captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: president obama kicked off a cross-country tour promoting his approach for reducing the deficit. good evening. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, we have the latest on the president's plan to scale back spending, raise taxes on the wealthy, and take control of the political debate. >> ifill: marcia coyle explains today's supreme court debate over whether the courts or the e.p.a. should regulate greenhouse gas emissions. >> woodruff: margaret warner talks to the "los angeles times" reporters who exposed public corruption in a small california town, and won a pulitzer prize. >> ifill: we have robert macneil's second report in his "autism now" series. tonight: what's behind the rapid rise in new cases.

>> the number of children who have autism has increased enormously. in the last two years we recruited 50, 70 two-year-olds with autism just here in the city. it's a phenomenal change from a clinician's experience. >> woodruff: and ray suarez gets a war update from rajiv chandrasakeran of the "washington post," just back from afghanistan. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i mean, where would we be without small businesses? >> we need small businesses. >> they're the ones that help drive growth. >> like electricians, mechanics, carpenters. >> they strengthen our communities. >> every year, chevron spends billions with small businesses. that goes right to the heart of local communities, providing jobs, keeping people at work. they depend on us. >> the economy depends on them. >> and we depend on them.

>> moving the economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> pacific life-- the power to help you succeed. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. 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: president obama opened a campaign today to build public support for his ideas on cutting the federal budget deficit. it came at a time when public support for the president's performance in office is declining. the president went to annadale, virginia, just outside washington to road test a message he'll take across the nation this week. >> i want everybody to be in the game. i want you to hold me accountable. i want you to hold all of washington accountable. there is a way to solve this deficit problem in an intelligent way that is fair and shares sacrifices so that we can share opportunity all across america. >> woodruff: mr. obama said

his way of solving the problem means cutting defense spending and health care costs and raising taxes on the wealthy. but some programs would remain intact. >> my view is we need to live within our means while still investing in our future. cutting where we can while investing in education, investing in innovation, investing in infrastructure and strengthening the safety net provided by programs like medicare so they're there for this generation and the next generation. >> woodruff: the obama plan introduced last week set the goal of cutting $4 trillion from the federal deficit over 12 years. house republicans have passed their own package womened as cutting the deficit by more than $4 trillion over ten years. the president's events this week are meant to help win that argument. but he also talked up the chances for compromise today. >> i believe the democrats and republicans can come together to get this done.

it won't be easy but i'm optimistic. i'm hopeful. both sides have come together before. i believe we can do it again. >> woodruff: the focus on the deficit grew even more intense monday when one credit-rating agency voiced doubt about getting a deal. it lowered its long-term outlook on the nation's debt to negative, triggering a sell- off on wall street but the markets have risen since then and treasury secretary timothy geithner insisted again today on c-nbc that a broad consensus is emerging. >> i think our challenge now is to lock that in. in terms of reforms that congress passes so that people around the world will look at the united states and know that we won't get this behind this problem. we're going to get ahead of it. >> woodruff: two new polls reflected growing public anxiety about deficits in the economy. with mr. obama bearing much of the fallout. an abc news/"washington post" survey found the president's approval rating falling to 47%,

a 7-point drop since january. disapproval over his handling of the economy was up to 57%, and 44% said the overall economy is getting worse, the most in more than two years. still, the poll showed mr. obama besting all potential republican presidential contenders. a separate news survey found 61% disapprove of how the president is handling the deficit issue. and 64% said they think the country is is headed in the wrong direction. mr. obama will be looking to change minds and turn trends in his favor as he travels to california and nevada later this week. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, environmental arguments at the supreme court; an award for exposing corruption

in a california town; the prevalence of autism; and an afghanistan update. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: wall street was back on positive footing today. stocks recouped some of monday's losses that were caused by worries over u.s. government debt. the dow jones industrial average gained 65 points to close at 12,266. the nasdaq rose nine points to close just under 2745. the syrian government abolished nearly 50 years of emergency rule today, but it came with a warning to end all protests now. there was also new violence in the city of homs, where security forces routed demonstrators at a sit-in. we have a report narrated by john sparks of independent television news. >> reporter: anti-government protestors take cover in a grassy verge as bullets whistle overhead. we're in homs, syria's third largest city a demonstration on sunday afternoon was broken up by president assad's militia, they say. 17 people were reported killed.

there's a break in the firing, and they run for safety. the protestors scattered but they hadn't gone away. yesterday in homs, they gathered to bury the dead. the coffins were carried to the mosque. protestors shouted with rage. these demonstrations began five weeks ago in a southern border town but they've spread nationwide. clock square in homs has been renamed as terrier scare after the protests in egypt. the president has responded with limited concessions. the country's draconian emergency law was lifted today although protestors still need permission to gather. such pronouncements haven't apieced the people of homs. this was the scene last night. the protestors were back with

their banners and speeches. within hours, however, the majority had fled. others sought shelter wherever they could. the government's militia had reemerged, guns blazing through homs newly named square. we were told another 12 had been killed overnight. the city looks deserted today, but the cycle of protests, government crackdowns and funerals is set to continue. >> sreenivasan: syria's official news agency reported today that a new law allows the right to peaceful protests, so long as the interior ministry approves. in libya, there was more heavy fighting in misrata, as rebels fought with libyan troops in the city center. moammar qaddafi's forces have besieged misrata for nearly two months. and rebel leaders pleaded today for nato to do more. >> we're not asking for

invading or, no, just to protect the civilians. this is good to get done by anyway or anyhow. troops or latest technology and latest weapons. >> sreenivasan: british air strikes took aim today at qaddafi's communication centers, and the british government announced it is sending a dozen senior military advisers to assist the rebels. at the same time, a top nato official acknowledged it has been hard to stop qaddafi's forces by using only air power. the death toll has reached 33 in post-election rioting across northern nigeria. new violence erupted monday after incumbent president goodluck jonathan, a christian, defeated his muslim opponent. the towns of kaduna and kano were engulfed by muslim riots and christian reprisals. burned corpses with machete wounds lined the roads today in africa's most populous nation. raul castro was named the new

leader of cuba's communist party today. he formally took over the post from his older brother, fidel, who ruled the island nation from 1959 to 2006. the elder castro made a surprise appearance today at the party congress, looking frail and unsteady. on monday after an air traffic controller made a mistake. the "washington post" reported today the controller let the first lady's boeing 737 and a military cargo plane get too close as they neared andrews air force base. mrs. obama's plane was waved off and ended up landing on its second approach. it was the latest in a series of events involving controllers in recent days. there's new evidence that alzheimer's disease could be diagnosed years before full- blown symptoms appear. the national institute on aging and the alzheimer's association issued new guidelines today, the first update in nearly 30 years. recent findings have shown alzheimer's begins to break down parts of the brain much earlier than previously believed.

new scans and blood tests are in the works to detect those changes, but for now, they are still experimental. women's marathon legend grete waitz died today in her native norway after a six-year battle with cancer. over the course of her career, waitz won the new york city marathon nine times. she set a world record in her very first attempt at the distance, then broke it twice more. she also took home the silver medal at the first women's olympic marathon in 1984, held in los angeles. grete waitz was 57 years old. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: we turn to today's supreme court arguments. the topic was climate change, not about what causes it, but about who's responsible for regulating its effects. environmental groups say today's case could make all the difference in the fight against global warming. >> why are we suing the five biggest power companies? because that's where the carbon pollution is. >> ifill: director of climate policy at the natural resources defense council has

joined six states, the city of new york, and three land trusts to force five of the nation's largest electric companies to cut their emissions. the utilities own or operate 174 fossil-burning power plants in 20 states. together, the states say they produce 650 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year. but the energy companies say they have been unfairly targeted. ed homer represents the industry's largest trade group. >> we do think it's unfair. we think it's inappropriate. i mean, if you're going to try to solve the problem, you know to do it comprehensively. you really have no real impact if you just pick and choose a couple of emiters and ignore everybody else. >> ifill: the lawsuit originally filed in 2004 argues that carbon dioxide- driven global warming has eroded beach fronts, caused stronger storms and wild fires and increased health risks

stemming from severe heat waves and smog. but the case before the court is not a debate over climate change, per se. the companies acknowledge it exists and even their contributing role. they're arguing instead that a court-imposed solution that requires a 3% reduction in emissions over the next 10 years could hurt businesses that depend on fossil fuels. >> we're very concerned that if you had individual courts setting standards without any real guidance as to how the balance... how to balance all of the competing factors, there's going to be tremendous amount of uncertainty as to what we should do and inconsistency. and that's not good for business. it's not good for our business. it's not good for our customers or for the economy. >> ifill: the flip side of that argument? new standards would actually create jobs. >> we would be retiring some of the older plants and building a lot of new ones. some of the companies have

