captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: a new poll reveals nine in ten americans are pessimistic about the nation's economy. good evening. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, we zero in on what's behind the growing pessimism and what are the political repercussions. >> ifill: then we assess a study that finds dramatically higher levels of radiation at japan's fukushima nuclear plant, including full-blown meltdowns. >> woodruff: ray suarez looks at the h.i.v.-aids pandemic and the state of treatment research, 30 years after the first case was reported.

>> there isn't that fear factor as much as it used to be. that's the reason why we've got to make sure we're not victims of our own success. >> ifill: and jeffrey brown talks to author tea obreht about mixing realism and fantasy in her debut novel, "the tiger's wife." >> i think that this is something you can do in stride. when dealing with reality, fantasy comes in so much as a coping mechanism. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> oil companies have changed my country. >> oil companies can make a difference. >> we have the chance to build the economy. >> create jobs, keep people healthy, and improve schools. >> ...and our communities. >> in angola chevron helps train engineers, teachers and farmers, launch child's programs. it's not just good business. >> i'm hopeful about my country's future. >> it's my country's future.

and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. 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. >> ifill: tough numbers on the economy and equally tough poll numbers for the president. they formed the backdrop as he hosted the leader of europe's major economic power. when president obama appeared at the white house today with german chancellor angela merkel the subject quickly turned to the stumbling domestic economy. >> i'm not concerned about a

double-dip recession. i am concerned about the fact that the recovery we're on is not producing jobs as quickly as i want it to happen. >> ifill: that sluggish pace was documented last week in a gloomy jobs report, showing employers added a lower than expected 54,000 positions last month. and today there was fresh evidence of the slowdown. according to the department of labor businesses advertised 100,000 fewer jobs in april than they did in march. emphasizing recovery over recession, the president chose to focus on other more favorable numbers. >> over two million jobs created over the past 15 months. a rebounding of the manufacturing sector in the united states that's exemplified by the recovery of the big three auto makers here. all indicates that we have set a path that will lead us to long-term economic growth. but we've still got some enormous work to do. >> ifill: but among the american people, pessimism

appears to be winning out. a "washington post"/abc news survey published today found that while 42% of those polled say the recovery has begun, 57% see no sign of a turn- around. the president acknowledged the frustration but said the key is not to panic, not to overreact. >> we're going to have some days where things won't be going as well as we like. there will be times when we're surprised with better economic data than we suspected. we are on the path of a recovery but it's got to accelerate. >> ifill: republicans on capitol hill and on the presidential campaign trail say the president has only his own policies to blame. in chicago g.o.p. candidate tim pawlenty said mr. obama is satisfied with a second-rate american economy. >> president obama has had three years to turn things around. all we have to show for it now is $3.7 trillion more in debt and climbing, nearly two

million fewer jobs, a congress that hasn't passed a budget in more two years, a health care takeover that he pre-tends we can afford, and a fiscal crisis he pre-tends we can ignore. we've tried it president obama's way. it's only made the economy worse. >> ifill: that argument might be taking hold. the new poll shows for the first time mr. obama is in a statistical dead heat with at least one potential republican challenger, mitt romney. federal reserve chairman ben bernanke conceded today the economy remains weak, but said temporary factors like high gas prices and fallout from the crisis in japan are the cause. he predicted growth will pick up later this year. but do americans believe that? we explore that now with susan page, washington bureau chief for "u.s.a. today." mark vitner, senior economist for wells fargo in charlotte, north carolina. and tom binnings, senior partner at summit economics in colorado.

