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Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20141203

red planet will take time, money and political will. >> we've either got to augment the resources to make the goal achievable, or we've got to adjust the goal to be something that's consistent with the available resources, because if we don't, we're going to waste a lot of money. >> ifill: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> thanks for my first car. thanks for giving me your smile, your motivation, and your belief that loved ones always come first. we wouldn't be where we are if it were not for the people that helped get us here. don't forget to thank those who helped you to take charge of your future and got you where you are today. the boss of your life. the chief life officer. lincoln financial. you're in charge. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions 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. >> woodruff: a white policeman in new york city will not be charged in the choking death of a black man that was caught on videotape. the case has been closely watched in the wake of events in ferguson, missouri. police on staten island tried to arrest eric garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes last july. he told them to leave him alone, but one wrapped an arm around his neck as garner repeatedly gasped, "i can't breathe." it turned out he had asthma, and he died later. the officer denied using a banned chokehold, and a grand jury today found no reasonable cause to indict. that drew outrage from several of new york's members of congress, including representative hakeem jeffries. >> woodruff: garner's father condemned the grand jury decision, calling it, "a license to kill a black man". but he also called for calm, as did new york city mayor bill de blasio, who urged non-violent protest. >> it is never my intention to harm anyone and i feel very bad about the death of mr. garner. >> woodruff: and in washington, president obama said the case underscores again, "the larger issues" that minorities have with police in america. >> we are not going to let up until we see a strengthening of the trust, and a strengthening of the accountability that exists between our communities and our law enforcement. >> woodruff: a funeral was held for a 12-year-old boy killed by police when he pulled a pellet gun last month. the child was black, the officer white. the "cleveland plain dealer" today reported the officer's handling of firearms was rated as "dismal" in a previous police job. >> ifill: world allies gathered in brussels today to plot strategy against islamic state extremists. diplomats from more than 60 nations and organizations met at nato headquarters. secretary of state john kerry said air attacks have already done serious damage to islamic state fighters. >> we are united and moving ahead on all fronts and that we will engage in this campaign for as long as it takes to prevail. and there is a reason why we are confident that we will, and that is all of you around this table, the members of this coalition. >> ifill: kerry declined to comment or deny reports that iran is also carrying out air strikes against islamic state forces inside iraq. >> woodruff: iran issued its own denial today of those air strike reports. unnamed pentagon officials had said iran used aging f-4 phantom jets to launch the raids in recent days. but in tehran, a government spokesman said iran's support for iraq has not expanded to include direct military intervention. >> ( translated ): there has been no change. the islamic republic of iran continues to provide assistance, especially advice and consultation assistance within the frameworks of international law, but there has been no change in this regard. >> woodruff: and in syria, president bashar assad said today that air strikes against islamic state targets in his country have done no good. he told a french magazine that only ground troops can defeat the militants. >> ifill: meanwhile in baghdad, the iraqi interior ministry said a woman detained in lebanon is not the wife of the islamic state leader, abu bakr al- baghdadi, after all. instead, a ministry official said she is the sister of a man convicted of bombings in southern iraq. >> woodruff: three leaders of hong kong's pro-democracy campaign surrendered to police today, after more than two months of demonstrating for free elections. the men were not immediately charged, and were not detained. afterward, they again urged students to call off protests that have led to violent clashes with police. >> ( translated ): the situation is very dangerous so i hope protesters can end the occupation movement as soon as possible. let's save the energy and continue this path of democracy. this is a long and exhausting road, but we need to walk together. >> woodruff: despite that appeal, hundreds of student demonstrators remained at two protest camps in hong kong's financial hub. >> ifill: back in this country, drought-ravaged california soaked up a second day of heavy rainfall from a major pacific storm. more than eight inches had fallen in parts of the san bernardino mountains by dawn. to the north, the downpours spawned isolated flooding in the san francisco region, where some roads were under water. forecasters said they expect the rain to last through tomorrow. even so, it's expected to take many more storms to break the drought. >> woodruff: the republican- controlled house moved to extend $45 billion in tax breaks through the end of this year. the move will allow millions of businesses and individuals to claim the breaks when they file their returns this coming tax season. >> ifill: the house also approved the first new legislation on disabled americans in nearly 25 years. the so-called able act for achieving a better life experience, will let the disabled open tax-sheltered bank accounts to pay for long-term expenses. it could affect as many as 54 million people. the senate is expected to pass the bill as well. >> woodruff: texas and 16 other states filed suit today over president obama's executive actions on immigration. they went to federal court in texas, arguing the president exceeded his powers by protecting up to five million migrants from deportation. they also claim his actions will force the states to spend more on law enforcement, health care, and education. >> ifill: stocks rallied on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average gained 33 points to close at 17,912; the nasdaq rose 18 points to close at 4,774; and the s&p added more than seven points to close at 2,074. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour. details of the eric garner chokehold case. congress confronts airbag manufacturer takata over deadly defects and recalls. the supreme court weighs arguments on job protections for pregnant workers. nasa's first step to send humans to mars. and, interior secretary sally jewell on plans to restructure schools for native american students. >> ifill: in two cases, in two cities, in less than two weeks, two grand juries declined to indict white police officers accused of killing unarmed black men. but in today's case, in new york, it was on tape. hari sreenivasan has more on the case of eric garner. >> sreenivasan: reaction to the grand jury decision has been sharp and highlights a very tense relationship between police in new york and the communities they serve. it's also a test for its new mayor. joining us now is pervaiz shallwani, criminal justice reporter for the "wall street journal." so surprised? >> you know, i think there is some surprise. i think some people believe that because there was a video in this case there was a little bit more clear-cut path to a charge of some kind. you know, the grand jury ultimately decided that there wasn't. >> sreenivasan: okay. the parallels and the not so parallels with ferguson? >> i think some of the parallels are there is a belief that it's almost impossible to indict a police officer in a case where the autopsy reveals there's a homicide, but there are very different situations here, just, you know, in how they sort of played out, one, and, two, on the ground the way the situation is, i think new york city is a much different situation than ferguson. >> sreenivasan: we played a little bit of the video. i think most of the country is wondering, wait, everyone can see that something horrible happened to this man, that there was a chokehold applied. the new york city police department came out and said, this is not a maneuver that we authorize. the coroner and the medical examiner said this is homicide by choking. yet still the grand jury couldn't come up with it. >> they said it was in part a homicide by choking, but, you know, what the medical examiner determined and how a criminal investigation unfolds is very different. you know, chokeholds are banned by use by the n.y.p.d., but the unions and the office very maintained that it's a maneuver they were taught at the academy and he was using that maneuver and not intended to be a chokehold at all. >> sreenivasan: this evening we heard the mayor say this is just one chapter that's closed. this is something new york city and the police department has been preparing for. >> n.y.p.d. has been preparing for this for weeks. the police commissioner last week after the ferguson riots sent down a couple of his own detectives to learn on-the-ground techniques and get on-the-ground information for how new york city could proceed, you know, when eric garner's decision came down. you still have two other pending investigations. you have an internal affairs investigation that will determine if officer pantaleo was actually in violation of n.y.p.d. protocol. you also have the department of justice announcing that they're opening a civil rights investigation today into the eric garner matter. >> okay. so when these investigations happen, is that going to change the feeling of the cops on the street, the ones that you talk to as you do your reporting? right now what's the position that they're in? >> it's going to depend on how things sort of unfold i think over next couple days. i mean, there is some apprehension on the part of the cops, what you hear from some of the unions out there, but at the same time, you hear the police department say that the cops are going to, you know, go through some retraining, and um mattly they expect officers to do their job. >> sreenivasan: and what kinds of retraining has the police department considered in the wake of this and in the wake of the ferguson case, which while it's different is coming within a week of this. >> sure. the n.y.p.d. announced about a week after the eric garner incident, less than a week after the eric garner incident, that it would retrain all 35,000 officers. that retraining has already begun, particularly this week. it will focus on things like use of force, use of language and retraining of some of these techniques that are used in the field. >> sreenivasan: what about the change that the new york police department went through in the beginning as the garner incident, they said someone died in custody. after the video came out, it was a different narrative altogether? >> i think to listen to the n.y.p.d., they said they didn't realize that there was a video. once they realized there was a video, that video was reviewed. i think they came out and gave what their belief was how the investigation would then move forward out of that. >> sreenivasan: the prosecutor also said today, almost setting the tone, don't expect all of the evidence to be made public as it was in the ferguson matter. >> correct. >> sreenivasan: we don't really know whether he tried to go after a lesser charge of say manslaughter. >> right. i mean, it's not 100% clear what charges were presented to the grand jury. the staten island district attorney has come out and said that, you know, the laws in new york are different than the laws in missouri. and so he is bound we new york laws and must go to a judge to release some information, and it's unclear what kind of information he is seeking to release. in missouri, you know, the laws allowed them to release all the grand jury testimony. >> finally, is there any action that the new york police department can take independent of this grand jury or the department of justice? >> yeah, absolutely. as it pertains to officer pantaleo and even the other officer with him, they have both been placed on modified duety. they're looking into determining if they violated any n.y.p.d. protocols. the n.y.p.d. protocols say there is no use of chokehold allowed. it will be up to internal affairs investigators to determine if officer pantaleo violated that and then up to the board to make a recommendation on what kind of disminute he gets. it could be up to as far as him being fired from the police force by police commissioner bratton. >> pervaiz shallwani of the "wall street journal," thanks very much. >> thanks, hari. >> woodruff: air bag manufacturer takata was back in the spotlight today over it's refusal to endorse a nationwide recall of defective air bags. the japanese firm faced question on that decision and others in a hearing at a u.s. house of representatives. the hearing came just hours after a deadline for takata to expand its recall as demanded by the national highway traffic safety administration or nhtsa. deputy administrator david friedman. >> first of all, i was deeply disappointed by takata's response and takata's failure to take responsibility for the defects that their products. for the defects in their products. >> woodruff: the problem lies with inflators that activate so violently, they cause the air bags to explode. there've been at least five deaths and dozens of injuries linked to the defect worldwide. takata senior vice president hiroshi shimizu insisted again today that only people who live in humid conditions are at risk. >> the data still supports that we should remain focused on the region with high temperature and high humidity. >> woodruff: in line with that thinking, about eight million vehicles have been recalled in the u.s., mostly in florida, hawaii, and along the gulf coast. takata says a nationwide recall would double that figure. the company remained adamant today that a nationwide recall isn't supported by the evidence. but nhtsa's friedman pointed to reports of air bag explosions in other parts of the country. >> between the fact that the root cause on the driver side is not clear now that it's clear that it is outside those areas of high temperatures and high humidity and the fact that we now have six total incidents it is clear to us that a regional recall is no longer appropriate for the driver side airbags. >> woodruff: the agency had threatened to take legal action and impose fines of up to $35 million unless takata complied. but the air bag maker took the position today that washington does not have the legal authority to make a parts maker enforce a recall. and, friedman acknowledged it could take a protracted fight. >> we need to make sure that we build the strongest case possible, because at the end of the day, if takata and the auto makers continue to refuse to act, we are going to have to take them to court. we want to make sure we have a case prepared that will win. >> woodruff: a number of lawmakers voiced frustration that even replacing the air bags recalled so far will take months to complete. and they let takata's vice president know it. >> complexity is not an excuse for incompetence. >> constituents who are literally afraid to drive their cars. >> woodruff: across the capitol, at a senate confirmation hearing, the man nominated to run nhtsa, mark rosekind, was pressed to make the agency more aggressive. massachusetts democrat ed markey. >> you must make takata recall all these airbags, you must force auto comps to comply, there is no choice, safety of american people is at stake. takata is toying with safety of american people. >> woodruff: but the weight of public opinion may be having some effect: today, honda one of takata's biggest customers announced it will expand its own recall of driver-side air bags to all 50 states. >> ifill: today, the supreme court heard arguments in the case of peggy young, a former u.p.s. driver, who says the company discriminated against her when she was pregnant. u.p.s. placed young on unpaid leave for several months, because she was unable to perform her required duties. young's lawyers say the company's actions violated the pregnancy discrimination act. women's rights groups and members of congress rallied outside the supreme court this morning to support young's argument. but there are at least two sides to the argument. joining us to describe what happened inside the court today: marcia coyle of the national law journal. emily martin, vice president and general counsel for the national women's law center. and, karen harned, executive director of the national federation of independent business's small business legal center. let's look at this 1979 law, '78 law. if i put on my glasses, i can see it. it says discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is illegal and pregnant women should be treated the same as all other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work. sounds pretty straightforward and pretty simple. >> simple until you get into the supreme court and start arguing what the language means. today the arguments really focus primarily on that second clause, how to treat pregnant workers. ups has argued and it argued today that it has basically a pregnancy-blind policy. it offers accommodations to workers whose injuries occur or conditions develop on the job, not off the job. so it's not singling out pregnant workers. they are being treated like all of ups' other workers who have injuries or conditions that develop off the job. it looked at that second clause and said, that's not a free-standing, independent claim to charge discrimination against u.p.s. it is tied to the basic prohibition against pregnancy discrimination. well, miss young's attorney says, let's look at the language of that clause again. it says nothing about on-the-job, off-the-job distinctions. it also doesn't speak to the cause or the source of the limitation on the worker. instead it says, "you're to compare the pregnant worker's limitation with a non-pregnant workers who have similar limitations on their ability or inability to do the job." and also he claims ups doesn't have a pregnancy-blind policy because it does offer accommodations to workers who lose their department of transportation certificate. it allows them to drive. it also accommodates with workers with conditions recognized by the americans with disabilities act. >> ifill: i gather this is a lively set of arguments. >> very lively. justice scalia and some other justices looked at the way mrs. young's attorney reads that clause. justice scalia used the phrase, "it's so broad the way you're reading it that you're seeking most-favored nation treatment for pregnant workers." well, he was sort of expressing the concern that businesses that are supporting ups say here, that any time an employer gives an accommodation to a worker with a limitation, regardless of how it happened or its severity, a pregnant worker is going to seek that same accommodation. but on the other side, justices ginsburg and justice kagan, for example, said that ups' reading is so narrow that it is giving least-favored nation treatment to pregnant workers. and also the reading, according to justice kagan, it really makes the second clause redundant here, meaningless, and congress could not have intended to do that. >> ifill: the administration had argued against bringing this case. now it's on the other side. how did that flip happen? >> well, it didn't argue because it didn't think the case was not worthy, but the administration did have a change of policy. for many years it read that section the same way that ups reads it. in 2014, this year, over the summer the equal employment opportunity commission issued new guidance. its guidance on this supports mrs. young's interpretation of the law. since the department of justice does follow eeoc guidance, that is how the administration is pursuing these cases now. >> ifill: karen harned, i want to start with what the debate is. is this a debate between employees' rights and employers' rights? >> well, it's really a debate between... we would first say it's a debate on what the law actually says, and we would be in the category that we definitely believe that if miss young were to prevail, it would create a super protective class for the pregnant worker. our concern really is that there needs to be limits. if miss young were to prevail, there wouldn't be the limits that you even see with the americans with disabilities act where if an accommodation would be an undue hardship on a business, that would be considered and qiewd also look at whether or not the accommodation was reasonable. these are really questions that are better answered in congress and the state legislatures, not through the supreme court we think rewriting the law. >> ifill: emily martin, are we just arguing this debate in the wrong place? >> i think this case is critically important because it's about whether the pregnancy discrimination act means what it says. it's of critical importance for women around the country. unfortunately, peggy young's story is not unique. at the national women's law center we hear again and again from women who have lost their job, have lost their paycheck because their employer refuses to make a simple accommodation like letting the cash sheen sit at a stool during an eight-hour shift late in her pregnancy. as a result, women are being forced to choose between their jobs and a healthy pregnancy. that's not a choice anybody should have to make. >> ifill: what is the difference, i want to ask the two of you, what's the difference between o'mitting coverage for a protected class or actively discriminating? >> what is your sense about that? >> well, i think, and ups argued this today, there are good business reasons why a company is going to have different classes of benefits for different classes of employees. part-time versus full-time. in this instance those injured on the job versus those not, which is very common. you need to be able to have that flexibility, and then also for the small employer in particular, their ability to backfill and make up for work lost by an miy is much more difficult when you're looking at a workforce of 15 or 16 than with one of 200 or more. >> do the anti-pregnancy discrimination laws that exist rule out allowing that protected class for this particular subset of employees? >> the pregnancy discrimination act was passed for a very specific reason, to repudiate a previous supreme court case from 1976 where the supreme court said it's not sex discrimination for an employer to have a temporary disability insurance policy that covers all accidents and injuries and excludes pregnancy. congress said very clearly, no, you have to treat pregnancy the way you treat other disabilities and injuries that can have an effect on a person's ability to work. that was the precise purpose of the pregnancy discrimination act, to keep pregnant workers from being treated like second-class citizens in the workplace. >> ifill: so what you're saying is the argument that karen cane makes is a second-class citizens argument? >> i think that what ups is arguing is that the fact they have found a way to accommodate people with on-the-job injuries, people with disabilities under the a.d.a.m., people who have lost their commercial driver's license, that should mean that they can accommodate pregnant workers, too. that's exactly what the pregnancy discrimination act was intended to create. >> ifill: it should be said that both ups has changed their policy and the eeoc has changed its guidelines since this case came. >> i would put to all employers, this one-size-fits-all is not going to work. when you're talking about small workforce, maybe a small restaurant with only three servers working over the weekend, you lose one of those servers or some of their abilities to work, that's much harder for a small business owner to address. that's why you need the balance that you get in things like the americans with disabilities act where you're also looking at undue hardship, what is a reasonable accommodation for those business operations to continue. those are debates that need to happen in congress, not at the court. >> but the pregnancy discrimination act only requires equal treatment. so it requires the employer to do for the pregnant worker what it's already doing for another worker who has a similar inability to work. >> ifill: one of the thing i find most interesting about this case is the odd bedfellows that agree on this. you seldom see pro-life and pro-choice making the same case. >> i can't remember when that has happened in the past. you have civil liberties group, women's rights group, as you said, i think something like 23 pro-life organizations have all joined to support miss young. >> ifill: what is the common thread? >> the need to ensure that pregnant women who are in the workforce do get equal treatment and aren't forced, as miss young was, to go on unpaid leave, where she also least her health insurance. on the other side of ups, as you would expect, are businesses large and small and also a rather conservative women's group, the eagle forum. >> ifill: marcia coyle, emily martin and karen harned of the national federation of independent business, thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: for the first time in more than four decades, nasa is set to launch a space capsule tomorrow that has grander plans of human exploration into deep space. the liftoff for the orion spacecraft will be unmanned. but it is an important test flight, and the first of many, as nasa tries to chart a longer- term vision for human flight. science correspondent miles o'brien has our report. > at a 50-year-old facility that tested the capsule, engineers are working on ways to protect a crew of astronauts returning to earth from a voyage to mars. >> it's really a whole new ballgame in terms of mission requirements and what we've done before. >> aerospace engineers are working on a thermal protection system for nasa's orion spacecraft, a capsule that has been described as apollo on steroids. >> so what we use is a material called avcoat, it's a derivation of the same material used in the apollo program for the apollo heat shield. on the orion heat shield, there are over 300,000 of these individual cells that are all filled by hand. >> he's using the venerable facility at nasa's ames research center to torch small sam prime ministers of the heat shield with blistering hot gasses moving at hypersonic speeds in a vacuum. it's as close to a real re-entry from space as you can get on the ground. >> this is a four-inch diameter puck. the orion capsule is five meet centers diameter. we really rely at the end of the day on a flight test to tell us how those parts of the system will work. >> eft1 or exploration flight test 1, will subject a orion capsule to a real-world trial by fire on its maiden voyage, giving nasa the data they need and a big milestone. bill hill is a nasa associate administrator. >> eft1 is absolutely the biggest thing that this agency is going to do this year. >> orion is slated to orbit the earth twice, once at an altitude of about 500 miles. then it will get a lift from a second-stage booster to 3,600 miles, high enough for the capsule to be exposed to a big december of space radiation and to create enough speed on re-entry to generate 80% of the heat it would encounter on a return from the moon. >> this is really our first step in our journey to mars. >> nasa envisions a human presence on mars in the mid-20 30s. charlie bowden is the agency's administrator. >> i use the term pioneer instead of explorer. exploring implies we'll go out and come back like lewis and clark. we're intending to pioneer mars, which means we'll put people on that planet to be there permanently. >> but nasa is a long way from that. >> if you ask us to go to mars today, we don't think we're in the right risk posture. >> the man in charge of human space exploration at nasa says the current plan calls for an unpeopled orion can sell to orbit the moon in 2018 and in 2021 or 2022 carry two astronauts on a short visit to small asteroid or a piece of a larger one that would be robotically grabbed and nudged into lunar orbit. there are no firm plans for what happened after that. engineers are dealing with some big technical hurdles, how to protect the crew from radiation, how to land something much bigger than a compact car-sized rover on mars, and how humans can safely operate independent from support from earth. >> the basic strategy that we're trying to do as we do a series of test, each one of more and more complexity and more and more challenge, that we continue to add until eventually we build the capabilities and the skills and the operational techniques and the risk management philosophy that allows us to go to mars. >> there are many seasoned hands in the space world who wonder if the agency's big plans to visit the red planet may become lost in space. tom young is among them. >> i think a fundamental problem we have with today's mars strategy is that it's not consistent with the available budget, and we don't have the funds to really make it an executable plan. >> young is a veteran aerospace executive who knows a little something about getting to the red planet. >> i'm assuming we must be sitting right on the x. so that's a smooth area. so everybody just did fabulous. couldn't be more pleased. thank you. >> he was nasa's program manager for the viking missions in the mid-'70s, which accomplished the first and second successful landings on mars. >> we it's very to augustment the resources to make the goal achievable or we've got to adjust the goal to be something that's consistent with the available resources because if we don't, what we're fundamentally going to do is we're going to waste a lot of money. >> ignition and liftoff. >> in 2010, president obama canceled the bush administration's constellation program. which envisioned a rush to the moon. >> i understand that some believe we should attempt a return to the surface of the moon first. as previously planned. but i just have to say pretty bluntly here, we've been there before. >> obama wanted nasa to use the money constellation would have spent on a can sell and rocket made of apollo and shuttle legacy hardware to push the development of new propulsion technology and seed the private sector to bill new vehicles, but the cancellation of constellation ruffled the feathers of some heavyweights in the aerospace world and on capitol hill. senator richard shelby of alabama represents nasa's primary rocket-building facility, huntsville's marshall space flight center. he helped force the administration to spend less on new technology and instead design a rocket called the space launch system or sls. led by shelby's constituents in huntsville, sls is being built with beefed-up, shuttle-style boosters and shuttle main engines. >> these were very successful engines. we do know what we have. that's why we learn. this is tomorrow's technology. we'll learn from this. there will be other things that will come out of it that will be positive. but you just don't reinvent the wheel. you build on the wheel. these were good wheels. >> but as it is, sls does not have enough thurst to go any further than lunar orbit. that's what prompted the idea of bringing an asteroid to the moon. otherwise sls is a rocket without a destination. for a mission to mars, it will need a redesign with more powerful boosters and a new second-stage motor. former nasa deputy administrator lori garver was one of the leading proponents of the original obama space plan. >> if you were driving to mars, there were a number of things you'd be doing that we're not doing now that are the difficult things. you wouldn't be building a spacecraft now based on technology from 40 years ago, engines from 40 years ago to go somewhere in 20 years and spending $3 to $4 billion a year on that. >> garver believes nasa's current path to mars is a hybrid of ideas borne not of engineering elegance but political compromise. >> the purpose has become political and jobs, and i think we're... we've lost the sort of unifying view that exploration is something that we do as a species. we should have that broader purpose rather than just a political needs of a few members of congress with jobs in their district. >> senator shelby rejects the notion that space exploration has become a jobs program. >> well, i'd be against a jobs program. i'm for the cutting-edge of space. jobs come with it if you've got a good system that you're building. i believe this will be a good system and be good for the space program. otherwise i wouldn't support it. >> but will a half a loaf with a side of bacon ever get nasa to mars? is there enough money in nasa's budget to pay for the compromise and still reach the stars? john holdren is president obama's science adviser. >> i don't think the current approach of kicking the can down the road may amount to within reasonable limits getting down the steps we need to achieve in order ultimately to get to mars. eventually, yes, between now and the 2030s, we would meade to ramp up the budget. at the current budget, we will not get to mars, that's correct. >> during orion's first flight, nasa