geoffrey brown has our report. >> good evening. i'm david walker. >> i'm lois hart. now here's the news. >> brown: ted turner was characteristically bold and brash when he launched the cable news network 30 years ago and predicted it would become, quote, the greatest achievement in the history of journalism. >> to provide information to people when it wasn't available before . to offer those who want it a choice. i dedicate the news channel for america. the cable news network. >> brown: the idea was simple but revolutionary. 24-hour news channel, a mix of live coverage of breaking stories and analysis and debate programs that would reach around the globe and compete for the three main networks. >> evening news with walter cronkite. >> good evening. president carter says.... >> brown: cnn struggled to gain credibility as a serious news source at first but its ability to jump on and stick with big stories helped make its mark. one was the 1986 challenger disaster. >> this morning it looked as though they wouldn't be able to get off. >> brown: a year later round-the -clo

geoffrey brown spoke with him earlier today at the studios of sirius-xm radio in washington. >> brownhel cousteau, welcome. >> thank you. >> brown: today government officials confirmed what everyone filled, these large plumes of oil lurking below the sea. what does that mean? what is going on beneath the ocean? >> first of all, what it means is instead of letting the oil go to the surface to recover it , dispersants have been put, chemicals have been put into that oil to keep it below the surface. so now you find that oil pretty much all along the water column or the 5,000 feet of depth. some of it stays on the bottom because of dees dispersants. but a lot of it is kind of in mid water which means it will be affecting the entire water column. >> brown: we all talk now a lot about the world underneath the surface. that's your world. i mean under the sea. what should we know about life, the eco-system? >> well, we need to learn. we need to learn more because we know very little . i know it's a cliche. we know more about the other side of the moon than we know about our own ocean. there'

i'm geoffrey brown. supreme court nominee elena kagan was pressed today by her decision to bar military recruiters at harvard. >> ifill: i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, day two of the supreme court nominee's confirmation hearings. we have full coverage of the proceedings plus analysis from marcia coyle of the national law journal. >> brown: then interrupts from another confirmation hearing, this one for general david petraeus, the newly named u.s. commander in afghanistan said the u.s. has a long-term commitment to the war. >> it is going to be a number of years before afghan forces can truly handle the security tasks in afghanistan on their own. >> ifill: we examine the fallout from yesterday's arrests of 11 alleged russian spies living undercover in the united states. >> brown: ray suarez talks to film maker carol dysicker. her documentary explains whether afghan army troops are trained and ready. >> a lot of what i saw and came away feeling was not that there was so much something wrong, you

. >> brown: i'm geoffrey brown. on the newshour tonight, judy woodruff gets the latest on today's court appearance and looks at efforts by the u.s., afghanistan and pakistan to fight terrorism and step up negotiations with the taliban. >> ifill: >> ifill: then, we examine today's supreme court ruling upholding a law banning aid to terror groups, with marcia coyle of the "national law journal." >> brown:@- e talk to two reporters about the investigation about what went wrong before the well exploded. >> ifill: paul solmon reports on small businesses still caught in a credit crunch. >> i don't think you can walk into a bank and get any type of money for an i.d. anymore. you have to be able to cash flow it within a short amount of time and show a return on it otherwise it will be tough. >> brown: we update the world cup on and off the field as a scandal grips the french team. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> chevron. this is the power of human

spoken bluntly about the war effort in the past including just last month with the newshour's geoffrey brown. >> brown: as we sit here now, is the u.s., along with its allies winning the war in afghanistan? >> i think in the last year we've made a lot of progress. i think i'd be prepared to say nobody is winning at this point. >> lehrer: today the general's top civilian media aide submitted his resignation and mcchrystal issued a written apology. he wrote, the profile piece was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened. secretary of defense robert gates said in a statement that he recalled mcchrystal to tomorrow's white house meeting. he said general mcchrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment. at a senate foreign relations hearing chairman john kerry said the general's fate is in mr. obama's hands. >> my impression is that all of us would be best served by just backing off and staying cool and calm and , you know, not sort of succumbing to the normal washington twitter about this for the next 24 hours. we have troops on the front lines. we have