i have to ask you, susan, when you listen to the numbers and you listen to the economists it seems like there's sort of a clash. americans seem to be a lot more downbeat than economists are. >> economists tell us that the recovery started two years ago. but you couldn't see that in the lives of most americans. most americans look and they see problems with their job or their neighbor's job or their kid getting a job when he or she gets out of college. they see housing market continuing to slump. they look at gas prices this summer straining their budgets. americans do not believe we're in a recovery. the recovery is fragile enough that it's very hard to convince them otherwise. >> ifill: we hear about gas prices and about how things cost. we hear about the unemployment rate. what have you seen that is driving this? >> i think that in many respects when economists talk about recovery, it's really a recovery that only statisticians can love. statistically the economy is doing better but not better enough that most people can

see it if their everyday lives but what they do see in their everyday lives is higher gasoline prices and higher food costs. that's something that they see on a regular basis. that is a material difference in their livelihood. that's one of the things that is nagging at people. the other is that the unemployment rate has been very high for a very long time. even if you held a job throughout the crisis and the recession and the recovery, you probably know somebody who lost their job and who is struggling, who has been out of work for quite some time. i ask customers when we go out and meet them if they know of somebody who has been out of work more than a year and a majority of hands still go up. >> ifill: tom bennings, often we talk about the national unemployment numbers or the national housing numbers. how much of this is regional? how much of this, i guess, depression personal depression and pessimism is regional and how much of it is something that is just coast to coast? >> well, i think for the most part it's coast to coast, certainly different regions are better off than others.

those that were heavily dependent upon the housing boom in their economies are feeling the brunt of it. you know, in terms of unemployment. their unemployment rates are higher. and then you have sectors like the ag sector, agriculture. as well as the energy sectors that are doing well. so regions that are more based upon those sectors are faring better. here in colorado we're kind of a little bit of both. we have both of those going on for us. we're kind of at the national average. >> ifill: let me ask you to expand on that. does it go this lack of consumer confidence, does it go beyond the, i guess, these three pillars about joblessness and housing and the general economy. is there something else underlie inning? >> well, i think so. you know, i think that the rate of recovery is to painfully slow that nobody has experienced that before. baby boomers have spent their whole careers... we've had

recessions but we've bounced back pretty quickly. in addition to that, i think there's a lot of concern out there-- and i think people are really in tune to it-- that the ability of the federal government to deficit spend at such high rates has been one of the things that sort of kept us from going even further down or has created a bottom for the economy, and i think there are real concerns about what is going to happen as we begin to move towards fiscal austerity with federal government. >> ifill: that raises an interesting question. are people paying attention to this deficit discussion we're having in washington? is that also driving the mood? >> well, i think they're paying attention to it. i don't think it's their overriding concern. we have two concerns on that level. there are folks that are very concerned about the persistence of large federal budget deficits and they're worried that taxes are going to have to rise substantially into the future. that makes them reluctant to take risks in their personal lives to buy a house, to buy a car to expand their business. and then there are those that are worried about the

austerity, the cutbacks that government is going to have to make. we're already seeing some impacts of that on the state and local level. we estimate that state and local governments will eliminate 20,000 to 30,000 jobs every month between now and the middle of next year. and that's a real drag on the economy. these are folks that really thought that they were immune from the business cycle because in past cycles you didn't see a whole lot of actual outright job losses at state and local government. >> ifill: let's talk about the political fallout here. we've heard the president say the last couple of days many. let's be patient. it's painful and slow. let's just be patient. we saw ben bernanke say a version of that today. does that translate politically or is this an opportunity for republican critics and people who would like his job say we need to move faster and he's just not getting it. >> i remember in 1982 when ronald reagan encouraged americans to stay the course which did not work in that

midterm election. they lost 26 house seats, the republicans today. the idea of patience will not sustain americans who have had year after year of economic troubles. you know, we've had this recession and the feeling of a recession for some time. the fact is for the past decade americans have not seen an increase in their personal income levels. this has been hard for americans who are used to the american dream and the feeling that things are going to be better for them if they work hard and if their kids go to school and work hard will have better lives than they do. in the usa gallup poll we find for the first time in the history of our polling that a majority of americans do not believe that tenet of the american dream, that their children will have a better life than they have. that is something that goes to economic fundamentals and political fundamentals too. that's what this election may be about next year. >> ifill: you remember 1992, the last time an incumbent was unseated. it was also because of this idea that he didn't seem to get it. is that what the polling is

