacturers to reduce the number of saturated fats they use. simon harris reports. >> reporter: for the healthy eaters, the supermarket shelves can be a mine field. too much fat, too much sugar. now they want us to put saturated fats on the worry list. >> i'm not sure cupcakes and cake, that's not the fight you do want to have. sgrz two-thirds of the year

could be safe if the nation cuts their fat by just. a 12-year heart disease, and heart disease is coming through. let's put were ignoring the government's campaign. >> a multiple number of people not signing up for the deal, going on eating saturated fat. and that is a tragedy. >> what you need to do to reduce your risk of heart disease is to an adult, a diet that's low in magnesium fate. some of the country.

people argue that it isn't the answer. they say it needs to be compulsory and legally enforced. join us on the news hour tomorrow on air and on line. science correspondent miles o'brien reports on how last year's superstorm sandy is affecting residents. thank you for watching.

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>> this week on "moyers & company" -- that deal between the justice department and jpmorgan chase requires a second look. >> if the justice department were being tough on wall street, they would be talking about bringing criminal cases against individuals who helped to perpetrate this immense crisis. >> and historian peter dreier reveals the radical message of dr. seuss. >> stand up to arbitrary authority and take back your own life and be a fighter for justice and for your own integrity. >> announcer: funding is provided by -- carnegie corporation of new york, celebrating 100 years of

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