. >> brown: and ray suarez has the story of russia's hunt for a spy who defected to the u.s. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

. >> brown: and on this veterans day, ray suarez updates the investigations into mismarked graves and other problems at arlington national cemetery. >> one grave site was empty. one grave site had the wrong set of remains, and a third grave site had two sets of remains, only one of which matched the headstone. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

ray suarez tells the story. >> suarez: at a communications company outside washington, d.c., computertor internet traffic. normally, the internet works by swiftly finding the shortest, most efficient trip between two computers anywhere on earth. electronic routers direct the traffic flow, insuring the shortest path, like these greenç lines here. but back in april, electronic communication looking for the shortest route was sent through china. watch the red line. for 18 minutes, the traffic on 35,000 to 50,000 computer networks elsewhere in the world began flowing toward china, before getting routed to its final destination. china telecom had created a massive detour. but traffic didn't stop. the affected computer connections took just a tiny fraction of a second longer. whether someone was logging into check a bank balance, sending a child's photo to grandma, or shopping online, the net still worked. however, at the computer operations center outside washington, d.c., engineers noticed this internet routing phenomenon immediately. their computer screens lit up with red alerts. >> we n

newshour viewers will recall perhaps that recently i think within the last couple of weeks ray suarez talked to him and eric cantor. he has sort put an interesting spin on this. he referred to this as a generational changeing election. he's talking about all the candidates who we're seeing win tonight who have no or very little electoral or governing experience. many of them young. many of them coming, he thinks, with pressure ideas. he says this signals a rude awakening for seniority in washington. i said rude awakening for both parties? he didn't want to go all that way. he said yes really, both parties need to take stock about who is coming in and especially the sort of young energy that's going to be at work. and then i asked him about and kwame was just referring to this, president obama's press conference tomorrow, prident obama is going to come out at 1:00. i asked kevin mccarthy, what do you want to hear him say? very brief answer. very quick. the era of big government is over. >> woodruff: i believe we heard a democratic president say that about a decade ago. >> they want to

ray suarez in las vegas. and we're going to be coming back to both of you as the night wears on. ray, jeff, thank you. >> thanks, judy. >> lehrer: in kentucky as we reported republican rand paul has won his bid for the open senate seat. the tea party favorite spoke to supporters in bowling green, kentucky. >> they say that the u.s. senate is world's most deliberative body. i'm going to ask them to deliberate upon this. the american people are unhappy with what's going on in washington. (crowd: yeah! ). >> 11% of the people approve of what's going on in congress. but tonight there's a tea party tidal wave, and we're sending a message to them. ( cheers and applause ) >> ifill: here with me now are newshour political editor david chalian and stu rothenberg. we just heard from rand paul. he is a perfect example of something we've seen building tonight which is a lot of tea party backed candidates having a good night. let's start in florida where we saw marco rubio who of course is the darling of the tea party and the former house speaker in florida who was running against two people.

ray suarez has that story. >> suarez: detecting cancer early can mean the difference between life andthere's never been an effective early screening test for lung cancer, the deadliest of all cancers. findings from a new study could change that. the national cancer institute trial found that screening by three-dimensional x-rays called spiral ct scans reduced deaths from lung cancer by 20% over just five years. the spiral ct scan provides detailed pictures of the lung at various angles, and can spot growths when they're about half the size that a regular chest x-ray can detect. the study tracked over 53,000 current and former smokers who had at least a pack a day habit. for every 300 people screened, one death was prevented. lung cancer currently strikes more than 196,000 americans a year, and kills more than 159,000-- more than breast, colorectal, pancreatic and prostate cancers combined. today, i spoke with dr. harold varmus, who directs the national cancer institute, which funded the study. well, dr. varmus, welcome back to the newshour >> thank you. >> suarez: this is a long- esta

ray suarez has that story. >> suarez: it's been a dozen years since the devastating attacks on the u.s. embassies in kenya and tanzania. 224 people were killed, including 12 americans. but on wednesday, ahmed ghailani was acquitted on all but one of almost 300 charges. he was accused of buying the truck and explosives used in one of the bombings. a federal jury in new york convicted the tanzanian man of a single count of conspiracy. afterward, ghailani's attorney said he would appeal that lone conviction. >> at the start of this trial, we believed that ahmed was truly innocent of all these charges. please understand that we still truly believe he is innocent of all these charges. >> suarez: the accused al qaeda operative was the first guantanamo detainee to face trial in a civilian court. his case was seen as a test for president obama's policy of moving away from military tribunals. >> some have derided our federal courts as incapable of handling the trials of terrorists. they are wrong. our courts and our juries, our citizens, are tough enough to convict terrorists. >> suarez: but th

ray suarez, we'll be womaning back to you through the night. anks. >> suarez: talk to you later. >> lehrer: and now tracking the influence of outside money this election season, newshour economics correspondent paul solmon has that story. it's part of his regular reporting, making sense of financial news. >> dhaliwal: fiorina ♪ >> carly fiorina, you laid off 33,000 employees. >> would you give convicted child molestors viagra with our tax dollars? incredibly that's exactly what boxer did. >> reporter: $3 billion spent this midterm year up from $2.6 billion during the last midterm. >> conway is the wrong way for kentucky. >> reporter: a recent supreme court decision citizens united lifting limits on corporate and union spending is making a big difference says political scientist tom ferguson. >> citizens united for sure made it not only legal but respectable to just spend any amount of money you want on anything as long as you didn't hand it to a politician formally in a bag. >> politicians and parties still face spending restrictions, but, asks

