as a matter of fact, in my novel that margaret spoke about, about jazz, in it, billy farrell, who is one of a very large number of characters, is a jazz pianist and before he begins playing a black leprechaun appears to him, mr. mcginniss so you can assume it's the ghost of mr. mcginniss. as margaret said, in 1949 we came to the south bronx, which was an irish neighborhood, mostly. i was sort of a spaced-out kid,

. >> i want first to introduce margaret cooley who writes nonfiction and poetry. also with us from boston but having stepped off the plain from dublina daniel to be lynn a writer at emer son college. i want to start by reflecting back that those of you folks endeavored to reveal hidden histories of your family lives. we have spoken in advanced of today's conversation. it's clear to me you pursued the stories of your families histories for decades through genealogical work and writing and reflection. i'm wondering if can describe how you dot work you do and where the seeds of your curiousity, how they were planted and want compelled you to do this work. >> i would say that i was have much inspired since i lived in san francisco, california. we are a country of immigrants. in san francisco in particular, we have so many first generation americans. my husband is just became an american citizen a couple of months ago. i have friendlieds who are first generation from vietnam. palestine, israel. mexico, as i watch them struggling with their cultural identities and tryin

as margaret said, in 1949 we came to the south bronx, which was an irish neighborhood, mostly. i was sort of a spaced-out kid, destined obviously to be a poet. i was this big at 13 and i was a good rollerskater and the kids were amazed and they befriended me. after a while, they recognized that i had some sort of athletic ability and because i was so spaced out, they mistook it for great courage and if they pushed me, i pushed them back. it was just like a game. so they took to me and asked me to join the shamrocks. i even changed my name from ed vega to ed mcveigh. and this is how they passed me off because most of the teams they played were other irish kids. this was a regular football team so, consequently, they listed me as eddie mcveigh. it was great fun and my friends were jimmy flynn, paddy o'connor. my siblings married the shenny's and i almost married a catherine finerin but it didn't work out. i have a nephew, sean patrick mcflynn. i always question myself because my writing about the irish is really my writing about myself coming to the united states and coming into

margaret, it's good to seej- ou. we've just seen these pictures of american combat troops leaving iraq last night, but, in fact, margaret, that is process that's been under way for some time? >> yes, absolutely. as you recall, president obama when he took office are promised that he would get u.s. troops down to the 50,000 level by the end of this month, on their way to full exit from the country by the end of next year, as the bush administration had agreed. so they've been really doing this especially an accelerated way for the last several months. they had to get 95,000 troops out of the country from the high when the president took office. the pentagon decided not to let it end with a whimper but rather to actually stage a highly symbolic exit. so they invited journalists to ride along with this last convoy of what's called dedicated combat troops, or dedicated combat brigade as it made its way from camp victory near the baghdad airport near here all the way down to the kuwait border and into kuwait, really right

. >> from iraq margaret warner >> brown: from iraq, margaret warner updates a violent week as the u.s. combat mission winds down. >> woodruff: betty ann bowser returns to new orleans to find out how three families are coping five years after katrina. >> i think we've done a great job considering all the odds that were against us. >> brown: and mark shields and david brooks offer their weekly analysis. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: 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: there were new signs today of a continuing and prolonged economic slowdown, even as federal reserve chairman ben bernanke said the central bank was prepared to take further measures. under increasing pressure to respond to fears about the economy's fragile state, chairman bernanke delivered a much-anticipated speech today at the fed's annual confere

what the parents have decided is they've decided they want to start looking at reform and what margaret said about this being the beginning and what the parents need to do in order to engage and in order to educate themselves and in order to figure out how they can make informed decisions and educated decisions about the process they see at their school so that's where we're at and we'd like to ask the district to support our parents in that process. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is alberto leon from cesar chavez. i have two students that attend that school. i would like to mention it's a fabulous school with fabulous resources. i wanted to comment on meetings with the community. i feel that up until this point in time meetings have been recently established, it would be great if it became a two-way street not just a one-way street and us looking out for the school district but the school district coming out and looking out for us. there has been that participation from the school district lately but hope it continues on to the future. there's been a very high frustrati

on the newshour tonight, we get the latest on the attack from margaret warner in baghdad. >> lehrer: then, judy woodruff examines president obama's role this week as the democrats' campaigner-in-chief. >> if you want to make your car go forward, what do you do? you put it in d. if you want to go backwards, what do you do? you put it in r. that's not an accident. >> ifill: we look at the administration's call for fundamental changes at mortgage giants fannie mae and freddie mac. >> lehrer: and a second mortgage story-- an encore paul solman report on homeowners who've stopped paying off their loans. >> ifill: plus, jeffrey brown talks to rosanne cash-- singer, songwriter, and daughter of country music legend johnny cash. >> any young person who is going into the same field... whose parents have been very successful, it's complicated. it was complicated for me. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. 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 you

