captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> brown: the payroll tax cut likely will be extended-- that, as house republicans huddle to discuss the details of a still unfolding, broader deal. good evening. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, judy woodruff gets the latest on the g.o.p. turnabout from todd zwillich of "the takeaway" on wnyc radio. >> brown: we profile the man most likely to be the country's next leader, vice president she gin-ping, who met with president obama today at the white house. >> ifill: and we look at the investigation into apple's labor practices in china, after reports of serious and deadly safety violations.

>> brown: plus, the kids are home-- for good. paul solman reports on the new accordion family, as adult children come home to live. >> when i first moved home i would like six months and then you won't be here anymore. i feel like i'm getting complacent. >> ifill: ray suarez shows us basketball's latest shooting star, new york york knicks point guard jeremy lin. >> brown: and birds do it, bees do it, and you know the rest. poet tony hoagland takes a humorous look at the animal kingdom for some valentine's day verse. >> if i were a peacock, i would flex my muscles to spread the quills on my cinemax tail. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> 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. >> brown: after days of deadlock, there were signs today

that congress may be near agreement on extending payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits for the rest of the year. judy woodruff has the story. >> woodruff: last night, house republicans dropped a demand that the $100 billion tax cut be paid for. and this evening, congressional aides suggested the deal could include long-term unemployment assistance as well, plus money to block a cut in medicare payments for doctors. for what's been happening behind the scenes on capitol hill, we're joined by todd zwillich, a reporter with "the takeaway" on wnyc radio. he's been tracking the negotiations. todd, good to have you with us. >> good to be with you. >> woodruff: in has all happened very quickly. why did republicans change their minds about this payroll tax cut. >> democrats have been tasting blood in the water frankly, judy, ever since december when they were fighting over an extension of the payroll tax then. republicans found themselves on the wrong side of that debate. there's consensus in washington that they lost. terribly.

all they landed on at that time was a two-month extension. that same payroll tax extension was going to expire at the end of this month and it is still going to expire at the end much february. republicans i think sensing that they didn't want to be on the wrong side of this issue again, as it was tied in also with other issues, unemployment insurance and other issues that people in a bad economy would be sensitive about decided to take one of the big democratic weapons off the table: the extension of this payroll tax cut. let's keep in mind very quickly payroll taxes are usually 6.2% of your paycheck. they lowered it to 4.2% for the average worker. that's about $950 or $1,000 a year. that's substantial. >> woodruff: i was reading about 160 million americans. this is not insignificant step. now separately there were these negotiations that have been going on over the unemployment insurance extension and also over the so- called doc fix, medicare payments to doctors. how has that all been or almost been resolved on a

separate track here? >> the payroll tax cut, judy, was the most controversial and politically potentially toxic part of this for republicans or politically beneficial, if you're a democrat. once that was taken off the table, these other things that you mentioned seem to become possible very quickly. democrats have always wanted, indeed, have always lobbied for an increase, for an extension rather in unemployment insurance benefits especially in a bad economy. they don't want to see people going off those unemployment roles. also it has a bad impact on the economy, when people living on the cuss-no longer have money to spend on the electric bill or groceries. the big controversy which actually republicans had won a long time ago was whether or not to have this paid for. yes, we can extend unemployment insurance but do we pay for it with cuts elsewhere? democrats had always said no. the deal that they appear to be nearing tonight and they're actually talking to members almost as we speak right now about a potential deal does pay for about a 63-week unemployment extension for

most states it goes up as high as 79 weeks. in other states with higher unemployment so both sides get a win here. the democrats get an extension in unemployment benefits that we say is necessary to keep the economic recovery going. republicans get to say, yes, but it's paid for. it's paid for with cuts elsewhere in the budget. >> woodruff: but on balance, is the deficit going up or staying the same? >> on balance the deficit is going up $100 billion because the republicans' give, yesterday the republicans' relent was unpaid for. the payroll tax cut extension to the end of the year unpaid for. that's on the deficit. >> woodruff: this was an agreement made by the republican leadership. what about the republican rank-and-file? >> this is always a potential difficulty for republican leaders in time after time in these big high profile deals especially when they have to do with spending and deficits there are always a large group of republican conservatives who revolt. they didn't want a payroll tax cut extension many of them at