ray suarez reports. a polling station lay in shambles today as potential political chaos was added to the long list of haiti's woes. any expectations for an orderly, uneventful presidential and legislative election on sunday were dashed by allegations of vote fraud and disenfranchisement. >> the people believed that they were prevented from voting so they decided it is better to block and destroy the voting center. >> suarez: but electoral officials said just 3% of polling stations experienced problems. >> 56 out of 1,500 voting centers were affected. there were voting sites destroyed and other places where people got in with guns. there were areas where people could not vote because their names were not on the lists. >> suarez: those irregularities led 12 of the 18 candidates vying to replace president to call for the vote to be invalidated even before the polls closed yesterday. much of their ire was directed toward preval's chosen successor who is accused of benefiting from undue official influence. b

ray suarez has the story. >> suarez: the bloody siege of mumbai lasted almost three days. 166 people were killed, including six americans. this was the scene outside the taj mahal palace, a luxury hotel popular with western tourists and wealthy indians. inside, four militants from the pakistan-based lashkar-i-taiba went room to room gunning down their victims. at the same time, four other targets in the city were attacked: the oberoi hotel, the leopold cafe, the central train station-- where closed circuit cameras captured these chilling images of a calm-looking gunman- - and the city's chabad house, a community center for ultra- orthodox jews. in the two years since the attack, we've learned more about the group behind it and the meticulous planning that went into it. the focus has been on the so- called "project manager" of the plot, a pakistani known as sajid mir. >> he is a very mysterious figure. >> suarez: journalist sebastian rotella spent five months investigating the mumbai attacks and mir's role in them. his reports, funded by propublica, an online investigative news outlet

ray suarez narrates our story. >> suarez: in the indonesian capital, jakarta, the boyhood home of president obama still remains, as do the memories. former neighbor agus salam remembers the energetic, chubby kid he called barry four decades ago. >> ( translated ): when i see his face on the television or in the newspaper, i see the same face and the same smile of that little boy. the little kid that would play around my mother's restaurant. >> suarez: agus now runs his mother's roadside stall with his wife, selling the same recipe of vegetables and peanut sauce barack obama loved as a boy. ten years older than obama, agus said he could see glimpses of the boy's potential as he carried the future president on his back through the neighborhood. >> ( translated ): when i look at barry's face, he was so cute. he was chubby, chubby and short. so, it was funny to see him, it made us laugh. we always wanted to carry him or touch his head. but if i touched his hair, he's often get mad. but we liked it because his hair was curly. indeed, he had a pretty strong character. >> suarez: 90% of indonesia'

ray suarez has that story. >> suarez: in a remote part of eastern afghanistan, staff sergeant salvatore guinta risked his own life to stop insurgents from kidnapping another wounded soldier. a citation was read aloud describing his gallantry in action. >> specialist guinta, decisive leadership while under extreme enemy fire were integral to his platoon's ability to defeat an enemy ambush and recover a fellow american soldier from the enemy. >> suarez: today president obama awarded him the medal of honor, the nation's highest military award for bravery beyond the call of duty. guinta subpoena only the fourth recipient in the war in afghanistan and the first living recipient of the medal from the current wars in iraq and afghanistan. >> it is my privilege to present our nation's highest military decoration, the medal of honor, to a soleier as humble as he is heroic, staff sergeant salvatore a. guinta. now, i'm going to go off script here for a second and just say i really like this guy. (laughing) when you meet sal and you meet his family, you are just absolutely convinced that this is wh

ray suarez has more on that. >> suarez: spending on political television advertising could hit $3 billion for the midterms, a sum that proves just how vital the tool is for campaigns to get their message out. we take a look at some of cycle's top ads now with evan tracey of the campaign media analysis group. broadcast and on cable and wall-to-wall. is this heavy volume for a midterm year? >> yes, it is. it's probably going to be a record-setting year for any year mid-term or general election. it's being driven by the overall competitive landscape out there. when you have competitive races, that's when the candidates spend. there's a lot at stake so you're seeing these television dollars, radio dollars, cable dollars. basically flooding these competitive races in our media market. >> suarez: evan, along with conflicting views about the state of affairs in the united states, there was one country that kept popping up in politico ads. let's take a look. >> he supported the $800 billion failed stimulus package that created renewable energy jobs in china. his big spending programs will force u

. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the newshour tonight, we get the latest from joshua partlow of the "washington post" in kabul, and margaret warner talks to senate foreign relations committee chairman john kerry. >> ifill: then betty anne bowser goes to new england for an update on the first state to pass health care reform. >> here in massachusetts health care reform has been up and running for nearly four years. for the most part, people like it. >> suarez: kwame holman reports on the return of congress, and charles rangel's decision to walk out of his own ethics trial. >> ifill: and what can a lame duck congress hope to accomplish? we look back with congress watcher norman ornstein and historian richard norton smith. >> suare: and jeffrey brown talks to author stacy shiff about cleopatra, the egyptian ruler who has captured our imagination for more than 2,000 years. >> rome is looking at... well mannered rome is looking at her as the stuff of decadence, as this decadent wild queen. >> ifill: that's all ahead on