said they've got billions of dollars ready to invest once they know what the ground rules are. >> ifill: this is only the second time such an argument has made its way to the high court. in 2007 it ruled that the environmental protection agency should regulate greenhouse gases under the federal clean air act. the epa has since set restrictions on tail pipe emissions from automobiles but not from power plants. new guidelines are scheduled to be announced this summer and take effect next year. but that's too long, say environmentalists, who want the courts to act. >> the epa is supposed to be curbing this pollution. we hope they will but they haven't done it yet. the states have the right to sue the polluters directly if the epa doesn't do its job or it's blocked by congress from doing its job. this is the last resort. >> ifill: the utilities don't see it that way. >> this case comes down to one very simple principle. who writes the laws in the

united states? is it congress with the approval of the president or is it done by individual courts? and i think it's very simple. congress and the president write the laws. we all learned that in our elementary school civics classes. >> ifill: a ruling in the case is expected this summer. >> ifill: marcia coyle of the "national law journal" was in the courtroom for today's arguments, and joins us now. marcia, this is one of the most interesting cases where the administration seems to be arguing against its own policy. >> that is true. the administration today, acting through the slit tore general, told the court basically-- and this is also part of the utilities' argument be that epa, the environmental protection agency has begun to take steps to regulate greenhouse gases. congress gave epa the authority and the role to do this. congress also created a procedure, a process that states that anyone else can

participate in when the epa regulates and that's where it should stay. the utilities' lawyer told the court that letting this nuisance suit go forward would really involve the courts in making the kinds of policy choices that really are reserved to the executive and legislative branches. so most of the justices' questions today revolved around how does a district court judge who gets a case like this, how does that judge manage it? how does the judge weigh cost and benefits as chief justice roberts said? and isn't this a very heavy burden to put on the district court judge? a case that involves something that is global in nature or, as the government lawyer said today, a situation, a phenomenon, global warming that has millions of perpetrators and millions of victims. >> ifill: this was more about jurisdiction than ideology. >> definitely it is.

it really boils down to separation of powers. is the court the proper place to deal with it or is it, as you said in your set-up piece, is the executive or legislative branch that should deal with it? >> ifill: you used the word nuisance suit which doesn't sound like a good thing. how was it applied in this case? >> a public is a well established legal doctrine that gives states the right to go into federal court when the public welfare, health, property, have been threatened or actually damaged. and the states in this case are saying they've alleged some concrete harms from global warming that they say the utilities have contributed to. rising sea levels that are eroding beaches, the destruction of hardwood forests, lower water in the great lakes. the states claim these are concrete harms that they have a right to go into federal court and seek a remedy for.

>> ifill: the give-and-take between the justices and the people who are arguing in front of them, did it fall along the normal left-right 5-4 line. >> it did not. in fact, at the end of the argument it was rather hard to see where the states may find support, although as i've often said you don't want to predict on the basis of oral arguments, but the justices i think saved their toughest questions for the state's attorney new york solicitor general barbara underwood. they really drilled down into how does the federal judge handle this suit. justice ginsberg said that federal judges don't have the resources or the expertise that epa has and aren't you setting up the judges as super epa? and justice kagan said this is the kind of things that agencies are meant to do, not courts. general underwood said that basically the states are asking the court to do... courts to do what they normally do in public nuisance

suits. and that is here they want very simply an order from the court to the utilities to abate their emissions and to have that informed by available technology. and the utilities know what they have to do. >> ifill: justice sotomayor is not part of this case. it raises the possibility if they weren't all coming down against the states today in a 4-4 split. >> justice sotomayor felt as a federal appellate judge on the panel that heard this case before it came to the supreme court. it was a three-judge panel. when she was nominated, she did not participate then in the panel's decision. but because she was involved in the case at that level, she recused herself from it today. it set up the possibility whenever there are eight justices of a 4-4 split, if that were to happen here, the states would basically win because a split like that

leaves the lower court judgment in place, and the states won in the lower court. >> ifill: the court did rule on an environmental case similar to this in 2007 involving the epa's jurisdiction. why does that not supersede this case we see here today? how is it different? >> the utilities and the government claim it's different because there the states were suing under the federal clean air act. it was a statutory interpretation case where this is very differentment a public nuisance lawsuit. there's no statute being challenged or interpreted here. however, it does play a role according to the states because the states had to climb over a big obstacle when it sued the epa back in early 2000. and that is to show that they had the right to go into federal court. justice kagan pointed out that was a tougher obstacle than it is here. why isn't it enough that the states have shown that they have a concrete injury and