telling you also about the people view the handling of the economy. >> the president has real strengths. the osama bin laden boosted his standing in handling terrorism. when we ask americans do you approve the way president obama has been handling the economy, only 37% of americans say they do. that is a big problem for president obama. that's a number that has to be higher if he's going to get re-elected this year. >> ifill: how do you speed this up? what is it that government should or can be doing, that the private sector should or can be doing to get this painfully slow economy kick- started? >> well that's a really tough question. the government is is fairly ham strung with the amount of... with the deficit and being able toed add least... to at least sell that politically to continue on with deficit spending. i think there are a few things that can happen. part of it probably from a political point of view has to be more the rhetoric side than

as opposed to what can the president really do between now and election day in less than two years or two years from now. some of the things are an energy policy, becoming very aggressive, i think, in selling to the american people the need to develop both traditional energy sources from within the united states as well as continue the course with our renewable energy investments which have done both of those sectors are doing very well out here in the west in colorado in particular. so that's one thing that can happen. really focusing on giving the business community and small business people more confidence in the economy and talking a lot about deregulation and the need to get back to a point where people see an opportunity to invest and to earn a living from a business point of view. >> ifill: around the country do you hear people saying these are my expectations of

government or do they have expectations anymore? >> they don't really have that many expectations of sgochlt. there's a lot of frustrations that are being voiced. it seems that regulation has increased. it's increased in a number of levels. there's often conflicting regulations. companies are really kind of put off by the amount of regulations that are hitting them all at once. and they have... they're hearing different things from different regulators. that is a big problem. if you want to do something that doesn't bust the budget, address the regulatory burden of small and medium-sized businesses. that would help promote economic growth and it wouldn't cost anything. >> ifill: susan, we know that sometimes in politics or in leadership this is about the message. sometimes it's about the facts of the matter. no message can overcome what the facts say. do you have any sense about whether this administration knows which it is. >> well, you know, i think that the obama administration has had kind of a... too many

messages sometimes on the economy and not enough focus on the issues the americans care most about. that's the economy and especially the issue of jobs but the fact is, you could have the best message in the world and if people were looking around and still seeing their neighbors unemployed, still worried about losing their own jobs, still underwater on their house, maybe not able to move to a better job in a different location because they can't sell their house, nothing will convince them that times are good. you really need the reality of the economy to get better. you need to get ahead of steam if you're siting in the white house, a head of steam going within the next year or so to convince people by the time they go back to the polls that the economy is doing better and they can trust that will continue. >> ifill: susan page and mark vitner of wells fargo, thank you all very much. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour, japan's nuclear crisis worse than originally thought; 30 years into the global aids pandemic; and the magical realism of "the tiger's wife."

but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: wall street gave up some early gains today, and ended with a fifth straight losing session. stocks retreated after federal reserve chairman ben bernanke made no mention of any new stimulus effort at a speech in atlanta. the dow jones industrial average shed 19 points to close at 12,070. the nasdaq fell one point to close at 2701. the president of yemen, ali abdullah saleh, was hurt worse than thought in an explosion at his compound last friday. saleh is now in saudi arabia for medical treatment. u.s. officials said today he's burned over 40% of his body, and is bleeding inside his skull. separately, the yemen defense ministry reported government troops around zinjibar killed 30 islamic militants over the past two days. and there was more fighting in taiz. army tanks shelled rebel tribesmen near the city's presidential palace. at least four people were killed. in syria, fears of an impending all-out attack by the military sparked an exodus from a town near the turkish border.