all. i expect many of them will vote against this deal but democrats will vote for it according to leader pelosi this afternoon. it's likely to pass whether they have to do the payroll tax cut extension on its own and do the other things separately or as they would like to do wrap everything into one nice package of the doc fix as you mentioned, unemployment insurance, payroll tax extension, enough votes to pass it. the president is happy. he said pass this tax cut. everybody, if they don't lose, they at least get a win. >> woodruff: just quickly, todd zil i can, is this a sign that there will be more cooperation on the hill this year or a sign that maybe this is the last gasp of an ability to work together? >> i think it's probably the latter. there aren't a lot of signs that there's going to be really any substantive legislation between now and the election. washington has already agreed that the big issues, deficits, debt, entitlements, have to be solved by the voters. politicians need to be told

what to do about these big issues. this showed cooperation because republicans in particular lost their appetite for confrontation as we get closer to the election. up wouldn't expect this to be a recipe for further cooperation because they would actually have to some have something substantive to vote on. that is looking increasingly unlikely. >> woodruff: thank you very much. >> my pleasure. > >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, two stories about china: the man who is likely to become the nation's next leader, and apple's business practices there; plus, adult children coming back home; the hot- shooting guard for the new york knicks; and a "romantic moment" for valentine's day. but first, with the other news of the day, here's kwame holman. >> holman: euro zone finance ministers today canceled a meeting set for tomorrow on approving a $170 billion bailout for greece. the ministers' group said more time was needed to work out details of how greece will achieve promised savings. the greek parliament approved new austerity measures on sunday.

the ministers now plan to meet monday. on wall street, the news out of europe sent stocks sliding, but they staged a late recovery after word that greek leaders would provide written assurances to european officials. in the end, the dow jones industrial average gained four points to close at 12,878. the nasdaq rose a fraction of a point to close at 2931. the syrian military fought rebels in cities across the country today. the army of president bashar al- assad intensified its artillery barrage of the city of homs, an assault now in its 11th day. and armored forces surrounded the town of zabadani, near the border with lebanon, after a heavy bombardment. correspondent john ray of independent television news managed to get just inside syria to file this report. (gunfire) >> reporter: the syrian army is pummeling the city, punishing a town just 30 miles from damascus that dared to revolt.

we are smuggled over the border. on our way to meet fighters risking their lives against overwhelming odds. the battle here is intense. the town besieged. assad's forces sweep the streets. huting down the rebels but the killing is incrim national. ... indiscriminate. amid the sound of shell fire, we see tanks and troops moving towards us. >> the troops are going house to house looking for rebel fighters. there is really no safe place in the front of that advance other than perhaps, we hope, up in these mountains amid the trees here. from a military point of view, the rebels' position seems pretty hopeless. this is a senior rebel commander, but his men are few in number. your lives are now at risk. >> so much.

we must go on to have freedom. we must stay in the risk. >> reporter: the currency of freedom here is blood. we witnessed the funerals of two men we're told were shot by snipers. they've been trying to take bread into the town. between them they leave 12 orphaned children. >> half the city is destroyed from the shells. >> reporter: a despairing doctor tells us supplies of medicine, food and hope are dwindling. >> people will die. >> reporter: as recently as last month they were the free syrian army that watched over the town. and their bombs that destroyed assad's tanks. but now those tanks are back and in close pursuit. >> holman: in bahrain, security

troops were out in force in the persian gulf island kingdom after a mass march last night turned violent in manama, the capital. police used tear gas both yesterday and today to disperse crowds. they were there to mark the first anniversary of shiite protests against bahrain's sunni rulers. at least 40 people have been killed in the last year of political unrest. police in thailand arrested an iranian man today after a series of explosions, and israel said the thais had stopped a terror plot. it started with a blast at this rental house in bangkok. police said the man was running away and being chased when he threw a grenade that bounced back and blew off one of his legs. security forces found magnetic bombs in the house. similar devices were used yesterday in attempted attacks on israeli diplomats in india and georgia. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: next tonight, china's likely next leader meets the american president in washington. >> i want to welcome vice president she. >> ifill: president obama shuck struck a hopeful note by

welcoming she gin-ping at the white house today. >> we welcome china's peaceful rise. we believe that a strong and prosperous china is one that can help to bring stability and prosperity to the region and to the world. >> ifill: she arrived in washington as the likely next president of the world's most populous nation and its second largest economy. mr. obama said such power needs to be used wisely. >> we have tried to emphasize that because of china's extraordinarily... extraordinary development over the last two decades that with expanding power and prosperity also comes increased responsibility. >> ifill: she, speaking through a translator, also accentuated the positive in talking about the relations between the two countries. >> and i hope to engage with a

broad cross-section of american society during my current visit so as to deepen mutual understanding, expand consensus, strengthen cooperation, and deepen the friendship between the chinese and american people. >> ifill: but she's visit comes at a time of new tensions in the u.s.-china relationship. the latest conflict: china's veto ten days ago of a u.n. security resolution condemning the violence in syria. the chinese have also objected to president obama's pledge to shift america's military focus to the pacific. she addressed that point in a carefully worded statement in sunday's "washington post." we welcome a constructive role by the united states in promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the region, he wrote. we also hope that the united states will fully respect and accommodate the major interests and legitimate concerns of asia pacific countries. china's rising economic power has become part of the u.s.