they should be able to go into federal court. >> ifill: marcia coyle, as always, thank you so much. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: now, the tale of a corruption scandal in a small california town that has attracted national attention, and the reporters who uncovered it. margaret warner has the story. >> warner: los angeles times reporters rubin vives and jeff got leave celebrated their pulitzer win monday for uncovering a massive local government corruption scandal. their first article on malfeasance in the los angeles area town of bell, california, appeared last july under the eye-catching headline: is is a city manager worth $800,000? subsequent coverage revealed what local prosecutors called corruption on steroids. in a working-class town of just 38,000 people, eight current and former city officials, including members of the city council, were arrested in september. the district attorney charged

they engineered themselves huge salaries, outsized benefits and illegal loans totaling $5.5 million. >> they used the tax dollars collected from the hard-working citizens of bell as their own piggy bank which they then looted at will. >> warner: the alleged master mind was then city manager robert rizzo who earned a combined $1.5 million a year in salary and benefits. he's accused of pulling other employees and some city council members into his scheme. the so-called bell 8 were arraigned last fall in los angeles county superior court. but the co-defendants, including former city councilman luis artiga, have maintained their innocence. >> i know i will be set free. i heard the evidence. i know i have done nothing wrong. >> warner: the times has reported a u.s. justice department probe into possibly illegal revenue raising by bell police. a memo entitled bell police department baseball game

encouraged officers to score by giving out parking tickets and charging up to $2,000 to retrieve impounded cars. >> there was a piece of paper that had impound, arrests, citations, parking citations. you were to have to tell the sergeant prior to your shift how much you were going to do. >> warner: the scandal fueled a recall election last month. on april 7, a new city council was sworn in. for more, we're joined now by the two lead "los angeles times" reporters who broke this story and helped win their paper the pulitzer prize for public service: jeff gottlieb, who has spent three decades in newspapers, and ruben vives, who's been a reporter for just three years. welcome to you both and congratulations. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> warner: jeff, you've done a lot of investigations in your career. what strikes you about the scope of this one? >> well, what is striking is

in fact the scope, how broad it was, how many things it included. that there just seemed to be so much corruption in bell for the small city of just 40,000 people and rubin and i would go out to report a story and we'd come back with three more. this happened over and over. it was just so broad. >> warner: ruben, when you first... you two first broke the first story last july, about the salaries, you pointed out in the story there was nothing inherently illegal about hefty salaries. but as you dug deeper, you discovered a lot of illegality. tell us a little bit about that. give us a sense of that. >> well, you know, we learned that it was obviously writing off his own contracts and basically just signing off on them without really the entire council's approval. you know, he was also, i think, giving out loans to other employees. >> warner: this is, as jeff

just pointed out, a town of not only not many people but really a working class town. how did they fund this operation? $5.5 million. >> you know, like jeff said, you know, they went out of their way to make sure that they could continue receiving these hefty salaries, you know, from towing cars to even shaking down business owners. you know, these sort of shady deals that they were doing with business owners, property owners, i'm sorry. so certainly they were increasing property taxes illegally. i mean i think they were the second highest in the los angeles county for a small town like that. >> warner: even though the median income was only $38,000 a year. jeff got leave, back to you. how did you get on to this? you started this really looking at the finances of a neighboring town, maywood that bell was taking over because maywood had fallen into a deep

financial hole as i understand it. how the that lead you to this? >> right, well, what happened is bell was going to take over maywood city services as maywood got rid of laid-off... laid off almost all of its city employees. we heard of investigations going on in bell so i called the district attorney's office and asked if they were investigating maywood and was told, no. i don't know why but i asked what about bell? and the answer came back, as a matter of fact, we're investigating the high salaries of their city council members. so we wrote a story about that that the council members were getting paid about $100,000 a year. this is a part-time job. that led ruben and myself to go over to bell and request some records of salaries, contracts, minutes of meetings, and that started the whole thing. >> warner: and they tried to stone wall you the first time you requested this, right? the records? >> yeah, i mean, when we went

