. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the newshour tonight: we explore the high court's decisions with marcia coyle of the "national law journal." >> brown: then, the latest from the campaign trail and an in depth look at the huge amounts of money being raised and spent already. >> suarez: special correspondent john tulenko reports on community colleges rethinking remedial classes and trying new approaches to help the least prepared students succeed. >> they're coming here with a great emphasis on making their lives better. the first thing we say to them is "not so fast there. you're not really in college, you can't take college-level courses, you've got to take these developmental courses." >> brown: we update the north carolina eugenics story as state lawmakers pass a budget without the compensation promised to victims of forced sterilization. >> suarez: from the west african nation of niger, we examine a once-in-a-generation famine threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of children. >> every child here is at

. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the "newshour" tonight, we get the latest on the mixed verdict on day nine of the deliberations. >> woodruff: then, we examine a plan to ban oversized sugary drinks in restaurants, movie theaters, and food carts in new york city. >> suarez: in his second report on stude loans, paul solman explores the idea of letting borrowers walk away from their debts. >> student loans are treated unlike any other type of debt in america meaning they have no consumer protections. no bankruptcy protections, no statute of limitations on the collections of those debts. >> woodruff: on our "daily download" segment, margaret warner compares how the presidential campaigns stack up on twitter. >> suarez: and gwen ifill talks to the authors of a new book about the most exclusive club in the united states with just five members, all former presidents. >> george bush said it to barack obama, at that amazing moment when all the living presidents were together at the white house. "we want you to succeed. thi

. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the newshour tonight, we'll have the latest on the split verdict, which included acquittals on two other counts. >> brown: then, from syria, we go behind the front lines with the opposition forces, and look at who the rebels really are. >> suarez: paul solman talks with journalist and author rory o'connor about privacy concerns and social media web sites. >> its he a social network that didn't abuse our privacy and could be trusted comes along, we abandon facebook. >> brown: mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> suarez: and i sat down with veteran reporter lindsey hilsum. her new book chronicles the revolution in libya. >> i spent a lot of time up and down the desert roads reporting on the rebels. they were probably the worst guerrilla army i've ever come across. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> growing up in arctic norway, everybody took fish oil to stay healthy. when i moved to the

ray suarez will talk with some key players in the healthcare field. we begin with an overview from susan dentzer, editor-in- chief of the journal, "health affairs" and an analyst for the "newshour." so susan, in some sense it's status quo, right? things proceed rather than stop in their tracks. >> that's right. barring a change in the administration, a change in the composition or control of congress or overcoming the broad group of stakeholders that push to pass the affordable care act in the first place, barring all of that it's status quo and we move forward. >> brown: let's talk about what that means. what will happen and when. we'll keep talking about this idea of a mandate, it's a broad idea. what specifically happens and when? >> will what will happen is in 2014 when the exchanges that are going to roll out in various states are up and running individuals who don't currently have insurance who have to purchase it on the individual market or work for small businesses will be able to buy that coverage through the exchanges. if they do not do that

that's part of what we're trying to do. >> suarez: representative kucinich, same question. you, too, are a veteran house member. are you made wary by the use of executive privilege in a case like this where a branch of government just doesn't want you, a member of the house, to see what it's got? >> i think we have to look at the totality of the constitution here. congress has a right to compel the production of papers and to compel witnesses before the committee. that's article i. at the same time, the administration, article ii, has the right under the constitution to say, look, we're invoking executive privilege. that doesn't just mean the president, the executive branch privilege and say we're not going to produce that for our own reasons. now, the next step, then, would be to go to the court. and i would hope that if we can not resolve this that the one concession that would be made is that we not pursue by resolution a criminal matter, we can pursue a civil matter, have a court make a decision saying okay, produce the documents and then we come back to the court enfor

suarez, the u.s.chamber of commerce named maryland number one in entrepreneurship so we foresee the benefits that will come to our small businesses and our start-ups by being able to finally bring down those health-care costs so they can bring up the jobs that come from their talents and their hard work. >> suarez: are you ready for the exchanges? are you ready to bring people who meet some of these income requirements into the system and get them a new way of buying insurance? >> we are. i mean it's required a lot of work. we had to bring steak holders in from private sector insurance companies, nurses, doctors. but we have already passed through the maryland general assembly the law that sets up our health care exchange. we have already set up the i.t. infrastructure that will allow this without-to-work. and we have core staff in place that will be able to manage this new marketplace where family-owned businesses can obtain mo affordable health care moving forward. these are all steps that we took b

ray suarez has our report. >> suarez: friday morning brought a new barrage of shelling in the city of homs. amateur video captured a series of explosions in one of the rebel-held neighborhoods, plumes of smoke rising into the sky. in damascus, u.n. observers again departed for the small farming town of mazraat al- qubair in hama province, where yesterday they came under fire. today, they were able to reach the site where activists say at least 78 people were killed earlier this week. deborah amos of npr news was with u.n. monitors earlier today and joins us now from damascus by phone. >> we walked into buildings, there were carpets that were blood soaked. there was gore still on the floor. you could see low shots and some of the witnesses who did step forward say that is where the children were shot. these were low down am you can imagine them crouching before they wereilled. there was dead animals in the dirt there, buildings were scorched. a couple of buildings had giant what looked like shell holes, big holes that sort of blew out ot sides of these places. so whatever happened in t

ray suarez has our story. >> classical or traditional education is dead. it's failing our students. >> suarez: across america, teachers are talking, taking a rare opportunity to discuss their work lives, their joys and frustrations, and trade ideas on how to raise graduation rates and reduce the number of dropouts. they're venting, and sharing practical tips about what works in their classrooms, at a series of teacher town halls hosted by a dozen local pbs stations. it's part of the "american graduate" initiative, sponsored by the corporation for public broadcasting and the bill and melinda gates foundation, both funders of this program. >> in this country today, what we're focusing on instead is, can you answer a multiple choice test instead of how do we make you love education? how do we get you to feel that this is something that is meaningful to you? and if we don't do that, the rest of this is a waste of time. >> suarez: some topics have cropped up in nearly every city: the increased emphasis on testing, the importance of learning to read at an early

. >> ifill: ray suarez talks with author rajiv chandrasekaran about the u.s. role in afghanistan, and his new book, "little america." >> it's the version of a sugar high. we pumped them up with lots of goodies only to then see it crash later as budgets would inevitably have to be cut. ♪ we all fall down >> woodruff: plus jeffrey brown sits down with singer-songwriter shawn colvin, who has written her memoir and released her first cd in six years. that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> growing up in arctic norway, everybody took fish oil to stay healthy. when i moved to the united states almost 30 years ago, i could not find an omega-3 fish oil that worked for me. i became inspired to bring a new definition of fish oil quality to the world. today, nordic naturals is working to fulfill our mission of bringing omega-3s to everyone, because we believe omega-3s are essential to life. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy