reality of life. >> magic in the moonlight. now playing only in theaters. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: edward snowden has more secrets to tell and shares them with "wired" magazine. we talk to the journalist who spent three days with the n.s.a. leaker in moscow. good evening, i'm gwen ifill. and i'm judy woodruff. also ahead this wednesday, will afghanistan come together or fall apart? margaret warner talks to james dobbins, who just stepped down as the u.s. special representative to the region. >> ifill: plus, remembering the sultry, seductive and glamorous symbol of old hollywood, award- winning actress lauren bacall. together and blow, steve.

>> ifill: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the united states moved closer today to new moves to rescue thousands of yazidi refugees in northern iraq. they're trapped on a mountain, surrounded by fighters of the islamic state group. the u.s. military is already air-dropping supplies, and 130 american advisors have arrived to assess things. today, deputy national security advisor ben rhodes said the president is awaiting their recommendations. >> there needs to be a lasting solution that gets that population to a safe space where they can receive more permanent assistance. we don't believe that involves u.s. troops re-entering a combat

role in iraq. it involves frankly a very difficult logistical challenge of moving folks who are in danger on that mountain into a safer position. >> woodruff: rhodes suggested the next move could involve a rescue mission with the help of kurdish forces and the british. meanwhile, the yazidis are pleading for safe passage out of iraq. we have a report from jonathan rugman of independent television news. >> reporter: these are the survivors of an ancient religious minority which until a week or so ago many in the west had never even heard of. "we are yazidis," they cried. our children are dying everyday, yet we haven't hurt anyone. their families are living in this high school playground because they have nowhere else to go. yesterday, we watched thousands streaming into iraqi kurdistan for safety, though the un

reckons over 20,000 may still be trapped and at risk of genocide. nofa baracat walked for 15 miles with her baby son. she told me then she kept him alive by having him suckled milk by a mountain goat. today, we found her family living in the high school. they have no idea where they're going and they are terrified of the jihadists who hounded them here. >> ( translated ): they buried people alive. they've killed children. they said either you will convert to islam or we will slaughter you. >> reporter: around a thousand yazidis will be sleeping here tonight and for all of them the dream of a united iraq has been shattered forever. what is striking when you talk to these yazidi refugees is that none of them have told us they will ever go back to their homes. they say that iraq is finished for them. it is not a case of building refugee camps, they don't want to be fed here, they want to

leave the country. this afternoon, yazidis in this camp gave us the same message. just because foreign helicopters are poised to airlift their trapped relatives, does not they will settle here in kurdistan on the borders of a ruthless self- declared islamic state. yet bulldozers are busy leveling the ground for four more camps. and because nobody really knows how many are dying on sinjar mountain, nobody knows how many survivors to expect. >> we don't know exactly how while on the political front, prime minister nouri al-maliki insisted he won't accept a new prime minister, either al-abady, until iraq's highest court rules on the issue but

maliki's political party lined up behind abady. in syria, opposition groups reported militants captured two key towns 30 miles northeast of alepo. it followed fierce clashes with rival rebel factions. >> woodruff: there's word that a temporary truce between israel and has is being extended just as it was set to expire. palestinian negotiators said late today the extension will run for five days. israel did not immediately comment but the israeli military said several rockets were wired from gaza as the news broke. >> ifill: authorities in ferguson, missouri are urging an end to night-time protests over the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager. last night, demonstrators held a largely peaceful event, but later, police shot and wounded a man who allegedly pulled a handgun. this afternoon, police chief thomas jackson said he wants to prevent voilence and accommodate

the protesters. >> they have a very strong message they want to get out, they're looking for answers, i understand that, i understand the anger, but there are some people that come out and, after dark, it does get a little dangerous. so we think it's better for peaceful demonstrations to occur during the daylight. >> ifill: the chief said he will not identify the policeman who shot the teenager at least for now. >> woodruff: the skies opened over new york's long island suburbs today and dumped a summer's worth of rain in just a few hours. more than 13 inches fell in the town of islip. the deluge transformed roads into rivers, submerging many cars in several feet of water. some roads were still shut down during the busy morning commute so crews could rescue stranded drivers. >> we've seen that before where a couple cars get stuck in a very specific area. this is nothing like anyone has ever seen here. dozens and dozens, hundreds across the county, of cars being stuck in major flooding. >> woodruff: at least one person