engineers aim to test the riskiest events, things that have to work right first time when astronauts are on board. but the biggest risk to the overarching goal may have more to do with political science than rocket science. miles o'brien, the pbs "newshour," washington. >> ifill: online we have a slideshow of orion's journey to the launchpad. and you can watch the launch live tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. eastern on our homepage. >> ifill: we'll be back with a conversation with secretary of the interior sally jewell on reforming the education system for native americans. but first, it's pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for your support. and that support helps keep programs like ours on the air. >> ifill: for those stations not taking a pledge break, we take a second look at a renowned ballerina raising the bar for young dancers. jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: "the four temperaments," a dance choreographed by george balanchine in 1946. at the charlotte ballet recently, patricia mcbride taught it to her dancers. >> brown: for 28 years, mcbride herself performed the work of balanchine. as a principal dancer for the new york city ballet. and often the master choreographer created dances specifically for her. >> you would jump off a bridge if he said to jump off that bridge. we'd all jump, because we had so much trust in him. >> brown: in december, mcbride, now age 72, will follow in the footsteps of her mentor. as a kennedy center honoree for her life as a dancer and co- director of a vibrant ballet company. patricia mcbride's story began as a young girl in teaneck, new jersey, when her mother, raising two children on her own, put her in a dance class. >> i think my mom and my grandma just thought it would be nice for little girls to do, it seemed like all little girls at that time were, ballet was one of the thing that they would do, and they bought me a pair of ballet slippers, and there i went. >> brown: you went along. >> and my mom just drove me every week, first once a week, then twice, then three times and then every day. and it started getting more serious as the years went on. >> brown: and it became a life. it became a wonder life-- a wonderful life. >> brown: she joined balanchine's school of american ballet at 14, and at 18 became his company's youngest ever principal dancer. over the years, she debuted many roles and partnered with leading male dancers of the era, including edward vilella. here in tarantella. the new york city ballet is also where she met her husband, jean- pierre bonnefoux, a frenchmen who'd danced at the paris opera before coming to new york to work with balanchine. >> i just love that gesture. >> brown: they were already a couple but had never danced together when one night his partner fell ill and mcbride had to step in. >> we were in love and we were together but i had never done a pirouette with him, he had never laid his hands on me, and we have five minutes for intermission and there were dancing and it was wonderful, you know. a couple, you know, usually ballerinas like to tell their partners, "oh, just push me a little more this way" or "get me on my leg." >> brown: they worked it out and married in grand fashion in paris. mcbride retired from the new york city ballet in 1989 at age 46. in a farewell performance that ended in ovations and flowers. the couple turned to teaching, first at indiana university and then, since 1996, running the charlotte ballet. becoming mentors to a new generation of dancers. >> she is kind of like my ballet mom, in a way. she's really raised me. 25-year-old anna gerberich means it, she began working with mcbride at age 15. >> patti is an amazing woman. we would always watch her videos, so it was something, she was this goddess on this tv screen to me, she's the most humble, down to earth person i have to say she's always right when she coaches you, and it's just incredible to learn from her. 23-year-old pete leo walker, who told us he was first into hip hop break-dancing in his native brooklyn before taking up ballet, says that mcbride and bonnefoux are models in another way as well for him and anna, who are partner both onstage and, yes, off as well. >> they're very caring for one another. you know, jean-pierre will still put an umbrella over her head if it's raining outside. i think is very beneficial for us to kind of see the maturity in their relationship. they have an incredible chemistry. >> brown: for her part, mcbride, a mother of two, now a grandmother of three, says she's enjoyed the transition from dancer to teacher, though in some ways finds it even more nerve-wracking than being on the world's grand stages as a dancer. >> when i stage something i get more nervous for them because i want them to feel really good about themselves. >> do it your own way, be yourself. >> brown: in addition to performances, the company has an academy that offers classes for adults and children. including a so-called reach program that provides scholarships to lower-income youth. it also hosts charlotte ballet two, featuring younger dancers who perform in local schools. we went along to a morning performance for elementary school children in kannapolis, north carolina. and when volunteers were needed to come onstage to dance, this was not a shy bunch. three years ago the company moved into a new building, named for its two leaders. and this year it changed its named from north carolina dance theater to charlotte ballet. reflecting its focus and, more importantly, its attachment to this rapidly growing city. both ticket sales and donor gifts are up dramatically in recent years. as artistic director, jean- pierre bonnefoux says there are plenty of challenges but also plenty of pleasures. >> it's like anything, dance can also be very boring. but when it's good and when people are committed to that, it can be sensational. >> brown: these days, banners reflect the pride in the upcoming honor for mcbride. a celebration of her life's work. >> i was astonished, and moved, and it's such a wonderful thing, it's been a dream. you know, and it's, i don't know how to describe it, it's just so amazing. >> brown: mcbride says she remains eager to keep passing on her passion for many years to come. >> ifill: patricia mcbride will be honored by the kennedy center this sunday. jeff profiles another honoree, al green, on monday. >> woodruff: now the substantial problems that native americans in the u.s. face, particularly with education. that was the focus of a new report issued today and a meeting president obama had with native americans in washington. the president announced a series of initiatives to prepare young american indians for college and the workforce. they include a push to strengthen tribal control of education on reservations. the federal bureau of indian education is responsible for educating nearly 50,000 students in 23 states. the high school graduation rate is for native americans the lowest of any ethnic or racial group. the bureau is part of the department of the interior and interior secretary sally jewell joins me now. welcome to the news hour. >> thank you very much. >> we know the problems in the native american community. they're deeply entrenchedment they go back a long time to the very beginning of this country. what are just a couple of the ways the administration thinks it can make a real difference. >> well, the report that the white house just issued on native american use does a very good job of chronicling the challenges. they are deep seeded. they've been along for not just decades but literally hundreds of years. policies that tried to kill the indian to save the man. policies of assimilation, of squishing cultures and in so doing, they really diminish the confidence and the pride of native americans. what the president has done and he's charged his cabinet with this, and this was really powerfully breakthrough home to him in a visit with young people at the standing rock sioux tribe , is he does not want the stand by and watch this happen anymore. he's charged his administration very directly with being part of the solution, with charting a different course. that's what we're doing. >> the challenges we know because of all the attention on it today facing young native americans, particularly tough. i was reading more than one-third of them live in poverty. the statistics we just reported them are really discouraging. first of all, how did it get so bad. how can the administration make a real difference this time? >> will, the short answer is there have been reports that have gone back for decades. there's a major report under president kennedy's leadership on indian education that showed many of the same problems. and the distance today and the difference that we believe strongly in is around turning over control of these schools to tribal leadership. in giving them the tools they need to figure out where the bright spots, what's going well and why, so that we can help them bring those lessons to their schools, and yet they have accountability. you mentioned 23 states. that's 23 different sets of rules, very, very difficult for us to administer, and a lack of accountability because we're a federal bureaucracy. tribes will hold people accountable for doing the right job for their kids and that's the basic premise here. >> what makes you think that's going to work. >> we have some great bright spots out there. the mississippi band of choctaw indians has done a wonderful job of tribal control of schools. they hire a director, reports to the tribal council and the tribal chief, and they have didn't a great job. i visited their reservation and i saw it in action. i have been to many schools where the kids are wonderful. the kids are curious. the kids don't know how the deck is stacked against them. and we need to nurture that. i see individual schools working hard to do that. but i see them doing it in crumbling facilities, and i see them doing that without the kind of support that they need from us. >> we know some native american leaders, they point to these years of promise as you mention, the kennedy administration, about children getting a better education. they're saying many of those promises have been broken. i was reading today a minnesota newspaper editorial written on behalf of an indian reservation. they say the obama administration has "ignored the fundamental need for safe, functional schools." >> so the in minnesota they're in the middle of a series, which i would say is very helpful, because it's shining a spotlight on the challenges we have of the schools that i administer through the pure reof indian education, it's about 183 of them, one-third of them are considered in poor condition. one of them was a school i visited up there. none of us would want our kids to go to school there. it's not safe. it wasn't designed for that purpose. it's too cold. it's too hot. it has no labs for science. it's not serve children well. so we need support in our budget to be able to do that. we need to get creative, which i'm getting in figuring out what other sources of support might there be. in the private sector, in the philanthropic community, in states but also stepping up to our obligations as a nation and putting money in the budget to take care of these schools, which we're obligated to do but we're not funded to do. >> we know it's a tough set of problems. i also want to ask you about another part of your portfolio. another tough set of issues. that's energy. we know both the oil and gas industry and environmentalists separately are very anxiously awaiting final rules on hydraulic fracturing, fracking on public land. the environmentalists say they're worried this is going to destroy the environment, do terrible damage. the industry is saying, no, if you don't do fracking, you're going to cost all these jobs. how do you strike the right balance here? >> well, first i'm an environmentalist, and i'm also a petroleum engineer. i started my career working for mobile oil. i have personally tracked wells before. so fracking can be didn't safely and responsibly, but it needs to be regulated in a modern way because fracking has gone a long way since i was in the industry. so we're modernizing our regulation, and there are three key things that we're looking at in regulations. the most important thing is integrity. if you've got a good well integrity and the the frack fluid is going where it's supposed to gosh, it can unlock resources with a small imprint on the land. that wasn't true. you drilled individual wells with soda straws. now cro you can drill directionally and frack horizonly. but you need to know what's being put down the hole, you need to know what's happening with the fluids as they come back. that's what our regulations are addressing. >> woodruff: those are coming out in the next few weeks we understand. >> we haven't set a dale jarrett, but we have taken comments twice, over a million comments. we're synthesizing those. we hope to have them released in the relatively near future. >> woodruff: when they do come out, we hope you come back and we can talk to you. >> that would be great. >> woodruff: secretary of the interior, sally jewell, thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. a grand jury in new york declined to indict a white policeman in the choking death of a black man, eric garner. mayor bill de blasio appealed for calm, and a justice department official said there will be a separate, federal investigation. japanese air bag maker takata refused to make a recall of defective products nationwide in the u.s. and there was word this evening that a u.s. health care worker who may have been exposed to ebola in west africa is being transferred to emory university hospital in atlanta. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, british scientists have solved a 500- year-old cold case. over the centuries, the location of king richard the third's grave was lost. in 2012, human bones were unearthed from under a parking lot in england, and now, using d.n.a., researchers have concluded that they are those of the infamous monarch. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, we'll look at a long awaited report by the department of defense on sexual assault in the military. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening, for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions 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. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> this is "bbc world news merica." all profits from newman's own to charity and the common good. kovler foundation, >> the global truth. we can do more when we work together. our banking relationships

Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20141204

red planet will take time, money and political will. >> we've either got to augment the resources to make the goal achievable, or we've got to adjust the goal to be something that's consistent with the available resources, because if we don't, we're going to waste a lot of money. >> ifill: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> thanks for my first car. thanks for giving me your smile, your motivation, and your belief that loved ones always come first. we wouldn't be where we are if it were not for the people that helped get us here. don't forget to thank those who helped you to take charge of your future and got you where you are today. the boss of your life. the chief life officer. lincoln financial. you're in charge. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions 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. >> woodruff: a white policeman in new york city will not be charged in the choking death of a black man that was caught on videotape. the case has been closely watched in the wake of events in ferguson, missouri. police on staten island tried to arrest eric garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes last july. he told them to leave him alone, but one wrapped an arm around his neck as garner repeatedly gasped, "i can't breathe." it turned out he had asthma, and he died later. the officer denied using a banned chokehold, and a grand jury today found no reasonable cause to indict. that drew outrage from several of new york's members of congress, including representative hakeem jeffries. >> woodruff: garner's father condemned the grand jury decision, calling it, "a license to kill a black man". but he also called for calm, as did new york city mayor bill de blasio, who urged non-violent protest. >> it is never my intention to harm anyone and i feel very bad about the death of mr. garner. >> woodruff: and in washington, president obama said the case underscores again, "the larger issues" that minorities have with police in america. >> we are not going to let up until we see a strengthening of the trust, and a strengthening of the accountability that exists between our communities and our law enforcement. >> woodruff: a funeral was held for a 12-year-old boy killed by police when he pulled a pellet gun last month. the child was black, the officer white. the "cleveland plain dealer" today reported the officer's handling of firearms was rated as "dismal" in a previous police job. >> ifill: world allies gathered in brussels today to plot strategy against islamic state extremists. diplomats from more than 60 nations and organizations met at nato headquarters. secretary of state john kerry said air attacks have already done serious damage to islamic state fighters. >> we are united and moving ahead on all fronts and that we will engage in this campaign for as long as it takes to prevail. and there is a reason why we are confident that we will, and that is all of you around this table, the members of this coalition. >> ifill: kerry declined to comment or deny reports that iran is also carrying out air strikes against islamic state forces inside iraq. >> woodruff: iran issued its own denial today of those air strike reports. unnamed pentagon officials had said iran used aging f-4 phantom jets to launch the raids in recent days. but in tehran, a government spokesman said iran's support for iraq has not expanded to include direct military intervention. >> ( translated ): there has been no change. the islamic republic of iran continues to provide assistance, especially advice and consultation assistance within the frameworks of international law, but there has been no change in this regard. >> woodruff: and in syria, president bashar assad said today that air strikes against islamic state targets in his country have done no good. he told a french magazine that only ground troops can defeat the militants. >> ifill: meanwhile in baghdad, the iraqi interior ministry said a woman detained in lebanon is not the wife of the islamic state leader, abu bakr al- baghdadi, after all. instead, a ministry official said she is the sister of a man convicted of bombings in southern iraq. >> woodruff: three leaders of hong kong's pro-democracy campaign surrendered to police today, after more than two months of demonstrating for free elections. the men were not immediately charged, and were not detained. afterward, they again urged students to call off protests that have led to violent clashes with police. >> ( translated ): the situation is very dangerous so i hope protesters can end the occupation movement as soon as possible. let's save the energy and continue this path of democracy. this is a long and exhausting road, but we need to walk together. >> woodruff: despite that appeal, hundreds of student demonstrators remained at two protest camps in hong kong's financial hub. >> ifill: back in this country, drought-ravaged california soaked up a second day of heavy rainfall from a major pacific storm. more than eight inches had fallen in parts of the san bernardino mountains by dawn. to the north, the downpours spawned isolated flooding in the san francisco region, where some roads were under water. forecasters said they expect the rain to last through tomorrow. even so, it's expected to take many more storms to break the drought. >> woodruff: the republican- controlled house moved to extend $45 billion in tax breaks through the end of this year. the move will allow millions of businesses and individuals to claim the breaks when they file their returns this coming tax season. >> ifill: the house also approved the first new legislation on disabled americans in nearly 25 years. the so-called able act for achieving a better life experience, will let the disabled open tax-sheltered bank accounts to pay for long-term expenses. it could affect as many as 54 million people. the senate is expected to pass the bill as well. >> woodruff: texas and 16 other states filed suit today over president obama's executive actions on immigration. they went to federal court in texas, arguing the president exceeded his powers by protecting up to five million migrants from deportation. they also claim his actions will force the states to spend more on law enforcement, health care, and education. >> ifill: stocks rallied on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average gained 33 points to close at 17,912; the nasdaq rose 18 points to close at 4,774; and the s&p added more than seven points to close at 2,074. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour. details of the eric garner chokehold case. congress confronts airbag manufacturer takata over deadly defects and recalls. the supreme court weighs arguments on job protections for pregnant workers. nasa's first step to send humans to mars. and, interior secretary sally jewell on plans to restructure schools for native american students. >> ifill: in two cases, in two cities, in less than two weeks, two grand juries declined to indict white police officers accused of killing unarmed black men. but in today's case, in new york, it was on tape. hari sreenivasan has more on the case of eric garner. >> sreenivasan: reaction to the grand jury decision has been sharp and highlights a very tense relationship between police in new york and the communities they serve. it's also a test for its new mayor. joining us now is pervaiz shallwani, criminal justice reporter for the "wall street journal." so surprised? >> you know, i think there is some surprise. i think some people believe that because there was a video in this case there was a little bit more clear-cut path to a charge of some kind. you know, the grand jury ultimately decided that there wasn't. >> sreenivasan: okay. the parallels and the not so parallels with ferguson? >> i think some of the parallels are there is a belief that it's almost impossible to indict a police officer in a case where the autopsy reveals there's a homicide, but there are very different situations here, just, you know, in how they sort of played out, one, and, two, on the ground the way the situation is, i think new york city is a much different situation than ferguson. >> sreenivasan: we played a little bit of the video. i think most of the country is wondering, wait, everyone can see that something horrible happened to this man, that there was a chokehold applied. the new york city police department came out and said, this is not a maneuver that we authorize. the coroner and the medical examiner said this is homicide by choking. yet still the grand jury couldn't come up with it. >> they said it was in part a homicide by choking, but, you know, what the medical examiner determined and how a criminal investigation unfolds is very different. you know, chokeholds are banned by use by the n.y.p.d., but the unions and the office very maintained that it's a maneuver they were taught at the academy and he was using that maneuver and not intended to be a chokehold at all. >> sreenivasan: this evening we heard the mayor say this is just one chapter that's closed. this is something new york city and the police department has been preparing for. >> n.y.p.d. has been preparing for this for weeks. the police commissioner last week after the ferguson riots sent down a couple of his own detectives to learn on-the-ground techniques and get on-the-ground information for how new york city could proceed, you know, when eric garner's decision came down. you still have two other pending investigations. you have an internal affairs investigation that will determine if officer pantaleo was actually in violation of n.y.p.d. protocol. you also have the department of justice announcing that they're opening a civil rights investigation today into the eric garner matter. >> okay. so when these investigations happen, is that going to change the feeling of the cops on the street, the ones that you talk to as you do your reporting? right now what's the position that they're in? >> it's going to depend on how things sort of unfold i think over next couple days. i mean, there is some apprehension on the part of the cops, what you hear from some of the unions out there, but at the same time, you hear the police department say that the cops are going to, you know, go through some retraining, and um mattly they expect officers to do their job. >> sreenivasan: and what kinds of retraining has the police department considered in the wake of this and in the wake of the ferguson case, which while it's different is coming within a week of this. >> sure. the n.y.p.d. announced about a week after the eric garner incident, less than a week after the eric garner incident, that it would retrain all 35,000 officers. that retraining has already begun, particularly this week. it will focus on things like use of force, use of language and retraining of some of these techniques that are used in the field. >> sreenivasan: what about the change that the new york police department went through in the beginning as the garner incident, they said someone died in custody. after the video came out, it was a different narrative altogether? >> i think to listen to the n.y.p.d., they said they didn't realize that there was a video. once they realized there was a video, that video was reviewed. i think they came out and gave what their belief was how the investigation would then move forward out of that. >> sreenivasan: the prosecutor also said today, almost setting the tone, don't expect all of the evidence to be made public as it was in the ferguson matter. >> correct. >> sreenivasan: we don't really know whether he tried to go after a lesser charge of say manslaughter. >> right. i mean, it's not 100% clear what charges were presented to the grand jury. the staten island district attorney has come out and said that, you know, the laws in new york are different than the laws in missouri. and so he is bound we new york laws and must go to a judge to release some information, and it's unclear what kind of information he is seeking to release. in missouri, you know, the laws allowed them to release all the grand jury testimony. >> finally, is there any action that the new york police department can take independent of this grand jury or the department of justice? >> yeah, absolutely. as it pertains to officer pantaleo and even the other officer with him, they have both been placed on modified duety. they're looking into determining if they violated any n.y.p.d. protocols. the n.y.p.d. protocols say there is no use of chokehold allowed. it will be up to internal affairs investigators to determine if officer pantaleo violated that and then up to the board to make a recommendation on what kind of disminute he gets. it could be up to as far as him being fired from the police force by police commissioner bratton. >> pervaiz shallwani of the "wall street journal," thanks very much. >> thanks, hari. >> woodruff: air bag manufacturer takata was back in the spotlight today over it's refusal to endorse a nationwide recall of defective air bags. the japanese firm faced question on that decision and others in a hearing at a u.s. house of representatives. the hearing came just hours after a deadline for takata to expand its recall as demanded by the national highway traffic safety administration or nhtsa. deputy administrator david friedman. >> first of all, i was deeply disappointed by takata's response and takata's failure to take responsibility for the defects that their products. for the defects in their products. >> woodruff: the problem lies with inflators that activate so violently, they cause the air bags to explode. there've been at least five deaths and dozens of injuries linked to the defect worldwide. takata senior vice president hiroshi shimizu insisted again today that only people who live in humid conditions are at risk. >> the data still supports that we should remain focused on the region with high temperature and high humidity. >> woodruff: in line with that thinking, about eight million vehicles have been recalled in the u.s., mostly in florida, hawaii, and along the gulf coast. takata says a nationwide recall would double that figure. the company remained adamant today that a nationwide recall isn't supported by the evidence. but nhtsa's friedman pointed to reports of air bag explosions in other parts of the country. >> between the fact that the root cause on the driver side is not clear now that it's clear that it is outside those areas of high temperatures and high humidity and the fact that we now have six total incidents it is clear to us that a regional recall is no longer appropriate for the driver side airbags. >> woodruff: the agency had threatened to take legal action and impose fines of up to $35 million unless takata complied. but the air bag maker took the position today that washington does not have the legal authority to make a parts maker enforce a recall. and, friedman acknowledged it could take a protracted fight. >> we need to make sure that we build the strongest case possible, because at the end of the day, if takata and the auto makers continue to refuse to act, we are going to have to take them to court. we want to make sure we have a case prepared that will win. >> woodruff: a number of lawmakers voiced frustration that even replacing the air bags recalled so far will take months to complete. and they let takata's vice president know it. >> complexity is not an excuse for incompetence. >> constituents who are literally afraid to drive their cars. >> woodruff: across the capitol, at a senate confirmation hearing, the man nominated to run nhtsa, mark rosekind, was pressed to make the agency more aggressive. massachusetts democrat ed markey. >> you must make takata recall all these airbags, you must force auto comps to comply, there is no choice, safety of american people is at stake. takata is toying with safety of american people. >> woodruff: but the weight of public opinion may be having some effect: today, honda one of takata's biggest customers announced it will expand its own recall of driver-side air bags to all 50 states. >> ifill: today, the supreme court heard arguments in the case of peggy young, a former u.p.s. driver, who says the company discriminated against her when she was pregnant. u.p.s. placed young on unpaid leave for several months, because she was unable to perform her required duties. young's lawyers say the company's actions violated the pregnancy discrimination act. women's rights groups and members of congress rallied outside the supreme court this morning to support young's argument. but there are at least two sides to the argument. joining us to describe what happened inside the court today: marcia coyle of the national law journal. emily martin, vice president and general counsel for the national women's law center. and, karen harned, executive director of the national federation of independent business's small business legal center. let's look at this 1979 law, '78 law. if i put on my glasses, i can see it. it says discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is illegal and pregnant women should be treated the same as all other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work. sounds pretty straightforward and pretty simple. >> simple until you get into the supreme court and start arguing what the language means. today the arguments really focus primarily on that second clause, how to treat pregnant workers. ups has argued and it argued today that it has basically a pregnancy-blind policy. it offers accommodations to workers whose injuries occur or conditions develop on the job, not off the job. so it's not singling out pregnant workers. they are being treated like all of ups' other workers who have injuries or conditions that develop off the job. it looked at that second clause and said, that's not a free-standing, independent claim to charge discrimination against u.p.s. it is tied to the basic prohibition against pregnancy discrimination. well, miss young's attorney says, let's look at the language of that clause again. it says nothing about on-the-job, off-the-job distinctions. it also doesn't speak to the cause or the source of the limitation on the worker. instead it says, "you're to compare the pregnant worker's limitation with a non-pregnant workers who have similar limitations on their ability or inability to do the job." and also he claims ups doesn't have a pregnancy-blind policy because it does offer accommodations to workers who lose their department of transportation certificate. it allows them to drive. it also accommodates with workers with conditions recognized by the americans with disabilities act. >> ifill: i gather this is a lively set of arguments. >> very lively. justice scalia and some other justices looked at the way mrs. young's attorney reads that clause. justice scalia used the phrase, "it's so broad