this is economics correspondent paul solman, reporting for the pbs newshour, up and down the state ofcalifornia. >> ifill: now to the case of former nfl running back ray rice, the former baltimore ravens player was charged with aggravated assault after he knocked his then-fiancee unconscious. the league suspended him indefinitely, a decision an arbirtator later lifted. today, all charges against him were dropped. hari sreenivasan picks up the story from there in our new york studios. >> sreenivasan: a new jersey judge dismissed the charges after rice completed a one-year program known as a pre-trial intervention. anger management counseling is said to be part of that program, but few other details have been released. the prosecutor agreed to let rice participate in the program last year. there's been discussion again today over whether rice was offered a routine or unusual deal, given the assault. we break this down with debbie hines, a former prosecutor familiar with domestic violence cases. she now practices in washington, d.c. and, christine brennan, a sportswriter and columnist fo

our economics correspondent, paul solman, went to see for himself, part of our ongoing reporting: "making sense," which airs every thursday on the newshour. >> reporter: the almond. revered in some cultures, reviled recently in ours. >> because of almonds, there's no water. >> the almond farmers are using more water than all the people in l.a. and san francisco combined. >> reporter: the john and ken show, in southern california, claims to be the country's most listened to local talk radio program. >> half the almonds they're shipping to china! and this is why we're getting water meters and we're getting lectured and scolded and we gotta take shorter showers and we can't water our lawns. this is b.s.! >> reporter: it was mother jones magazine which first reported the stunning statistic: it takes over a gallon of water to grow just one almond. the press has piled on since, portraying almonds as water wasters in the midst of near- epic drought. and it's not just the almond but every nut in the orchard. are you aware that pistachios take almost one gallon of water per pistachio to grow? >> i

economics correspondent paul solman looks at why some companies use it to boost their bottom lines. it's part of our ongoing reporting, "making sense," which airs every thursday on the newshour. >> there are necessities and there are wants. you know what i mean? >> reporter: forget his wants health insurance claims servicer kendrick brown has barely been able to afford life's necessities, like a car after his was totaled. >> my insurance paid off what the car was worth, but, as far as what i had borrowed to actually purchase the car, i still owed. once you get in such a hole, you're like, would it make more sense for me to actually, you know, file bankruptcy? >> reporter: so when his employer, aetna, recently, voluntarily and suddenly raised its minimum wage to $16 an hour. >> after taxes, it's somewhere between $100 and $150 dollars every check? and, that goes a long way. that goes a long way. >> reporter: brown is one of the roughly 6,000 lowest-paid aetna employees, out of a workforce of 49,000, who got raises this spring. on average, 11%, with some as high as 33%. call centers l

this is economics correspondent paul solman, reporting from boston, as mindfully as i can manage, for the pbs newshour. >> woodruff: now, the latest addition to the newshour bookshelf. one terrible day in oslo, two separate incidents left 77 people dead and shook the country to its core. that july day in 2011 is the focus of journalist asne seierstad's newest book, "one of us: the story of anders brevik and the massacre in norway." jeffrey brown talked to her recently at busboys and poets, a bookstore and restaurant in the d.c. area. >> brown: asne seierstad, welcome to you. >> thank you. >> brown: i want to start with a big question because you've written about one troubled individual. you've also looked at a larger society and its changes. was it necessary to do both to see what happened that day? >> oh, definitely. as the title indicates, one of us. maybe the book is also about what made him a terrorist. of course personal and psychological reasons, but could also be political reasons for becoming a terrorist. so it's three stories in the book what made anders brievik go to the isl

economics correspondent, paul solman report for the pbs "newshour" from baltimore, maryland. >> ifilljohn komlos breaks down some startling statistics about income inequality in the city on our homepage, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: over the past few months, newshour's student reporting labs have been looking into school campus safety. in arizona, one group of our high school students has been asked to play an important role in making sure everyone on campus knows what to do in an emergency. the newshour's april brown worked with some of those students, for our latest american graduate report part of a public media initiative funded by the corporation for public broadcasting. >> attention staff and students of south mountain high school, we are in lockdown. >> reporter: those are words no school administrator wants to say. >> room 160 needs to be secure. >> reporter: in the two years since the mass shooting at sandy hook elementary in connecticut, schools around the country have been ramping up safety efforts, and experimenting with different approaches to prepare for worst case scenar