presidential campaign as well. as republicans have criticized the u.s. debt imbalance and debated building projects like the keystone oil pipeline to support allies like canada. >> i'll approach every spending decision with these questions: can we afford it? if not, is it really worth borrowing money from china to pay for it? >> the idea of an american president making it easier for canada to partner with china than with the united states is amazingly destructive. >> ifill: u.s. administrations have long complained of china's undervaluing its currency and of the u.s. trade imbalance with beijing which in 2011 widened to nearly $300 billion. other areas of disagreement range from chinese theft of american intellectual property to the continued loss of american manufacturing jobs to chinese workers.

and protestors outside the white house today complained of china's human rights record, demanding china give tibet its freedom. vice president she responded to u.s. human rights' concerns at a state department luncheon. >> we are ready to conduct candid and constructive dialogue and exchanges on human rights with the united states and other countries on the basis of equality and mutual respect. with a view to reaching understanding, narrowing differences, learning from each other, and achieving common progress. >> ifill: she was also meeting today with business leaders and tomorrow returns to iowa where he visited on a 1985 agricultural tour. for more on the significance of the visit, we get two views.

cheng li is director of research at the china center at the brookings institution. he's written extensively about china's leaders. born and raised in shanghai, he's now a u.s. citizen. and michael pillsbury is a longtime consultant to the defense department focusing on china. he also served in the reagan administration. chink li, tell us what do we need to know about this man who is likely to be china's next leader. >> he is a man of contradictions. this can be found in his policy and in attitudes towards united states. he comes from a very prominent leadership family. very privileged in life. but also at the same time he was... his father was purged. at the age of 15 he was sent to a remote area, very poor primitive area to work the farm for six years. that experience taught him a lot of things: humility, adaptability, et cetera. he thought this was his defining formative experience. now in terms of policy, he is

very market friendly. some areas are very famous for private sector where he was leader. he really promote private sector but at the same time that he never said anything about the political rereform. so politically he is a conservative. finally his attitude towards the united states. he criticized the united states by harsh words. but at the same time he said he love american movies, world twar 2 movies. he will send his daughter to the united states but most importantly that he made personal positions to bury the ashes of the u.s. ambassador who was a missionary-educator who served as the president of a university and also the u.s. ambassador for china in 1949 because he wanted... in his wishes he wanted to. this is very dif... difficult.

it sounds like he's a symbolic figure. >> ifill: here we have a mixed bag, michael pillsbury. we're hearing in some ways he was born to it. on the other hand he seems to have this affection for private enter prize. is he... would he be a reformer in the western sense or in any sense of the word? >> probably not. they have sort of a committee system that runs china. so any united states can't really rise above or ignore his colleagues. i agree with you, there's contradictory evidence about vice president she. in their system it's quite the opposite of our republican primary where each person can attack the other's views and go over their record. he can't do that in china. he has to lie low for one year now and make sure that his transition is successful. in the past three times the person in his position, as the chosen successor, has been killed or purged.

because of things that happened in the run-up to the succession. so this is not the time that we can get a good feel for what she's exact views are. he looks almost too good to be true. >> ifill: he's coming here to the united states following in the food steps of his predecessor who did the same thing and met with the united states president before he became president. today in his meetings with joe biden and with barack obama he used words like consensus and candid and constructive dialogue. we've heard that before. what does that tell us about what he came here to accomplish? >> these kinds of plight comments in public are not any indication of what's actually going on or what his true views are. behind the scenes there's quite a bit of trouble in u.s.-china relations. things are better than ten years ago. i remember very well when his predecessor came to the pentagon, only the year before that they had held our p-3 air crew basically hostage. and gave us a bill for a million dollars for the food

and hotel room of the crew. quite outrageous. >> ifill: my. >> now that hasn't happened. now the problems involve tibet, human rights, the nobel peace prize winner like president obama got the same peace prize being in jail as we sit here. there's a long list of 10 or 12 items. >> ifill: currency manipulation. the detail against the syria resolution. >> all these problems are real but i would not get any conclusion about him and his political views because it's too early. because he will be forced to do things because the environment both domestic and internationally change. if he's a smart leader he will seize the moment, seize the opportunityed to the right things on the right side of history. now he said all the right terms during his meeting. mutual benefit. mutual respect. maybe even mutual trust. these are precisely needed if these two countries move to the next level of development. it's much better to say these