the way you're reading it that you're seeking most-favored nation treatment for pregnant workers." well, he was sort of expressing the concern that businesses that are supporting ups say here, that any time an employer gives an accommodation to a worker with a limitation, regardless of how it happened or its severity, a pregnant worker is going to seek that same accommodation. but on the other side, justices ginsburg and justice kagan, for example, said that ups' reading is so narrow that it is giving least-favored nation treatment to pregnant workers. and also the reading, according to justice kagan, it really makes the second clause redundant here, meaningless, and congress could not have intended to do that. >> ifill: the administration had argued against bringing this case. now it's on the other side. how did that flip happen? >> well, it didn't argue because it didn't think the case was not worthy, but the administration did have a change of policy. for many years it read that section the same way that ups reads it. in 2014, this year, over the summer the equal employment opportunity commission issued new guidance. its guidance on this supports mrs. young's interpretation of the law. since the department of justice does follow eeoc guidance, that is how the administration is pursuing these cases now. >> ifill: karen harned, i want to start with what the debate is. is this a debate between employees' rights and employers' rights? >> well, it's really a debate between... we would first say it's a debate on what the law actually says, and we would be in the category that we definitely believe that if miss young were to prevail, it would create a super protective class for the pregnant worker. our concern really is that there needs to be limits. if miss young were to prevail, there wouldn't be the limits that you even see with the americans with disabilities act where if an accommodation would be an undue hardship on a business, that would be considered and qiewd also look at whether or not the accommodation was reasonable. these are really questions that are better answered in congress and the state legislatures, not through the supreme court we think rewriting the law. >> ifill: emily martin, are we just arguing this debate in the wrong place? >> i think this case is critically important because it's about whether the pregnancy discrimination act means what it says. it's of critical importance for women around the country. unfortunately, peggy young's story is not unique. at the national women's law center we hear again and again from women who have lost their job, have lost their paycheck because their employer refuses to make a simple accommodation like letting the cash sheen sit at a stool during an eight-hour shift late in her pregnancy. as a result, women are being forced to choose between their jobs and a healthy pregnancy. that's not a choice anybody should have to make. >> ifill: what is the difference, i want to ask the two of you, what's the difference between o'mitting coverage for a protected class or actively discriminating? >> what is your sense about that? >> well, i think, and ups argued this today, there are good business reasons why a company is going to have different classes of benefits for different classes of employees. part-time versus full-time. in this instance those injured on the job versus those not, which is very common. you need to be able to have that flexibility, and then also for the small employer in particular, their ability to backfill and make up for work lost by an miy is much more difficult when you're looking at a workforce of 15 or 16 than with one of 200 or more. >> do the anti-pregnancy discrimination laws that exist rule out allowing that protected class for this particular subset of employees? >> the pregnancy discrimination act was passed for a very specific reason, to repudiate a previous supreme court case from 1976 where the supreme court said it's not sex discrimination for an employer to have a temporary disability insurance policy that covers all accidents and injuries and excludes pregnancy. congress said very clearly, no, you have to treat pregnancy the way you treat other disabilities and injuries that can have an effect on a person's ability to work. that was the precise purpose of the pregnancy discrimination act, to keep pregnant workers from being treated like second-class citizens in the workplace. >> ifill: so what you're saying is the argument that karen cane makes is a second-class citizens argument? >> i think that what ups is arguing is that the fact they have found a way to accommodate people with on-the-job injuries, people with disabilities under the a.d.a.m., people who have lost their commercial driver's license, that should mean that they can accommodate pregnant workers, too. that's exactly what the pregnancy discrimination act was intended to create. >> ifill: it should be said that both ups has changed their policy and the eeoc has changed its guidelines since this case came. >> i would put to all employers, this one-size-fits-all is not going to work. when you're talking about small workforce, maybe a small restaurant with only three servers working over the weekend, you lose one of those servers or some of their abilities to work, that's much harder for a small business owner to address. that's why you need the balance that you get in things like the americans with disabilities act where you're also looking at undue hardship, what is a reasonable accommodation for those business operations to continue. those are debates that need to happen in congress, not at the court. >> but the pregnancy discrimination act only requires equal treatment. so it requires the employer to do for the pregnant worker what it's already doing for another worker who has a similar inability to work. >> ifill: one of the thing i find most interesting about this case is the odd bedfellows that agree on this. you seldom see pro-life and pro-choice making the same case. >> i can't remember when that has happened in the past. you have civil liberties group, women's rights group, as you said, i think something like 23 pro-life organizations have all joined to support miss young. >> ifill: what is the common thread? >> the need to ensure that pregnant women who are in the workforce do get equal treatment and aren't forced, as miss young was, to go on unpaid leave, where she also least her health insurance. on the other side of ups, as you would expect, are businesses large and small and also a rather conservative women's group, the eagle forum. >> ifill: marcia coyle, emily martin and karen harned of the national federation of independent business, thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: for the first time in more than four decades, nasa is set to launch a space capsule tomorrow that has grander plans of human exploration into deep space. the liftoff for the orion spacecraft will be unmanned. but it is an important test flight, and the first of many, as nasa tries to chart a longer- term vision for human flight. science correspondent miles o'brien has our report. > at a 50-year-old facility that tested the capsule, engineers are working on ways to protect a crew of astronauts returning to earth from a voyage to mars. >> it's really a whole new ballgame in terms of mission requirements and what we've done before. >> aerospace engineers are working on a thermal protection system for nasa's orion spacecraft, a capsule that has been described as apollo on steroids. >> so what we use is a material called avcoat, it's a derivation of the same material used in the apollo program for the apollo heat shield. on the orion heat shield, there are over 300,000 of these individual cells that are all filled by hand. >> he's using the venerable facility at nasa's ames research center to torch small sam prime ministers of the heat shield with blistering hot gasses moving at hypersonic speeds in a vacuum. it's as close to a real re-entry from space as you can get on the ground. >> this is a four-inch diameter puck. the orion capsule is five meet centers diameter. we really rely at the end of the day on a flight test to tell us how those parts of the system will work. >> eft1 or exploration flight test 1, will subject a orion capsule to a real-world trial by fire on its maiden voyage, giving nasa the data they need and a big milestone. bill hill is a nasa associate administrator. >> eft1 is absolutely the biggest thing that this agency is going to do this year. >> orion is slated to orbit the earth twice, once at an altitude of about 500 miles. then it will get a lift from a second-stage booster to 3,600 miles, high enough for the capsule to be exposed to a big december of space radiation and to create enough speed on re-entry to generate 80% of the heat it would encounter on a return from the moon. >> this is really our first step in our journey to mars. >> nasa envisions a human presence on mars in the mid-20 30s. charlie bowden is the agency's administrator. >> i use the term pioneer instead of explorer. exploring implies we'll go out and come back like lewis and clark. we're intending to pioneer mars, which means we'll put people on that planet to be there permanently. >> but nasa is a long way from that. >> if you ask us to go to mars today, we don't think we're in the right risk posture. >> the man in charge of human space exploration at nasa says the current plan calls for an unpeopled orion can sell to orbit the moon in 2018 and in 2021 or 2022 carry two astronauts on a short visit to small asteroid or a piece of a larger one that would be robotically grabbed and nudged into lunar orbit. there are no firm plans for what happened after that. engineers are dealing with some big technical hurdles, how to protect the crew from radiation, how to land something much bigger than a compact car-sized rover on mars, and how humans can safely operate independent from support from earth. >> the basic strategy that we're trying to do as we do a series of test, each one of more and more complexity and more and more challenge, that we continue to add until eventually we build the capabilities and the skills and the operational techniques and the risk management philosophy that allows us to go to mars. >> there are many seasoned hands in the space world who wonder if the agency's big plans to visit the red planet may become lost in space. tom young is among them. >> i think a fundamental problem we have with today's mars strategy is that it's not consistent with the available budget, and we don't have the funds to really make it an executable plan. >> young is a veteran aerospace executive who knows a little something about getting to the red planet. >> i'm assuming we must be sitting right on the x. so that's a smooth area. so everybody just did fabulous. couldn't be more pleased. thank you. >> he was nasa's program manager for the viking missions in the mid-'70s, which accomplished the first and second successful landings on mars. >> we it's very to augustment the resources to make the goal achievable or we've got to adjust the goal to be something that's consistent with the available resources because if we don't, what we're fundamentally going to do is we're going to waste a lot of money. >> ignition and liftoff. >> in 2010, president obama canceled the bush administration's constellation program. which envisioned a rush to the moon. >> i understand that some believe we should attempt a return to the surface of the moon first. as previously planned. but i just have to say pretty bluntly here, we've been there before. >> obama wanted nasa to use the money constellation would have spent on a can sell and rocket made of apollo and shuttle legacy hardware to push the development of new propulsion technology and seed the private sector to bill new vehicles, but the cancellation of constellation ruffled the feathers of some heavyweights in the aerospace world and on capitol hill. senator richard shelby of alabama represents nasa's primary rocket-building facility, huntsville's marshall space flight center. he helped force the administration to spend less on new technology and instead design a rocket called the space launch system or sls. led by shelby's constituents in huntsville, sls is being built with beefed-up, shuttle-style boosters and shuttle main engines. >> these were very successful engines. we do know what we have. that's why we learn. this is tomorrow's technology. we'll learn from this. there will be other things that will come out of it that will be positive. but you just don't reinvent the wheel. you build on the wheel. these were good wheels. >> but as it is, sls does not have enough thurst to go any further than lunar orbit. that's what prompted the idea of bringing an asteroid to the moon. otherwise sls is a rocket without a destination. for a mission to mars, it will need a redesign with more powerful boosters and a new second-stage motor. former nasa deputy administrator lori garver was one of the leading proponents of the original obama space plan. >> if you were driving to mars, there were a number of things you'd be doing that we're not doing now that are the difficult things. you wouldn't be building a spacecraft now based on technology from 40 years ago, engines from 40 years ago to go somewhere in 20 years and spending $3 to $4 billion a year on that. >> garver believes nasa's current path to mars is a hybrid of ideas borne not of engineering elegance but political compromise. >> the purpose has become political and jobs, and i think we're... we've lost the sort of unifying view that exploration is something that we do as a species. we should have that broader purpose rather than just a political needs of a few members of congress with jobs in their district. >> senator shelby rejects the notion that space exploration has become a jobs program. >> well, i'd be against a jobs program. i'm for the cutting-edge of space. jobs come with it if you've got a good system that you're building. i believe this will be a good system and be good for the space program. otherwise i wouldn't support it. >> but will a half a loaf with a side of bacon ever get nasa to mars? is there enough money in nasa's budget to pay for the compromise and still reach the stars? john holdren is president obama's science adviser. >> i don't think the current approach of kicking the can down the road may amount to within reasonable limits getting down the steps we need to achieve in order ultimately to get to mars. eventually, yes, between now and the 2030s, we would meade to ramp up the budget. at the current budget, we will not get to mars, that's correct. >> during orion's first flight, nasa engineers aim to test the riskiest events, things that have to work right first time when astronauts are on board. but the biggest risk to the overarching goal may have more to do with political science than rocket science. miles o'brien, the pbs "newshour," washington. >> ifill: online we have a slideshow of orion's journey to the launchpad. and you can watch the launch live tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. eastern on our homepage. >> ifill: we'll be back with a conversation with secretary of the interior sally jewell on reforming the education system for native americans. but first, it's pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for your support. and that support helps keep >> woodruff: now the substantial problems that native americans in the u.s. face, particularly with education. that was the focus of a new report issued today and a meeting president obama had with native americans in washington. the president announced a series of initiatives to prepare young american indians for college and the workforce. they include a push to strengthen tribal control of education on reservations. the federal bureau of indian education is responsible for educating nearly 50,000 students in 23 states. the high school graduation rate is for native americans the lowest of any ethnic or racial group. the bureau is part of the department of the interior and interior secretary sally jewell joins me now. welcome to the news hour. >> thank you very much. >> we know the problems in the native american community. they're deeply entrenchedment they go back a long time to the very beginning of this country. what are just a couple of the ways the administration thinks it can make a real difference. >> well, the report that the white house just issued on native american use does a very good job of chronicling the challenges. they are deep seeded. they've been along for not just decades but literally hundreds of years. policies that tried to kill the indian to save the man. policies of assimilation, of squishing cultures and in so doing, they really diminish the confidence and the pride of native americans. what the president has done and he's charged his cabinet with this, and this was really powerfully breakthrough home to him in a visit with young people at the standing rock sioux tribe , is he does not want the stand by and watch this happen anymore. he's charged his administration very directly with being part of the solution, with charting a different course. that's what we're doing. >> the challenges we know because of all the attention on it today facing young native americans, particularly tough. i was reading more than one-third of them live in poverty. the statistics we just reported them are really discouraging. first of all, how did it get so bad. how can the administration make a real difference this time? >> will, the short answer is there have been reports that have gone back for decades. there's a major report under president kennedy's leadership on indian education that showed many of the same problems. and the distance today and the difference that we believe strongly in is around turning over control of these schools to tribal leadership. in giving them the tools they need to figure out where the bright spots, what's going well and why, so that we can help them bring those lessons to their schools, and yet they have accountability. you mentioned 23 states. that's 23 different sets of rules, very, very difficult for us to administer, and a lack of accountability because we're a federal bureaucracy. tribes will hold people accountable for doing the right job for their kids and that's the basic premise here. >> what makes you think that's going to work. >> we have some great bright spots out there. the mississippi band of choctaw indians has done a wonderful job of tribal control of schools. they hire a director, reports to the tribal council and the tribal chief, and they have didn't a great job. i visited their reservation and i saw it in action. i have been to many schools where the kids are wonderful. the kids are curious. the kids don't know how the deck is stacked against them. and we need to nurture that. i see individual schools working hard to do that. but i see them doing it in crumbling facilities, and i see them doing that without the kind of support that they need from us. >> we know some native american leaders, they point to these years of promise as you mention, the kennedy administration, about children getting a better education. they're saying many of those promises have been broken. i was reading today a minnesota newspaper editorial written on behalf of an indian reservation. they say the obama administration has "ignored the fundamental need for safe, functional schools." >> so the in minnesota they're in the middle of a series, which i would say is very helpful, because it's shining a spotlight on the challenges we have of the schools that i administer through the pure reof indian education, it's about 183 of them, one-third of them are considered in poor condition. one of them was a school i visited up there. none of us would want our kids to go to school there. it's not safe. it wasn't designed for that purpose. it's too cold. it's too hot. it has no labs for science. it's not serve children well. so we need support in our budget to be able to do that. we need to get creative, which i'm getting in figuring out what other sources of support might there be. in the private sector, in the philanthropic community, in states but also stepping up to our obligations as a nation and putting money in the budget to take care of these schools, which we're obligated to do but we're not funded to do. >> we know it's a tough set of problems. i also want to ask you about another part of your portfolio. another tough set of issues. that's energy. we know both the oil and gas industry and environmentalists separately are very anxiously awaiting final rules on hydraulic fracturing, fracking on public land. the environmentalists say they're worried this is going to destroy the environment, do terrible damage. the industry is saying, no, if you don't do fracking, you're going to cost all these jobs. how do you strike the right balance here? >> well, first i'm an environmentalist, and i'm also a petroleum engineer. i started my career working for mobile oil. i have personally tracked wells before. so fracking can be didn't safely and responsibly, but it needs to be regulated in a modern way because fracking has gone a long way since i was in the industry. so we're modernizing our regulation, and there are three key things that we're looking at in regulations. the most important thing is integrity. if you've got a good well integrity and the the frack fluid is going where it's supposed to gosh, it can unlock resources with a small imprint on the land. that wasn't true. you drilled individual wells with soda straws. now cro you can drill directionally and frack horizonly. but you need to know what's being put down the hole, you need to know what's happening with the fluids as they come back. that's what our regulations are addressing. >> woodruff: those are coming out in the next few weeks we understand. >> we haven't set a dale jarrett, but we have taken comments twice, over a million comments. we're synthesizing those. we hope to have them released in the relatively near future. >> woodruff: when they do come out, we hope you come back and we can talk to you. >> that would be great. >> woodruff: secretary of the interior, sally jewell, thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. a grand jury in new york declined to indict a white policeman in the choking death of a black man, eric garner. mayor bill de blasio appealed for calm, and a justice department official said there will be a separate, federal investigation. japanese air bag maker takata refused to make a recall of defective products nationwide in the u.s. and there was word this evening that a u.s. health care worker who may have been exposed to ebola in west africa is being transferred to emory university hospital in atlanta. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, british scientists have solved a 500- year-old cold case. over the centuries, the location of king richard the third's grave was lost. in 2012, human bones were unearthed from under a parking lot in england, and now, using d.n.a., researchers have concluded that they are those of the infamous monarch. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, we'll look at a long awaited report by the department of defense on sexual assault in the military. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening, for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions 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. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. funded in part by -- thestreet.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer and fellow portfolio manager stephanie link share their investment strategies, stock picks and market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. wall street and washington. the two intersected today when some of the biggest names in business from walmart to exxon mobile asked the president about some of the biggest issues facing their companies and the economy. >> and there's one matter that could keep business leaders up at night in the new year. we'll tell you what it is. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, december 3rd. >> good evening, everyone. i'm sue

Transcripts For WHYY PBS NewsHour 20141203

and political will. >> we've either got to augment the resources to make the goal achievable, or we've got to adjust the goal to be something that's consistent with the available resources, because if we don't, we're going to waste a lot of money. >> ifill: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> thanks for my first car. thanks for giving me your smile, your motivation, and your belief that loved ones always come first. we wouldn't be where we are if it were not for the people that helped get us here. don't forget to thank those who helped you to take charge of your future and got you where you are today. the boss of your life. the chief life officer. lincoln financial. you're in charge. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions 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. >> woodruff: a white policeman in new york city will not be charged in the choking death of a black man that was caught on videotape. the case has been closely watched in the wake of events in ferguson, missouri. police on staten island tried to arrest eric garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes last july. he told them to leave him alone, but one wrapped an arm around his neck as garner repeatedly gasped, "i can't breathe." it turned out he had asthma, and he died later. the officer denied using a banned chokehold, and a grand jury today found no reasonable cause to indict. that drew outrage from several of new york's members of congress, including representative hakeem jeffries. >> woodruff: garner's father condemned the grand jury decision, calling it, "a license to kill a black man". but he also called for calm, as did new york city mayor bill de blasio, who urged non-violent protest. >> it is never my intention to harm anyone and i feel very bad about the death of mr. garner. >> woodruff: and in washington, president obama said the case underscores again, "the larger issues" that minorities have with police in america. >> we are not going to let up until we see a strengthening of the trust, and a strengthening of the accountability that exists between our communities and our law enforcement. >> woodruff: a funeral was held for a 12-year-old boy killed by police when he pulled a pellet gun last month. the child was black, the officer white. the "cleveland plain dealer" today reported the officer's handling of firearms was rated as "dismal" in a previous police job. >> ifill: world allies gathered in brussels today to plot strategy against islamic state extremists. diplomats from more than 60 nations and organizations met at nato headquarters. secretary of state john kerry said air attacks have already done serious damage to islamic state fighters. >> we are united and moving ahead on all fronts and that we will engage in this campaign for as long as it takes to prevail. and there is a reason why we are confident that we will, and that is all of you around this table, the members of this coalition. >> ifill: kerry declined to comment or deny reports that iran is also carrying out air strikes against islamic state forces inside iraq. >> woodruff: iran issued its own denial today of those air strike reports. unnamed pentagon officials had said iran used aging f-4 phantom jets to launch the raids in recent days. but in tehran, a government spokesman said iran's support for iraq has not expanded to include direct military intervention. >> ( translated ): there has been no change. the islamic republic of iran continues to provide assistance, especially advice and consultation assistance within the frameworks of international law, but there has been no change in this regard. >> woodruff: and in syria, president bashar assad said today that air strikes against islamic state targets in his country have done no good. he told a french magazine that only ground troops can defeat the militants. >> ifill: meanwhile in baghdad, the iraqi interior ministry said a woman detained in lebanon is not the wife of the islamic state leader, abu bakr al- baghdadi, after all. instead, a ministry official said she is the sister of a man convicted of bombings in southern iraq. >> woodruff: three leaders of hong kong's pro-democracy campaign surrendered to police today, after more than two months of demonstrating for free elections. the men were not immediately charged, and were not detained. afterward, they again urged students to call off protests that have led to violent clashes with police. >> ( translated ): the situation is very dangerous so i hope protesters can end the occupation movement as soon as possible. let's save the energy and continue this path of democracy. this is a long and exhausting road, but we need to walk together. >> woodruff: despite that appeal, hundreds of student demonstrators remained at two protest camps in hong kong's financial hub. >> ifill: back in this country, drought-ravaged california soaked up a second day of heavy rainfall from a major pacific storm. more than eight inches had fallen in parts of the san bernardino mountains by dawn. to the north, the downpours spawned isolated flooding in the san francisco region, where some roads were under water. forecasters said they expect the rain to last through tomorrow. even so, it's expected to take many more storms to break the drought. >> woodruff: the republican- controlled house moved to extend $45 billion in tax breaks through the end of this year. the move will allow millions of businesses and individuals to claim the breaks when they file their returns this coming tax season. >> ifill: the house also approved the first new legislation on disabled americans in nearly 25 years. the so-called able act for achieving a better life experience, will let the disabled open tax-sheltered bank accounts to pay for long-term expenses. it could affect as many as 54 million people. the senate is expected to pass the bill as well. >> woodruff: texas and 16 other states filed suit today over president obama's executive actions on immigration. they went to federal court in texas, arguing the president exceeded his powers by protecting up to five million migrants from deportation. they also claim his actions will force the states to spend more on law enforcement, health care, and education. >> ifill: stocks rallied on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average gained 33 points to close at 17,912; the nasdaq rose 18 points to close at 4,774; and the s&p added more than seven points to close at 2,074. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour. details of the eric garner chokehold case. congress confronts airbag manufacturer takata over deadly defects and recalls. the supreme court weighs arguments on job protections for pregnant workers. nasa's first step to send humans to mars. and, interior secretary sally jewell on plans to restructure schools for native american students. >> ifill: in two cases, in two cities, in less than two weeks, two grand juries declined to indict white police officers accused of killing unarmed black men. but in today's case, in new york, it was on tape. hari sreenivasan has more on the case of eric garner. >> sreenivasan: reaction to the grand jury decision has been sharp and highlights a very tense relationship between police in new york and the communities they serve. it's also a test for its new mayor. joining us now is pervaiz shallwani, criminal justice reporter for the "wall street journal." so surprised? >> you know, i think there is some surprise. i think some people believe that because there was a video in this case there was a little bit more clear-cut path to a charge of some kind. you know, the grand jury ultimately decided that there wasn't. >> sreenivasan: okay. the parallels and the not so parallels with ferguson? >> i think some of the parallels are there is a belief that it's almost impossible to indict a police officer in a case where the autopsy reveals there's a homicide, but there are very different situations here, just, you know, in how they sort of played out, one, and, two, on the ground the way the situation is, i think new york city is a much different situation than ferguson. >> sreenivasan: we played a little bit of the video. i think most of the country is wondering, wait, everyone can see that something horrible happened to this man, that there was a chokehold applied. the new york city police department came out and said, this is not a maneuver that we authorize. the coroner and the medical examiner said this is homicide by choking. yet still the grand jury couldn't come up with it. >> they said it was in part a homicide by choking, but, you know, what the medical examiner determined and how a criminal investigation unfolds is very different. you know, chokeholds are banned by use by the n.y.p.d., but the unions and the office very maintained that it's a maneuver they were taught at the academy and he was using that maneuver and not intended to be a chokehold at all. >> sreenivasan: this evening we heard the mayor say this is just one chapter that's closed. this is something new york city and the police department has been preparing for. >> n.y.p.d. has been preparing for this for weeks. the police commissioner last week after the ferguson riots sent down a couple of his own detectives to learn on-the-ground techniques and get on-the-ground information for how new york city could proceed, you know, when eric garner's decision came down. you still have two other pending investigations. you have an internal affairs investigation that will determine if officer pantaleo was actually in violation of n.y.p.d. protocol. you also have the department of justice announcing that they're opening a civil rights investigation today into the eric garner matter. >> okay. so when these investigations happen, is that going to change the feeling of the cops on the street, the ones that you talk to as you do your reporting? right now what's the position that they're in? >> it's going to depend on how things sort of unfold i think over next couple days. i mean, there is some apprehension on the part of the cops, what you hear from some of the unions out there, but at the same time, you hear the police department say that the cops are going to, you know, go through some retraining, and um mattly they expect officers to do their job. >> sreenivasan: and what kinds of retraining has the police department considered in the wake of this and in the wake of the ferguson case, which while it's different is coming within a week of this. >> sure. the n.y.p.d. announced about a week after the eric garner incident, less than a week after the eric garner incident, that it would retrain all 35,000 officers. that retraining has already begun, particularly this week. it will focus on things like use of force, use of language and retraining of some of these techniques that are used in the field. >> sreenivasan: what about the change that the new york police department went through in the beginning as the garner incident, they said someone died in custody. after the video came out, it was a different narrative altogether? >> i think to listen to the n.y.p.d., they said they didn't realize that there was a video. once they realized there was a video, that video was reviewed. i think they came out and gave what their belief was how the investigation would then move forward out of that. >> sreenivasan: the prosecutor also said today, almost setting the tone, don't expect all of the evidence to be made public as it was in the ferguson matter. >> correct. >> sreenivasan: we don't really know whether he tried to go after a lesser charge of say manslaughter. >> right. i mean, it's not 100% clear what charges were presented to the grand jury. the staten island district attorney has come out and said that, you know, the laws in new york are different than the laws in missouri. and so he is bound we new york laws and must go to a judge to release some information, and it's unclear what kind of information he is seeking to release. in missouri, you know, the laws allowed them to release all the grand jury testimony. >> finally, is there any action that the new york police department can take independent of this grand jury or the department of justice? >> yeah, absolutely. as it pertains to officer pantaleo and even the other officer with him, they have both been placed on modified duety. they're looking into determining if they violated any n.y.p.d. protocols. the n.y.p.d. protocols say there is no use of chokehold allowed. it will be up to internal affairs investigators to determine if officer pantaleo violated that and then up to the board to make a recommendation on what kind of disminute he gets. it could be up to as far as him being fired from the police force by police commissioner bratton. >> pervaiz shallwani of the "wall street journal," thanks very much. >> thanks, hari. >> woodruff: air bag manufacturer takata was back in the spotlight today over it's refusal to endorse a nationwide recall of defective air bags. the japanese firm faced question on that decision and others in a hearing at a u.s. house of representatives. the hearing came just hours after a deadline for takata to expand its recall as demanded by the national highway traffic safety administration or nhtsa. deputy administrator david friedman. >> first of all, i was deeply disappointed by takata's response and takata's failure to take responsibility for the defects that their products. for the defects in their products. >> woodruff: the problem lies with inflators that activate so violently, they cause the air bags to explode. there've been at least five deaths and dozens of injuries linked to the defect worldwide. takata senior vice president hiroshi shimizu insisted again today that only people who live in humid conditions are at risk. >> the data still supports that we should remain focused on the region with high temperature and high humidity. >> woodruff: in line with that thinking, about eight million vehicles have been recalled in the u.s., mostly in florida, hawaii, and along the gulf coast. takata says a nationwide recall would double that figure. the company remained adamant today that a nationwide recall isn't supported by the evidence. but nhtsa's friedman pointed to reports of air bag explosions in other parts of the country. >> between the fact that the root cause on the driver side is not clear now that it's clear that it is outside those areas of high temperatures and high humidity and the fact that we now have six total incidents it is clear to us that a regional recall is no longer appropriate for the driver side airbags. >> woodruff: the agency had threatened to take legal action and impose fines of up to $35 million unless takata complied. but the air bag maker took the position today that washington does not have the legal authority to make a parts maker enforce a recall. and, friedman acknowledged it could take a protracted fight. >> we need to make sure that we build the strongest case possible, because at the end of the day, if takata and the auto makers continue to refuse to act, we are going to have to take them to court. we want to make sure we have a case prepared that will win. >> woodruff: a number of lawmakers voiced frustration that even replacing the air bags recalled so far will take months to complete. and they let takata's vice president know it. >> complexity is not an excuse for incompetence. >> constituents who are literally afraid to drive their cars. >> woodruff: across the capitol, at a senate confirmation hearing, the man nominated to run nhtsa, mark rosekind, was pressed to make the agency more aggressive. massachusetts democrat ed markey. >> you must make takata recall all these airbags, you must force auto comps to comply, there is no choice, safety of american people is at stake. takata is toying with safety of american people. >> woodruff: but the weight of public opinion may be having some effect: today, honda one of takata's biggest customers announced it will expand its own recall of driver-side air bags to all 50 states. >> ifill: today, the supreme court heard arguments in the case of peggy young, a former u.p.s. driver, who says the company discriminated against her when she was pregnant. u.p.s. placed young on unpaid leave for several months, because she was unable to perform her required duties. young's lawyers say the company's actions violated the pregnancy discrimination act. women's rights groups and members of congress rallied outside the supreme court this morning to support young's argument. but there are at least two sides to the argument. joining us to describe what happened inside the court today: marcia coyle of the national law journal. emily martin, vice president and general counsel for the national women's law center. and, karen harned, executive director of the national federation of independent business's small business legal center. let's look at this 1979 law, '78 law. if i put on my glasses, i can see it. it says discrimination on the basis of pregnancy is illegal and pregnant women should be treated the same as all other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work. sounds pretty straightforward and pretty simple. >> simple until you get into the supreme court and start arguing what the language means. today the arguments really focus primarily on that second clause, how to treat pregnant workers. ups has argued and it argued today that it has basically a pregnancy-blind policy. it offers accommodations to workers whose injuries occur or conditions develop on the job, not off the job. so it's not singling out pregnant workers. they are being treated like all of ups' other workers who have injuries or conditions that develop off the job. it looked at that second clause and said, that's not a free-standing, independent claim to charge discrimination against u.p.s. it is tied to the basic prohibition against pregnancy discrimination. well, miss young's attorney says, let's look at the language of that clause again. it says nothing about on-the-job, off-the-job distinctions. it also doesn't speak to the cause or the source of the limitation on the worker. instead it says, "you're to compare the pregnant worker's limitation with a non-pregnant workers who have similar limitations on their ability or inability to do the job." and also he claims ups doesn't have a pregnancy-blind policy because it does offer accommodations to workers who lose their department of transportation certificate. it allows them to drive. it also accommodates with workers with conditions recognized by the americans with disabilities act. >> ifill: i gather this is a lively set of arguments. >> very lively. justice scalia and some other justices looked at the way mrs. young's attorney reads that clause. justice scalia used the phrase, "it's so broad the way you're reading it that you're seeking most-favored nation treatment for pregnant workers." well, he was sort of expressing the concern that businesses that are supporting ups say here, that any time an employer gives an accommodation to a worker with a limitation, regardless of how it happened or its severity, a pregnant worker is going to seek that same accommodation. but on the other side, justices ginsburg and justice kagan, for example, said that ups' reading is so narrow that it is giving least-favored nation treatment to pregnant workers. and also the reading, according to justice kagan, it really makes the second clause redundant here, meaningless, and congress could not have intended to do that. >> ifill: the administration had argued against bringing this case. now it's on the other side. how did that flip happen? >> well, it didn't argue because it didn't think the case was not worthy, but the administration did have a change of policy. for many years it read that section the same way that ups reads it. in 2014, this year, over the summer the equal employment opportunity commission issued new guidance. its guidance on this supports mrs. young's interpretation of the law. since the department of justice does follow eeoc guidance, that is how the administration is pursuing these cases now. >> ifill: karen harned, i want to start with what the debate is. is this a debate between employees' rights and employers' rights? >> well, it's really a debate between... we would first say it's a debate on what the law actually says, and we would be in the category that we definitely believe that if miss young were to prevail, it would create a super protective class for the pregnant worker. our concern really is that there needs to be limits. if miss young were to prevail, there wouldn't be the limits that you even see with the americans with disabilities act where if an accommodation would be an undue hardship on a business, that would be considered and qiewd also look at whether or not the accommodation was reasonable. these are really questions that are better answered in congress and the state legislatures, not through the supreme court we think rewriting the law. >> ifill: emily martin, are we just arguing this debate in the wrong place? >> i think this case is critically important because it's about whether the pregnancy discrimination act means what it says. it's of critical importance for women around the country. unfortunately, peggy young's story is not unique. at the national women's law center we hear again and again from women who have lost their job, have lost their paycheck because their employer refuses to make a simple accommodation like letting the cash sheen sit at a stool during an eight-hour shift late in her pregnancy. as a result, women are being forced to choose between their jobs and a healthy pregnancy. that's not a choice anybody should have to make. >> ifill: what is the difference, i want to ask the two of you, what's the difference between o'mitting coverage for a protected class or actively discriminating? >> what is your sense about that? >> well, i think, and ups argued this today, there are good business reasons why a company is going to have different classes of benefits for different classes of employees. part-time versus full-time. in this instance those injured on the job versus those not, which is very common. you need to be able to have that flexibility, and then also for the small employer in particular, their ability to backfill and make up for work lost by an miy is much more difficult when you're looking at a workforce of 15 or 16 than with one of 200 or more. >> do the anti-pregnancy discrimination laws that exist rule out allowing that protected class for this particular subset of employees? >> the pregnancy discrimination act was passed for a very specific reason, to repudiate a previous supreme court case from 1976 where the supreme court said it's not sex discrimination for an employer to have a temporary disability insurance policy that covers all accidents and injuries and excludes pregnancy. congress said very clearly, no, you have to treat pregnancy the way you treat other disabilities and injuries that can have an effect on a person's ability to work. that was the precise purpose of the pregnancy discrimination act, to keep pregnant workers from being treated like second-class citizens in the workplace. >> ifill: so what you're saying is the argument that karen cane makes is a second-class citizens argument? >> i think that what ups is arguing is that the fact they have found a way to accommodate people with on-the-job injuries, people with disabilities under the a.d.a.m., people who have lost their commercial driver's license, that should mean that they can accommodate pregnant workers, too. that's exactly what the pregnancy discrimination act was intended to create. >> ifill: it should be said that both ups has changed their policy and the eeoc has changed its guidelines since this case came. >> i would put to all employers, this one-size-fits-all is not going to work. when you're talking about small workforce, maybe a small restaurant with only three servers working over the weekend, you lose one of those servers or some of their abilities to work, that's much harder for a small business owner to address. that's why you need the balance that you get in things like the americans with disabilities act where you're also looking at undue hardship, what is a reasonable accommodation for those business operations to continue. those are debates that need to happen in congress, not at the court. >> but the pregnancy discrimination act only requires equal treatment. so it requires the employer to do for the pregnant worker what it's already doing for another worker who has a similar inability to work. >> ifill: one of the thing i find most interesting about this case is the odd bedfellows that agree on this. you seldom see pro-life and pro-choice making the same case. >> i can't remember when that has happened in the past. you have civil liberties group, women's rights group, as you said, i think something like 23 pro-life organizations have all joined to support miss young. >> ifill: what is the common thread? >> the need to ensure that pregnant women who are in the workforce do get equal treatment and aren't forced, as miss young was, to go on unpaid leave, where she also least her health insurance. on the other side of ups, as you would expect, are businesses large and small and also a rather conservative women's group, the eagle forum. >> ifill: marcia coyle, emily martin and karen harned of the national federation of independent business, thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: for the first time in more than four decades, nasa is set to launch a space capsule tomorrow that has grander plans of human exploration into deep space. the liftoff for the orion spacecraft will be unmanned. but it is an important test flight, and the first of many, as nasa tries to chart a longer- term vision for human flight. science correspondent miles o'brien has our report. > at a 50-year-old facility that tested the capsule, engineers are working on ways to protect a crew of astronauts returning to earth from a voyage to mars. >> it's really a whole new ballgame in terms of mission requirements and what we've done before. >> aerospace engineers are working on a thermal protection system for nasa's orion spacecraft, a capsule that has been described as apollo on steroids. >> so what we use is a material called avcoat, it's a derivation of the same material used in the apollo program for the apollo heat shield. on the orion heat shield, there are over 300,000 of these individual cells that are all filled by hand. >> he's using the venerable facility at nasa's ames research center to torch small sam prime ministers of the heat shield with blistering hot gasses moving at hypersonic speeds in a vacuum. it's as close to a real re-entry from space as you can get on the ground. >> this is a four-inch diameter puck. the orion capsule is five meet centers diameter. we really rely at the end of the day on a flight test to tell us how those parts of the system will work. >> eft1 or exploration flight test 1, will subject a orion capsule to a real-world trial by fire on its maiden voyage, giving nasa the data they need and a big milestone. bill hill is a nasa associate administrator. >> eft1 is absolutely the biggest thing that this agency is going to do this year. >> orion is slated to orbit the earth twice, once at an altitude of about 500 miles. then it will get a lift from a second-stage booster to 3,600 miles, high enough for the capsule to be exposed to a big december of space radiation and to create enough speed on re-entry to generate 80% of the heat it would encounter on a return from the moon. >> this is really our first step in our journey to mars. >> nasa envisions a human presence on mars in the mid-20 30s. charlie bowden is the agency's administrator. >> i use the term pioneer instead of explorer. exploring implies we'll go out and come back like lewis and clark. we're intending to pioneer mars, which means we'll put people on that planet to be there permanently. >> but nasa is a long way from that. >> if you ask us to go to mars today, we don't think we're in the right risk posture. >> the man in charge of human space exploration at nasa says the current plan calls for an unpeopled orion can sell to orbit the moon in 2018 and in 2021 or 2022 carry two astronauts on a short visit to small asteroid or a piece of a larger one that would be robotically grabbed and nudged into lunar orbit. there are no firm plans for what happened after that. engineers are dealing with some big technical hurdles, how to protect the crew from radiation, how to land something much bigger than a compact car-sized rover on mars, and how humans can safely operate independent from support from earth. >> the basic strategy that we're trying to do as we do a series of test, each one of more and more complexity and more and more challenge, that we continue to add until eventually we build the capabilities and the skills and the operational techniques and the risk management philosophy that allows us to go to mars. >> there are many seasoned hands in the space world who wonder if the agency's big plans to visit the red planet may become lost in space. tom young is among them. >> i think a fundamental problem we have with today's mars strategy is that it's not consistent with the available budget, and we don't have the funds to really make it an executable plan. >> young is a veteran aerospace executive who knows a little something about getting to the red planet. >> i'm assuming we must be sitting right on the x. so that's a smooth area. so everybody just did fabulous. couldn't be more pleased. thank you. >> he was nasa's program manager for the viking missions in the mid-'70s, which accomplished the first and second successful landings on mars. >> we it's very to augustment the resources to make the goal achievable or we've got to adjust the goal to be something that's consistent with the available resources because if we don't, what we're fundamentally going to do is we're going to waste a lot of money. >> ignition and liftoff. >> in 2010, president obama canceled the bush administration's constellation program. which envisioned a rush to the moon. >> i understand that some believe we should attempt a return to the surface of the moon first. as previously planned. but i just have to say pretty bluntly here, we've been there before. >> obama wanted nasa to use the money constellation would have spent on a can sell and rocket made of apollo and shuttle legacy hardware to push the development of new propulsion technology and seed the private sector to bill new vehicles, but the cancellation of constellation ruffled the feathers of some heavyweights in the aerospace world and on capitol hill. senator richard shelby of alabama represents nasa's primary rocket-building facility, huntsville's marshall space flight center. he helped force the administration to spend less on new technology and instead design a rocket called the space launch system or sls. led by shelby's constituents in huntsville, sls is being built with beefed-up, shuttle-style boosters and shuttle main engines. >> these were very successful engines. we do know what we have. that's why we learn. this is tomorrow's technology. we'll learn from this. there will be other things that will come out of it that will be positive. but you just don't reinvent the wheel. you build on the wheel. these were good wheels. >> but as it is, sls does not have enough thurst to go any further than lunar orbit. that's what prompted the idea of bringing an asteroid to the moon. otherwise sls is a rocket without a destination. for a mission to mars, it will need a redesign with more powerful boosters and a new second-stage motor. former nasa deputy administrator lori garver was one of the leading proponents of the original obama space plan. >> if you were driving to mars, there were a number of things you'd be doing that we're not doing now that are the difficult things. you wouldn't be building a spacecraft now based on technology from 40 years ago, engines from 40 years ago to go somewhere in 20 years and spending $3 to $4 billion a year on that. >> garver believes nasa's current path to mars is a hybrid of ideas borne not of engineering elegance but political compromise. >> the purpose has become political and jobs, and i think we're... we've lost the sort of unifying view that exploration is something that we do as a species. we should have that broader purpose rather than just a political needs of a few members of congress with jobs in their district. >> senator shelby rejects the notion that space exploration has become a jobs program. >> well, i'd be against a jobs program. i'm for the cutting-edge of space. jobs come with it if you've got a good system that you're building. i believe this will be a good system and be good for the space program. otherwise i wouldn't support it. >> but will a half a loaf with a side of bacon ever get nasa to mars? is there enough money in nasa's budget to pay for the compromise and still reach the stars? john holdren is president obama's science adviser. >> i don't think the current approach of kicking the can down the road may amount to within reasonable limits getting down the steps we need to achieve in order ultimately to get to mars. eventually, yes, between now and the 2030s, we would meade to ramp up the budget. at the current budget, we will not get to mars, that's correct. >> during orion's first flight, nasa engineers aim to test the riskiest events, things that have to work right first time when astronauts are on board. but the biggest risk to the overarching goal may have more to do with political science than rocket science. miles o'brien, the pbs "newshour," washington. >> ifill: online we have a slideshow of orion's journey to the launchpad. and you can watch the launch live tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. eastern on our homepage. >> ifill: we'll be back with a conversation with secretary of the interior sally jewell on reforming the education system for native americans. but first, it's pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for your support. and that support helps keep programs like ours on the air. >> woodruff: now the substantial problems that native americans in the u.s. face, particularly with education. that was the focus of a new report issued today and a meeting president obama had with native americans in washington. the president announced a series of initiatives to prepare young american indians for college and the workforce. they include a push to strengthen tribal control of education on reservations. the federal bureau of indian education is responsible for educating nearly 50,000 students in 23 states. the high school graduation rate is for native americans the lowest of any ethnic or racial group. the bureau is part of the department of the interior and interior secretary sally jewell joins me now. welcome to the news hour. >> thank you very much. >> we know the problems in the native american community. they're deeply entrenchedment they go back a long time to the very beginning of this country. what are just a couple of the ways the administration thinks it can make a real difference. >> well, the report that the white house just issued on native american use does a very good job of chronicling the challenges. they are deep seeded. they've been along for not just decades but literally hundreds of years. policies that tried to kill the indian to save the man. policies of assimilation, of squishing cultures and in so doing, they really diminish the confidence and the pride of native americans. what the president has done and he's charged his cabinet with this, and this was really powerfully breakthrough home to him in a visit with young people at the standing rock sioux tribe , is he does not want the stand by and watch this happen anymore. he's charged his administration very directly with being part of the solution, with charting a different course. that's what we're doing. >> the challenges we know because of all the attention on it today facing young native americans, particularly tough. i was reading more than one-third of them live in poverty. the statistics we just reported them are really discouraging. first of all, how did it get so bad. how can the administration make a real difference this time? >> will, the short answer is there have been reports that have gone back for decades. there's a major report under president kennedy's leadership on indian education that showed many of the same problems. and the distance today and the difference that we believe strongly in is around turning over control of these schools to tribal leadership. in giving them the tools they need to figure out where the bright spots, what's going well and why, so that we can help them bring those lessons to their schools, and yet they have accountability. you mentioned 23 states. that's 23 different sets of rules, very, very difficult for us to administer, and a lack of accountability because we're a federal bureaucracy. tribes will hold people accountable for doing the right job for their kids and that's the basic premise here. >> what makes you think that's going to work. >> we have some great bright spots out there. the mississippi band of choctaw indians has done a wonderful job of tribal control of schools. they hire a director, reports to the tribal council and the tribal chief, and they have didn't a great job. i visited their reservation and i saw it in action. i have been to many schools where the kids are wonderful. the kids are curious. the kids don't know how the deck is stacked against them. and we need to nurture that. i see individual schools working hard to do that. but i see them doing it in crumbling facilities, and i see them doing that without the kind of support that they need from us. >> we know some native american leaders, they point to these years of promise as you mention, the kennedy administration, about children getting a better education. they're saying many of those promises have been broken. i was reading today a minnesota newspaper editorial written on behalf of an indian reservation. they say the obama administration has "ignored the fundamental need for safe, functional schools." >> so the in minnesota they're in the middle of a series, which i would say is very helpful, because it's shining a spotlight on the challenges we have of the schools that i administer through the pure reof indian education, it's about 183 of them, one-third of them are considered in poor condition. one of them was a school i visited up there. none of us would want our kids to go to school there. it's not safe. it wasn't designed for that purpose. it's too cold. it's too hot. it has no labs for science. it's not serve children well. so we need support in our budget to be able to do that. we need to get creative, which i'm getting in figuring out what other sources of support might there be. in the private sector, in the philanthropic community, in states but also stepping up to our obligations as a nation and putting money in the budget to take care of these schools, which we're obligated to do but we're not funded to do. >> we know it's a tough set of problems. i also want to ask you about another part of your portfolio. another tough set of issues. that's energy. we know both the oil and gas industry and environmentalists separately are very anxiously awaiting final rules on hydraulic fracturing, fracking on public land. the environmentalists say they're worried this is going to destroy the environment, do terrible damage. the industry is saying, no, if you don't do fracking, you're going to cost all these jobs. how do you strike the right balance here? >> well, first i'm an environmentalist, and i'm also a petroleum engineer. i started my career working for mobile oil. i have personally tracked wells before. so fracking can be didn't safely and responsibly, but it needs to be regulated in a modern way because fracking has gone a long way since i was in the industry. so we're modernizing our regulation, and there are three key things that we're looking at in regulations. the most important thing is integrity. if you've got a good well integrity and the the frack fluid is going where it's supposed to gosh, it can unlock resources with a small imprint on the land. that wasn't true. you drilled individual wells with soda straws. now cro you can drill directionally and frack horizonly. but you need to know what's being put down the hole, you need to know what's happening with the fluids as they come back. that's what our regulations are addressing. >> woodruff: those are coming out in the next few weeks we understand. >> we haven't set a dale jarrett, but we have taken comments twice, over a million comments. we're synthesizing those. we hope to have them released in the relatively near future. >> woodruff: when they do come out, we hope you come back and we can talk to you. >> that would be great. >> woodruff: secretary of the interior, sally jewell, thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. a grand jury in new york declined to indict a white policeman in the choking death of a black man, eric garner. mayor bill de blasio appealed for calm, and a justice department official said there will be a separate, federal investigation. japanese air bag maker takata refused to make a recall of defective products nationwide in the u.s. and there was word this evening that a u.s. health care worker who may have been exposed to ebola in west africa is being transferred to emory university hospital in atlanta. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, british scientists have solved a 500- year-old cold case. over the centuries, the location of king richard the third's grave was lost. in 2012, human bones were unearthed from under a parking lot in england, and now, using d.n.a., researchers have concluded that they are those of the infamous monarch. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, we'll look at a long awaited report by the department of defense on sexual assault in the military. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening, for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions 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. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. funded in part by -- thestreet.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer and fellow portfolio manager stephanie link share their investment strategies, stock picks and market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. wall street and washington. the two intersected today when some of the biggest names in business from walmart to exxon mobile asked the president about some of the biggest issues facing their companies and the economy. >> and there's one matter that could keep business leaders up at night in the new year. we'll tell you what it is. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, december 3rd. >> good evening, everyone. i'm sue herera.