residents said they expected an assault after the government claimed 120 security troops were killed in the town on monday. syrian officials said "armed gangs" ambushed the troops. but activists said today the real story is that soldiers mutinied and fought with their own officers and guards. european farmers demanded full compensation today for losses caused by a deadly e. coli outbreak in germany. agriculture ministers said growers across europe are losing up to $600 million a week because consumers are scared to eat cucumbers, tomatoes, and other produce. we have a report narrated by jane dodge of independent television news. >> reporter: we need to restore the honor of the cucumber, a spanish official told the parliament today. the spanish remain furious with the germans for wrongly accusing them of being the source of this outbreak. >> germany has a serious

problem of credibility. it's intolerable the way mrs. merckel has dealt with the countrys to the south on their farming and financial issues. >> reporter: farmers around europe are still calculating their losses. in romania tons of cucumbers have been brought to a warehouse to be destroyed. these farmers will now be eligible to apply for compensation from the e.u., european agriculture ministers agreed to set up an mng fund at a summit in luxembourg this afternoon. >> we have to respond to all the producers with 100% of the real market value of the merchandise that has been lost. >> reporter: it seems playing hard ball paid off. the e.u.'s agriculture commissioner announced tonight that the emergency fund would be increased. meanwhile the e-coli outbreak keeps growing. 26 people have died. 642 are in intensive care. but germany's national disease control centers say the number

of new cases is declining. the epidemic might have reached its peak. >> sreenivasan: it is still unclear what caused the outbreak. but in the absence of clear answers, russia and saudi arabia have banned all imports of produce from europe. a huge wildfire burning in eastern arizona is now causing trouble in other states. thick smoke soared above arizona mountain towns today and spread as far east as iowa. the blaze caused hazy skies and even prompted health warnings in colorado and new mexico. the fire has burned more than a week in arizona, consumed nearly 500 square miles of forest, and forced several thousand people to leave their homes. >> woodruff: a just-released report is shedding new light on the severity of the nuclear crisis in japan. it's been three months since the massive earthquake and tsunami ravaged the fukushima dai-ichi nuclear plant in japan. now an official report says the amount of radiation

released was more than double the earlier estimates. that means it was one-sixth the amount dispersed at chernobyl in 1986. the world's worst nuclear disaster. initially the fukushima radiation was rated 1/10th the total at chernobyl. the report comes from japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency. it acknowledges that three reactors at fukushima suffered core meltdown and likely breached their containment units. >> at present there is damage to the bottom of the reactor container. we call this core melting in english. part of the fuel fell into the dry earth floor and it is possible that it is still lodged there. >> woodruff: massive explosions from built-up gases rocked the plant in the days after the tsunami. the report blames faulty venting technology in the 40-year-old reactor. it also says the government was unprepared for a severe nuclear event.

and that regulators lacked independence from the private nuclear utility company they were directed to oversee. in the days just after the march 11 catastrophe, there were confused and contradictory but usually upbeat assessments. they came from tokyo electric power company which owns fukushima and from japanese government officials. >> there is no need for unreasonable worry. i think people should respond calmly. >> woodruff: for thousands of people a 12-mile no-go zone around the nuclear plant remains in place. voluntary evacuations are in effect for the area 12 to 19 miles out with selective mandatory displacements in force. even those outside the nuclear zone and well away from the devastated coast still feel the effects the fear of power blackouts has led to a wide- ranging conservation drive.

>> we have an electrical power shortage this year. the government is calling for 15% cuts in usage. >> woodruff: part of the campaign loosening the famous formality of japan's business world. trading high collars for casual wear and setting summer office thermostats to a tropical 82 degrees. we learn more now on the latest discoveries at japan's crippled fukushima daichi nuclear plant from james acton, a physicist in the nuclear policy program at the carnegie endowment for international peace. >> thank you for being with us again. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: what is significant to you in this new information? >> well, the new information adds to a growing picture we've been seeing over the last month that suggests that this crisis was much more serious much more quickly than anybody realizeded at the time. in fact information that the japanese regulator released on monday suggests that the fueling unit 1 melted down within five hours of the

earthquake on march 11 which was pretty astonishing actually. >> woodruff: walk us through what happened that we did not understand before. >> well, you know, at an early stage of this crisis, if first few days of this crisis if you think to the immediate time after march 11, you know, a lot of analysts including myself were talking about there's the risk of a fuel meltdown. in fact we now know that that had already happened. the majority, probably all the fuel in unit 1, 2 and 3 melted at a much earlier stage. because of the severity of the crisis was an earlier stage, the remediation and the clean-up i think will be that much harder now. >> woodruff: the amount of radiation out there is how much worse than what was thought? >> it appears to be, you know, the government increased the estimate by a factor of two. i think that's largely a reflection of how difficult it is to estimate the amount of radiation being released from the plant.