died in a wreck at the height of the storm. the same system drowned parts of detroit earlier this week. >> ifill: the death toll from fighting in eastern ukraine has spiked. the united nations estimated today at least 2,086 people have been killed since mid-april, up from 1,129 in late july. meanwhile, a russian humanitarian aid convoy was parked in southwestern russia awaiting permission to cross the border. ukrainian authorities insist it could be cover for an invasion. >> woodruff: one of the challengers in brazil's upcoming presidential election was killed today in a plane crash. eduardo campos was on a small plane that was trying to land in bad weather in the city of santos. campos was running third in the race to unseat president dilma rousseff, who's seeking a second term. the election is october fourth. >> ifill: former egyptian president hosni mubarak denied today that he ordered deadly force against protesters in 2011. more than 900 people were killed

in the uprising that deposed him that year. mubarak, now 86, testified in a cairo courtroom. >> mohamed has any mubarak who is before you today did not order at all the killing of protesters or the shedding of the blood of egyptians and i did not issue an oorder to cause chaos and i never issued an order to cause a security vacuum. >> ifill: mubarak was initially found guilty in 2012, but his conviction was overturned last year. he's now being re-tried. a final verdict will be issued in late september. >> woodruff: on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained 91 points to close at 16,651; the nasdaq rose nearly 45 points to close at 4,434; and the s&p 500 added almost 13 points, to finish at 1,946. still to come on the newshour. edward snowden's latest secrets. why some 300,000 people in the

u.s. could lose their health insurance. former u.s. special representative to afghanistan jim dobbins. an appreciation of hollywood legend, lauren bacall. and, safeguarding drinking water supplies for this and future generations. >> ifill: now to the new revelations from a fresh interview with n.s.a. leaker edward snowden. the extensive profile, in "wired" magazine, is based on hours of interviews conducted over three days, including audio that captures snowden's voice. >> what i did, was not to benefit myself. i didn't ask for money. i gave this information back to public hands. and the reason that i did that was not to gain a label but to give you back a choice about the country you want to live in. >> ifill: snowden discloses that

the u.s. government ran a top secret cyber-war program code- named monster-mind. he said it could accidentally start a war. and he reveals that, in 2012, n.s.a. hackers mistakenly shut down all of syria's internet service. edward snowden has been living in russia since 2013. last week, that asylum was extended by three years. journalist and "wired" contributor james bamford has written extensively about u.s. surveillance for decades, and is the author of this latest story, which appears in the september issue. he joins me now from rio de janeiro. >> ifill: james bamford, you say in your pce you feel like off kinship with edward snowden. why didn't he talk to you? >> well, gwen, nice being on the program. the reason i think we had a bit of a kinship is, interestingly, i worked also for n.s.a. in hawaii when i was in the navy. i was assigned to a unit that

was basically part of the n.s.a., and i worked there during the vietnam war for basically two years out of three years i spent in the navy. then after i left the active duty and was in the reserves while i was in law school, i discovered at one of the listening posts they were eavesdropping on u.s. citizens. so i blew the whistle on that to the church committee and actually testified in closed session before the church committee. so these were some of the things that i think we had a bit in common. he was far more of a whistleblower than i ever was and he was far more involved with n.s.a. than i ever was, but there were these connections we did have. >> ifill: it's been widely reported 1.7 billion documents were taken by edward snowden in some manner. do you happen to know whether he knows what's in all those documents, whether there's

indeed a second leaker as has been reported? >> there was 1.7 million documents, but his comments were really extraordinary, to me. he said he actually left basically bread crumbs. he left some clues to indicate which documents he actually saw and which documents he actually copied so that the n.s.a., when they went back and did an audit, would be able to determine that he was a whistleblower -- in other words, taking documents that indicated they were involved in domestic eavesdropping, for example, as opposed to documents dealing with north korea or russia or china or whatever. so he didn't say how many documents, but he said there were considerably fewer than the 1.7 million that the n.s.a. has alleged, and that 1.7 million is basically based on the documents

he may have at one point seen, but certainly not the documents that he copied and by them missing the clues he left, we aren't able to tell which he saw and which he copied. >> ifill: and which reports come from his documents and which ones come from possibly someone snells. someone -- someone else? >> well, that's the indication. edward snowden indicated to me, the n.s.a. certainly has a problem, that things are still walking. he said that's a major problem to the u.s. since the n.s.a. has so much of american communications -- telephone calls, e-mails and so forth -- and if there is a second leaker, which apparently there is, and certainly the evidence indicates that, and maybe having been inspired by edward snowden, it's certainly a major problem for n.s.a., if they thought they had a problem with snowden, now they have a problem with someone else there. >> ifill: what kind of life is