Transcripts For KNTV Early Today 20131126

we're going to begin with the deadly storm marching across the country a. triple threat bringing snow, wind and rain across new england and the system is already complicating holiday plans for millions of americans. let's get to bill karins for the latest. bill, if you're heading out the door, whether you're in the east or west, what might you see? >> airports. that's the thing we'll be watching. everyone in the west is fine, on any trains. it's the airports across the country that the ripple effect from delays in the east will cause. the huge storm is now near new orleans, a huge plume of rain coming up the eastern seaboard. enough cold air for a little bit of snow and ice in the appalachians, and also up into new england. as far as the airports go today, some of the bigger hubs that will have problems, atlanta, of course, a huge one. charlotte, raleigh, major delays. minor delays late today in d.c., especially dulles and pittsburgh. as we go into wednesday, huge delays at the bigger airports. this is where we could get the effects going across the country. boston, new york airport, washington, d.c., the first half of wednesday, and pittsburgh and buffalo dealing with some snow out of this. for anyone traveling to the east coast, or travel plans on the east coast, a lot of loved ones, family across the country, it will be a difficult day. >> grandma has to wait a little longer. at least we now know. thank you, bill karins. we're less than 24 hours away from the busiest travel day of the year. of the year and 48 million of us are expected to hit the roads and take to the air this week. sarah joins us from chicago o'hare's international airport. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. believe it or not, the number of people traveling this year is actually slightly down compared to last year, but the nasty weather means things will be crowded as ever at airports and on the road. before the crowd has left home, the wallop of weather has stranded passengers and making for dangerous driving conditions and mother nature is not done yet. >> the weather is not going to clear until after thursday, and unfortunately, that's after all of the major travel has supposed to have occur. >> reporter: it will undoubtedly affect millions of people headed to wisconsin. >> waterloo, iowa. >> reporter: to celebrate with loves oned. wednesday and sunday are predicted to be the two busiest travel days of the season, with l.a.x. and chicago o'hara among the two busiest airports. officials recommend arriving two hours early for domestic flights and three hours for international. >> do everything you can before leaving home. printing out the boarding pass and sending it to the mobile devices. >> reporter: the nearly 39 million people who will be driving to their destinations are in for a police and surprise at the pump. gas prices are the cheapest they've been since thanksgiving of 2010. a silver lining during a hectic and wintry holiday journey. even if you are traveling to an area with good weather it's important that you check and double-check your flight status. the bad weather will likely have a ripple effect on cancellations. back to you, richard. >> all right, sarah, thank you so much. appreciate it. today, the supreme court takes up the case involving obama care. the question, does the requirement to provide contraceptives to employees violate a company's right to religious freedom? nbc's tracie pots has more on that for us. good morning. >> reporter: richard, good morning. the justices will be asked whether to look at any of the cases, there are several that have worked their way up to the u.s. supreme court. nearly 40 companies in all arguing that even though they're required to provide health insurance under the health law, if that health insurance includes birth control, it is a violation of their rights under the religious freedom restoration act. they also look at individual employees having to pay premiums. the individual mandate that we talked about so much. but if they have a religious objection, should they be required to pay for that type of insurance for that type of coverage? if the justices decide to take up one of these cases, it could be next spring before they're argued, late june before we get a decision. richard? >> tracie potts, thank you so much. a new report reveals details about the shooting at sandy hook and the killer adam lansa. >> reporter: the report says the shooting took place over 25 minutes. includes photos of the shattered glass where lanza shot his way into the building, and there are empty cell casings from the more 150 shots fired. investigators say lanza acted alone and planned his actions, including the taking of his own life. there is no clear motive according to the report that goes to to discuss lanza's significant mental disorders. investigators say lanza refused to take medicines and did not engage in suggested therapies. newly released photos show the blacked-out bedroom, a gun safe, and the gun used to kill his mother before leaving for sandy hook, also pictures of a home computer he apparently battered. police say there was significant damage to the hard drive that limited the amount of information available. but there is evidence he researched mass shootings, firearms, and suicide, and watched videos of children being killed. they also retrieved an image of lanza holding a gun to his head. the 48-page release is a summary of the full investigative report, which sources indicate is close to 10,000 pages. that full report will be released at some point. right now, investigators are poring over the documents, removing names and other sensitive information before being made public. jay gray, nbc news, dan bury, connecticut. this report also says lanza wrote a book in the fifth grade, and included tales of children being killed and a son shooting his mother in the head. a state judge will listen to 40 minutes of 911 calls from the massacre before deciding to make them public. president obama's westward trip in full swing on monday the democratic controlled senate pass add kpree hence inch bill earlier this year. it would provide a pathway to citizenship. the president supports the bill, but one heckler focused on deportations in recent years. >> you have the power to stop -- >> and that's why we're here. okay. >> stop deportations! >> if, in fact, i could solve all these problems without passing laws in congress, then i would do so. but we're also a nation of laws. that's part of our tradition. >> the president's trip included major political fund-raising for house and senate candidates, and magic johnson and his wife hosted one of the events, as well as diane keaton and samuel jackson. heinz saban and his wife hosted another. at one event, one ticket cost as much as $32,000. the president raised money along with harry reid and house minority leader. a puppy in dallas, has a lot to be thankful for this week. the yellow lab spent more than a week stuck in a drain behind an elementary cool. teachers tried to rescue the pup for a few days, and a crew arrived and brought the guy to safety. he looks a little scared there. but i heard that mom was pacing back and forth in front of that little -- >> she knew. >> she knew. >> ahh. >> she knew her pup was down there, and the the litter happened very close to the school. there she is. >> he'll be adopted in a hurry and have a good home, hopefully. so we may be howling about, well, weather. >> yeah, the big storm, you know, everyone on the west coast started with the storm a couple of days ago, and still slowly moving across the nation. in its wake, it left a lot of cold air through the intermountain west and the west coast. it continues this morning. winter coats are needed and the winter gear. still chilly in vegas, 45. phoenix, 49 degrees. clear skies, a lot of sunshine away from the coast. but you notice the next storm system moving towards british columbia, dragging a weak front. a little more of the way of onshore flow keeping clouds in. filtered sun, we'll call it. a little warmer in l.a. at 74. 50 in seattle. 54 portland, but everyone remains dry. that's the national forecathe f. could be a different story on thursday. and for thanksgiving day, southern california may get some rain. so i'll give you an idea about that coming up. >> thank you so much, bill karins. a major supreme court case involving for-profit businesses and religious freedom. details next. plus a shocker that has thousands of fans fuming. you're watching "early today." welcome back. an ohio grand jury indicted four employees involving the steubenville rape case. it includes the school superintendent and the jury convicted the two teen boys earlier this year of raping a 16-year-old girl at a party. president obama and john kerry are defending the wisdom of an iran nuclear deal. mr. obama says the u.s. cannot close the door on diplomacy. secretary kerry says the hard part of verification, transparency, and accountability is just beginning. justice department officials have indicated they will not bring charges against wikileaks founder julian assange, although they're yet to announce the formal decision. they said assange did not break any laws by publishing government leaks. a new jersey family tells wnbc they did not write a hateful message to a gay waitress and former marine. they say they left a generous tip. they say, i'm sorry, i cannot tip because i do not agree with your lifestyles. the totals, as you can see, are different. morning-after pills may be less effective for heavier wam. the european manufacturer of an emergency contraceptive will have new labelling, and it is not effective for women who weigh more than 176 pounds. the average american woman weighs 166 pounds. stocks continue to set records as the nasdaq approaches 4,000. ipads and tablets are this year's it item for black friday deals. according to fat wallet black friday deals finders, they're the lowest prices ever seen for the gadgets. stores like walmart and target are offering gift cards with the purchases. best buy is selling the kindle fire hd for half price, and the microsoft surface is selling for under 200 smackers for the first time ever. new jersey residents who don't want to drive to atlantic ci city can now gamble online. six casinos have been green lighted. h&m will pay a fair living wage to the 850,000 textile workers beginning in 2018. h&m is the world's second largest clothing retailer. ahead, koby getting richer, while college football rivalries continue to -- well, they're heating up. sports is next. now the latest in sports for you. in "monday night football" the washington redskins honored members of the navajo code talkers, the ones that used native american language to create code that the japanese could not crack during world war ii. last week, code talkers from 33 tribes were also honored by congress. taking you to the game. two teams with two consecutive losses, wanting a win desperately. for the red skin, robert griffin iii interception in the first quarter really told the story. later, he runs it, loses it, he get it is back. the field goal is all they get on that one. second half, all 49ers scoring two touchdowns. washington gets only 30 yards, and all of the second half. and the niners trample, 27-6. rocker jon bon jovi's publicist says hold the phone here. he may not want to buy the bills. the price tag "forbes "estimates could be some $870 million for the team, and the rockers worth, just, $290 million. they allege it knew the risks of head trauma and failed to inform and protect players. so much of the nfl's lawsuit, the nhl says, quote, we are completely satisfied with our responsible manner in which the league and the players association have managed players safety over time, going on to say we intended to defend the case vigorously and have no further comment at this time. it is good to be the highest paid in the land. kobe bryant just signing a two-year extension worth more than $48 million. he hasn't played since april when he tore his achilles tendon. many folks asking, when's he coming back? rivalry week ahead of the usc clemson game. here's a 110-year-old tra dig called tiger burn. south carolina fans burn a 30-foot-tall replica of clemson's mascot. now, that's a fire. ahead, one of oprah's most frightening career moments revealed. and one of the most bizarre yet clever music video spoofs to come along in a while. welcome back. let me take you through the next three days. a lot of people traveling. clear, tranquil skies in many locations right through thanksgiving day. there's a storm that's off the coast. it's actually diving to the south. it's going to be safe enough offshore, it won't really affect everyone, even on wednesday even. temperatures on wednesday very similar to what we're dealing with on tuesday. thanksgiving day, though, the storm is down here near southern california, close enough that we could see some rain in the area. nothing too significant, you know, maybe enough to dampen the day a little bit. >> and the turkey animation above bill karins' head. yes, the holidays are here. >> no sound effects. i spared you the gobble gobble. >> will you do that later? >> maybe. >> do it tomorrow. thanksgivukkah may be hitting the big screen. the fake trailer starring nick krul. if they could just get adam sandler, i was thinking, on board to turn the once in a lifetime holiday into a film or the song, then i might watch it, listen to it. mm-hmm. >> mm-hmm. >> that was kind of funny. a former classmate of jennifer lawrence posted this photo of the actress from junior high. she looks pretty much the same -- >> looks like a character the whole time. >> yeah, a little younger. sandra bullock the entertainer of the year. >> a great picture. >> it is a great pic. for the two 2013 films "the heat" and "gravity" which has torn up the theaters. sunday's episode show talking "family dog" brian killed off by a car. fans started a petition on change.org to bring the dog back to life. it already has over 19,000 signatures. bill's going to bring up the time machine. >> stewy will go back and save him. >> yeah, he's coming back. oprah revealed when she first met steven spielberg on the set of "the color purple," she was terrified of him. on the first day, she looked right into the camera, he yelled cut. he asked her, what is wrong with you? after being on the talk show for so many years, she looked straight into the camera. >> yeah. remember the famous statue of a bird from the movie "maltese falcon"? it sold for over $4 million. the ruby slippers from "the wizard of oz" went for $2 million. seth rogan and james franco, the two parodied kanye's new video. we hope this is your first stop of the day right here on nbc. leading the news, same-sex couple will be grant add marriage license seven months before the same-sex marriage law goes into effect because one of the ladies -- one of the ladies is battling terminal cancer. on nbc news.com, bodie miller loses round and battle over custody over baby son. it's a case of women's rights to relocate. world powers are hoping to build on the momentum of the iran nuclear deal to strike a peace deal in syria to end the 3-year-old deadly civil war there. the geneva conference is set for january 22nd, but the syrian opposition remains vague as to whether it will actually attend. both sides have different visions at the moment about the future of president assad. happy news for william pettitte and his new wife, christine. they welcomed a baby boy over the weekend. he tragically lost his wife and two daughters in a 2007 home invasion. two men are awaiting execution for that crime. pettitte met his new wife while she was volunteering for a charity that he created in memory of his family. and afghanistan may legalize death by stoning for adulterers, but the punishment can only happen if there are four eyewitnesses. check out the wet and wild rendition of the classic holiday song "twelve days of christmas." 35 women in a water aerobics class in tennessee put a holiday spin. they're decked out in reindeer, but the ladies sang and performed the song with props and costumes. the class meets several times a week, and the camaraderie, seems like a lot of fun, the routines, a lot of people coming back. >> how many of the days do you know? >> oh, man. >> so don't go -- >> five golden rings? partridge in a pear tree. i have to practice, because we do it every year in my family. time for a look ahead. the public interest reserve group releases the annual toys. it's a trouble in toyland report and gives advice on how to avoid buying the troubled toys. and a look ahead to the supreme court hearing cases regarding obama care. should businesses be required to cover birth control for employees? dale jarrett, 57, former new york giants harry carson, 60. the goddess of rock 'n' roll, tina turner, 74 and still looking great. here's what's coming up later on the "today" show, kelly clark son performs live in the studio. get your earplugs, and opening up about marriage and expecting her first child. she can belt it out there, bill. keep it here for news and sports, and weather. i'm richard lui, along with bill karins, you have a great day ahead. it's great having at&t u-verse high speed internet. walter likes to download fix-it videos... and watch "boardwalk empire." it helps sam with math... [ beeping ] ...and online gaming. and suze loves her smartphone for "social" studies... like video-chatting with sara. hi, ms. kelly. hi, sara. [ male announcer ] go to the website below now to get all the speed you need. just $14.95 a month for 12 months. on our newly expanded advanced digital network, you get more connectivity, reliability, and speed options. we have our own private wi-fi hot spot right here. getting connected is no problem, even all at the same time. it's fast, it's reliable, and it's affordable. [ male announcer ] so go to the website below to get u-verse high speed internet for just $14.95 a month for 12 months. with a wireless gateway, connect all your devices and save on tablet and smartphone data usage at home. now i can do the things i want to do, like e-mail my mother-in-law. or check celebrity gossip. [ male announcer ] at&t brings it all together. ♪ >> new this morning his life was cut short by a car crash but his legacy will live on. tonight we'll show you how an east bay community plans to remember a beloved high school football coach, plus -- >> no matter what kids did running through your mind people care about me. >> we hear from the life long raider fan hailed as a hero this morning. we'll let you know why he says he risked his own life to save another. >> new concerns about the safety of those popular ride sharing services this morning. the action after a driver allegedly assaulted a passenger. >> right now let's crack open a window, live outside for a look over san francisco. not a lot to see before the sun comes up. we've got plentyo

Transcripts For MSNBCW Kasie DC 20200517

some officials at the highest level of government are choosing to wear protective masks while others are not. and president trump continues to contradict experts on just about everything, including the time line for a vaccine. >> we are looking to guilty it before the end of the year if we can. >> i still think 12 to 18 months is an aggressive schedule. i think it is going to take longer than that to do so. >> it will go away. it may flare up, may not flare up. we will to see what happens. >> he talks about whether this virus will disappear. as i have said many times that is simply not going to happen. >> we have got to get this reopen. >> the idea of having a vaccine or a treatment to facilitate the entry of students into the fall term would be a bit of a bridge too far. >> i was surprised by his answer, actually, because, you know, it's just -- to me, it's not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools. >> in th-- this crisis continue and that disconnect intensifies. the president has tried to shift the focus to his predecessor, spending his weekend at camp david promoting a conspiracy theory about the obama administration that even he can't seem to explain. setting up an ominous dynamic in november, president versus president. >> more than anything, this pandemic has fully finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they are doing. a lot of them aren't even pretending to be in charge. if the world is going to get better, it is going to be up to you. >> look, he was an incompetent president, that's all i can say. grossly incompetent te. >> with that i welcome in john man lemere, eugene robinson, and catty kay. they are all msnbc political analysts. it is great great to have you all on board tonight. eugene robinson, i would actually like to start with you to weigh in on what we heard from president obama this weekend. this is really his first, you know, public foray this way. although remarks that he made in private on that phone call with obama alumni of course also jabbed at president trump. but the president has basically spent the last week stoking this theory that even he can't really explain or, you know, point to. and you know, the former president of the united states, barack obama, in fact breaking with the tradition that you normally don't criticize the sitting president once you are out of office. but at the same time, he's doing it in, you know, circumstances that, you know, certainly i don't think any of us could have imagined could happen. and that are certainly historic. >> right. well, you know, presidents who are in office don't usually spend all of their time sort of dumping on the prior administration and the previous president the way president trump has done with the obama administration. >> also true. >> and president obama. and -- right. and that has sort of built and built. and meanwhile, president obama has always made it clear, i think that when it was time for campaign season he was going to be campaigning for joe biden. he's going to be campaigning for the democratic nominee, custwhi happens to be his vice president. so i think, you know, we started to hear his voice. he's doing it in these forums where -- you know, the speech he gave was a graduation speech. so he's not exactly having at t, but this is what we're going to continue to hear. i don't think democrats are going to be frightened of a trump versus obama contest if that's what trump wants to make it into. >> jonathan lemire, what is your reporting at this stage says about how the president's reelection campaign is kind of putting this in context and thinking about it as we go forward? i mean, we saw some pretty stunning comments from erik trump, from donald trump, jr., and i know you've been kind of looking at how the campaign is also focusing in on the russia investigation and republicans are trying to undermine that as well. i mean, what have you seen over the course of the past week that helps explain what we're going to see for the next six months? >> kasie, first i can say what i've seen in the last 30 seconds because president trump just tweeted about the obama administration, calling it the most incompetent and corrupt in u.s. history, without providing any evidence he to any evidence to support that. the team around him, there is some concern about where things stand right now less than six months until election day. we know that he has received a number of briefings from his campaign staff. most famously a few weeks ago what led him to explode at his campaign manager brad. they said he would lose. they've seen positive signs since then. they feel they've closed the gap on vice-president biden in a number of places. they were encouraged by a cnn swing state poll this week that had him up cumulatively in the battle grounds that will dictate this election. but it's a very, very close race. certainly the president right now is trying to change the subject. he doesn't want the focus to be on his handling of this pandemic, the 90,000 americans dead, the record unemployment numbers, the really deeply depressing job statistics. and where he's chosen, he and his team at least for the moment, is to attack his predecessor and to try to, once again, undermine the russia investigation, to try to link what is a relatively routine intelligence procedure of unmasking, in this case of general flynn, suggesting that it was improper and nefarious, linking vice-president biden to it. and suggesting that the biden and the obama administration tried to start the trump presidency before it began, trying to sabotage it during the transition and, therefore, which ended up fueling the russia probe that dominated, of course, the first couple years. but it's a sense right now they're sort of grasping at straws. they're trying to find attacks that work on joe biden, this or china because they're not seeing the ability to move up the positive numbers. they're trying to drive down joe biden's negatives. >> katty kay, this, of course, comes as we are grappling with the problems with testing and all of the other issues that the president earlier today called into a charity golf event. and this is how he answered a question from a sports host about whether he missed playing golf amid the pandemic. let's listen. >> all of the death and all of the destruction you've seen caused so needlessly, came out of a location we should have known, we should have been told. maybe it could have been stopped, but we weren't told, so it's really a sad thing. >> so, the obvious fact check there, the idea that we weren't told, i mean, we've been learning all week about the series of briefings and we've heard in-depth about how over and over again this president was warned and repeatedly dismissed what was going on here. but still trying to frame this in a way where, you know, he comes out as, you know, the innocent bystander basically. >> yeah, confusing campaign messages from the president over the weekend. you had that. you also had him tweeting about how he made everybody look good apart from himself. i'm not quite sure how he sees that as a political attribute, even if it were the case that he was making everybody else look good apart from himself. and then these continued attacks against president obama without any specificity to them. i think it gets to what jonathan is talking about. the campaign at the moment, and this very much is the 2020 campaign might have been put on pause at the beginning of this pandemic, make no mistake it's in kind of full thread as we go into this week, this coming week. with attacks from both sides, that's only going to intensify. but they're targeting everything. they're polling everything. they're trying to figure out what sticks. the president is trying to find every way possible of getting out of this. and whether it was the revival of this idea from erik trump this was somehow a hoax again, we're back into hoax territory, or president trump suggesting, again, it was all of china's fault. there was no way he could have known about it. that's the strategy going forward. him trying to deny as much responsibility as possible for where the country is right now and go on any attack he can against joe biden and barack obama, you know, as eugene says. any fight between barack obama and president trump, i think that's one the democrats will be happy to have. >> yeah, and you know, i was reading -- our friends of the show, phil rucker and ashley parker have a long piece in the washington post about the state of play. at the end of the piece they quote a source, the best politics here is to do the job. do the job as president. and that struck me as i was reading this piece, catty, in the financial times where they step back and take this global perspective. they were the u.s. is renowned for helping others in an emergency. history will mark covid-19 as the first time that ceased to be true. u.s. airlifts have been missing in action. america cannot even supply itself. i couldn't help but be struck, and frankly saddened. you know, this is not what i grew up with. i mean, this was not the world that we thought we lived in where americans were always leading the charge, leading the humanitarian effort. they were the ones backstopping other countries who maybe didn't have the resources, and that's the backdrop that this president is going to be running for reelection with on a slogan that, you know, last time was make america great. this time is keep america great. it all feels very diss onent. >> yeah, look, it's really been striking, the degree to which america has been absent on the world stage in this one, including this very big conference of nearly all the countries in the world last week in which they were discussing how to get to a vaccine. and america wasn't even there. they didn't even send a representative virtually, of course, to this conference. it's hard to see how washington, the white house thinks that that's a benefit to america. why wouldn't you want to be at least at the table discussing things in order to be able to have some kind of influence? and i think that's what's missing for the u.s., is that you can learn from other people's experiences in this crisis. but if you're not going to give something, you're not going to get much back either. your learning capacity is limited if your attitude is we're only going to look after ourselves, we do it best, we have nothing to learn, which seems to be at the moment the attitude from this white house, which is a real shame because other countries have data, have experiences that could be beneficial to the united states as we start this very complicated, quite tricky and potentially dangerous opening up stage. >> yeah. jonathan lemire, is the white house thinking about this from that kind of global perspective at all or not? >> only to a degree. this is certainly a major test of america first, which, of course, was the president's sort of slogan, his world view of foreign policy. and, you know, his allies say america first doesn't necessarily mean america alone. they suggest when it matters, the u.s. will certainly -- is looking out for its own interests, whether it's trade deals or so on. we've heard the president more than once be -- express a lot of anger at nato, which is arguably the united states's most important alliance and threatened at times to withdraw from that. and now we see tensions soaring with china. the president, they've made a calculation here that after weeks of the president's really downplaying the responsibility that china may have for the spread of this virus, he spoke very warmly about xi jinping, not wanting to upset him as the countries continue to hammer out a new sweeping trade deal. and then, of course, he has done a 180 on that and has been very aggressive in his attacks and blaming beijing for what happened here, which sets up -- going forward, it can be very challenging. not only in the short term as china, of course, is a major producer of medical supplies, medical research that could slow the development of a vaccine or reaching the united states. and, of course, it also sends potentially a template for the years forward where there may be a really, almost cold war between these two countries if things continue to go down this path. so, no, right now the united states has made it clear. they're looking to put their own interests first. the president said, yes, of course, he hopes other countries develop a vaccine quickly, too. right now his focus and his administration's focus is its own shores. >> jonathan lemire and katty kay, thank you very much for being with us tonight. eugene is going to stick with us. we'll come back to you a bit later in the show. one month ago axios warned the president was about to fire a lot of inspectors general. and friday night when few were watching, the state department's i.g. became the latest to get the axe. the latest nbc reporting, he was looking into whether or not mike pompeo made a staffer walk his dog, pick up his dry cleaning and make dinner reservations. i'm going to talk to senator chris coons whose committee plans to investigate. and omnivore's dilemma. w why what we think about food and those who serve it might never be the same again. flexible payment options for those who've been financially affected by the crisis. we look forward to returning to something that feels a little closer to life as we knew it, but until then you can see how we're here to help at libertymutual.com/covid-19. [ piano playing ] and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. this seems to be a ritual on friday evenings that the president does this to inspector generals. and this particular one has been a tough inspector general. he was confirmed when i was chairman of the foreign relations committee back in 2013. he did tough investigations during the obama administration, which they didn't care for, but he wasn't ousted. >> that was ranking member of the senate foreign relations committee bob menendez on the president's firing of yet another inspector general. nbc news has learned that the president fired steve lennick after it was recommended by the secretary of state. and now two congressional officials tell nbc that lennick was looking into whether mike pompeo made a staffer pickup his dog, do dry cleaning and other errands. the firing has spurred bipartisan outrage. chuck grassley, the cochair of the whistleblower protection caucus wrote, crucial in correcting government failures adding that, congress needs a more thorough explanation for why lennick was fired. chris coons is a member of the investigations committee to investigate the firing. senator coons, it's always great to have you on the program. thank you for being here tonight. >> great to be on with you, kasie. senator menendez said it all. this is deserving of an investigation led by senator menendez in the senate and chair elliott ingles in the house. this is the fourth inspector jenna abruptly fired by the trump administration, atkinson, fine, grim, and