i mean this is a very, very difficult calculation. it is a calculation actually rather than a measurement. >> woodruff: how do you account for the difference in what we were told in march when this happened with what we're learning now. is it that it's just been harder to get to the bottom of what happened or do you think the information was deliberately withheld? >> i think the main reason is the astonishing difficulty of understanding what is going on inside reactors under these extreme circumstances. you know, there's intense radiation inside these reactors by design. you can't just pop them in and have a look inside. a lot of the new information we've been seeing is the japanese utility, the regulator, finding out more information about the computer model. there clearly needs to be an investigation to find out whether information was withheld deliberately. but i think the... i mean the main reason is the utility and the operators themselves are

getting new information. >> woodruff: how much does it matter that we either had erroneous or incomplete information in the early weeks? >> in any major disaster-- and this was an enormous disaster-- you're never going to have perfect communication. information that you believe to be true is going to turn out not to be true. that's the nature of the crisis. i think the crucial thing is that communication is honest, that it's done in good faith. that information that... you only say what you know to be true. i think the key question is whether information was withheld and whether everything that we said was known to be true at the time. >> woodruff: based on what we know now, james acton, what about the safety of people who are living anywhere near the area right around these reactors? >> well, there isn't really anybody living around the reactors anymore. there's this ex-exclusion

zone. >> woodruff: i mean right outside that area, how much certainty can they have that they're safe? >> well, statistically levels outside the plant are such that there is likely to be a very small increase in long-term cancer rates. there are a few places around the plant now where the levels of radiation are significantly above background. but, you know, i think it's worth emphasizing that 14,000 people died in the tsunami and the earthquake. 10,000 more people are still unaccounted for. the number of casualtys from the nuclear crisis is going to be in the order of magnitude smaller. >> woodruff: you're right. we are often setting that aside when the death toll is much greater. james acton, what about what the government of japan, what the tokyo electric power facility should be doing now to make sure that safety is at

its maximum around these plants? >> this accident was a failure of regulation rather than a failure of operation. this plant was simply not designed to withstand the size of the earthquake and particularly the size of the tsunami that hit it. so i think the key question is asked about, you know, the future safety of this particular plant in japan, indeed around the world, is whether the size that might befall them has been correctly predicted. >> woodruff: how close do you think we are now to knowing all that there is to be known about what has happened? >> oh, probably quite a long way. i mean, for instance, with three mile island it was only i believe it was five years after the accident when the reactor was finally over. a huge amount of new information was discovered. we know a lot more about this accident than we did three months ago. but i have no doubt that the

investigation which has just started in japan and future vos gagss in the weeks and the months and the years ahead are going to discover more information that is simply not known or knowable at the moment. >> woodruff: for you, what are the main questions that you have that remain unanswered? >> i think the first question relates to, you know, this issue of regulation. was the japanese government systemically failing to predict the size of reactors correctly? i think the question about emergency preparedness was incredibly difficult in the best of time. did the japanese government do basically a good job under extraordinarily difficult circumstances or were there serious errors that can and should be avoided. was information deliberately withheld or was knowing the incorrect information... i think those are the key questions for me at this stage.

>> woodruff: james acton joining us again on this story that, as you say, continues to unfold. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> ifill: the aids epidemic, 30 years later. ray suarez has our report. >> suarez: it started in the spring of 1981. reports of young gay men in new york and california sickened by rare forms of pneumonia and cancer. by summer june 5 the first federal announcement from the centers for disease control. it concerns five young gay men in los angeles with a me moan i can't almost exclusively limited to patients with severely compromised immune systems. within months it became clear the underlying illness was neither pneumonia nor cancer but a sexually transmitted disease that damaged the immune system. initially called gay related immune dedeficiency or gay