there at first bob rizzo the city manager wouldn't come talk to us. so the city clerk came to us. eventually she said, well, you can have these documents in ten days which they were entitled to under the public records act. but really it should have taken them about ten minutes to give us that stuff. once again, you know, that sort of raised our hackls and raised our radar. when we asked for a copy of this document that had had us fill out, they charged us $1 for it. i was threatening to sue them if we didn't get the documents within ten days. ultimately they did. >> warner: ruben, how did this go on for so long, do you think, without anyone noticing? i mean were they kind of taking advantage of a town whose residents didn't have a lot of political clout or sophistication and it wasn't a local newspaper looking into it? >> well, you know, the city of bell is made up of 90% latinos

and 53% are foreign born. there is certainly that little part of understanding how government works. and i also think that the engagement wasn't there. a lot of residents weren't going to their council meetings but in addition to that there wasn't a paper also or wasn't any media looking at this area being the watchdog. certainly this is what allowed these city officials to do basically what they were doing there. >> warner: jeff, what does this say to you about the va of this kind of in-depth newspaper reporting even at a time when newspapers, including the l.a. times, are struggling? to some degree? >> i think what this shows is how important newspapers are. i mean one of the dynamics in this story was in bell there had been people in the community who had filed public

records acts and requests. they had been smits some had been pushed off. others had been given, in fact, fake documents but when a powerful institution like the l.a. times came in and we threatened to sue and they knew we were serious, you know, they couldn't push us away. i mean this is just the sort of reporting that people depend on newspapers to do. if newspapers don't do it, no one else is going to do it. >> warner: ruben, what would you add to that? >> well, i mean i obviously agree with my colleague, you know, that newspapers are very important. one thing that i, the pulitzer award that the paper received is such a great honor because it really represents what newspapers do. i think what journalists do which is we provide a public service for the community. again this situation that happened in bell just stresses the idea that, you know, newspapers are needed.

>> warner: it could be happening elsewhere. congratulations to you both. ruben vives and jeff got leave from the l.a. times, thanks a lot. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, the second in robert macneil's reports on the autism. tonight he looks at how widespread the disorder is. >> autism now affects more american children than childhood cancer, diabetes and aids combined. in the last deck aid the numbers of children diagnosed on the autism spectrum have risen rapidly. the centers for disease control now puts the rate at one in 110. tonight we look at what these rising numbers mean. this is the face of autism. >> i'm perrin. i'm nine years old. >> reporter: but so is this. would you tell me your name? would you tell me your name? i think your name is juliana,

and i think you're 8. is that right? is that right, julie? and so is this. >> my name is login hender sun, and i'm eight years old. >> reporter: each so different yet it's all called autism. >> good job, julie. >> reporter: you can see the differences more dramatically when you visit their schools. they learn differently. juliana hernandez doesn't talk. although her teacher says she's very smart, she's in a special-needs class. and at eight she's still learning to count the days of the month. >> 6, 7, 8, 9. >> reporter: login henderson attends second grade at another elementary school. he's in a mainstream class but

needs an aide to manage any kind of change, although her support is almost invisible in class. but in the playground as login plays alone, his social disability is more obvious. >> i know it's so frustrating. >> like login, perrin rapp can talk but he's profoundly different in other ways. perrin attends what's called a communication handy program for children who need to go at a slower pace although he's learning at grade level in other areas. >> can i read quietly? >> do you need a break? are you asking me for a break? do you want to read this story quietly? is that what you're asking me? >> um-hum. >> okay. two minutes and then you have to come back to.... >> wait, wait, i want to.... >> hi, feet. you like that,? okay.

rub your feet. >> reporter: sally rogers is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the mind institute in sacramento. minds stands for medical investigation for neuro development disorders. it was established with state funds at the university of california, davis in 199. sally spent some time playing with julie, login and perrin who are among the thousands of children with autism who have been evaluated at the mind institute. >> no, i do not autism. >> no. you don't want to talk about autism? >> no. >> okay. no autism. i got that. would you rather have some play dough or bubbles or anything. >> no, nothing. >> you don't want anything today? okay. i know how that feels. they all have common threads. none of those three children interact with me as a typical eight-year-old would. >> would you like a snack? >> none of them converse with me as a typical eight-year-old would.