snowden leading in exile these days? >> he seems fairly comfortable in his life. the three days i spent with him he never complained about his life there. i think he's adapted to the life in moscow quite well. moscow is not your grandfather's russia unde. he just had his visa extended another three years. i think he said obviously he would much rather be living in the u.s. with his family and so forth, but i think he's adapting quite well. >> he expects to be hacked at any moment by the u.s. government? >> well, he certainly thinks they're certainly trying to hack into him. he says that he thinks it will be inevitable that they will be

able to hack into him at some point. he doesn't think they've geolocated him -- in other words, found out exactly where he is at a particular time in moscow. he takes his battery out of his cell phone. he's going places. he's very careful. but he does think at some point n.s.a. will probably be able to understand who he's talking to, not necessarily what he's saying because of encryption, but who he's communicating with and that troubles him. >> ifill: do he and his supporters have concern about americans moving interest in his cause? >> yeah, he was quite concerned that at some point the information that was coming out will pretty much be put on the back pages, people won't pay attention to it anymore, sort of compare it to a war in the sense

that five people being killed is a headline, 1,000 people being killed a month later is a back page. so it's a problem of becoming sort of numbed, or this whole problem of boiling frogs where a frog is in the water and the heat gets turned up slowly so that th the frog doesn't know is being boiled. so it's a problem he's concerned about that the public will stop paying attention to the leaks and revelations at some point. >> for that reason he poses with an american flag on the woofer of "wired" magazine this month. james bamford, thank you for your reporting, talk to you soon. >> woodruff: there are new complications with the healthcare law and insurance coverage. roughly eight million people signed up through the healthcare exchanges. but it's been clear this summer there are many cases of

discrepancies with information of the newly enrolled, complicating their eligibility in some cases. immigration status is now a part of this. yesterday, the obama administration warned more than 300,000 people could lose coverage if they can't show proof they are u.s. citizens or legal residents. reporter louise radnofsky is covering this for the wall street journal. welcome back to the program. >> thank you for having me. >> woodruff: louise, who are the people being questioned or getting the letters? >> originally about a million people for whom the site couldn't verify they were in the united states legally, whittled down to about 310,000 people who they say they haven't heard from avenue being asked multiple times to send in information. >> woodruff: what caused this to bubble to the surface? >> there appeared to be a standing glitch in the

healthcare system in which it was difficult to ascertain data supplied by people who were residents in the united states or naturalized and not born here. essentially the data from the department of homeland security wasn't working to get their information available in time. >> woodruff: so they literally couldn't verify what people were saying, is that it? >> they couldn't. at one point people couldn't enter document numbers that existed, so they just sort of tried to progress as much as they could and supplied information later. >> remind me for tell jibility requirements for people to sign up for healthcare under the program, they had to be what? >> they had to be legal in the united states. this was the issue as the law was debated. as a result, unauthorized immigrants are not only not eligible for benefits, they're not able to shop on healthcare.gov at all.

>> woodruff: for in m people, they've cleared it up. for 300,000 people, they haven't heard back. what do those people have to do. >> those people have until september 5 to mail in the information to the department of health and human services. if they don't, they would lose their coverage entirely. it's not just about tax coverage. their plans would be terminated by the insurance company. >> so they were prepared to shut them off even after a year or less than a year of coverage. >> they are. it's something immigrant activists were concerned about. they never liked the provision in the first place but they say the government might be moving hastily here. >> woodruff: what do people in the administration say about this? do they honestly believe that most of these people are illegal that they're not citizens or not here legally or do they think there are just honest mistakes? >> they say they're in a position to process through and find out whether people who

submitted information do have data on file and the federal government can verify what they're saying and that's why they're going to these measurers but they say they need to hear from the people. >> woodruff: so they honestly don't know? is that what you're saying? >> it's a data matching error, they describe it as. >> woodruff: so we started out saying 2 billion,people are being investigated for some sort of discrepancy. this is a big number of the 8 million. >> right, and it gets to t idea there were a number of place in healthcare.gov that went beyond the obvious ones at the outset where people just couldn't get through the system that was seizing up on them. the underlying data is tough to verify because you have people with complicated circumstances like people not born in the united states or their income has changed. that's the other people among the 2 million. what they earned in 2012 is not