cancer before being renamed aids in 1982 it went on to become a pandemic infecting more than 60 million people worldwide. it would take another two years to identify h.i.v., the virus that causes aids, and epidemiologists quickly discovered that h.i.v. could be transmitted with heterosexual sex from infected women to new borns in blood transfusions and via contaminated needles especially among i.v.drug users. the discovery of the virus that caused aids and a way to test for it offered hopes for a means to stop the spread of the deadly disease. >> we hope to have such a vaccine ready for testing in approximately two years. >> suarez: since 1981, only four major trials of h.i.v. vaccine have been conducted. with varying success. the world's largest trial administered to 16,000 people in thailand in 2009 did reduce the risk of contracting h.i.v. by nearly a third.

while a medical milestone, that percentage may not be enough to blunt the 7,000 new infections that occur daily according to the u.n. and the international scope of aids has been staggering. according to the u.n., it's killed nearly 0 million people since the first five cases were recognized in 1981. over 600,000 in the united states. and an additional 34 million people globally are presently h.i.v.-positive. one million in the u.s. overall roughly two million people die of the disease worldwide each year. still there have been some significant breakthroughs in the last three decades. activists, public health campaigns. >> it puts to rest rumors about catching aids through casual non-sexual contact. >> suarez: advances in testing have all helped prevention efforts. the rate of infection declined nearly 25% in the last decade. 1994 saw the introduction of

apt eye retro viral drugs which slowed the reproduction of the virus, prevent the development of full-blown aids and allow the h.i.v. infected to live longer, healthier lives. >> because of h.i.v. virus that i have attained, i will have to retire from the lakers. >> suarez: in one high-profile case former basketball star magic johnson marks 20 years living with h.i.v. this year, thanks to antiretroviral therapy but even in the u.s. where an estimated 55,000 new infections occur each year with some of the highest rates of infection occurring among african-americans and women, those life-saving drugs are expensive. some 8300 americans are on waiting lists under aids drug assistance programs in 13 states to obtain drugs to treat h.i.v.. access is also scarce in developing countries, especially in sub saharan

africa, home to two out of three of all the infected people worldwide. the world health organization estimates nearly 14 million globally need treatment, but at the end of 2010, nine million people were without access to such drugs. but at the same time the u.n. reports 1.4 million people started treatment in 2010, more than any year before and 6.6 million were receiving antiretroviral therapy in low and middle income countries by the end of last year. for more on the 30-year battle with aids in the united states and around the world, we go to two officials who have been on the front lines. dr. anthony fauci was among the early researchers into the disease and is now director of the national institutes of health's division of infectious diseases. and executive director of u.n. aids has been with that program since 2001. gentlemen, welcome to you both. if i asked you to define the

struggle at this point, aids at 30 years, what would you say is the state of play? >> i think i will just say that the world needs to remember that 30 years ago this disease was just a shunned disease. it was a gay plague. it was called. today we have to recognize that we have been able to break the conspiracy of silence. we have been more blazing. we've even built a social compact between the global north and the south. we've produced results. >> suarez: looking more specifically at the situation in the united states, anthony fauci? >> well, the situation in the united states we still have a problem as we all know there have been 56,000 new infections each year. we've made major somewhat breath taking advances in

therapy. when you get people on therapy, you need to be on therapy to completely transform in a very positive way their lives. the big challenge we have now domestically is to make sure of the 1.1 million people, 21% of the infected people in the united states don't know they're infected. so we need to seek them out, get them into voluntary testing and link them to care and treatment. we have a much greater challenge in the developing world as michelle just mentioned, because there are millions and millions of people in the developing world that are infected that would benefit from linking to care and getting treatment. that's a major implementation challenge that we have in the years ahead. >> suarez: over the years, dr. fauci, various strategies have been tried. some have been discarded. some have been reinforced. what works in aids prevention? >> well, you know, there are a number of combination things that work. we know that circumstance situation is highly effective

in preventing acquisition. we know that the use, the proper use of condoms. we know that needle exchange programs work. we have some evidence now that topical microsides in women work. we have profound evidence over the last months that if you treat people early in infection not only do you benefit them by helping them to be able to lead a healthy life but you also remarkably diminish the likelihood that they would transmit their infection to an uninfected partner. so you now have a number of modalities which, when used in combination, we feel we have the tools right now to have a major impact globally on this h.i.v. pandemic. >> suarez: director, with all those weapons in the arsenal there are still 34 million infected and 7,000 new infections a day. how do you drive that number down?