things rather than to just point the fingers at each other. >> ifill: trust seems like a step too far. i don't hear a lot of trust coming from chinese or u.s. leaders right now especially in this kind of political environment. is that a bar that has to be met? >> it's probably impossible to reduce the misunderstandings and the distrust. they have a number of military programs that are just facts on the ground. testing missiles that can sink american aircraft carriers. that's the only purpose of those missiles. testing missiles that can shoot down satellites and possibly developing so many of these anti-satellite missiles that they could overwhelm all the reconnaisance satellites we have. we don't have that many satellites in space. the cyber attacks. the false defense budget, claiming they only have a defense budget of this month when they think they have more than twice as much. these are not matters that plight... polite conversation or saying, gee, i agree with you, help to resolve.

they're facts on the ground. dalai lama being excluded from dialogue. >> ifill: there's no mided ground on that one. >> ultimately if you really want to build trust china needs to change. china needs to conform to a more democratic truly market- driven economy. of course it's still too early to say whether they can really move in that direction. but on the other hand if it were based on strategies changing there's almost no hope. if you look at individual levels you do see some friendship that exists everywhere between the chinese and the americans. there's a lot of corporations, a lot of changes: education, culture, economics. so these can be foundation of eventually leading to something very, very important. >> ifill: so a visit like today, for she in particular, or for the president of the united states, obama, is it for a domestic audience at home or is it for an international audience to raise his stature abroad? >> this is something we really have to do. here's the man who may well be

running china. for the next ten years. and for him to have some face-to -face impressions-- what are america's policy priorities? how do the american leaders speak to me alone in the oval office or in the point gone? these are very important messages for us to get across. this trip is very much in our interest. i was quite thrilled today unlike ten years ago. this time the pentagon gave a full military honors ceremony, firing off 19 gun salute, having the fife and drum corps come out and secretary panetta was chatting in a friendly manner in english with vice president she. so this is all the beginning of trying to influence china to go in another direction. >> not only respect for mr. she but also respect for a rapidly changing china and also the people in china. i think that's appropriate. but the talk about she, i think that he has a more important audience at home because he has a dilemma.

if he perceived as like the unnecessary confrontation or not like a statesman or global leader, that will hurt him. but if he is perceived as a person very soft toward the united states or too accommodating to the united states or even sacrifice sacrifice interest, that will be a disaster. he needs to have a balance. >> ifill: walk that line. we're going to have to leave it there. >> there was no bows today. neither one bowed to the other. that's probably a good thing. >> ifill: thank you both very much. >> brown: who makes our gadgets? and under what conditions? apple face some tough questions. they're some of the best-selling even best-loved products of modern times. apple's ipad, i-pods and i- phones but as their popularity has grown, so has criticism of labor practices at chinese

factories where the products are made. in response, apple announced on monday that the fair labor association, an independent watchdog group, has begun on-site audits and inspections of plants owned by manufacturing giant foxconn. various reports including in recent weeks a series in the "new york times" have told of serious and deadly safety violations, excessive overtime hours, and underage employees at foxconn facilities. the new audit started at a plant in schenn general where a rash of suicides in 2010 prompted managers to install nets to stop distraught workers from jumping off the roof. writer and performer mike daisy highlighted the issue almost a year ago in his theater piece, "the agony and ecstasy of steve jobs." >> every year they say we're going to try harder. there's no serious effort. that's because we don't see those workers as human beings. we don't really understand what's going on because we

refuse to put our hands in it and actually get involved. >> brown: that may be changing. last week protestors gathered at apple stores in several u.s. cities demanding that the next i-phone model be made, -- quote -- ethically. one protestors, mark shields, started a petition on change dot-org urging apple to respond to the allegations of abuse. >> what gave me a knot in my stomach was hearing about how people in these factories are treated. apple has changed how we see movies, how we use our i-phones and use computers. they have the creativity and the capital to make this better. they can make their products without horrible human sufferings. >> brown: apple says the findings and recommendations from the investigation will be posted for the public to see in early march. peter, first tell us a bit more about these factories. these are huge places, right? what's their exact relationship to apple?