none of them really use the materials and the situation in the room like a typical eight-year-old would. but each of them showed their symptoms in a very different profile. do you know shrek's girlfriend name, perrin? >> what is it? >> venera? >> um-hum. >> oh, boy, i didn't know that. each of them wanted a different relationship with me. login didn't want any interaction with me. perrin wanted a lot of interaction with me and julie wanted access to the materials and was happy to interact with me but doesn't have a good way of starting or maintaining interaction because she doesn't have language to use. but we used non-verbal communication. >> like? >> well, she followed my cues, my gestures. we figured out what each other wanted. we don't need language for that. >> describe how differently you see each of those three children. where do they... where do you put them on the spectrum? >> well, autism has affected

julie particularly severely in their language and communication skills. she showed she had some awareness of print. you know, when i was righting her name and she was copying it i said some letters. and she could write them. so it's clear that she knows more than she can share through words. perrin certainly has lots of skills. he can write. he could write names. he could figure out how to spell my name. he creates symbolic materials. he can carry on a conversation but it's kind of a one-sided conversation, you in. >> and log? >> login was so uncomfortable in the whole situation. fortunately login has language and knows how to use language to express his feelings. he didn't have to have a tantrum or be destructive or aggressive. he could communicate with his speech which is a great gift to be able to share your feelings. >> all i would like is alone time and i would like to get out of here. >> you'd like some alone time. okay. you got it. >> reporter: login as two

older brothers, jason 10 and matthew 12. remarkably, they both have autism too. in fact, although they share the same genetic inheritance in their diversity, the three henderson brothers almost represent the breadth of the autism spectrum. each boy's symptoms are quite different as their dad rick henderson describes. >> you know, matthew, for example, my 12-year-old is extremely shy. very passive in terms of meeting people and being in different environments. >> matthew is high functioning on the.... >> he is high-functioning on the spectrum. he is our highest-functioning child. and does very well. you know, he is mainstreamed in school. >> reporter: good verbal skills. >> very good verbal skills. my 10-year-old jason who is what they call would mid- moderate to severe in the spectrum. very limited verbal communication but at the same time very social. >> what is your name? >> my name is jason.

>> what's your name? >> jason. we have the same name. >> his name is jason. he's jason and you're jason. >> what's your name? >> i'm robert. >> jason especially has been a real challenge where his mind will wake up at 3:00 in the morning and he thinks it's the middle of the day. and he's playing and doing his laughing and giggling and turning on tvs and, you know, just really thinking it's the middle of the day. and you can't shut that off. so we're up all night with him, ensuring to keep him safe and trying to prevent him from waking up the other two. that happens at least once a week. and then my youngest son login is what we would call our politely defiant one. he is considered high functioning but not quite as high as where matthew is. >> reporter: how can the henderson brothers and the other children all be so

different yet diagnosed with the same condition? the answer to that question is where scientists disagree about what the rising numbers of autism diagnosis mean. anthropologist richard grinker, a professor at george washington university, says it's because we have widened the definition of autism. >> it's where somebody who previously had the identical symptoms now is conceptualized differently. and so if you went back 30, 0, years and you looked at people who were diagnosed with mental retardation or who were diagnosed with what was then called childhood schizophrenia, you would find that those people, 30 years ago, would qualify for the diagnosis of autism today. and i suspect that we may see the prevalence of autism continue to increase not

because there are more cases. they were there all along. perhaps. but because we're getting better at locating them, finding them, and delivering services to these children and adults who really need help. >> reporter: but a majority of the researchers we talked to believe that wider diagnosis explains only part of the increase in autism numbers. the rest remains the object of much scientific speculation. among others, dr. irva hertz- picciotto who heads the division of environmental and occupational health at uc-davis sees many possible environmental factors. >> there is a group that did look at the diagnostic substitution explanation. they thought that maybe explained a quarter to a third but in addition to that, there has probably been an environmental contribution for a long time. we in fact know that some of the potential environmental causes do include, for example,

infectious agents. >> reporter: do you have candidate factors for those factors that may be fresh in the environment? >> i have a lot of candidate factors actually. and they include nutritional factors, infectious agents, chemicals in our environment including chemicals in the household products that we use every day. there are a variety of factors that could be influencing development. they may play a role at different points in development. but i think multiple factors contribute not just across the population but within any one individual. so when i say that i think autism is multi-factorial in its causation, i think that applies to even at the individual level so that it might take two or three susceptibility genes combined with two or three environmental factors at critical junctures. >> reporter: which might explain why individuals with