>> i think what we need is a way to continue to make the world understanding that we need to invest today more than yesterday. we have the proof like tony was just mentioning that the science is there. we have the responsibility not to... just the moral responsibility and obligation but we have also the responsibility to push the envelope of funding. it's not acceptable that we will continue to say that we will be able to be successful because we put the six million people on treatment and say to the world that when nine million people were waiting for treatment we cannot do anything about them. i think it is a shared responsibility. it's important to bring the developing world and also the international world on board but we cannot abandon nine million people who are waiting for treatment.

>> suarez: dr. fauci, who is contracting h.i.v. in the united states today? now these decades on since we've been doing educational messaging and training and all kinds of getting the word out. who is getting aids today? >> well, there's a big disparity in this country, ray. there's 12% of the american population is african-american. of the new infections, close to 50% of them are among african-americans. sadly among african-american to a gay or by sexual american bi-sexual american, if you look at the slice of the pie has been less among injection drug users but an increase among heterosexual transmissability which accounts for the increasing percentage among women in the united states. but still men who have sex with men is still the largest fraction of the individuals who get newly infeked. there's a great disparity

racially in that with african- americans bearing the brunt of the burden. >> suarez: if we move away from europe and north america to the global south, to latin america, asia, africa, is the profile different for who the newly infected are? >> we have a growing epidemic in central asia but at the same time we still have a major major problem in africa. even though we are seeing for the first time more than 35 countries have been able to decrease the number of new infections significantly. >> suarez: you know, for all the trouble getting people on a.r.v., treatment, michelle, there are millions who testify to the fact that now their disease is being managed. it's no longer a death sentence. has this moved people away from being panicked and

perhaps allowed some people to think that they can still engage in risky behavior? >> i think what... it's certainly very important to say that we are today facing a major challenge because 6 million people are in treatment. 9 million people are waiting for treatment. but we know also that you can live longer with the treatment. the risky behavior is something which is a part of education and certainly programs which we need to also improve. >> suarez: tony fauci, finally same question to you. in the american context as we've moved aids from a death sentence to a chronic illness that can be managed by medication, are people still willing to engage in risky behavior because they're not as afraid as they once might have been. >> that's unfortunately, ray,

a fact. in some segments of the pop lakes... population, we do see that. there's less of the fear that we saw years and years ago before therapy was available. we used to have people in hospices. a lot of people had friends and colleagues who were sick and dying because of the effectiveness and the success of life-saving therapies that we have now. there isn't that fear factor as much as it used to be. that's the reason why we've got to make sure we're not victims of our own success. together with seeking out testing voluntarily and treating people, we've got to make sure that just because the treatment is effective, people don't get the wrong and really tragic impression that it's okay to get infected because it's not. >> suarez: dr. fauci, director, gentlemen, thank you both. >> thank you very much. >> you're quite welcome. >> woodruff: we'll be back shortly with a conversation >> woodruff: we'll be back shortly with a conversation with

tea obreht. but first, this is pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for yo

>> woodruff: finally tonight, a first-time novelist and a larger-than-life story from the balkans. jeffrey brown has our conversation. >> brown: strange encounters with a deathless man, love of a young woman for her dying grandfather and the magical almost surreal story of a tiger terrorizing a european village. the mix of realism and fantasy is all part of the tiger's wife a new novel and first novel by at a obreht, a 25-year-old writer who was won in the former yugoslavia and came to the united states at age 12. welcome to you. >> thank you, jeff. >> brown: this is set in a particular place and time, the former yugoslavia. it's a place in part yours but not really in a sense. >> true. very true. i grew up in yugoslavia for