now lennick are four inspectors general. every one of them had something to do either with the impeachment investigation or with providing thorough oversight for the remarkable amount of money that is now being spent by a variety of federal agencies. so inspectors general, and there's one for every federal agency, play a critical role in transparency and accountability. it is an appropriate moment for all of us in congress, democrats and republicans, to be asking what is it that is causing president trump to fire so many inspectors general, and will we stand up on a bipartisan basis to protect them. if not, we're going to have to say good-bye to real transparency and accountability of the presidency. >> i was going to say, i mean, do you think that your republican colleagues are serious about doing this? i mean, they have banded together, written a letter, this is not the first time senator grassley has complained about the trump administration doing this. but, you know, i think a lot of people have watched a lot of complaints about the trump administration from senate republicans and then felt like there wasn't a lot of follow through. >> that's right, kasie. one of my concerns is that there will be some hand wringing, some expressions of disapproval, but there won't be any substantive action. we in the minority, the senate democrats, can call for information, can demand hearings, but we don't have subpoena power and, frankly, so far this administration has demonstrated a disregard for congressional oversight. they've disregarded even congressional subpoenas when delivered. so if we're going to protect the role of the inspector general, the central role of accountability and transparency, we're going to have to work harder and frankly, republican senators are going to have to step up and show that they understand the significance for separation of powers of congress conducting real and meaningful oversight. >> while i have you, sir, we earlier in the show were talking about how the 2020 campaign has really exploded in the last week and is set to continue on that course coming up next week with this kind of titanic clash between president trump and barack obama as joe biden is the democratic nominee. you obviously are very close with the former vice-president. his strategy has seemed to be to try and not have these fights on the president's terms. obviously there's been a lot of stuff that's been down in the mud comments from the president's family, insinuations as well as what we've seen more overtly in the senate as republicans have tried to undermine the origins of the russia probe, et cetera. do you think that the campaign has the right strategy of just trying to set their own terms for arguing with this president, or do you think that they need to be more combative in their approach? >> kasie, i think if we know one thing about president donald trump, it's that he's a spectacular bully. he is very good at pulling people down to his level at temper tantrums and taunts objeon twitter, making up mock nicknames. dragging other serious leaders of his own party in the mud wrestling pit with him. that's the story of the 2016 republican primary. so i think joe biden's strategy, which is to focus on the things that matter to americans most, moving forward, addressing this pandemic in a responsible way, coming up with a clear and coherent plan for how he would both engage with the world so that we could be part of response and recovery from this pandemic, part of the global efforts to develop an effective vaccine, and then rebuild our economy on a basis that works for everyone. i think that's the right response because the more that joe biden allows donald trump to drag him into daily fights on his terms about distractions, allegations, misrepresentations, and twitter tantrums, the more we get off what really matters. the average american wants us to not just get back to normal, but to respond to and recover from this pandemic. and the ways in which the trump administration has demonstrably failed to do its job in terms of testing and tracing, resources and response, i think speaks for itself, speaks volumes. and the vice-president who's got a great deal of experience, former vice-president joe biden, in responding to a deep recession because he led that response for the obama/biden administration, and in handling global pandemics, he and ron klain one of his senior advisors played a successful response to the ebola pandemic. the former vice-president has exactly the characters, stills and strength we need at this moment and he should be addressing the problems americans see, like opportunities to serve our nation, something i have been working hard on in the senate, to try and create a new generation that makes possible service opportunities former president a new generation interested in helping our country move forward rather than re-litigating the partisan battles of the past. >> and, senator, i want to ask you exactly that, about this effort that you're leading to expand government outreach programs like americore during this pandemic. you brought with you tonight someone who is a great example of how important that work is. i want to add to our conversation here james wynfield, he's a member development specialist with civic works in baltimore which has 200 americore members delivering meals to those in need. mr. wynfield, thanks so much for being on the program. and as we continue our coverage of this pandemic, the work that people like you are doing has been so critical for so many people who were already struggling in their own lives. talk to us a little bit about what you're seeing every day as you try to continue this work under much more difficult conditions than anyone ever expected. >> well, yeah, this pandemic has exacerbated all of the other things that have been going on in the community that we've been trying to address through our programs. one of the key carriers we've been focusing on is food insecurity. as you all know, as we know, the elderly population is the most at risk during this pandemic and they're also the most at risk in terms of not being able to travel about and get out and access the resources that are available. so we've been able to pivot our operations because we already had the infrastructure in place and focus on addressing one of the most glaring needs in the community. >> so, senator coons, i know you have legislation, this has been something we've spoken about this, your efforts on this show, before. and obviously there are so many young people who are either graduating from high school or graduating from college. they don't know what they're going to do in this kind of economy. how would your efforts, if you could be successful in them, help give them a potentially a path to service as we all try to recover in this pandemic era? >> well, the bill that a group of us have been championing in congress, bipartisan group in the house and large group in the senate, would essentially give james wynfield and civic works more resources. more americore members to do more service to help combat hunger and food insecurity, to help support senior citizens, to help with things like testing and tracing and other public health responses. and to address education shortfalls that are happening because we've got a lost semester, perhaps an entire lost year for america's public schools. so we would double the number of americore members from 75,000 to 150,000 in the first year and then double it again the next year. year in and year out, there have been five to ten times as many people applying to serve in americore programs like civic works that james wynfield is associated with, as we've had slots, this is a great opportunity to let young people earn a college opportunity, be a part of a broad and diverse coalition of people responding to needs in their communities, and to create opportunity for a younger generation, to participate in national service and response to this pandemic. >> all right. we're going to have to leave this there. senator coons and james wynfield, thank you so much for your time tonight. mr. wynfield, thank you so much for the efforts -- your efforts on behalf of the citizens of baltimore. we appreciate t. >> thank you. >> when we continue, the senate mat gets more difficult for republicans as sitting senators face tough questions about their stock trades. next. >> i want to ask you about the election. you called it a challenging environment. on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most confident, where do you think republicans are holding the senate? >> i'm never totally confident in any race. this was a challenging cycle from the beginning to the middle to now. and i think the majority in the senate is very much in question as it has been for a year and a half. 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>> sure. so, one of the immediate questions that i thought that they could get answered was about a week before the fdic's story, we broke a story on the same day senator burr unloaded stocks. so did his brother-in-law, who is an appointee on the federal mediations board. his brother-in-law also sold off a significant amount of stocks. so a question i had for his brother-in-law, i called him on his cell phone, the person who picked up hung up when i asked if they had coordinated their sales. i'm curious if there was any communication between the two of them before the purchases were made. that's one question. another would be whether he was communicating with any of his relatives, any friends about information he had learned as a senator. i've asked senator burr's office, and his lawyer, whether he has discussed any of that information with relatives, and that's not an answer they have provided. >> ken dilanian, there's been a discussion of the political implications of this because senator burr has not necessarily always toed the administration line on the russia probe, on subpoenaing members of the president's family. i realize that, you know, we have to be kind of careful how we look at this, but it's certainly something when i talk to republicans and democrats that they tend to underscore and highlight. how would you kind of frame that line of thinking based on what we know right now? >> i would say, kasie, that democrats -- and you and i both talk to them -- are very suspicious about this line of inquiry. given what's been happening at the justice department, given who is in charge, william barr, to the extent he's carried water for the president, there is a suspicion because the democrats know what briefings were given. and my sources are telling me there was nothing in any of those brieferings, even the classified ones, even the gang of 8 ones, that would lead somebody to walk out of there and go, i need to dump all my stocks. they just weren't there yet late january, early february in terms of the coronavirus. don't forget the first recorded death was at the end of february. we now know a death happened earlier. the public wasn't there. the intelligence community wasn't there. so there is some worry because you're absolutely right. burr has not toed the trump line in terms of particularly the russia intelligence assessment. and his last act as chairman of the intelligence committee was, in fact, to request the declassification of the final report by the senate intelligence committee into the whole russia, it's sensitive. a particularly interesting one, 1,000 pages on the intelligence implications. they went so far as to create what they deem an unclassified administration. if the trump administration holds it up there is a potential they can go to the floor and release it. that's why people are suspicious. look, the fbi had to convince a judge to get that warrant to seize his cell phone that there was probable cause to believe there was a crime was committed. that's a high hurdle and they met that, kasie. >> it's important to underscore that. gene robinson, undermining the russia investigation, the muell mueller version of it, what the senate has done the trump campaign, but this comes as mitch mcconnell is struggling to hold onto the senate. you know, it's not necessarily ease toy do th easy to do that when you have burr under that. kelly loeffler, they're trying to get her through a primary in georgia. when the whole thing stinks in a way that makes it much harder for people who have to answer questions about this. >> it sure does. i mean, if you look at the current state of play and the current state of polling, republicans could lose a seat in montana. they could lose a seat in colorado. lose a seat in arizona. they might lose the other seat in north carolina. they could lose a seat in maine. and now they're even worried pending the republican primary process. they even have to worry a bit about kansas, of all places. so politically, the last thing it would seem to me that mitch mcconnell needs is or wants is a shadow over the other republican senator from north carolina. worst case scenario for mitch, if burr were to have to resign, if there were to be a special election or something like that in north carolina, you would have yet another seat that he can't really count on. so i don't think the majority leader can be happy about this. but as ken said, all this had to be presented to a judge who decided that there was enough evidence to seize that phone. so this could be serious. >> yeah, and i have had sources tell me that the 2020 map and the difficulty for his colleagues in answering questions about this is part of why burr may have made this decision to step aside as chairman. ken dilanian, robert, eugene robinson, thank you all very much for your reporting tonight. when we return, with the postal service's future in doubt, vaughn hillyard brings us dispatch where it is a political foot ball. it's a lifeline to millions of americans. ng for your family at home or those at work, principal is by your side. we're working hard to answer your questions. like helping you understand what the recently passed economic package can mean for you. we're more than a financial company. we're a "together we can get through anything" company. now, more than ever. no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card. when taking a break from everyday life is critical to everyone's health, there is one thing we can all do together: complete the 2020 census. your responses are critical to plan for the next 10 years of health care, infrastructure, and education. let's make a difference, together, by taking a few minutes to go online to 2020census.gov. it's for the well-being of your community and will help shape america's future. ♪ and will help shape america's future. puberty means personal space. so sports clothes sit around growing odors. that's why we graduated to tide pods sport. finally something more powerful than the funk. tide sport removes even week-old sweat odor. it's got to be tide. -excuse me. uh... do you mind...being a mo-tour? 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[music playing] the postal service could look very different soon. the agency is struggling to stay afloat as republican donor and white house ally louis prepares to take over as postmaster general next month. letter carriers has only risen with so many people staying home especially in small towns that got america. nbc news political reporter vaughn hillyard visited williams, arizona, to see what the postal service means to them. >> how are you? >> reporter: much of america went quiet this spring. the little williams, arizona, post office, one of 30,000 across the country, did not. >> a daily routine for me to come into the post office. we're a small community, 3100 people. the post office is right up there with number one or two for kind much a place where you run into everybody you know. >> reporter: as it became more difficult, this constable kept on. >> for somebody who depends on the post office like i do, send bills through the mail. >> reporter: she's been delivering in her jeep this vast region for three years. >> i'm a mail gal. i can't imagine doing anything else. i'm eligible to retire, but that word isn't in my vocabulary. >> reporter: why do you keep doing it? >> i just have good customers and i just love my job. >> reporter: you go 80 miles round trip? >> a lot of it highway miles. >> which may not be the brains or the heart of the community, but we're definitely the lifeblood of the community. >> i have people that wait for me every day. they marek my day a lot. this is how great my customers are to me. homemade salsa today. so, yummy. >> reporter: for so many in williams, it isn't just about what ends up in their mailbox, but who makes sure it gets there. how long have you worked for the williams post office? >> 40 years, going on 41. >> reporter: describe robin to me. >> she is kind of like our mother figure. she is a friend to everyone in the community pretty much. >> don't be a coward over there. [ laughter ] >> she knows everybody by name. >> here comes ted. >> reporter: ted, what are you coming in for today? >> my mail. >> what would we do without a post office? we have to have one. >> reporter: what do you think about the folks inside that work here? >> they're awesome. they're really awesome. they're very helpful and they're also aware of what's going on. >> reporter: they're members of this community? >> very. >> reporter: they know what's happening? >> yes. >> we need these people as much as they need us. >> we need them for medicine. >> we get dog medicine, horse medicine, birds in, chickens. >> it's necessary for everyday essentials. >> reporter: essential this fall, it's the november election. >> a lot of people in this community vote by mail. it's becoming more popular every year. i'm seeing more and more ballots. >> reporter: about three quarters of voters in this county in 2018 cast their vote by mail. >> it makes it a lot simpler for them to vote from their home, put it in the mailbox, put the flag up, have the carrier come by and pick it up. >> reporter: what should washington understand about the postal service? >> what management has missed is the need. >> we're over 200 years old. we are a part of the nation, an integral part of the nation, and we are essential, especially to the rural outlying areas. >> reporter: at a time of unknowns for american towns, the folks of williams have at least one known for tomorrow. they will be en route not long after sun advise. vaughn hillyard, williams, arizona. >> vaughn hillyard out talking to the good folk of williams, arizona. thank you, my friend, for your good reporting. just ahead one of the most popular sports of the country is back. with the rohr of their engines, but without the roar of the crowd. dale jarrett and kyle petty join me next. when managing diabetes you can't always stop for a fingerstick. with the freestyle libre 14 day system, a continuous glucose monitor, you don't have to. with a painless, one-second scan you can check your glucose with a smart phone or reader so you can stay in the moment. no matter where you are or what you're doing. ask your doctor for a prescription for the freestyle libre 14 day system. you can do it without fingersticks. learn more at freestylelibre.us. we're returning $2 billion dollars to our auto policyholders through may 31st. because now, more than ever, being a good neighbor means everything. like a good neighbor, state farm is there. being a good neighbor means everything. yeah. this moving thing never gets any easier. well, xfinity makes moving super easy. i can transfer my internet and tv service in about a minute. wow, that is easy. almost as easy as having those guys help you move. we are those guys. that's you? the truck adds 10 pounds. in the arms. -okay... transfer your service online in a few easy steps. now that's simple, easy, awesome. transfer your service in minutes, making moving with xfinity a breeze. visit xfinity.com/moving today. he is about to become the 14th driver in nascar cup history to reach 50 career victories breaking a tie with tony stewart from 14. harvick wins nas car's return to action at darlington. >> thank you, guy, awesome job. awesome, awesome, awesome. >> kevin harvick took checkered flag today in nascar's first week back after a ten-week hiatus. it was the first sporting event in this country since the coronavirus began. the 47,000 seat darlington raceway in south carolina was practically empty except for drivers and successful conpit crews. all of the drivers were screened before and after the race. joining me now are two nascar legends, darryl jarrett and kyle petty they are now sports analyst was. thank you so much for taking the time. i mostly just am interested in yourreflexions having been at so many races, this one, unlike any of us have ever seen. kyle, let me start with you. what was going through your head watching the race today? >> there was no fans there. you know, this is a sport for fans. everything that we have done, the sport of nascar is built on fans. the guys that pulled for the brands. the guys that pulled for drivers, the fans that set in the stand and filled the place. today they weren't there. i think the race was a typical nascar race. it was a good race. you had good guys up front. you had guys coming and going. but the absence of fans changes a sport. kevin harvick even spoke of it when he got out of the car. you know, the excitement he felt inside the car. then you get out and there is not that energy. so, it's good to be back. we're glad to be and proud to be the first four back in this country. and you know i think that's a huge step. but i think the lack of fans there was huge for the participants if you listen to them. >> you know -- >> the -- >> yeah, i mean, what's it like when you are in the car racing and you know you end up with are victory, you step out, are you feeding off the energy of the crowd. what did that mean to you when you experienced that? and can you imagine having to go through this without that crowd there? >> yeah, you know, the sport of nascar racing, unlike other sports, where, while are you competing, you can kind of feed off of that energy that the crowd s. you know, they're having a great time pulling for their favorite driver. they're making passes. a lot of excitement there. you don't hear that or see much of it while you are competing. nascar you kind of do this. but as a driver, you feed off of that energy before the race. you go through driver introduction. you see the stands filled and certainly once the race is over and are you the driver that has won, as kevin harvick pointed out, it was very strange to see that, him there, to start the finish line at the end getting out of the cars, the winner of the race no, one there to cheer about his accomplishment there. but the racing was what we've always seen at darlington, as kyle said, drivers coming and going. i think experience played a big factor into this, having to take care of your tires, doing all of those things. but it was a very strange setting. but it's a very strange time in our world right now, too. >> yeah. came to pick up on what you were saying about nascar being the first sport out of the gate what kind of pressure was there on the sport to make sure that they get it right so that, you know, major league baseball and college fumble and the nfl can, you know, hopefully, maybe play? >> listen, i think the weight of the world was on their shoulders. i think everyone at nascar and daytona, every team, every driver, every owner, they stepped up. they rose to the occasion. i think the pressure to go out and get it right. because people are going to be looking for the weak points what did you do wrong? how could we do it better? this is where you guys made a mistake. it's we, nascar, meaning the sport of nascar, has made a huge misstep today a huge error, then that may set back whether it be golf, football, basketball, baseball, may set back other sports for weeks or months to come. i think this opens that door and says this is how it can be done. look at what we did. yes, there probably can be some improvements all the way through, no matter what you do. but the first time, first rattle out of the box i think nascar is to be commended and all the drivers, all the teams, all the owners, the sponsors that stuck it out and said let's go do this, i think they're all to be commended. >> yeah. dale, real quickly, i want to touch on what would have been probably been the lead story out of this race or any race, ryan newman returning to the track after that awful accident at the daytona 500. that was back in february. obviously, a lot has happened since then. a pretty turning moment for him? >> oh. absolutely. i mean, when he left daytona that day, when the tvs were turned off, we didn't know what to expect from ryan newman, would he ever be back in a car again? he was able to do that and outstanding job at a very, very difficult racetrack today not having any time in a race car since that terrible accident he had. ryan newman did a great job, finished 15th. another driver came back too matt kenseth, he hasn't been in a car in a year-and-a-half. he got a top ten finish. it shows you what experience and a great amount of talent can do. it was great to see ryan newman competing again. >> i hope all of us are hoping we can get back to sports in america. i know i certainly miss it. when we continue, influential food author michael pollan, joins the conversation. first, president trump makes it clear what he wants to focus on from joe biden's time as vice president. here's a hint, it's not healthcare. another hour of kasie d.c. back after this. this is hal. this is hal's heart. it's been broken. and put back together. this is also hal's heart. and his relief, knowing he's covered by blue cross blue shield. and this is our promise, with over 80 years of healthcare expertise: to be here for you now. and always. this is medicare from blue cross blue shield. this is the benefit of blue. this is medicare from blue cross blue shield. we're finally back out in our yard, but so are they. scotts turf builder triple action. it kills weeds, prevents crabgrass and feeds so grass can thrive, guaranteed. our backyard is back. this is a scotts yard. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. unlike ordinary wmemory supplementsr? neuriva has clinically proven ingredients that fuel 5 indicators of brain performance. memory, focus, accuracy, learning, and concentration. try neuriva for 30 days and see the difference. we hope you find our digital solutions helpful to bank safely from home. deposit a check with your phone or tablet. check balances, pay bills, transfer money and more. send money to people you know and trust with zelle. stay safe. stay home. together, we'll get through this. pnc bank welcome back. it was always going to be a remarkable presidential race. that was true before joe biden's stunning comeback in south carolina. before the onset of a sickness that will leave more than 100,000 americans dead and before the worst economy since the great depression. yes, of course, before accusations of sexual assault dating back more than two decade against the democratic nominee. >> i think they should vote their heart and if they believe tara reade they shouldn't vote for me. i wouldn't vote for me if i believed tara reade. i tell you it never happened. she should be thoroughly vetted. follow the story line and determine if there is any truth to it. there is no truth to it. i promise you. >> with joe biden stuck as you can see there, in a delaware basement, the moment has filled editorial pages with playbooks written by strategies terrifying of blowing the opportunity of a lifetime. they're running against an unpopular president with anemic approval ratings and a terrible economy. as democrats debate how to beat trump, there is little question about the plan for scorched earth on which the president wants to fight. number one, china. and number two, watch. >> obama-gate. it's been going on for a long time. it's been going on from before i even got elected and it's a disgrace that it happened f. you look at what's gone on and if you look at now all this information that's being released and from what i understand, that's only the beginning. >> what is the crime exactly that you are accusing him of? >> you know what the crime is, the crime is very obvious to anybody, all you have to do is read the newspapers. >> that was a friend of the show phil rutger asking the president what the crime was exactly. the "washington post" reports with trump suffering political damage of his management of the coronavirus pandemic less than six months before the election. the president's government appointees and allies in congress are using their powers to generate a political storm aimed at engulfing biden and obama. who polls show the nation's most popular political figure. making him a potent threat to trump as a biden surrogate. joining me to talk about all this carol lee, chief public affairs officer for move on.org and nbc news correspondent mike memely. it's great to have all you on board tonight. carol, i would like to start with you. as we have seen there with phil rutger questioning the president in the rose garden, he was reluctant or really provided no answer at all when phil pressed him on what is the crime at hand here? can you walk us through the -- he's referred to it as obama-gate. he tweeted that out, one word the other day. president obama, you know, tweeting back, one word, vote. what exactly does this mean? and are they simply trying to run the same kind of playbook they did against hillary clinton? >> well, if you look at what they're actually saying, what obamagate-to-so far, it's two accusations trump and his allies are making, one that president obama and biden knew they were going to interview michael flynn and the other is that this unmasking issue that joe biden made a request which is routine and in an intelligence report, an american name was redacted. he did not know in advance it was michael flynn. trump and his allies are saying this is somehow nefarious. we looked into this and the documents that they point to we talked to obama administration officials, it doesn't add up. but you know broadly speaking what obamagate and the scorched earth approach is to flip the script on the russia investigation, so to say that the russia investigation wasn't about any wrongdoing by trump and his ally, it was about trump and his allies being wronged and, two, to tarnish obama and biden. if you look at the way that trump campaigned in 2016, any time there was an accusation against him about possible corruption and his business, accusations of sexual assault from various women, he always pivoted and turned to hillary clinton's e-mails and accusations from women against bill clinton. here you can see them trying to build that case against joe biden. the question is, is this going to work? american versus seen this movie before. donald trump started it in 2016. and we're in the middle of a pandemic where the economy is tanking so it's not clear that that playbook, which is very familiar to everybody who followed the 2016 campaign is now going to work in 2020. >> mike, let me get you to weighing in on that. what is the biden campaign thinking about how to deal with this? obviously, hillary clinton succumbed to it. joe wide isn't the a very different political character than she was, has a different history in the country. what is their take on whether they think this is going to work and how best to fight back against it? >> well, the biden campaign sees this as a lot of projection and a lot of distraction and when i spoke with one senator biden official about this on friday, he actually called it desperation in addition to all of that. what's been interesting to me as we have now seen this campaign really start to kick into higher gear is that joe biden actually had more time to regroup after the primary than you typically would see. the playbook for any incumbent president is that the moment that your opponent becomes clear and we saw this in 2012 when mitt romney began to really have a firm grasp on the republican nomination. it was at that moment that the obama campaign launched a full fledged assault on him. you haven't seen that yet until more recently of the trump campaign going after joe biden. they promised a death star. we have begun to see that just this past week. the biden campaign, obviously, there is a lot of democrats who see a lot of reasons for what the 2012 obama campaign called bedwetting. but they look at this as the while trump may have been successful in previous elections in changing the narrative and throwing up these kind of smoke screens, that the american public is not going to be moved by this right now. that their overriding concern in this election is the safety of themselves, their families and their economic situation. and at any time trump tries to change the subject to an area where he struggles to establish what that narrative is. the voters will reject that. that's perhaps an optimistic view from the biden campaign, this is also a team that has had a somewhat of a chip on their shoulders about all the doubters from day one of their candidacy. he wasn't going to draw the same kind of crowd, he had too long of a record here. he won the nomination all apparently close to officially doing so. and they see him inf every ol in a strong position against donald trump, even though most men are campaigning from home, for the most part. >> they did show the doubters up in that regard. i would just point out, i realize others have pointed this out as well, the death star wreaked havoc, damaged destruction ultimately blew up. corinne, i'm happy to play that role for whoever in america is willing to let me do it, mike. corinne, you have a lot invested in this, obviously, a lot on the line here. what is your take as somebody who has you know had a lot of conversations, made a lot of decision