. >> warner: and i'm margaret warner. on the "newshour" tonight, we assess the causes and the impact of the up and down swings here and abroad. >> woodruff: then, we examine the men and one woman named to the congressional super committee tasked with solving the debt crisis. >> warner: we update the riots in britain, as the police and the courts go after the looters and the prime minister vows to stop the mayhem. >> this is not about poverty, it is about culture-- a culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibility. >> woodruff: from iowa, david chalian previews tonight's face- off among republican presidential hopefuls, as texas governor rick perry announces plans to join the field. >> warner: and betty ann bowser profiles the man in charge of medicare and medicaid and his vision for reforming health care. >> i don't want to withhold a single piece of care from anybody that needs it. i don't want to cut costs by harming a hair on anybody's he

. >> warner: and i'm margaret warner. on the "newshour" tonight, we analyze the market decline and the grim economic outlook with two former white house advisors christina romer and matthew slaughter. >> woodruff: then, we get two on-the-ground reports from britain on yet another night of violent riots and unrest. >> i started c.p.r. on my own son. my own face was covered in blood, my hands were covered in blood. why? >> warner: we examine the recall elections in wisconsin, where democrats failed to oust republicans from control of the state senate. >> woodruff: we take a second look at jeffrey brown's conversation with philip levine named today the next poet laureate of the united states and a man who comes from working class america. >> i realized that this world that i thought was going to stop me from writing a decent body of poetry had in fact become central to my writing poetry. >> warner: and from our student reporting labs, we have the story of new york city schools labeled drop-out factories and now slated for cl

margaret warner has the story. >> warner: nearly six months after being toppled by the people he ruled for 30 years, hosni mubarak-- lying on a hospital gurney-- was wheeled into a custom-made defendant's cage today. the first arab leader brought to court by his countrymen in the arab spring. he's charged with corruption and with presiding over the killing of nearly 900 protesters during the 18-day uprising that brought his resignation in february. despite reports of feeble health, the 83-year-old mubarak responded firmly to questions from the presiding judge, in a court session held at a police academy on cairo's outskirts. >> ( translated ): mohammad hosni sayyid mubarak... >> ( translated ): sir, i am present. >> ( translated ): you have heard the charges brought to you by the public prosecution. what do you say?" >> ( translated ): i deny all these accusations completely. >> warner: in the cage with him: his sons gamal and alaa; and his former interior minister, habib al-adli, who ran the despised state security forces. leila fadel of the "washington post" was in the courtroom toda

to kill your partner, your jordanian partner. >> warner: how the c.i.a. came to trust him and how al qaeda sent him on his murderous path are revealed in a new book, the triple agent, the al qaeda mole who infiltrated the c.i.a.. the writer is "washington post" reporter joby warrick and he joins us now. so, joby welcome. now, remind us, first of all, how big a disaster was this in the history of the cia? >> it's arguably the biggest intelligence disaster since the cold war for the cia. there hasn't been this many lives lost in a single incident since the 1980s, and in terms of just treachery and deceit, it's as big as it gets-- the cia led into a trap in which multiple officers, including seven americans, were killed. >> warner: so now, tell us about the perpetrator, the triple agent, humam al balawi. who was he? what drove him? how did he get into a position to pull off something like this? >> you probably cannot script a character as improbable as this man. first of all, he starts out as just being a lowly jordanian, a pediatrician, of all people, worki

margaret warner has our book conversation. >> warner: it was the most devastating attaci on the cia in two decades. a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a c.i.a. base in afghanistan. dead were seven c.i.a. officers, a jordanian intelligence agent and their driver. >> sreenivasan: at least eight american civilians were killed in a suicide bombing today in afghanistan. the bomb exploded at a military base. >> warner: early reports were sketchy. >> sreenivasan: the base supports reconstruction and other civilian programs. >> warner: the man carrying out the audacious assault was a jordanian doctor who was initially recruited by jordanian intelligence. the c.i.a. thought he would lead them to osama bin laden and his top deputy, ayman al zawari. instead, he turned out to be a triple agent for al qaeda. like many suicide bombers, he made a testimonial video just before his fatal mission. >> to kill as much as i can. to kill you. to kill your partner, your jordanian partner. >> warner: how the c.i.a. came to trust balawi and how al qaeda sent him on his murderous path are revealed in a new

margaret warner has the story. >> warner: charles sennott, editor of the online news site "global postmong dozens of western journalists in egypt during the february uprising that toppled president hosni mubarak. reporting for a "frontline" documentary, sennott spent days in tahrir square talking with the protestors, from the young facebook crowd to members of the muslim brotherhood. in july, sennott returned to cairo as a second wave of tahrir square protests was underway, mostly directed at the military council that's now running the country. he has written a piece, with accompanying video for "global post" and the "frontline" website. he joins us now. charlie, welcome back. >> thanks. >> warner: so you went back five months after mubarak was ousted. you went back to the square. what did you go looking for? what did you find? >> we went looking for the people we knew from the revolution. you had muslim brotherhood, coptic christians, secular activists from the april six movement. we wanted to check in with them and see why this revolution had come after six months and what we found w