autism are so different even though they share in obvious symptoms. >> exactly. >> i say, okay, there's a big prevalence increase in autism. that's undeniable. there's a prevalence inkurri. whether it means that there's an increase in the real number of people with autism or not, there's a refuse lens increase. but i see it as progress. i really see it as an achievement to be able to identify these kids who previously were either misdiagnosed or maybe had no diagnosis at all. >> reporter: sally rogers has firsthand experience of the rising numbers as she works to identify and treat children with autism at the earliest possible age. >> in my experience the number of children who have autism has increased enormously. i remember 30 years ago when i started working with young children with autism in a real focused way. i remember when i saw the first child in 1982, a two-year-old with autism. two years later i saw another. three years later i saw another. and now in the last two years

we've recruited 50, 70 two-year-olds with autism just here in this city. it's a phenomenal change from a clinician's experience in the prevalence of autism. >> reporter: whatever is happening to the numbers, there is a saying among those who know autism well: when you've seen one child with autism, you've seen one child with autism. >> ifill: the prevalence of autism is intimately linked to >> ifill: the prevalence of autism is intimately linked to what causes autism. that is our subject tomorrow night, the causes of autism. but you don't have to wait until then to watch it. part three of robin's series is available right now in its entirety on our "autism now" web page. there you'll find extended interviews with three specialists included in tonight's story: irva hertz- picciotto, sally rogers, and richard grinker. you can join us for a live chat on wednesday at 1:00 p.m. eastern with experts and others featured in the series. and there's a place to ask

questions. robin and others will answer some of them after the series concludes. >> woodruff: finally tonight, an update on the war in afghanistan, where the fighting and the casualties continue, even as the story is pushed aside in newspapers and television by the mideast revolts. and to ray suarez. >> suarez: throughout the spring and winter fighting has intensified between nato troops and the taliban especially in the south. bolstered by last year's surge saturday afternoon... surge's of 30,000 u.s. troops soldiers pushed more deeply into kandahar province and helmand province as well. david petraeus sized things up at a u.s. senate hearing last month. >> the momentum achieved by the taliban in afghanistan since 25005 has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in a number of important areas. however, while the security

progress achieved over the past year is significant, it is also fragile and reversible. >> suarez: but the gains in afghanistan have come at the price of more american lives. more than 75 u.s. troops have been killed so far this year bringing the total to more than 1430 killed since operation enduring freedom began in 2001. and now that spring has arrived the pace of fighting and of taliban attacks is on the rise. despite progress in kandahar, a suicide bomber killed the police chief of kandahar city and two of his officers last friday. on saturday a taliban agent in the afghan army killed five american soldiers at this training base. and yesterday a roadside bomb killed six afghan policemen in eastern afghanistan. as another taliban infiltrator wearing an afghan army uniform killed two people inside the ministry of defense in kabul. the upsurge in violence comes

as the beginning of a promise withdrawal of u.s. forces looms in july. on friday president obama said the planned drawdown would go forward. >> i'm confident that the withdrawal will be significant. people will say this is... they will say this is a real progress of transition. this is not just a token gesture. >> suarez: meanwhile nato is scheduled to hand over responsibility for all security to afghan forces by 2014. just back from a reporting trip to afghanistan for the "washington post" is senior correspondent rajiv chandrasekaran. as the fighting season, what they call the fighting season, starts again, is it a weakened taliban that's taking the field? what's the state of the battle? >> well i think it's a different battle in different parts of the country. in some areas the taliban has been weakened or at least their strength eroded. particularly in the south where i've just come back from a two-and-a-half week trip.

in some of the most violent areas last year and some of the places that were seen as essentially no-go areas for coalition forces where the taliban held sway. u.s. forces have made some pretty significant headway. this is in parts of hand car and helmand provinces. part of that is because of the troop surge that was ordered up by president obama. many more boots on the ground. the use of some very sort of heavy-fisted tactics there. a lot of bombs dropped from fighter planes, a lot of heavy munitions fired on the ground. that have made some in-roads but it's a mixed bag, ray. when you look at eastern afghanistan, the taliban is certainly ascendent over there. violence levels are trending dangerous upward there as well as in the northern part of the country. sweef... we've seen also growing attacks against afghan security forces in recent days, as you note. and against afghan civilian targets. >> suarez: general petraeus called the situation one of