about how to hand him these kind of things, thousand biden campaign is navigating what has developed last weekend i'm sure into next weekend and beyond into this terribly scorched earth campaign? >> yeah, that's right. it's terrible scorched earth campaign. i just want to say this so your viewers understand obamagate is 100% wrong. it's a lie. and it is not true. and it's just like the lie that -- donald trump led with birther-ism. it's the same thing when he lied about obama wiretapping the trump towers. it goes on and on and on. and this is the playbook that he is doing. it's an old playbook as mike just mentioned. we've seen it. we saw it in 2016. now he's trying it again. it's the kind of same plays. it's lies, it's deflect. it's distract. it's blame obama. that is all that he is bringing in. the reason he is bringing this is because they see that they are losing. they're losing in this race right now in this moment as are you looking at polls. and now he's talking about how obama is corrupt. now, this is being lobbied by or lobbed by donald trump, who was impeached by the house. this is just ridiculous. it goes on and on and on. joe biden needs to do exactly what he is doing. he needs to stay focused to continue dock these virtual town halls. he needs to be reaching out as much as he can in this moment in this crisis from where he is in the basement of his home in delaware. he needs to not go down this rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. that's what donald trump wants. help wants to be followed down this hole and we can't let that happen or biden cannot let that happen. because donald trump doesn't want to talk about the virus. he doesn't want to talk about the 90,000 people who are dead, sadly. this is where we are. he wants to avoid talking about the crisis. he just wants to focus on the politics at hand. >> yeah. we want to understand. we crossed that grim milestone of 90,000 americans dead today. and as that milestone is being crossed, we've heard from two members of the trump family. first, i'm going to show what you eric trump had to say last night with judge janine and then we'll talk about what donald trump, jr., posted open social media. let's start with eric trump. watch. >> they think they're taking away donald trump's greatest tool, which is being able to go into an arena and film it with 50,000 people every single time. right. so they will. you watch, they'll milk it every single day between now and november 3rd. guess what after november 3rd, coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away, disappear and everybody will be able to reopen there so, just to fact check that in real time, this is a virus. the coronavirus is not going to magically disappear at any point for those people who are concerned about what to do for their own physical health and safety. we would direct to you health officials. but, obviously, those comments made in a political context, our friend jonathan martin over at the "new york times" also points out and wrote a story about donald trump, jr., eric trump's brother. he writes, quote, president trump's eldest son on saturday posted a social media message suggest joseph r. biden, jr., was a pedophile, incendiary baseless charge that illustrates the tactics the president is turning to as he attempts to erase mr. biden's advantage in key state polls. i don't want to engage with this, the so-called substance here that the president's son has thrown out there. but i mean, it's may and we're already at this? >> yeah. i mean, this gets into the territory of what the biden campaign sees as projection, right? that the trump campaign is fully aware of the vulnerabilities and liabilities that trump has headed into this election. they're trying to you know share the slime a little bit and throw it on to joe biden as well. and their view at this point, though, i think one of the reasons a lot of democrats are concerned. they see this. a lot is in trump friendly media or it's in a lot of the trump media, themself himself. they have their own sort of ecosystem through the nightly live streams that they're doing. it's not yet clear how much that's breaking out beyond that but it certainly is invisible enough to a lot of democrats that they're concerned about this. but the biden campaign thinks this is not going to work. they're going to do as one strategist said on friday, they have a job to do as a campaign which is to be ready to respond to this quickly, forcefully and point out the nonsense that they view a lot of this as doing. it's up to joe biden to not be able to avoid being drawn into the muck. it's also, though, worth noting, that we're not going to see joe biden on the campaign trail at least another few weeks, on friday, he is abiding by the delaware state-at-home guidance, which is through early june. they will do eng as a campaign to build out. they said they will have 600 organizers on the ground in key states by june. but they're not going to do anything to put either the vice president, himself, or their campaign team at risk. that's their posture at the moment. >> now, and carol lee, very quickly, before we go, lindsey graham at the judiciary committee floated obama should be dragged before the senate to testify. graham basically saying, well, it might be good television but it would be really bad for the country. senate republican versus to decide which side of this line they want to walk on. >> they r. you haven't seen them as fully as republicans you know and president trump go, they have distanced themselves from this current obamagate line and lindsey graham said as you mentioned, he's not going to do that he also said birx careful what you wish for. but at the same time they are willing to, as you all know, hold some hearings to, you know, look into whether it's joe biden and his, and ukraine or other things and come up with some sort of and the russia origins of the russia investigation and try to come up with something to please the president before october p.. >> all right. carol lee, corinne jean-pierre, thank you for kicking it up a off. at this hour. when we return, hazard pay comes to an end for kroger, amazon target and starbucks. meanwhile in washington state, they're literally giving away hundreds of thousands of pounds of potatoes because of problems with the supply chain. i will talk to a landmark author. first, disagreements among democrats about how best to fund the next relief bill. no uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card. and people you can rely on. i'm a dell technologies advisor. me too. me too. me too. and if you're a small business, we're with you. we are with you. we're with you. we want to help. so we'll be right here. at home. answering your calls. providing support. and standing by you every step of the way. bye bye. and concert hall. and cvs is helping, with free prescription delivery and telehealth from aetna to help you stay in and well. home is where the heart is with cvs health. wayfair has way more ways anto renovate your home,a to helpfrom inspiration well. to installation. like way more vanities perfect for you. nice. way more unique fixtures and tiles. pairing. ♪ nice. way more top brands in sinks and faucets. way more ways to rule your renovation. nice! on any budget, with free shipping. wayfair. way more than furniture. "the retur"drafting"ing" "the return of the slide job" "ripping the wall" "gas-n-go" "bump-n-run" "the return of loud" "nascar is back, and xfinity is bringing you the best seat in the house." voting, congress must act now and states need to do whatever it takes to happen. welcome back to kasie d.c. joining me now is democratic senator mazie hirono of hawaii. senator, it's great to have you on the program tonight. >> good evening, good to be here. >> i hope your family is doing all right through all this. >> thank you. >> let's start with the bill nancy pelosi the house speaker pushed through late last week the heroes act, the next kind of wave of funding that congress is trying to get out the door. this was a party line vote. the republicans on the senate side, mitch mcconnell has already derided it as being packed with democratic prioriti priorities. he has not been clear at all about a time line for another bill coming out of the senate. although, after the federal reserve chairman jerome powell suggested that the economy was really at the mercy of what you all are going to do next, he seemed to change his tune a little bit. what do you think is the level of urgency that the senate should be acting with right now? >> i'm glad you used the word urgency, clearly the house feels a sense of urgency and the democrats and the senate feel a sense of urgency. but you have a presidentt who is very busy deflecting his responsibility on how this administration is handling the pandemic. and so with over 30 million people unemployed and more every day, we're reaching the terrible proportions in terms of the pain that people are suffering from. and of 10,000. i think we're averaging, sadly, about 10,000 deaths in our country every week and we have been having that at least for the month of may and before. and so, yes, there is a sense of urgency for mitch mcconnell to say we should take a pause, for the president to say we should take a pause is not only totally tone deaf to what the people are having to undergo in our country, but they show their callousness towards this pandemic and their lack of any sense of responsibility. >> mitch mcconnell has drawn a line around this question of liability protection. so the idea that a company should potentially be protected from getting sued in something happens because of coronavirus. do you think that that the a general idea that democrats would be willing to support in exchange for additional funding or other democratic priorities? or do you think that's a non-starter? >> it's pretty much a non-starter. in fact, lindsey graham had a hearing on the issue of liability protections and a part of that hearing was that we should have some very clear guidelines as to what companies should do so that when workers come back, they have ppes and they are sick and also the consumers, because the whole point of the liability protections is to protect the businesses from consumer lawsuits. if an employee wants to sue an employer, we have workers comp that pretty much says you have to go through that process. so why do we want to create a situation where the businesses are going to not even be held responsible if they are negligent? or, you know, totally -- it didn't make a lot of sense at the hearing and i would say that the people who testified on the panel selected by the republicans as well as a democratic panelists agreed that that's not where we should go. we should not be creating an environment where consumers are not going to be safe. >> i want to talk to you for a second about the political campaign that has been evolving around or in the course of this pandemic and the way that this president has been framing his back and forth with president obama. he was tweeting today, calling the obama administration corrupt, suggesting that it was obama that gave the world trump in a way that i don't fully understand why that was kind of the way he wanted to frame that. but so be it. what's your response to the quote/unquote obamagate claims that president trump is making in his attacks on president obama? >> the president will attack everybody and anybody including former president obama and the whole point of whatever the president does. this is something i said long ago that all the president cares about is himself in protecting himself and he will lash out at anyone who comes, gets in the way of that. and that's why he fires the inspector generals. he does all kind of things that will protect himself and so there is this thing called projection and when he calls president obama the most corrupt, that is definitely projecting, because trump is a president who believes that he can do anything he wants and the rule of law is out the window and aided and abetted by his attorney general. he's not our attorney general. he's attorney general barr who says, trump, every time, all the time, that's exactly how trump feels. it's himself, all the time, every time. when he lashes out and continues to lie to the american people, i hope that they say that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time that better come strue in this election. because people are dieing in this pandemic and for the president to say this is all going to go away or i should say, his surro fat son to say this is not going to go away because it's all a politically made-up pandemic is just, it just shows how basically how idiotic and crazy these kind of comments are coming from the trump administration and his surrogates. >> senator hirono, thank you very much for your time tonight. i appreciate your backdrop. it's nice to have a little hawaiian cheer here on the show this evening. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> aloha. >> aloha. thank you again. >> the way we think about restaurants and food may change permanently as some states allow them to reopen with patio seating or 50% capacity. the little inn in washington is working in mannequins to make distancing feel more normal. meanwhile, in montgomery county, maryland, one of the most wealthiest counties, lines went on and on at a food bank, supplies were exhausted in 35 minutes. michael pollan joins me next to talk about an inflexion point in america. chicago! 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can i have a look into the kitchen? >> that was a clip of michael pollan in the documentary food inc. a decade later the coronavirus pandemic pushed the same questions pollan was asking then. meat and poultry has become a hot spot and 20 employees have died. at the same time, the president signed an executive order under the defense production act ordering meat processing plants to remain opened during this pandemic. pollan recently wrote this in the sickness in our food supplies quote, only when the tide goes out, warren buffet observed do you discover who's been swimming faked. for our society, the covid-19 pandemic represents an ebb tide of the historic proportions one that is laying bare. no more is this more evident than in the american food system. michael pollan joins me and is the author of "the omnivore's dilemma." i appreciate you being here. let's start with how we got here the structural systems that set it up so that if a single processing plant across our country suddenly has to close because of this kind of emergency or another, it represents a major threat to our entire food supply. how did that happen? >> concentration, basically. over the last -- since the reagan administration, we essentially allowed meat companies to american in the name of efficiency. we found that bigger meat companies could slaughter more animals and produce meat more cheaply. and that seemed like a good thing for consumers. it was devastating for pigers, ranchers and pick farmers. as the market consolidated, you got to this point where only four companies now slaughter 80% of the beef and another four companies slaughter 57% of the pigs. so you get to this situation where a single pig processing plant closes down, all the pigs destined for that plant have nowhere to go. the meat supply shrinks and you have farmers at the same time having to euthanize their pigs. so it's really a tale of efficiency gone mad. >> it strikes me that this may be, i mean, we're seeing all the different ways in which the global supply chain and globalization generally is potentially breaking down and the ways in which we have to rethink how we have been doing business in a whole host of ways. but this seems like one of the most immediate to me. certainly even in our family, you know, we look around and we say, okay, if this is something we can't find on the grocery store she was, who can we look to who is local. is there a farmer in virginia selling here, are there farmer's markets still in operation? how do you think that this is going to cause people to rethink that system and are we capable of doing it? >> well, i think that's a really good question. we've built a system that has many blessings to it. it makes food very cheap. everybody can eat huge amounts of meat. we eat 9 ounces of meat per person per day. no civilization has eaten that much meat. and we spend less of our income on food than anyone else in the world. less than 10% of our income on food. but the tradeoff with the efficiency is always resilience. a highly efficient system is so brittle that when you have a disruption such as a pandemic, it starts breaking down and that's what gives you the these images of long lines at food banks at the same time farmers are destroying perfectly good food so, i think we need to move, as consumers, but also as policy makers in a direction that would privilege resilience in the system so that we don't have so much power in the hand of these four corporations, with essentially now can order the president to force their workers back on the line when their workers are afraid to go there because they're sick and dying. no company should have that kind of power to do that to our political system. but you are right. what's happening at the local level is very encouraging. smaller farmers have done a better job of adapting to this system. farmers that were, i'm buying now a weekly csa box from farmers that used to supply a restaurant in my neighborhood and they've pivoted and made their food available to me and another 200 people in my community, who, by the way, are now cooking at home a lot more because they can't go out. so i think that it's a very powerful argument for the resilience and importance of decentralizing the food system so that no one element of it can affect all of us. i mean, think if we still had thousands with small slaughterhouses, which tens of thousands of farmers were bringing their food to, when one of them had to be closed down because of the pandemic, it wouldn't make the news. it would just be trivial. now it's big news and it affects everybody. there is not enough hamburger at wendy's apparently. so i think the pivot to more regional food systems is happening. and i think that that's a very encouraging thing. but i think we also have to take take a really hard look at anti-trust policies that made this possible. these four companies shouldn't have the kind of power that i do. >> you mentioned the idea that we eat so much, you know, 9 ounces of meat per day on average partly because it is so cheap to get for many americans and that obviously wasn't always the case. can you talk a little bit about you know why that reality is actually contributed to the fact that coronavirus has been so devastating here in the united states because we have so many people who have these co-morbidities that have made this disease so much more ugly? >> you know, the food system is unsustainable in many ways. the supply chain is amess as we are seeing. but the diet at the end of that food chain is a problem, too. we eat this what's called this western diet with large amounts of meat, lots of processed food. and by the way, the processed food is still coming without interruption, because the corn and soy from which it's made can be grown with very little labor. one farmer can farm 1,500 acres of corn and soy. so don't worry about the soda and the high fructose corn syrup products. but this diet as it turns out is precisely what is making us more vulnerable to covid-19. according to cdc about half of the serious cases of covid-19 are people who have obesity and high blood pressure and another 30 or 40% have type ii diabetes. guess what, these three problems are all directly the result of the way we eat, this western diet. so we're also eating in a way that, you know, kills us slowly but surely, most of the time. but very swiftly at times like this. >> well, i certainly try as best i can in my life to follow your advice to eat food, not too much, mostly plants. i can't say i always succeed. i do very much appreciate you being here to share your wisdom on this topic. michael pollan, thank you so much for your time. i hope you and your family stay safe throughout all this. when we continue, will students be allowed back in classrooms this fall? if not what does that mean for the economy? former education secretary ernie duncan joins me up next. my age-related macular degeneration could lead to vision loss. so today i made a plan with my doctor, which includes preservision... because he said a multi- vitamin alone may not be enough. and it's my vision, my morning walk, my sunday drive, my grandson's beautiful face. only preservision areds2 contains the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of moderate to advanced amd progression. it's how i see my life. because it's my vision... preservision. you ever wish you weren't a motaur? sure. sometimes i wish i had legs like you. yeah, like a regular person. no. still half bike/half man, just the opposite. oh, so the legs on the bottom and motorcycle on the top? yeah. yeah, i could see that. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. we hope you find our digital solutions helpful to bank safely from home. deposit a check with your phone or tablet. check balances, pay bills, transfer money and more. send money to people you know and trust with zelle. stay safe. stay home. together, we'll get through this. pnc bank alice loves the scent of gain so much, she wished there was a way to make it last longer. say hello to your fairy godmother alice. and long-lasting gain scent beads. part of the irresistible scent collection from gain! it was initially believed that the coronavirus had little impact on children. but we've learned now that that might not be the case. multi-system inflammatory syndrome or miss c has been reported in nearly half of the country. it's believed to be linked to the cdc. they released information earlier this week after more than 110 children were diagnosed with it. this alert comes amid, obviously, increasing questions here about how we are going to reopen the country if our kid cannot go back to school. joining me now is the former education secretary under president obama arnie duncan and the director of policy studies at stanford university and a fellow at hoover institution lonnie chen. it's great to have you. secretary duncan, let me start with you. you wrote a tweet in response to the president. you may have to clarify which particular thing it was the president said that prompted your tweet. there are many options over the course of the last week. but you wrote, quote, do not listen to trump to open schools, all five things must be in place. the decrease in cases, accurate testing, contact tracing, social isolation and a plan about how and when to close, if necessary. and i want to pick up on that last point you make. because this is what other moms i am talking to. this is a conversation that we're having over zoom calls or socially distanced glasses of wine, which is do you send your kids back to school in the fall if you are not sure how long they're going to be there for? are they going to open and shut again the uncertainty level is so hard for parents to dpraple with right now? >> yeah. i think we have to take the conversation from being you know open and shut versus sort of this very gradual movement maybe in and out. so if it is safe to go back to school and that's a big if, schools going to look very, very different. some children may be there on mondays and wednesdays. others might be there tuesdays and thursdays. the time of children eating in the cafeteria, that might be over. how we make hallways safe. how we have good passing times. how we clean bathrooms, that will be very, very different so i think schools will do the best they can to open up and open up to as many children as they can only if it's safe where i can guarantees that we have to make sure that children continue to learn. we have to assume everyone will be spending some time, if not full time, learning virtually and we have to make sure our children, their families and staff feel comfortable and say if we do something in a physical building. >> lonnie chen, this has obviously become such a political faultline this question of reopening. but this school issue is just so emotional and fraught for so many people because if their kids aren't going to school, they're not going to work. their family is suffering. you know, if that piece doesn't come back together, it's almost impossible to see how an economy does recover. at the same time we have learned there is this increased risk we weren't awash of before that seems to be particularly affecting school age children more than infants and toddlers. so from a policy perspective, how do we thread this needle? >> well, kasie, there is a few things. are you absolutely right getting the school reopening well and done properly is going to be the key to really getting the economy back up and running. i think it can't be an all or nothing proposition. look, i've heard some, mostly on the right arguing, look, just open up the schools, open them all up in the fall. kids will be fine. i've heard some progressives take a very different tack on that. this really shouldn't be divided by politics. unfortunately, it seems to have been. what we have to do is combine some element of in-person learning with some element of distance learning. i think that will be the status quo for at least several months, if not academic terms before we are able get to a point where comfortable bringing school back to close to what it was before this entire pandemic hit. so we have to be smart about combining a lot of different factors here. whether it's online learning, in-person learning, cohorting students secretary duncan mentioned, that will be important as well. figuring out how schools can figure out who in the social body will be sick. social distancing will be hard. you try to get a bunch of 7-year-olds to social distance. >> it's impossible. >> we have to be smart about putting these factors together. >> that's a very good point. i have to stop for a second. i appreciate somebody who's worked for a republican and democrats actually agreeing and on the same page. are you both saying some very similar ideas and themes here, which i feel like has been pretty rare. secretary duncan, one other question i have for you. i mean, you have also run a school system. where is the best guidance for schools that are trying to figure out how to make decisions about all these questions that you both are raising? i mean is the cdc guidance good enough? we know there have been good questions how that came out of the trump administration? >> let me first say there is nothing political about keeping kids safe, adults safe, the teachers, the counsellors, the social workers and prince billions and keeping kids learning. we have to do those things simultaneously. one thing i'd like to put out there we should have a massive tutoring program for students that may have fallen behind or are falling behind over the summer. recent college grads, retirees, college students could help those younger kids catch up. that's so important we continue to learn, accelerate that. unfortunately to answer your question directly the guidance, my opinion coming out of the cdc was weak, anemic, vague, was not helpful. i'm talking to superintendents every week. we had a good call on friday and superintendents along with local mayors with their local medical doctors and scientists are now figuring this out together and the lack of leadership in my opinion coming out of d.c. right now is very, very disappointing. >> yeah. certainly seems as though people are having to rely on their state and local governments or authorities as they try to figure this out. of course, hard to get around that when there are different hot spots across the country. arnie duncan, lahne chen, thank you for being here. i appreciate it. earlier tonight we reported on the return of nascar and the major league baseball draft proposal obtained by espn and "the last lettic" reveals if and when the game returns, coaches and umpires will be required, social distancing will be enforced even in the dugout and spitting would be strictly prohibited. nbc sport jimmy roberts in his own words on sports and social distancing coming up next. i just love hitting the open road and telling people that liberty mutual customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need! [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. because i trust their quality they were the first to have a vitamin verified by usp... ...an independent organization that sets strict quality and purity standards nature made, the #1 pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand we're returning $2 billion dollars to our auto policyholders through may 31st. because now, more than ever, being a good neighbor means everything. like a good neighbor, state farm is there. if you really, really want to watch baseball, you can join the diehards who stay up for 1:00 a.m. first pitch in korea. if not, you are going to have to wait with the rest of us, wondering when the nba is going to finish its season, when the wnba will tip off, or if the nfl will start as scheduled. here is nbc sports jimmy roberts in his own words. >> so, here's where we are. we're fighting over which is more important, our physical health or our fiscal health. our physical health or our mental health. the world is upside down. the nfl commissioner announced draft picks from his basement. the supreme court is hearing cases over the phone. everything is different. or it's about to be. sports with no spectators. what would this have been like against a silent backdrop? or this? would these have been the reactions we got with no one there? these are uncertain times, but i do know this. the last time i cared about testing this much was in college. i missed my 18 holes, but the 19th hole, too. i know my atm card is somewhere. i just can't tell you the last time i used it. i know that the sports section shrinks while the obit section grows. streets and shelves are empty. championships have gone unclaimed. proms and graduations, those things with which we've always marked our joy, have simply disappeared like somebody hit delete before they had a chance to hit save. i know there can't possibly be a bride anywhere who thought this would be the picture she would have to cherish forever. but the most terrifying thing might be all that i don't know. the things that trespass on my sanity or wake me from my sleep. maybe the things that don't allow me to get there in the first place. but take someone i love? will it come back? will it take me? i don't understand why it ravages some and barely touches others. i don't know if a lifetime of faltered savings will have time to recover. but even the little things are troubling. i don't know if when this all comes to an end that we'll remember to appreciate the dignity of those who served us. sure, the first responders, but the super market clerks and the delivery folks just as much. i don't know when i'll next wear a tie or if i'll ever binge watch something again and think of it as a guilty pleasure rather than a grim reminder. we are trapped between the things we know and the things we don't, and neither boundary is very comforting. i don't think i'll ever think of anything the same way again. but we've said that before. it was after a cloudless and beautiful september tuesday 19 years ago. that day changed life. these days will, too. i didn't think i'd ever be happy again, but i was. and just like we all remarkably came through that, we will come through this. and while there's so much i don't know, i do know that. >> a nice little reminder there that we are still all in this together, as difficult as it still continues to be. and we, of course, are very grateful that we have some good news to close us out tonight. dr. joseph fair, who so many of you have seen on msnbc, is on the way home from the hospital after six days battling coronavirus. he says he used maximum precautions and still managed to contract the virus. he sends his thanks for all the prayers and messages that he's received, and i can state to him on behalf of all of us here at "kasie d.c." and msnbc, we are so glad that you are on the mend and feeling a little bit better. that's going to do it for us tonight. thank you so much for watching. we're going to be back with you next week from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. eastern. joshua johnson picks up coverage after a short break. for now from me, good night from washington. adversity came to town and said, "show me what you're made of." so we showed it our people, sourcing and distributing more fresh food than anyone... we showed it our drivers helping grocers restock their shelves. we showed it how we're donating millions of meals to those in need. we showed it how we helped thousands of restaurants convert to takeout and pop up markets. and how we're encouraging all americans to take out to give back. adversity came to town. so we looked it right in the eye. and it won't be us... ...that blinks first. roundup for lawns is here to put unwelcome lawn weeds to rest. so, draw the line. roundup for lawns is formulated to kill lawn weeds to the root without harming your grass. roundup brand. trusted for over 40 years. me too. me too. and if you're a small business, we're with you. standing by you every step of the way. bye bye. hey there, i'm joshua johnson. good to be with you tonight from nbc news in new york. it's getting more and more likely that tomorrow will be your first day back at work since the coronavirus closures began. but the pandemic is far from over. by our count, the known death toll from covid-19 just passed 90,000 people. nearly every state has partially reopened. this week some states will ease restrictions further.