margaret thatcher, when leader of the opposition, averaged only 1.6 interventions a session.this was partly because if she was due to speak in a parliamentary debate on a tuesday or thursday she frequently would not participate in pmqs at all but also because her team came to the view that if she had not drawn parliamentary blood in the first two questions then it would be counterproductive to strain the patience of the house with a third one. this self-denying ordinance or simple tactical retreat has since gone out of fashion. even so, there was a sense that pmqs was operating to the exclusion of backbenchers. in 1977, speaker thomas put forward a proposal to achieve the generally well-supported objective of getting through more questions at pmqs, only to encounter resistance from the opposition because it would have restricted the opportunity for its leader to make interventions. by this time, the comparatively civilised conduct of pmqs had already been undermined. in his autobiography, speaker selwyn lloyd deplored the decline in behaviour and blamed it on the personal ani

margaret russell can you stick around with us?e announcement was supposed to be between 9:00 a.m. and noon. thank you so much, margaret results, santa clara law professor. we'll check with you as well as julie watts at city hall. >>> in other headlines. we'll return back to our top story should it break during this newshour. republican carly fiorina is gaining ground in her quest to unseat democratic senator barbara boxer. fiorina now leads boxer by five points. 11% of likely voters say they are still undecided or they are supporting other candidates. boxer is down three points from our poll taken a month ago. >>> see in race for governor is a dead heat. meg whitman and jerry brown are virtually tied. 13% say they are undecided or supporting someone else. >>> bart has $4 million left over from last year's budgets on top of the $4.5 million the state handed out unexpectedly in june for transit assistance. so that leaves bart with an extra $8.5 million. it's not yet clear what the transit agency will do with the money whether it's a

that amy is going to touch on the human capital side and the working with the residents some, and margaret campo from the developer is here. margaret regularly meets with the tenant association and members of the community, if you want more defail on that. -- more detail on that. 700,000 units will be replaced bedroom for bedroom. so if we hadn't said so already, it is certainly and clearly our hope as a pilot project, first out of the gate. it has actually been in the works before hope s.f.. in some respects, hope s.f. came about in part from what we learned in our work today. we have master planned the site. we were with you for the whole approval and the design for development plan for the 700-plus unit community that is there. we are ready to start on phase one. we have started on phase one. we're ready to start the infrastructure on phase one and we'll be doing that shortly. this is probably about as broad of a public-private partnership as i would imagine one could expect. doug mentioned seven sister city agencies that we're working with. on the human capital side, i would say we hav

if it's ok, margaret, can i have some verbual aids out? i'll give you some bachi balls to play with so you can see what we're talking about. so i am here on behalf of the laborors community and training association which i'm trustee. the lctf, a local nonprofit and union affiliated organization founded last year and our mission is to empower low income and underserved residents of san francisco through job training and placement. and this gift is the first class project for the nonprofit. i have a short power point that i'm going to go through that's on the second page. stewart, can you help me with this? who's been working on this? the local 261 community service and training foundation has not been alone. and although the gift is flowing through them it's been a whole bunch of folks who put this together. and i know the actual gift amount, we've listed is $61,000 which is for the hard costs. that's the materials, and the labor costs for the trainees. they do get paid for working on this project. everything else has been done pro bono. an

as margaret said, in 1949 we came to the south bronx, which was an irish neighborhood, mostly. i was sort of a spaced-out kid,

. >> lehrer: and margaret warner in baghdad examines the challenges iraqis still face in their daily lives. >> woodruff: then, from mexico city, we learn the latest on the arrest of an alleged drug lord from jason beaubien of npr. >> lerher: we have another in john merrow's reports on the washington, d.c., schools. tonight he looks at a new test for teachers. >> how can you possibly have a system where the vast majority of adults are running around thinking i'm doing an excellent job when what we're producing for kids is 8% success. >> woodruff: and jeffrey brown updates the story of new orleans musician and scholar michael white, five years after katrina. >> i went through a serious period of depression, of anger, of many different kinds of emotions. ♪ and then i came to realize the most valuable thing that i have i never lost. it's inside. it's that music tradition. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by th

margaret warner has been reporting from iraq. here is the first of a week of stories on how this transition is going. >> warner: testing their turret machine guns as they leave base is the only time these american soldiers have fired their weapons recently. this u.s. infant ree unit is helping iraq's federal police push al qaeda and other militants out of the city of mozul. the americans' commission is not to do the job but t to-- advise and assist the iraqis as they do it. rolling toward town this hot august morning, a convoy of identical iraqi and u.s. armoured humvees. the advisor, u.s. army lieutenant colonel dan reed. >> the word right now is the sight of... . >> warner: the advisey, an iraqi federal police by grade-- brigade commander and today a man very much in charge. he is inspecting his unit's outposts in west mozul. he shows us the sites of two car bomb explosions late last year, both targeting him. as we move on to the very heart of town, it's general hamid's men who fan out and provide security for him, for us and f