>> these are some of the largest industrial complexes in the world. there's one plant with with over 200,000 people. it's really a small city. has its own soccer stadium, police force, chicken farms. it's goes on and on. it also has dorms where, you know, a dozen people or more, sometimes stay. it's a company that foxconn employs 1.2 million people. it's very interesting. i mean there is a very differentet of things going on in china. there's hundreds of thousands of people, young people, beginning of their lives maybe before they get married tend to come into the cities and get work at plants like these. they work for a couple of years in many cases and go home. now they're looking for overtime. they're not looking for some of the kinds of abuse or unsafe conditions that we've been hearing about last couple

of years. >> brown: as we talk about some of these kinds of abuses or alleged abuses, as the criticism has grown over the last few years, what's happenal's response been? up to now? before this? >> not that much. there have been in internal sort of tech industry efforts to get a handle on this. apple was sort of late to join those groups which it considered to be ineffectual. and apple, you know, on a lot of issues, you know, they obviously talk very well about their products and very effectively. on issues like this they tend to not say very much until they feel like they have results. you know, i think they've been... it seems like they began working on this in a bigger way last year. they did 200 audits of some of these supplier factories last year. it made some progress. it was a bit more transparent in some ways than other

companies. you know, it certainly hasn't been the kind of cause celeb it is now. >> brown: how well documented would you say these kinds of practices are, whether it's the safety violations, underaged workers, the very long hours that people put in? how much do we really know about all this? >> well, you know, the times and others have done great journalist journalistic work. other than that, it is difficult to rely on the companies. the rules don't require in china, as far as i know. but apple itself has admitted of these 200 audits last year they said they found i think it was over like 108 instances where companies were not paying the proper overtime. they found instances where people, some of these workers were being asked to pay sort of exorbitant recruiting fees to the people who found them the jobs. we've had these rashes of suicides at least on the one

occasion back in 2010. >> brown: this audit group going in, the fair labor association, it's said to be independent. but i gather there's already critics, people who have called into question these practices and called apple to task, taken them to task. they're already questioning whether this association is as independent, whether something strong will come out of this. >> i think the f.l.a. is probably known to be as independent as and as well known and as influential as any of the groups i've come across. before this basically the tech industry really was policing itself. it created a code of conduct back in 2004, i believe, where they said these are the kinds of things we don't want to happen in the plants of our suppliers. but there wasn't very much teeth in it. you know, they couldn't... companies were on their own to decide what to do about it.

and the fact of the matter is very few of these big contracting firms lost any business. because of any violations. so i think, you know, there's a couple of things here. as i say, the f.l.a. is is probably a big step up in terms of having a watchdog. also, apple has clout that no other company does. it gets 21% of its $60 billion in annual revenue from apple. so if apple indeed intends to take this seriously, i think foxconn is going to have to as well. >> brown: i was wondering about that. it's apple's one company but it clearly has huge influence. if it does take steps, would you expect such steps to impact the wider industry? >> there is certainly that chance. i mean this is... american companies go to these average chinese outsourcing companies because they're cheap. they're very good but they're also cheap.

if apple were to insist on reforms that, in fact, raise its cost, then some of these other companies might possibly follow suit rather than risk the kind of p.r.problems apple is facing. you know, raise prices themselves to, you know, to pay the overtime. to make, you know, provide the better work conditions, et cetera. >> brown: all right. first results seen in march, according to apple. peter burrows of bloomberg business week, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> ifill: now young adults who leave the nest only to come right back home again. newshour economics correspondent paul solmon looks at what is behind that growing trend, as part of his regular reporting, making sense of financial news. >> hi, i'm catherine. >> reporter: the schaeffer residence in newton

massachusetts outside boston. fraternal twins becky and naomi both went away to college in canada, graduated last year, both worked part time. both are so-called boomerang kids, back home with their parents. >> can you tell us a little bit about what your high school friends are doing now? are many of them back in newton as well? >> most of them are. i would say that only one of our high school friends, one or two of them have really gotten good full-time jobs. >> reporter: the fifth person in the schaeffers' kitchen? sociologist and johns hopkins dean catherine newman demonstrating her field work skill. >> i didn't want to move somewhere random. >> i kind of wish i did it. not that i don't have living at home. >> why do you say that? >> i just feel like when i first moved home, i was like okay, becky, six months and you won't be here anymore. i feel like i'm getting a little bit complacent. >> reporter: the schaeffers could have sprung sfrat from newman's new book the