proceed... progress. progress at was fragile and reversible. when you were on the ground what does that look like? >> well, progress looks like more people coming out going to the bazaars, sending their children to schools, economic activity. you see signs of residents starting to for sake the taliban, in some cases even picking up rocks and throwing them at insurgents who are seeking to intimidate them from engaging in day-labor type projects but it all feels very unsustainable at this moment. the afghan security forces still don't seem anywhere near ready to start to assume responsibility for security in these areas. the afghan government is still in many cases absent or where they are they're in very small numbers and large ineffective. it raises the real question, how do you start to transfer this and how do you start to

take some of these forces and apply them to other parts of the country where security is not as good? and there isn't a clear plan for that at this point. >> suarez: you're talking about unsustainability touring the same year that the united states is starting to talk about a troop drawdown. will it be able to happen and does it risk losing everything? >> i think as we heard the president is committed to a meaningful drawdown that will start this summer. just exactly what those numbers will be haven't been decided. i think there will be a long process of negotiation between general petraeus and the military. we're going to want to seek to attenuate the drawdown and the white house which is mindful of not just the human cost of this but also the promise that he explicity made the american people when he ordered the surge as well as the sheer cost of this war which will be about $120 billion this year. with all of those factors in play, the president is going to i think push for something significant. so we're at the high-water

mark right now. so it's hard to imagine with fewer troops them being able to do more of this in other places. >> suarez: fewer troops. do you risk, as happened earlier in the american commitment there, leaving certain parts of the country only to have the bad guys come back? >> that's what commanders say they don't want to have happen so they are working very hard to try to train up the afghan forces, trying to do this transition process in a measured way between now and the year 2014 when all the nato members have committed to transition over lead security responsibility to the afghan government. but that's not a whole lot of time in the grand scheme of things to try to build up an effective army and police force. so what we start to see are our experiments, for instance, the u.s. military is trying to stand up village-level defense forces in many parts of the country. president karzai is concerned

that these units might one day potentially turn into militias but it's a sign of new efforts being taken to try to bridge this gap and try to create pockets of security, understanding that in many cases you can't simply hand over areas wholesale to the afghan army and say you're now in charge. >> suarez: let's talk again about kandahar. you've written of it as being a place that's working better, that's safer to be on the streets, yet just in the last several days the police chief there was killed. is this the kind of thing that is going to continue, whether nato remains or not? >> what we've seen in the last couple of days with these attacks against the police chief in kandahar province, the attack of the afghan defense ministry with the suicide bomb in targeting american and afghan troops working together in the east are that the taliban are going to be seeking softer targets. they're going to be going after afghan officials and civilians because in many cases it's much harder to go

after u.s. bases or in some cases, you know, u.s. patrols. so this could potentially be an even more bloody and violent summer than last summer. so, you know, this is the classic mixed bag of counterinsurgency where in some cases, yes, things look much better. the road between kandahar and helmand province is now most civilians can drive down. you don't have to go in an armored convoy. you know, the journey between two marine bases in northern helmand province that once took the marines eight hours now can be completed in 20 minutes. the other day after a u.s. army sergeant was killed by an improvised mine, three afghan elders actually took the remarkable step of showing up at the patrol base for a memorial service for this soldier. so there are these unusual signs that are sprouting up

this spring over there. at the same time there continue to be attacks unabated. so when one looks at this-- and this is the challenge that president obama and his national security team are going to face-- on one hand there are a set of facts that point to some real progress and the argument that military officials are going to make is let's cement that progress. let's not slack up right now. let's build on that. but if you look at the facts from a different perspective, it's also possible to argue that a lot of this is unsustainable and that the taliban's momentum sort of continues unabated. >> suarez: rajiv chandrasekaran thanks for stopping by. >> good to talk to you. >> ifill: the major developments of the day. president obama opened a campaign to build public support for his deficit-cutting ideas. the syrian government abolished nearly 50 years of emergency, but it warned that all protests must end now. and the u.s. supreme court heard arguments on whether to let states sue electric utilities over climate change.

and to hari sreenivasan, for what's on the newshour online. hari. >> sreenivasan: find our special coverage marking the one year since the b.p. oil spill. you can preview of our interview with "washington post" reporter joel achenbach. and see our conversation with reporters from louisiana public broadcasting on how the coastal area is faring a year later. plus tonight's edition of "frontline" examines a little- known chapter in the catholic church sex abuse story. it looks at charges of abuse of native americans by priests and others in alaska. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at the worsening humanitarian crisis in libya. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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