and in our signature segment, jeffrey brown sits down with garrison keillor on the 40th anniversary of "a prairie home companion." >> you just pause, and you say, "and that's the news from lake wobegon. where all the women are strong and all the men are good looking and all the children are above average." next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york, this is pbs newshour weekend. who who thanks for joining us this afternoon, three weeks of war now reportedly claimed the lives of more than 1,000 palestinians and at least 42 israelis, israels and mamas today observed a 12-hour cease-fire but shortly after the cease-fire end adha mass spokesman said they rejected israel's offer to extend it

jeffrey brown talks with comedian john oliver. >> if we let cable companies offer two speeds of serviceere won't be usain bolt and usain bolt on a motorbike, there will be usain bolt-ed to an anchor! >> brown: the highly divisive debate over who controls internet speed and access, so- called "net neutrality," is hardly standard comic fare. >> the point is that the internet in its current state is not broken and the fcc is currently taking steps to "fix that." >> brown: but it's just the kind of policy and political subject that john oliver tackles, often in surprising depth, on his new hbo comedy program, "last week tonight." >> we need you to channel that anger. >> brown: his admonition to viewers to write to the f.c.c. even briefly shut down the agency's comments section of the website. born in a suburb of birmingham, england, oliver studied english and joined a comedy troupe at cambridge university. he performed stand-up in festivals, pubs and clubs around england, before coming to this country and joining "the daily show with jon stewart" in 2006. eventually sitting in as host while

jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: the preliminary results came nearly a month after afghan voterst to the polls in the presidential run- off. the national election commission announced former finance minister ashraf ghani won 56% of the vote. former foreign minister abdullah abdullah trailed with 43%, a reversal of the double-digit lead he'd held after the first round. >> ( translated ): i want to emphasize that the preliminary result announcement is not the announcement of the winner of the election. there is the possibility of changing the results after auditing the votes and reviewing the complaints and objections. >> brown: indeed, the commission acknowledged there had been fraud, and announced it will audit ballots from nearly 7,000 of 23,000 polling stations. ghani's followers celebrated, but abdullah has refused to accept any results until a full investigation is completed. he spoke yesterday in kabul. >> ( translated ): we will not accept those results until clean votes are separated from unclean votes. nobody doubts that there was fraud in afghanistan's elections. there w

jeffrey brown has more on this story. >> brown: in addition to the clashes in east jerusalem... israeli air force struck targets inside of gaza tonight after hamas fired rockets again today into southern israel. the exchange happened despite word of a possible ceasefire between israel and hamas being mediated by egypt. journalist josh mitnick has been reporting the story on all fronts for the wall street journal. i spoke to him a short time ago. >> so, josh mitnick, you were at the funeral today. what would you add to what we heard from lindsey hilsum. >> well there was a real air of anger and militancy in the air. the debris from several days of riots in jerusalem had not been cleaned up. i saw mourners praying amid shattered glass of a light rail station, and people were, religious chance, anti-israel chance, chance for revenge, chance for blood and people were saying that they thought the israeli police were treating this with kid gloves, they were angry that the israeli police a had not come to the conclusion that they confidently believe this was a lynching and they were fr

jeffrey brown has our report. >> what he appears to be asking for is a blank check one that would allow him to sustain his current failed policy. >> we're not giving the president a blank check. >> reporter: as the day began, republican leaders were in lockstep against president obama's emergency request for $3.7 billion dollars. it's aimed at stemming the flow of unaccompanied migrant children across the mexican border, some 57,000 since october, mostly from central america. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell and other republicans insisted the president's underlying immigration policy is the real problem and his budget request, by itself, is not the answer. >> we want to make sure we actually get the right tools to help fix the problem. and that's not what we've seen so far from the president. >> reporter: the white house shot back that there's a clear and urgent need for funding to add more immigration judges, detention facilities and other programs. homeland security secretary jeh johnson made the case at a senate hearing this afternoon. >> the request is indeed a lot of money fo