accordian family which chronicles a worldwide trend that is reversing what we used to think normal. >> in my generation if you didn't leave home at 18 there was something really wrong with you. this phenomenon of young people either boomeranging back or never leaving has grown. >> what is an accordian family. >> an accordian family, the reason i use the accordian term is to capture this sense of expansion and contraction that the family is not a stable group. it's sort of moving in and out but primarily i mean multi-generational households with working or non-working young adults and their parents. >> reporter: so the accordian is being pulled out. >> it's being pulled out and especially it's being pulled in the younger direction. we've had accordian families of a different kind in the past that stretch to incorporate the older generation. >> reporter: my grandfather lived with our family when i was a kid. >> that is less the case now. so the accordian is stretching in the other direction. when you tie that together with the recession which is

making everyone so anxious about the economic future of rising generations, it's a recipe for panic in many cultures. >> reporter: the culture most alarmed: japan's. which calls its boomerang kids parasite singles. the one featured in this tv show looks like he's pushing middle age. >> in japan, it is provoking really almost hysterical reaction. >> reporter: why? >> well, because the japanese view is that this is indicative of a damaged generation that's not taking its place, its orderly correct place in the trajectory of life in japan. when you ask why are your children at home? what you get is a highly moralistic explanation. it's all about how the kids these days, they're not behaving properly. they have rejected our way of life. they don't seem to know how to grow up. >> reporter: no wonder there

is is such falling birth rates. >> below replacement fertility. the same is true in spain and italy. so all the countries where you have accordian families are countries where the birth rates have fallen through the floor boards. >> reporter: i actually stayed with a accordian family on a reporting trip to spain in 2010. high youth unemployment meant that more than half of all 20- and 30-somethings we're back home, including the son of my friend journalist hoe hey martinez solare. daughter andrea visiting her folks with some friends explained. >> most of our friends live in their parents' houses because they can't pay rent. >> reporter: like your brother, living here. >> like my brother. >> like his brothers he has four brothers. three of them are still living with his parents which his oldest brother is 32. he's still living with his parents. >> reporter: unlike the japanese though, spaniards have an economic explanation for their generation (speaking

spanish) neither studying nor working. >> they will say my child is still at home because the government liberalized contracts, rubbish contracts. that's the phrase they would use, rubbish contracts, that permitted short-term employment part-time wages and within less than a decade a huge chunk of spanish youth were found in those kinds of jobs. short-term, part-time. they couldn't earn enough money to own a home. there's very little rental housing in countries like spain and italy. >> reporter: newman's family project was launched in italy when in a conversation with a researcher there newman first learned that attitudes toward boomerang boys are culture specific. >> we're just talking about our families. what do your kids do and what do my kids do? he said, well, my son is 35. i clean his room every day. i take care of his laundry. i was trying to control my reaction and say, gee, that's

really interesting rather than what i was thinking which was are you crazy. >> reporter: she's a professional i take it. >> just like me, exactly. i said what's it like having your son at home at 35? she said, well, why would he ever leave me. >> reporter: in italy they're happy with accordian families? in spain they're not so happy. japan, they're real he'll unhappy? what's the american attitude towards accordian families, boomerang kids? >> complicated. ambivalent. our view of whether this is a problem depends a lot on where we think these kids are headed. >> reporter: where they're headed these days is impossible to pre-jikt... predict. evan had a b.a.in history as of june of 2009, a job in town government, a town just north of cape cod didn't pan out. so? >> i went on craigs list and looked up every tutoring assistant teacher, you know, anything with even remotely... i think i applied to a driving school.

so far i got two emails back. >> reporter: making just $72 a week, he moved back home where his older brother had lived for years. in december, 2010, he found steady work as a substitute teacher. he's now also pursuing a graduate degree. all the while, living at home. >> if your children come home and they're making tracks toward the future, then it seems like a very reasonable likelihood that they're going to be fine. then families feel quite comfortable about it. few it feels indefinite, if it's not clear it's going to work out, if their plans don't materialize, that sets off a wave of anxiety in american households. we tend to make that nervousness rain down on them in the form of persistent questions: did you apply for jobs today? did you look for that master's degree program? and try to negotiate very delicately some form of parental encouragement.

>> reporter: product, a parental product. >> there are some silver linings to this. if your child is not leaving home, then you're not becoming older. you might be biological older but sociologically you're not. when they're in your home, you don't treat them the same way. the surveillance, the anxiety, all that nasty stuff they had to do when they were teenagers. >> every night. >> reporter: at the schaeffers, parents kenny and lee ann were mostly positive about their no- longer empty nest. >> it's a pleasure really to have them around even though it's more work and more, you know, mess, and all that. >> reporter: the girls say? >> even though my parents are cool, it's nice to live by yourself in an apartment and not kind of have to answer to anyone. >> reporter: can't sleep until 2:00 in the afternoon. >> oh, i do that. but i can't like, you know, i can't sit in my living room and drink with my friends until late into the night like i did in college. that's okay.