seven years of my life. we left, you know, and moved to cyprus and egypt and that's where i sort of grew up in a very nomadic way. a lot of this is based on vague childhood memories and the things that i absorbed going back to visit my grandmother who still lives there. >> brown: was it a way to connect or did you desire reconnecting in some way? >> i did. a lot of writers that i know have told me that the first book you write you write about your childhood whether you want to or not. it calls you back. that definitely ended up happening. my grandfather died in a very difficult way to get called back to writing about childhood but it would have been impossible to write the book without reconnecting to the place. >> brown: it's a nof he will but there are auto biographical elements to it? >> yes. >> brown: in terms of the personal story between the daughter and the grandfather. >> absolutely. i think it's almost inevitable that some autobiography sneaks in. a lot more of the relationship between the grandfather and

the granddaughter snuck in than i anticipated or really had any control over and didn't realize until afterwards. none of the plot lines are auto biographical. >> brown: this balancing of realism, the story of people living through a very harrowing time and the fantastic myth owe logical. was that hard to pull off as a matter of structure, as a matter of writing to keep them together somehow? >> with a novel you have to be a lot more, what i learned at least, is you have to be a lot more open to the work taking on a life of its own and going places where you didn't expect. but in terms of the fantastical elements and the real elements i think they ended up complementing each other really well in the writing process because i think that myth making is something people really do. when dealing with reality, fantasy comes in so much as a coping mechanism. i think that the magical

realism is a aspect of that and it really made its way in very naturally. >> brown: in the realism parts, you talked about going back and doing research and memories and talking to people. in the fantastic parts or the magical realism parts, one of the main characters, the grandfather keeps running across this character who tells him that he himself cannot die. >> right. >> brown: where does this story come from? is it folklore,? mythology? did you make it on. >> based on german folklore and about a man who somehow tries to deliberately or on accident ends up cheating death. it made its way into the tiger's life because i knew that the doctor, that the grandfather as a doctor had to be confronted with this notion of death. it was something i was coping with related to the death of my grandfather. he ended up being a lot more complex and interesting

character to deal with than in the folklore. i had a really fun time expanding him. he was supposed to be sinister but he ended up comforting. >> brown: ultimately his story the tiger's wife story, the grandfather telling stories, i mean, i can't help but think that this is a story about story telling. the grandfather carries in his pocket throughout his life jungle book. does that mean something to you? this notion of story telling. where did that come from? >> i grew up in egypt and in former yugoslavia. those are all cultures that have a very rich oral story telling tradition. i had read the jungle book as a child but it wasn't such a key book in lie. it was just a way for the grandfather as a child in this isolated village to understand what a child is. like so many parts of the novel it ran away with itself and became so much more. it really became important.

>> brown: no story reviewer has written without pointing out that you're 25. >> i've been talking about my age for a long time because i skipped grades when i was very, very young. in the mess of moving from place to place, i skipped two grades in the space of one year. so i was always two years younger than everybody else. the talking about the age is not a new thing for me. i went to college at 16 and grad school at 20. but i always wanted to write. so the fact that the... that this is happening now is just incredible to me. i still can't believe it's an actual book. it has a face. it's like meeting a stranger. people read it and know the characters and talk to me about the plot. it's just amazing. >> brown: all right. the novel is the tiger's wife. congratulations. >> thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. president obama dismissed any chance of a double-dip recession, but he acknowledged

the economy is not producing jobs quickly enough. and an official report in japan said a damaged nuclear plant spewed more than twice as much radiation as earlier estimated, after the march earthquake and tsunami. and to hari sreenivasan, for what's on the newshour online. hari? >> sreenivasan: thanks, gwen. on the site tonight, david, judy, and gwen discuss what the recent polls could mean for president obama on our weekly edition of the political checklist. ray suarez has an essay on the progress made against h.i.v. over the past 30 years and the challenges ahead. paul solman has a behind-the- scenes blog post on what it's like to interview grover from "sesame street." 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 why four billion internet addresses are not enough, and what's being done to create more. 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.

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