jeffrey brown has our book conversation. brown: on march 8, 1971 a group of burglars entered a small office in media, pennsylvania. they found evidence of wide scale surveillance of u.s. citizens. it opened a window on the fbi that eventually led to the down fall of its leader j. edgar hoover. the perpetrators were never caught but their identities and story are now told by the book, the burglary. thoor betty medsger joins us. >> academics, tell us a little bit how did this happen? >> there was a sense in the antiwar movement that it was being infiltrated by spice, by informers. there was no evidence. william davidan the leader of the burglars, concluded that it probably was true and that it was so important if the scent was being officially suppressed that something needed to be done about it. >> davidan was a temple university religion professor. tell me a little bit more these people. >> a religion professional, john raines and his wife bonny raines. keith for sythe and became a lock picker for the occasion. took a corres

jeffrey brown explores, in the latest report in his series, "culture at risk.sits abandoned on a thin stretch of land called virginia key overlooking a manmade basin between miami channel and biscayne bay, a magnificent setting, downtown miami in the near distance. today the 6500 seat stadium is littered with garbage, every inch covered in graffiti forgotten by many, but not those who leb it as a cultural centerpiece for a rising city. one is miami's own music star gloria estefan. >> this is one of those things in the city that has history. it's almost 50 years old. >> brown: that's not long in. miami, it is. >> brown: the stadium turned 50 years old last tees and estefan is joining a grassroots efforts to give it new life. in the '50s and '60s, miami was still finding its identity as something more than a seasonal tourist destination. when castro took power in cuba in 1959, waves of cubans began leverage for south florida, seeking new lives and ready fining the city's culture. >> absolutely no work. >> brown: one of the exiles was an architect named candella.

jeffrey brown has a story about craftsmanship, and a great american poet. >> brown: i celebrate myselfd what i assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. the famous first lines of a landmark of american literature: walt whitman's "leaves of grass." whitman was thirty-six years old when he self-published the first edition in 1855. a trained printer, he personally hand-set some of the lines of type in the book. now whitman's work is being printed again, just as he did it in the 1800's, on moveable type printing presses. the setting this time: in an old industrial building in san francisco's presidio national park. where the arion press is one of the country's last fine book printers, and limited edition, handmade works are crafted from start to finish under one roof. >> the making of a book is a very, very complicated process. >> brown: the man who's kept it founder, publisher, and a poet all going for four decades is founder, publisher, and a poet himself, andrew hoyem. >> we do what we do not to be quaint, but to use these techniques of letterpress

jeffrey brown has another in our occasional series conversation with people on the front lines of therisis. >> reporter: earlier this month, we talked with an immigration judge about the overwhelming volume of immigrants who've entered the country illegally and are ending up in the court system. tonight, we're joined by shawn moran, vice president of the national border patrol council, the union that represents border patrol agents. moran himself has been a border patrol agent for seventeen years. welcome to you. i want to ask first about those recent reports that as news of more deportations has spread, the numbers of people trying to enter the country is dropping. at least apprehensions are down. does that jibe with what you're seeing? >> well, we are seeing a dip, and we're not sure exactly what the cause of it is. historically, we have seen drops in the summertime due to the heat and humidity in south texas and along the southwest border. also the beast, the so-called freight train that has been bringing people through mexico from central america has been derailed for the past two

jeffrey brown has the story >> brown: on july 6th of last year, at 1:15 in the morning, the small canadiann of lac megantic was rocked by a powerful explosion. a runaway train carrying 72 cars of crude oil had careened into the community and derailed. the blast and ensuing fire destroyed dozens of buildings and killed 47 people. the train carried bakken oil, a highly flammable crude from western north dakota, where production has surged, along with rail shipments. overall, the number of tanker cars carrying oil in the u.s. soared from 10,000 in 2008 to more than 400,00 last year. >> they didn't look down the road to figure out how are we going to get this to market in a safe way. >> brown: don morrison of the dakota resource council, in a may interview with the newshour. >> going through people, right next to people's houses and businesses. it's dangerous. and they've got to be careful. >> ifill: now, the department of transportation is proposing new regulations for oil trains. they would include: the phase out or retrofit of thousands of older tank cars within two years; improved braking