but i mean this is like our family's home so i can't do whatever i want. >> i'm here indefinitely. >> reporter: there is this notion that you ought to be moving on in your life. >> yeah, however, seeing that the job market isn't ideal, i'm not in a rush to find something to do, to start my career. so until i figure that out, i'm not going to do anything drastic. >> you look across these countries and you see that everywhere, where there used to be long-term employment, this has shifted toward part- time contracts, easier to fire workers. the accordian family becomes the way in which we step up and try to cure all of the ills of the marketplace. and we make the best of it. i think we actually deserve some pat on the back for doing so. it's an indication of the resilience of american families that we do so. but it has its limits. >> reporter: both kids or two of you, three kids, back home? would you prefer them to be living on their own? >> if you asked me the same

question in ten years, yes, i might have a different answer. right now i like having them home a lot. >> if this reaches 28, if this reaches 30 and they still can't see their way to an independent future, i think we will start to draw the line. and really worry in very profound ways about where the country is going and in very many ways i think that's exactly where we are right now. we're not sure where we're going economically and what the future will hold for the next generation. >> reporter: hey, who is sure about the future these days? >> brown: how an unknown basketball player >> brown: next, how an unknown basketball player suddenly captured the attention of the sports world and beyond. ray suarez looks at the jeremy lin phenomenon. few fans knew his name or his face but tonight when basketball point guard jeremy lin takes to the floor for the new york knicks all eyes will be on him.

a harvard graduate and the first chinese-american player in nba history. the 23-year-old was cut by two other nba teams before the knicks picked him up and sat him on the bench. after moving to the starting lineup earlier this month, he scored more than points in his first four starts, 109, than any other nba player since 1976. and fans around the world have been dazzled by plays like this one. >> outside to lin. >> suarez: for more about the lin phenomenon we turn to jeff yang of the wall street journal. jeff, the story was already implausible in 100 other ways it seems, a cut by his early teams, not scouted as a prospect in high school, but it's really the fact that he's taiwanese-american that has gained a lot of the attention. what is fascinating about his asian-american background? >> i think the thing that's fascinating obviously for asian-americans is that there really has never been anyone like him before not just in

basketball but arguably in sports. organized sports is such a big part of the fabric of our culture in america and yet we never had a player who wasn't just successful but dominating in one of these sports before. jeremy comes along. he's somebody completely unheralded. he's got a huge amount of talent but has been effectively ignored. overnight like a cinderella story he becomes the biggest news in all of new york and maybe all the world. >> suarez: you mentioned there's never been anyone like him before. what is yao ming? >> obviously there are two really big differences right off the bat. yao ming was exceptionally physically gifted but in a specific way. i mean he was 7'6" tall. you can't, as they say, teach size. he was somebody who came into the league already a super star. and with gifts that you honestly can't just create with hard work.

furthermore, he's chinese. he's somebody, a foreign player who has come to the united states, both with a certain reputation but also with certain limitations. glirk was not his first language. he was not culturally part of the fabric of the united states when he first came here. he was still hugely inspirational but when you look at jeremy you're looking at somebody totally different. he's an all american kid. he is redefining the notion of what an all american kid is. that is a big part, i think, of what why jeremy is such an exceptionally interesting story. >> suarez: i've just plowed through several dozen articles on his sudden rise. an interesting things pops up. he's constantly referred to as intelligent or his court smarts make up for a lack of being physically imposing. is that kind of the flip side of the stereotypes that many minority players bridal under that they are physically gifted? being smart is a good stereotype.

but is it a stereotype nonetheless? >> well, i mean, it doesn't hurt that the guy did go to a pretty good school. he went to harvard university. it's not as if it's not accurate on some level. i do think that when you look at the way that his career has played out, where team after team and individual after individual has sort of underestimated his physical abilities, there probably is a little bit of that, a sense in which he's looked at as many maybe a smart player but maybe not somebody who can run with the big boys. that is something that asian- american athletes in general have gotten tagged with, this idea that they have to bring brains to the table because they don't have the brawn or the raw talent. his brains in leader have played a big role. he's changed the nature of the team. he's gotten a lot of great shots for his teammates. they're playing better together than they ever have. they're hoping it will only get better when the big stars actually come back off the disabled list. >> suarez: he also seems to be