what they expect to earn in 2014. that's what happens when people are suddenly looking to buy insurance on their own. >> woodruff: how is that reconciled? >> again, the administration is asking for more information. but because it's about their tax credits and not coverage entirely, there is an expectation it will get sorted out around tax season. the republicans aren't happy about that, but that's when it will be found out. >> woodruff: the renewal process has to take place. is the administration expecting it the to go smoothly? >> the administration decided to automatically renew policies for people if asked to change in some way because it was worried about a bunch of people falling out of the system. the policies being renewed are people who generally were able to get lo the system the first time and don't have these problems with the application that arecies proportionate to immigrants. >> woodruff: they don't expect thave a problem. >> immigrant groups are concerned there are ongoing

problems that persist through the next enrollment especially for these people where the administration is keen on making sure if they're in the united states illegally if they're signed up for coverage. >> woodruff: louise radnofsky, thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: now to a look at the future of afghanistan and the lessons of iraq. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner reports. >> reporter: for the people of afghanistan, these next few months may decide if there's a hopeful future or a descent back into chaos. on the political front elections were held to replace president hamid karzai, but there's no clear successor. former finance minister ashraf ghani led the june run-off against former foreign minister abdullah abdullah. but he won first round, and has now charged fraud. amid an audit of the votes, secretary of state john kerry has made two emergency trips to

kabul to try to hold the situation together, and get the candidates to agree to share power after the results whoever wins. but ghani cast doubt on that yesterday. >> there is a difference between facilitation and arbitration. there is no difference in terms of agreeing to the framework but the framework was not a document prepared for signing. >> reporter: the stakes are huge for continuing u.s. and nato military and financial support after the december 2014 deadline for withdrawal. president obama said in may he's willing to keep 9,800 u.s. troops after this year, but withdraw them all by end the end of 2016. >> american personnel will be in an advisory role. we will no longer patrol afghan cities or towns, mountains or valleys. that is a task for the afghan people. >> reporter: but a new afghan president would have to sign the deal allowing those troops to stay. and this week, the head of nato warned time is running out. meanwhile, the taliban is

staging new attacks in kabul and elsewhere. veteran diplomat james dobbins just retired from his second stint as the special representative for afghanistan and pakistan. he presided over the reopening of the u-s embassy in kabul in 2001. it was the latest and last of a career as point-man for post- conflict situations, in somalia, haiti, bosnia and kosovo, and then afghanistan. among his books, "america's role in nation-building: from germany to iraq." he's now back at the rand corporation, where we spoke today. let's start with afghanistan where you spent so much of your career despite two interventions by secretary kerry that election is still deadlocked. what are the consequences if this isn't resolved soon? >> well i think the consequences could be a schism with two people claiming to be president and a three-way conflict between two factions and the taliban.

i don't think that's in either of the candidates interests. i think they both recognize that and they'll work to avoid it. but there are forces within both of their campaigns, if you will, that push them in that direction. >> reporter: what does this say about the efficacy of our more than ten year effort there, that the political leadership isn't up to this test? >> you know, i think we have to put this in some perspective. we've been in afghanistan for ten years, afghanistan spent the previous 30 years in the midst of a civil war and it's made remarkable progress over the last ten. it's not yet a jeffersonian democracy. indeed the democracy is faltering but they did have an election, millions turned out and there was genuine enthusiasm, and they are trying to work their way through a process which will produce a legitimate result.

>> reporter: and then with the us drawing down to 9,800 troops by the end of the year, ultimately zero by 2016, do you think that the afghan security forces are up to the job of maintaining security their own? >> i think if we get a legitimate outcome to the election that's widely accepted by the afghan people by their neighbors and by the international community, if international assistance thus continues to flow. then i think the afghan security forces will continue to improve as they have by everyone's standard over the last period of years. the taliban will be kept at bay and the country's social, economic and political progress will be further consolidated. >> reporter: but that was predicated by some pretty big ifs, senators john mccain and others have said that by announcing troop withdrawal at the end of 2016 that essentially it's inviting first of all the political leaders revert to their old ways and the taliban to just keep making movements, bide their time.