jeffrey brown has our update. >> reporter: one major battleground: a growing list of states that arepping the common core standards. indiana, oklahoma and south carolina have done so. louisiana governor bobby jindal has issued an order for his state to join them. but now, even places committed to keeping the guidelines are deciding to slow things down. at least seven states and washington d.c., have postponed tying teacher and school evaluations to student scores on common core-based tests. for a breakdown of what's going on, we check in with carmel martin, executive vice president of the "center for american progress" and former assistant secretary of education. and rick hess, director of education policy studies for the american enterprise institute. welcome to both of you. >> thanks. >> brown: carmel martin, you backed the common core idea. remind us of the essence and why it would be useful. >> the essence is a group of state actors got together, a bunch of governors and chief state school officers on a bipartisan basis got together and said our current system of patchwork of sta

jeffrey brown has our report. >> it's an increasingly rare sight in uganda these days, an openly gayting in a waiting room. nervous because he may have contracted a sexually transmitted infection, even more so because he is gay and seeking help in public. the clinic short for the most-- initiative is one of the few public places in the country where gay ugandas can still come for routine checkups and treatment. most clinics discontinued these services after the government passed a law in february targeting gays and lesbians with some of the harshest penalties in the world, including up to life in prison. stoked by religious leaders and passed by parliament, the law tightens existing restrictions against same sex activities and banned anything viewed as the promotion of homosexuality. the president signed after a team of uganda scientists told him that there is no gene for homosexuality. >> these people are not born like that. they just learn and -- >> the move instantly isn't some of the nation's most vocal gay activists deep underground. two of them who asked that their faces be obs

jeffrey brown has our look. >> brown: the report comes from the advocacy groups, "human rights watch"nd the "a.c.l.u" and is titled: "with liberty to monitor all: how large-scale u.s. surveillance is harming journalism, law, and american democracy." it was produced after talking with dozens of public officials, lawyers, and, most of all, journalists. one of the latter is with us now: dana priest, an investigative reporter for the "washington post" and a professor at the university of maryland. with another view of the situation, we're joined by stewart baker, former assistant secretary at the department of homeland security in the bush administration. he's also a former general counsel at the n.s.a in the 1990s. welcome to both of you. dana priest first, in general terms, state the problem so people understand that, for someone like yourself in doing this kind of reporting. >> well, the report focuses on a trend that you can't escape. one is all the information that's come out on surveillance and what is the impact that -- on a reporter's ability to do their job, in other words to cul

jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: it was in march of last year that doctors thought they might havee a breakthrough in the goal of finding a cure for aids, treating a baby girl in mississippi with early and unusually aggressive drug therapy. the mother had h.i.v and had not been treated during pregnancy. but the girl was treated within 30 hours of her birth and was free of the virus for two years. doctors allowed her to stay off therapy and still, there were no signs of h.i.v returning. but yesterday, officials announced that the girl, now almost four, had tested positive for h.i.v during a follow-up visit last week. doctor anthony fauci of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases joins me now. welcome back. well, this is something you and i talked about when the news came out last year. remind us first why this seemed so hopeful. how this early and aggressive treatment promised such a difference? >> well, it promised such a difference because what happened with this particular baby was an unusual situation that the baby had been on therapy, this aggressive form tha