margaret warner has the story. >> warner: attack helicopters patroled the skies today as u.s. troops on the ground cordoned off the crash site south of kabul. 30 americans, including 22 navy seals plus seven afghan troops and an interpreter died early saturday in the valley when their chinook helicopter was shot down apparently by a rocket-propelled grenade. the taliban claimed responsibility. u.s. commanders in kabul said the seal force was sent to assist army rangers who had uncoe mder fire by insurgents during an operation to nab a taliban leader. the valley lies inaimoe untnous ak rdwa province justrd0lei ms southwest of kabul.i u.s. forces turned over the valley's sole american outpost to afghan forces last spring. at the white house this afternoon, president obama said the work of the men and their mission goes on. >> i know that our troops will continue the hard work of transitioning to a stronger afghan government and ensuring that afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists. >> warner: the fallen men were members of the navy's vaunted seal team 6, the same special

margaret warner has the story. >> warner: for at least five years, a high-level hacking campaign infiltrated the computer systems of more than 70 governments, corporations and public and private organizations in 14 countries. so says the internet security firm mcafee, which uncovered the massive campaign and dubbed it "operation shady rat." a summary released by mcafee yesterday identified the perpetrator only as "one specific state actor." the story became public tuesday through reporting in "vanity fair" by michael joseph gross. he joins us now. michael gross, thank you for being with us. this operation sounds breath talking in its scope. -- breathtaking in its scope. give us a sense, flush that out, who were they going after, who was targeted? >> this is an unprecedented campaign of cyberespionage, demonstrates with absolute clarity now that there are just two kinds of organizations. those that have been compromised and those that haven't as dimitri, elparavich the guy who discovered this campaign has often said. what happened is they went into more than 70 organizations, everything from

margaret warner has that story. >> warner: the race to find moammar qaddafi has shifted east from rebel-conqueredpoli to the libyan leader's coastal hometown of sirte. >> we are looking for qaddafi: in the sky, in earth, in the street, anyway the game is over. >> warner: there were no reliable reports of gadhafi's actual whereabouts, though it was confirmed that his wife, daughter and two of his sons fled to neighboring algeria today. and there were unconfirmed reports that another son khamis had been killed. qaddafi loyalists in sirte pledged to resist the rebels converging from the west and east. but the military chief of the transitional national council-- the opposition's loose-knit governing body-- said they were hoping to avoid a fight. >> ( translated ): there are negotiations going on at the moment amongst leaders; between the people of sirte and ourselves. >> warner: the council's justice minister said if qaddafi were taken alive, libyan justice-- not the arrest warrant issued by the international criminal court -- would govern his fate. >> ( translated ): if qaddafi were to be caught, o

margaret warner has the story of monday's widespread attacks and the implications. >> warner: it was the bloodiest day iraqis have suffered this year-- 42 apparently coordinated attacks rocked the country from north to south. at least 70 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in more than a dozen cities. bombings claimed most of the lives, though there were shootings, too. the worst hit came in kut, where multiple bombs detonated at a marketplace, killing at least 35 iraqis. >> ( translated ): a bomb exploded here, and when people gathered, ten minutes later, a car bomb detonated, too. >> warner: car bombs struck the upscale mansour neighborhood of the capital, baghdad, wounding a number of iraqis. >> ( translated ): a bomb from a parked car exploded here at 7:00 in the morning. i don't know how the car entered this area because there are so many checkpoints in mansour." >> warner: explosions also hit a police station in the shiite holy city of najaf, killing seven. and last night in youssifiyah, gunmen in military unifos invaded a mosque and murdered seven members ofn n anti-a

a revolt reaching critical mass. >> ifill: margaret warner takes the story from there. >> warner: theels' recent military gains, which obama administration officials applauded today, come after setbacks, including the killing last month of the rebel military commander abdul fattah younis, apparently by his own men. that was the most visible sign of disarry in the rebel movement, headed by the transitional national council, or t.n.c.. for more, we go to brian conley, who recently returned from his second trip to eastern libya, where he is training local journalists. and dirk vandewalle, a professor of government at dartmouth college and author of "a history of modern libya." welcome, gentlemen. thank you both for joining us. professor vandewalle beginning with you, what do you make of these rebel advances? is is this a sign that regaining some momentum or just another flip of the see-saw? >> as your reporter indicated, we have seen these battles rage back and forth. we have seen a number of cities, miss rat a and all along the eastern coast, being taken by rebels and being taken back b