>> i've done a lot of work on countries like afghanistan. my view in these stability operations more is better. more time, more money, more troops produce better results so if i was only responsible for afghanistan i'd want more troops i'd want more time i'd want more money but the president and the congress both have wider responsibilities and they have to measure their commitment in afghanistan against the needs of a lot of other crises. and domestic constituency that wants some reconstruction at home so i think that it was a perfectly rational decision to limit our commitment without abruptly withdrawing. that said whether or not it could succeed, whether afghanistan can stay on a positive track, which it's been on for the past several years, through the diminution of our presence and its ultimate removal is still an open

question. i would note that 2017 will have a new administration and they'll have to re examine these issues and make their own decisions. >> reporter: now if you look at what's happening in iraq where four years ago the expectation was, much as it is here in afghanistan, that they were ready to take everything on their own and you see it's all unraveling, what are the lessons of that? >> well, i think that the biggest lesson of iraq and afghanistan was that it was foolish to invade iraq before you finished in afghanistan. before you finished your process, the process of reconstructing afghanistan and building a self-sufficient polity there in 2003 when we invaded iraq and we overburdened ourselves. we simply weren't capable of manning and financing these two at the same time.

i think the lesson of iraq is that nation building is difficult that invading a country and overthrowing a regime is comparatively easy for a country as powerful as the united states, but making sure that something takes its place in an enduring fashion is an expensive time consuming and very difficult enterprise that has to be undertaken with extreme caution. we have succeeded we've succeeded in bosnia we succeeded in kosovo we've succeeded in panama and of course we succeeded in germany and japan after the second world war in south korea after the korean world so it's not as if it never succeeds but it is tough it is expensive and should only be embarked on after careful thought. >> reporter: 9/11 did teach us that if you let something fester overseas it can come back and hit the united states, yet when we have tried to intervene in the islamic world so far it has not been hugely successful. how do you try to square that circle?

yet when we try to intervene we often make a mess of i so how do you square that circle, how do you answer that conundrum for future presidents. >> i think we have to be careful discriminate about where we intervene but we have to avoid going in the opposite direction of saying sort of never again. because the fact is that a number of these interventions do serve their purpose they do enhance our security in the case of the middle east. clearly we overburdened ourselves by invading iraq only a couple of years after going into afghanistan. before we've stabilized that country. the result was to deplete our resources and to make us unwilling and possibly unable to follow through with the air campaign in libya or to become more engaged in syria. i think that if we were able to take and surmount one hurdle at a time we'd have a better chance of succeeding. taking on a number of commitments and minimizing the commitments to all of them is a formula for just an ever accumulating series of crises. >> reporter: but there is the argument that the world is just a lot more complicated now, that you have crises exploding all the time? >> well, you know, the 90's is now thought of as a golden era but really we faced as many challenges as we do today. i think the difference is the administrations then were successful in successfully addressing each of these rather

than allowing them to accumulate. and that's the difficulty with making minimal commitments that prevent problems from boiling over but don't resolve them, and so eventually as probably you simply begin accumulating more and more problems until you are at the point you don't have the resources or the time and attention to actually turn and solve any one of them. >> reporter: ambassador dobbins, thank you. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: now we remember a sultry symbol of old hollywood glamour, lauren bacall. known for her strong presence on screen and famous romances off camera. jeffrey brown has our look at her work and life. >> reporter: sometimes the line, the look, and the delivery have a way of living on forever. >> you know how to whistle, don't you, steve? you just put your lips together nd blow.

>> reporter: lauren bacall was just 19, a model and the daughter of jewish immigrants, when she made her movie debut alongside humphrey bogart in the 1944 film "to have and have not." it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship, on screen and off, as the two fell in love and eventually married, despite a 25-year age gap. becoming the epitome of hollywood glamour. and making four movies together, including "key largo" and "the big sleep." >> you'd better run along. you made a deal and you'd better stick it. we'll take up the question of you and i when the race is over. the only trouble is... >> pardon me. >> yes, the only trouble is we could have had a lot of fun if you weren't a detective. >> we still can. >> so long. >> reporter: bacall would make more than 40 films in all. confirming her death last night, her son stephen bogart said his mother's "life speaks for itself. she lived a wonderful life.

a magical life." humphrey bogart died of throat cancer in 1957, at age 57. bacall became briefly engaged to frank sinatra, and then married actor jason robards, they divorced in 1969. her film career would have highs, lows, and periods of inactivity. during one lull in her film career she won a tony award for best actress, the first of two, in the 1970 broadway show, "applause." in 1974 she returned to film in "murder on the orient express." >> that's not mine. i have mine right here. i thought the initial "h" >> "h" for harriet. "h" for hubbard. but it's still not mine. >> reporter: bacall even won a national book award, for her 1980 memoir, "by myself," in which she detailed her romance with bogart and hollywood rise.

she continued to apprear on television and in films. and earned an oscar nomination for her role as a vain, imposing mother to barbara streisand in the 1996 film "the mirror has two faces." >> it's an awful thing to look back on your life and realize that you've settled. the problem was that i always thought that i had more time. >> reporter: she was given an honorary oscar in 2009, and spoke of that very first role. >> i've been very lucky in my life. probably luckier than i deserve but to at the age of 19, have been chosen by howard hawks to work on a film with a man named humphrey bogart. and he gave me a life and he changed my life. >> reporter: lauren bacall died yesterday at a hospital in new york city. she was 89. ann hornaday is a film critic for the washington post and

joins me now. what's interesting about that first performance for me is it seems to start with a kind of hollywood construct, that famous director howard hawks looking for, trying to shape a type, but lauren bacall manages to make it more than that, right? >> oh, it's mythic in all of its contours because, you're right, it was that kind of straight from straus narrative, you know, get me the right girl, and his wife suggested that he look at her, and he did mold her. one of the contradictions of her career is that she did come to personify this ideal of independence and flintiness underneath this amazing panther' like sensuality, and a lot of that was created by hawks. he was the one who suggested she

lower her voice that she exercise everyday to lower. he was the one who helped her perfect the look. so very much a collaboration. >> when you look at what defines her as an actress, can you compare the idea of glamour and strength in women then and today? >> well, it's so interesting, too, that we are now kind of in the season of these young female heroines, people like scarlet johansson leading films and projecting this persona of toughness. but unlike lauren bacall, they have to do it through action. there's a new paradigm of a woman's career which is sort of tent poled or balanced by these action films and then by the more subtle character studies. she was able to do this in these very sophisticated dramas which have not aged one bit. if you watched "to have and have

not" or "key largo," they're not dated, they're of the moment. so i think it says a lot about a 19-year-old girl can be that mature was allowed to be and it wasn't even thought twice about that she could project that kind of maturity in her screen debut. >> brown: she, of course, is forever tied to bogart. she acknowledged that. if i read her right, at some times she seemed a little annoyed by that and other times she her self, as we saw in the oscar speech, she embraced it. >> right. and as david thompson observed in "the washington post" obituary today, that was another part of that myth was that we got to watch them fall in love on screen and really fall in love. it was obviously capitalized on by the studio, publicity people. everyone knew what was going on and saw the marketing potential in it, but it was genuine, and

that doesn't happen every day. so that was another layer of that hollywood narrative kind of weaving its way through her real life. >> brown: a real life, a big rife, on the screen, on the page and the stage and a celebrity for decades. >> indeed. i also want to commend her, especially later in her career, she went out of her way to work with interesting emerging directors. she did an incredible job in a little movie called "birth" jonathan glazer directed a few years ago. he lately worked with scarlett johansson. so it would have been so easy for her to sit back on her laurels but she sought out demanding material and challenging directors. >> brown: the life and legend of lauren bacall. thanks so much. >> thanks for having me.

>> ifill: back with a look to the risk of the water you >> ifill: we'll be back with a look at risks to the water you drink. but first, it's p web site

earthfix. >> woodruff: finally tonight, the state of our drinking water and how two major problems in american cities these past few months are calling new attention to concerns over supply and protection. hari sreenivasan in our new york studios has our conversation. >> reporter: the most recent case, toledo, ohio, where contamination from an algae bloom in lake erie temporarily made the water supply unsafe for 400,000 people and stirred new worries throughout the great lakes region. that followed a major disruption earlier this year in west virginia after chemicals leaked into the elk river around charleston. david beckman wrote about these matters in an op-ed for the new york times. he's with the pisces foundation, an environmental philanthropy based in san francisco and joins me now.