having fun with it, isn't he? whether it's bowing to carmellchl o anthony or doing a little court side ritual that involves opening books and pocketing glasses. >> there's something about him that's almost infectious. he's playful. he's funny. he can be very serious and very solemn in some ways. he's got a very strong christian faith. but at the same time when people see him play they see somebody who makes them remember the playground, makes them remember the pick-up games they've played themselves. that's amazing. >> suarez: one black threatt tweeted if a black player did what jeremy lin has done over the last week-and-a-half it wouldn't make much of a splash. but there was a blog on the atlantic that it's true that if he were black this would probably be a smaller story. but if he weren't talented it would not be a story at all. >> i absolutely agree with that. i think that in a way the statement you're talking about was by floyd mayweather who is

a boxer. the notion that somehow he doesn't deserve the attention he's getting is ludicrous. the guy has done some amazing stuff. he's turned the team around. he's turned the season around. he's maybe saves his coach's job. he's certainly proven that he deserves to play on that field with anybody. the fact that he's asian- american certainly makes him exceptional, unique, and inspiring in a lot of way certainly for people like me. but there's no question that his talent got him there and that his talent will keep him there. >> suarez: jeff yang from the wall street journal. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> ifill: finally tonight, looking for love, in unusual places. we get that take from poet tony hoagland. he teaches writing at the university of houston, and is the author of six books of poetry. juror followen tine's day i'm

going to read a poem called romantic moments which is about a man and a whom who have been to see a nature documentary on a first date. it's one of the documentaries in which many animal species are characterized in terms of their mating habits. romantic moments. after seeing the nature documentary, we walked down canyon road. on to the plaza of art gallerys and high-end clothing stores where the orange trees were fragrant in the summer night and the pink adobe walls glow flesh like in the dark. it is just our second date. we sit down on a bench, not looking at each other holding hands and if i were a bull penguin right now, i would lean over and vomit softly into the mouth of my beloved. if i were a peakoch i'd flex

my gluteial muscles to erect and spread the quills on my cinemax tail. if she were a female walking stick bug she might insert her proboskus delicately into my neck and inject me with a rich hormonal sedative before attaching her egg sac to my thoracic undercarriage and if i were a young chimp, i would break off a nearby tree limb and smash all the windows in the plaza jewelry stores. if they were a brazilian leopard frog, she would wrap her impressive tongue three times around my right thigh and pummel me lightly against the surface of our pond. and i would know her feelings were sincere. instead we sit a while in silence until she remarks that in the relative context of tore advertises and iguanas, human males seem to be

actually rather expressive. and i say the fee they'll crock gils really don't receive enough credit for their gentleness. she suggests that it is time for us to go to get some ice cream cones and eat them. >> ifill: >> ifill: and that was poet tony hoagland reading "romantic moment." >> brown: again, the major developments of the day. there were signs that congress may be near agreement on extending payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits for the rest of the year. and the chinese vice president-- on tap to become president next year-- began a u.s. visit. he had a white house meeting with president obama and defended china's record on human rights. online, we have some rather un- romantic news for those with broken hearts on this valentine's day. kwame holman explains. >> holman: a broken heart, it turns out, can be fatal. on our health page, find out about how severe emotional shock, such as losing a loved one, can impair the heart and cause death.

on art beat, jeff talks to pianist jonathan biss about his ongoing nine-year project to master and record beethoven's piano sonatas. and tonight's edition of "frontline" follows former chicago street gang members who worked to stop the violence there. here's an excerpt from "the interrupters." the voice belongs to former gang enforcer, ameena matthews. . >> holding a prayer vigil for a kid shot in front of his home is listening to the radio. he definitely wasn't in a game. he was loved by his block. when ego sets in, these young guys say let's go get who we think did it. >> i'm hearing 20 different things. all of it is is stupid. all of it is stupid. 2:00 in the afternoon coming

home from school. for real? this is unacceptable for me to be holding this boy, this young man obituary. schools, churches your mama's house, your cars. those are safe zones. i was making a real stupid decision and some stupid calls. there were calls in my life, blood on my hands in my head. who does this baby belong to? who does this little shorty belong to? he's just hanging around? he's just hanging? this little... he's just hanging around y'all, right? he see everything that y'all do, right? so if this brother right here do 100 years, whose fault is it? it's his fault?

>> it's our fault. >> teach him. y'all got it? >> yeah. >> y'all got it? >> yeah. >> you got it? >> yeah. >> all right. i'm looking to you. >> holman: we have conversations with steve james, director of "the interrupter," and with one of the former gang members on our web site. all that and more is at newshour.pbs.org. jeff? >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at tunisia, struggling to build a democracy, one year after sparking the revolutions that led to the arab spring. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. 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: >> bnsf railway.

>> 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. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org