. >> woodruff: jeffrey brown has more on this story. >> brown: and with me to look further at what's going on is evan osnos, a staff writer at the new yorker. he served as its china correspondent from 2008 to 2013 and is author of "age of ambition: chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new china" >> thanks. brown: first, i think it would be useful to remind people for context here. what is the legal status of hong kong vis-aaÀ-vis china now. >> hong kong is a very unusual place it. is part of china but also a place unto itself. it's called a special administrative region which means that it relies on the beijing government for national security, national defense, but it ultimately governs its own political affairs, and it has a political system that's very unlike the political system in china. >> brown: as we heard one of the triggers to the demonstration was this white paper by the chinese government. asserting more central government control from beijing. where's that coming from? i mean the sentiment and why now? >> you have to remember 17 years ago this summer, china regained

jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: factional fighting, regional rivalries, personnel at foreign embassieseing the chaos. and today a fire burning out of control near the airport in the capitol of tripoli. we begin our coverage with this report narrated by lindsey hilsum of independent television news. >> that's what happens when you fire rockets into a fuel depot. as rival militia did in the libyan capitol yesterday and again today. sirens sounded. this afternoon the national oil company said the blaze was out of control and firefighters had been forced to withdraw. tripoli has descend mood anarchy. revolutionary brigades from the part city of misrata have teamed it up with islamists to fight rivals from a town that controlled the air force since the revolution in 2011. no one is controlling the armed men. there are no police, no army, and a government that exists in name only. burned out buildings near the airport, emblems of the failure of the libyan revolution which has brought not freedom but more conflict. the u.s. embassy is shuttered. american diplomats were pulled out on saturday.

jeffrey brown has that. >> brown: when he finished his novel in 1956, authorities read the tale of anindividual struggle amid the russian revolution and refused to publish it. western intelligence agency, though, quickly realized its potential as a tool of propaganda. the story of how the novel became came to be published and smuggled back not soviet union with help from the cia is told in the new book the "the zhivago affair." it's coauthored by petra couveÉe and joining me now peter finn, national security editor and former moscow correspondent for "the washington post" and welcome to you. >> great to be here. brown: it's almost hard to remember now how a time when a book could have this kind of power, right? propaganda tool. >> yeah, poth the cia and the soviet authorities and -- were big believers in the power of literature to effect change, to -- the soviets believed in literature as a means to mold soviet man, to help create this new society, and they expected their writers to pick these muscular characters in the factories and the fields, celebrating the communist state. >> bro

jeffrey brown traveled to colorado for our story. ♪ >> brown: the song is called "little rain" but it'sbout a big rain and it's aftermath, the flooding of a town in colorado in the foothills of the rockies last september. >> we're trying to address what happens and also represent, you know, our strengths and even the strength of spirit and our joy that we still have in this town but still express the gravity of what happens. >> brown: what happened is something no one here had ever seen. the river jumping its banks. video shot by local residents captured the scene as the river divided lyons into a series of islands cutting off this small town of 2,000 from the world for three days, one person died, 200 houses damaged. musician david tiller talked to the "newshour" just after he was evacuated. >> seeing the faces of the houses blown on and realizing nothing of the house was salvageable. i don't even know how to describe it. >> brown: in all, 20% of lyon's housing stock was lost and the town suffered $50 million in damages. music has been a big part of the community. this was a flooded la

jeffrey brown gets some regional views. >> brown: in addition to today's numbers, the overall jobs picture improved of late, averaging a more than 200,000 increase for five straight months. but again, questions: what kinds of jobs? and how long-lasting is the upward swing? we get a snapshot of three parts of the country, from: mark vitner, managing director and senior economist at wells fargo in charlotte, north carolina, tom binnings, senior partner at "summit economics" in colorado springs, colorado and shirley leung, a business editor at "the boston globe." shirley, start us off here: do the numbers showing an upswing jibe with what you see in the northeast? what sectors are better, what are still lagging? >> yeah, in massachusetts the economy has been going very strongly, and today's numbers, you know, look like the same upward growth. one of the things we're seeing here and continue to see is the growth is very uneven, you know, greater boston folks who work at tech or hospitals do very well. if you're out beyond the greater boston into the western part of massachusetts or southern pa