so, mr. beckman, i know that we're better off than 800 million people or so on the planet who don't have access to clean drinking water on a daily basis but what do these two events start to make you think about? >> well, hari, they make me think about the fact that while we've come a great distance in terms of water in the united states since the early 1970s and had rivers catching on fire that water pollution is not a set it and forget it situation, and we have to be cognizant all the time and vigilant to address new threats that come on the horizon so that we can continue to enjoy safe and reliable drinking water and clean lakes and rivers. >> sreenivasan: where are the largest concern? we don't have rivers catching on fire and tre were two different causes to the incidents in ohio and west virginia. was it about industry, runoff in cities? >> right. the two situations one in west virginia and one in toledo are different in many respects,

but one of the common threads between them is source water is for drinking water. upstream, cities need better protection, whether that's runoff which is increasingly a problem in the u.s. both from cities and from agriculture or it's just better enforcement and better upgrading of the existing system, say that protects storage tanks like the one that leaked in west virginia. we need to continue to invest in better approaches and a more integrated view of water, i think, is really necessary. >> sreenivasan: what about the regulatory structure. how much is federal responsibility and how much the states'? >> surface water prorks teaks of rivers, lakes and drinking water are a combination of federal, state rules and, in some cases, with drinking water, local agencies, state agencies typically provide drinking water in much of the country. so it's an integrated system of state, federal and local efforts

and all of that has to fit well together. the situations we've seen recently, i think we're reminded of the fact that runoff particularly is something that needs grter attention. that's not a part of the regulatory system to the same degree as factories and sewage treatment plants have been. we've dealt with the industrial sources much better than some of the runoff sources now causing trouble and that's really where i think attention needs to be focused in the years to come. >> how do we pay for it? some of the numbers you had in your op-ed piece were sizable. >> those are e.p.a. numbers. they may be a little lower or a bit higher, but we're talking of hundreds of billions of dollars over a 20-year period, so we definitely need new financing mechanisms. more than anything, we need to make investments that have multiple benefits. traditionally with water in the u.s., we've made water quality investments to protect the river. the rules didn't often to

require us to think about what about the drinking water source, or source water protection or how about green cities that might need improvement at the same time? and there are new approaches, like, for example, green infrastructure that i mentioned in the piece which have the effect of making urban landscapes function from a water perspective, more like natural landscapes, they green cities while protecting our drinking water and surface water and it's smart investments that will make it easier to accomplish the goals we have for safe water. >> but it's often difficult to get those ideas through a congress that have to ma very tough choices about where to spend our funds. >> that's true. the fact of the matter is, increasingly, the federal picture is only part of it. there is a real movement at the local level and cities to address these issues in part by making investments that protect our drinking water sources and surface water sources and also economic revitalization of the

city. the green approaches that add green spaces, parks, rain gardens and pavemet, places like philadelphia are doing huge efforts over multiple years investing often less than they would to build a new sewage treatment plant or traditional water treatment plant and yielding even more benefit than they might have with told approach. >> sreenivasan: there seems to be almost a philosophical shift. this is a resource people have taken for granted that was something that was a natural right, something valued as free. but now we're talking about serious costs associated with maintaining something that most of us just say, it comes out of the tap and i can drink it. >> we're spoiled in the united states. the vast majority of the drinking water systems deliver water that meets the national drinking water standards. that's called comfort. if your tap doesn't meet the

standards, in toledo and charleston -- we have made huge investments, in the '70s, '80s, '90s and more recently. but we have to stay at it if we want to maintain not just environmental quality, but water is insen waited in every part of the economy. every product we have requires water in some way or another. it's not just an environmental issue, though fundamentally one, it's also a question of water security and economic security for the country to make sure we're dealing with supply and quality and doing it in a way that will continue the success that we've had overall as opposed to, you know, falling backward. >> sreenivasan: david beckman from the pisces foundation, san francisco, thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. the white house said president obama may decide within days on new moves to rescue thousands of

refugees in northern iraq. hamas accepted an extension of a truce with israel. but several rockets were fired from gaza, prompting the israel military to strike targets there in response. and authorities in ferguson, missouri, in a bid to curb violence, urged an end to night-time protests over the police shooting of a black teenager. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, lullabies are meant to comfort and hush a child into blissful sleep. so why do so many of them have such melancholy lyrics? and does it really matter? we look into the science of soothing, and why babies respond to a mother's song, on our home page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight on thursday, we examine an engineering and economic marvel as the panama canal turns 100. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good

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this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. >> cisco's big challenge, the dow component reports better than expected earnings but disappnts investors with weak forward guidance and more job cuts. >> march down, macy's considered one of the stronger names in retail, surprises the street with an earning's miss and a weak sales outlook leading to more questions about the consumer. >> cashing in, america's graying population means big opportunity for major corporations. tonight, the names investors need to know in the third part of our series ageing in america. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesda august 13th. good evening, everyone. on wall street, every little bit helps and a strong stock rally today pushed the dow