Transcripts For CNNW EarlyStart 20130218

reached out to her. she sounded good. >> you knew her personally. >> no, no. >> you didn't know her personally? >> i treated her for three weeks in a celebrity rehab episode several years ago and had contact on various levels for advice and what not. did not treat her. was not her physician. i did reach out to her when i heard she was struggling and urged her to take care of herself, get in a facility if she felt she needed. her biggest fear was the stigma of doing so and what people would think if she god forbid took care of herself. this to me is the most distressing part of this story. she's a lovely woman. we have lost her and it didn't have to go down like this. >> thanks to dr. drew. i'm don crude awakening. oil prices have americans paying more for gas than ever before this time of year. >> country music tragedy. mindy mccreadie dead of an parent suicide. >> and danica patrick does what no woman in nascar has ever done before. >> i think that so cool. >> yeah. >> very cool. super, duper unbelievably cool. >> exactly. give her more props. first woman ever. >> i was all into it. >> good morning. welcome to "early start." >> it's clearly monday. it's february 18th, presidents day. let's get started. we're going to start two big stories that could affect your pocketbook. a cold freeze that could ruin crops in the south and gas prices skyrocketing. want s want to start with gas prices. they're going up and up and up. no sign of stopping. every day for more than a month gas prices have jumped. that is not the streak you want to be on. it is all happening in the dead of winter while americans try to cope with home heating bills and sli shrinking paychecks. we have a reporter live at a gas station in new york city. what do the prices look like there? >> reporter: hi, john. yeah, gas prices are certainly skyrocketing. over here on 10th avenue, you'll see regular gas $4.15. i'm looking at the board now. premium is still $4.45. we're expected to see the numbers increase even further. let me shou the numbers. what it looks like in terms of the rest of the country. average price, $3.71. that's the average. but, you know, in some states, you know, it can get a lot higher than that. anyone in hawaii knows what i'm talking about. gas is $4.29 over there. the cheapest gas is in wyoming. $3.17 a gallon. this is really coming at a bad time for a lot of americans in this part of the country at least. people are spending more money on heating. they don't have the spare change to spare on gas prices getting higher. taxes also increasing for a lot of americans. at this particular gas station, i did speak to some taxi drivers who pulled in earlier this morning. i xad thasked them, what are yog to do? they told me that they're spending upwards of $60 a guy on gasoline. i stood by one guy as he filled up the tank. i saw the numbers rise much these guys really are at the mercy of the pumps. obviously, they don't pick up more passengers. they are really going to feel it in terms of wages. john? >> the woman behind you is jumping up and down, clearly outraged at the prices she's seeing. either that or very, very cold right now. this just in, gas prices break for a 32nd day in a row. aaa out with a brand new national average. see, just in like i told you, $3.73 now for a gallon of regular. and also today what could be be another threat to your pocketbook, this one at the grocery store. jennifer delgado in the weather center right now with a freeze warning that could spell trouble for some of florida's citrus crops. people don't like it to get cold there. >> reporter: no, they don't want to threaten the orange juice. the reality is temperatures are bitterly cold this morning. we're talking temperatures in the 20s. we do have a hard freeze warning, anywhere you're seeing in blue. that includes parts of georgia as well as into florida and then a freeze warning in blue. what we're talking about temperatures, basically staying in the mid 20s for two hours or more and right now you can see the numbers are already very close to that range. 27 for ocala and 26 for gainesville. jacksonville, 26. now how long will this last? looks like for tomorrow, we don't have a freeze warning in place. but keep in mind temperatures are still running 15 to 20 degrees below average this morning. i was talking to joe carter, you're going to see him very shortly. he said all his friends in m miami, it's cold out there. it's still 49 degrees in miami. >> oh, my goodness. you want sunshine, bathing suit weather. >> 80s. >> right. developing overnight, tragedy in the world of country music. singer mindy mccreedy is dead. the 37-year-old singer died from a self inflicted gunshot wound. she was found at her arkansas home yesterday. she had a string of hits and the turbulent personal life. her battles with alcohol, drugs, and the law were well publicized. her death comes a month after her boyfriend david wilson, the father of her infant son died of an apparent suicide. mccready talked about that painful experience in her very last interview with nbc. >> i've never gone through anything this painful nor will i ever again go through anything this painful. >> gosh. that just breaks your heart. michelle turner is following all of the develop ams for us. she is live in our l.a. bureau. she had obviously been troubled for a very long time. had there been any recent signs that things were actually getting worse for her? >> well, you know, there were signs that she was struggling. she recently had a stint in rehab but reportedly checked herself out early. mindy mccready had a long history. but dr. drew who she first met while appearing had been his show says as far as he knew, she was getting better. he spoke to cnn's don lemon last night. listen. >> she actually been doing very well. things were looking up for her. she had children with a boyfriend who ended up killing himself a few weeks ago. she was struggling after that. actually was admitted herself to a psychiatric facility. and there's a cautionary tale about the stigma of mental illness and the way in which the public attacks celebrities who take care of themselves. she became so fearful of the stigma and the way people were responding to her being hospitalized that she actually checked herself out prematurely and now we have what we have. >> you know, the mccready was not afraid to talk about her troubles. she posted a message to her fans on the website saying i haven't had a hit in a decade. i spent my fortune, tarnished my public view and made myself the brunt of punch line after punch line. i've been beaten, sued, robbed, arrested, jailed, and evicted but i'm still here. you know the heart of all these struggles she ultimately leaves two children without their mothers, two boys, 10 years old and 9 months old. >> oh, my goodness. how terrible. michelle turner, thank you so much for following those latest develop ams for us. we appreciate it. >> that is a sad, sad ending to an already tragic story. new developments in the battle over immigration reform. republicans angry over details of the president's plan that had been leaked. they say they will fight any attempt by the administration to oppose reform. a key element to the proposal would put illegal immigrants or undocumented immigrants on a path to citizenship after waiting eight years. the white house insists it is working with republicans to come up with a bipartisan plan. danica patrick making nascar history. she's the first woman to earn a pole position in nascar's sprint cup series. she did it at shir signature event, the daytona 500. patrick turned in a qualifying lap of more than 196 miles an hour to take the top spot at daytona next sunday. >> i'm so excited about this. this was developing all weekends. it was really exciting to watch. joe carter is live in atlanta. you know, joe, danica patrick, no stranger to making history. she was the first woman to win an indycar series. shou is she reacting to this chint achievement? >> i'm sure, john, she's happy. she's proud. i'm sure she's a little relieved as well. yesterday she had to wait over two hours to secure that pole win. she went out eighth out of 43 cars. so 35 different drivers went after her. but danica, you know, over the years has made racing history before in indycar and stock car. but nothing like this. i mean winning the pole at the daytona 500 means she's going to start in the front row. but starting from the front, guys, does not mean she has a grate greater chance to win this race. the last person to win the pole and win the race was dale jarrett in 2000. but to become first woman to secure the top spot in nascar's premier race is it by far the biggest achievement in her stock car career. she spoke with don lemon about that last night. >> i think that understanding the scope of what that means and what that will end up meaning is -- or if any, is something that happens down the road in the moment it's about thinking about what i need to do for next sunday and trying to make some more history. >> you know, the odds for her winning sunday's race dramatically increased, actually. she started out at $1125/1, now she's 21 is already 1. the statistics does not indicate she has a greater chance of winning this huge race. >> we're all excited about this. what is the reaction so far in the nascar world? >> i can tell you this, john, it's creating a buzz around the sport's premier race. in the next five, six days there's going to be more people talking about this race than there were last year. every driver from this news benefits. more eyeballs are going to be tuning in to sunday's race, tuning into thursday's duel race, tuning into saturday's nationwide race. more people are going to become fans of nascar. this helps the sport that over the last few years suffered from the declining tv ratings. it's a milestone, obviously, for sports and, of course, for women as well. >> and that's a moment i don't want to lose sight ofment for women this is a very, very big moment. she's next to jeff gordon. thank you. appreciate it. >> our best of luck to her, obviously. more details emerging this morning about the olympic icon oscarallegedly murdered his model girlfriend. we're going to go live to south africa next. plus, a ritzy robbery has some brazen jewelry thieves manage to hit a high end new york hotel. i have low testosterone. there, i said it. how did i know? 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[ male announcer ] in a clinical study, over 80% of treated men had their t levels restored to normal. talk to your doctor about all your symptoms. get the blood tests. change your number. turn it up. androgel 1.62%. something this delicious could only come from nature. now from the maker of splenda sweeteners, discover nectresse. the only 100% natural, no-calorie sweetener made from the goodness of fruit. the rich, sweet taste of sugar. nothing artificial. ♪ it's all that sweet ever needs to be. new nectresse. sweetness naturally. developments of the case of oscar pistorius, the south africa olympic runner charged with murdering his model girlfriend. a south african official close to the case says that the model was shot four times through a bathroom door and he carried her down stairs while she was also alive. pistorius bowed out of five races he was scheduled to participate in this year to focus on this case against him. robin kerno is live from south africa with the latest for us. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning. thanks so much for having me. we also know according to this official close to the investigation that the model was there to spend the night as at her boyfriend's house. her overnight bag and ipad were found in her bedroom. now these are the facts that we know. you mentioned them just a bit earlier there. we know for sure there is a lot of speculation, a lot of rumor going on at the moment. but i think in terms of the way south africa and the world is dealing with this, there is still this confusion as to why, what happened in the early hours of valentine's day? crucially over the weekend we got a chance to hear and see reeva. take a look at this. >> just days after being shot and killed at the home of her boyfriend olympian oscar pistorius, reva stincom appeared on south african television. >> we fall in love with being in love in love. >> this is as her reality show began on saturday. as her television debut aired, her boyfriend, dumb bl amputee oscar pistorius spend the weekend in this jail. prosecutors plan to charge pistorius with her murder, a charge strongly rejected by pistorius and his family. this is his uncle flanked by his sister who struggles to keep herself together as they make a brief statement to the media. >> as can you imagine, our entire family is devastated. we are in a state of total shock. their plans together and oscar was happy in his private life. >> reporter: investigators who have been combing through his house and this high security complex are starting to piece together what they think happened early on valentine's day. cnn has been told and local media is reporting that police believe pistorius shot her four time through a closed bathroom door and then carried her down stairs where she died. neighbors have told police that they heard shouting before the shooting. there is still no solid explanation as to why he may have shot her. pistorius appears in court on tuesday for the bail hearing. he hasn't entered a plea yet. while pistorius in court, vre reeva's family will have a memorial for her on wednesday. police release this final message from her meant to be to the cast but which now becomes her last words, her last good-bye. >> i've had so many amazing memories and things that are in here and in here. i'll treasure forever. i'm going to miss you all so much. and i love you very, very much. >> just so sad, isn't it? you know, two families so absolutely destroyed by this. we are hearing from reeva's mom, first time she's speaking to this newspaper. my baby loved like no one else. she like everybody else in this country is asking why? why did he do it? what propelled him to do it? and there must be some sort of explanation which people are hoping they get more information at this bail application on tuesday. beyond that, still a lot of sad, hard people in this country. >> a lot of questions still. thank you very much. >> the reason is it is interesting and it look like she was spending the night and one of the avenues of defense is he thought she was an intruder. that could make things more difficult for his defense. 17 minutes after the hour now. want i want to bring you up to speed. >> 32 days now and counting, that's how many days in a row that the gas prices have gone up. the national average for a gallon of regular is $3.73 a gallon. that is another $1.6 cents overnight. the increase is coming at a terrible time for americans. they're struggling with staggering home heating bills and shrinking pay cuts. payroll tax cuts expired last month. new this morning, hugo chavez returned to venezuela from cuba. in a message on his official twitter account, he said he'll continue his treatment in venezuela. the type of cancer he has or has has not been revealed. a leather air force one bomber jacket owned by president john f. kennedy sold at auction for $570,000. this jacket is part of a huge lot of kennedy memorabilia that belonged to the late david powers, a close personal friend, a special assistant to j.f.k. the preauction expectation was $20,000 to $40,000. the identity of the winning bidder is not revealed. i'm not surprised it went for so much. you think of the image of j.f.k. in a bomber jacket, it's iconic. >> and it's a cool jacket. thank you so much, christine. these are anxious days in washington as millions of federal workers are facing furloughs. how congress could save the day. that's coming up. not in my house! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! no no no! not today! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! jimmy how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? 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[ female announcer ] honey nut cheerios cereal -- heart-healthy, whole grain oats. you can't go wrong loving it. we're reminding your business this morning, or trying at least. the stock market is closed in observance of president's day. stocks are still close to record highs and there is plenty to move the market this week. christine romans, how will the market close today? >> i know how it will close. this is one of the days when i know how markets will end up exactly as they closed on friday because they're closed. dow and s & p could hit record high this is week. check out the s & p 500. it is riding a seven-week winning streak. 4% from the all time high. the market pulled back from a solid start to 2013. we're looking for what kind of data is going to propel it to the new highs. we have a lot of data. two big readings on the housing market. housing starts along with bulling permits that, is new home construction, a new gauge of that. existing home sales comes thursday. as you know, existing home sales are 90% of the u.s. housing market. so that will be a critical read on recovery in the housing market and also a fresh look the consumer price index. we know that gas prices are squeezing. gas prices are 20 cents high they are week than they were the same time last year. 20 cents higher. and you're taking less out of your paycheck because of payroll tax holiday expired. for those of you really worried about gas prices in new york and chicago. you're going to hit $4 a gallon earlier than we ever have in the year. so brace yourself there. also brace yourself if you're a federal worker. you're facing a furlough, unpaid days off. you can blame the sequester. a controller for the office of management and budget said this won't happen until after march 1st. that's when the massive spending cuts begin if congress doesn't act the sequester. federal employees must give a 30-day notice before furlough. unions that represent the workers right now having a big part in how that's going to happen and when. but there are 2.1 million federal employees that fall under this cost cutting measure. so tough choices for the government right now. by the way, they're off. they're off. >> exactly. >> while they're facing the tough, tough challenges. >> whoever is in washington doing the sequester negotiations, 2.1 federal workers watching to see if they have to take unpaid days off to meet the mandated budget cuts. >> that's terrible. thank you, christine. >> 25 minutes after the hour right now. how is this for creepy. getting letters from a high profile convicted killer saying he wants to be your friend. we'll have more on this killer pen pal coming up. if you're leaving the house right now, can you watch us any time on your desktop or mobile phone. the patient, presented with a hairline fracture to the mandible and contusions to the metacarpus. what do you see? um, i see a duck. be more specific. i see the aflac duck. i see the aflac duck out of work and not making any money. i see him moving in with his parents and selling bootleg dvds out of the back of a van. dude, that's your life. remember, aflac will give him cash to help cover his rent, car payments and keep everything as normal as possible. i see lunch. 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>> absolutely. >> 29 minutes past the hour. moments ago we learned gas prices went up for a 32nd straight day. the national average for a gallon of regular is now $3.73. all this is happening in the dead of winter. a time when many of us are dealing with staggering home heating bills and shrinking paychecks from payroll tax cuts that expired last month. zain asher is at a gas station in manhattan. you've been talking to a few of the new york cabbie who's are probably complaining this morning, i suspect. >> reporter: hi, yes. they certainly are. they're literally watching their wages, essentially, evaporate right before their eyes. let me just let you know that we are at a gas station on 10th avenue. gas prices here, $4.15. premium, $4.45. and the bad news is that we are expecting gas prices to rise further still. let me show you the numbers in terms of gas prices over the rest of the country. the average price of gas right now in the u.s., $3.73 a gallon as you mentioned. but there are places, there are some states where gas prices are even higher than that. places like hawaii, california. the most expensive place to buy gas is in hawaii. over there, gas prices $4.28 a gallon. and we're pretty envious of everyone in wyoming, $3.17. as you mentioned, americans, especially in this part of the country where it is freezing cold, dweelg hiealing with high heating bills and tax increases leading to lower wages, of course. i did speak to some taxi drivers. they say they are definitely upset as they watch gas prices continue to rise. some of them spending upwards of $60 a day on gasoline alone. take a listen to what guy one told me. >> i support the family. and nowadays, it's more expensive. i pay $40 for the gas and i have to take 200 people to pay for the gas. so i take hardly, you know, sometimes $60 or $70. i work 12 hours. so that's not enough. >> reporter: and interesting statistic, i want to mention is that according to. eia, the average american spent $3,000 on gasoline in 2012. representing 4% of the typical american income which is the highest percentage of american income spent on gasoline in the last 30 years. >> that's depressing. it's only going up. so what's pushing the prices up? >> reporter: essentially crude oil prices. they show signs of recovery as the housing market also shows signs of recovery. you're going to see demand for crude oil essentially going up. that is also pushing prices up. also refineries are closing down. typically this time of year refineries will close down for maintenance. we're also seeing some refineries close down permanently because they're losing money. that essentially constricts supply. and that pushes the prices of gasoline up. >> all right. zain asher reporting live. go get warmed up. thank you. big developments this morning about immigration reform. republicans telling the obama administration they'll fight any attempt by the who us to impose reforms without bipartisan input. they expressed anger of the details of the president's draft proposal are leaked publicly. we have more from athena jones in washington. >> reporter: while president obama played golf with tiger woods at a private club in florida, his new chief of staff defended the white house against charges it's trying to sabotage congressional efrlts to reach a deal on immigration by drafting its own bill without consulting republicans. >> we're doing exactly what we said we would do which is we'll be prepared in the event the bipartisan talks going on the hill which were very aggressively supported, if those do not work out, then we'll have an option that will be ready to put out there. >> reporter: white house says its immigration bill is a plan b. if congress doesn't act. but a draft of the bill obtained by "usa today" drew fire from republicans who support the white house. marco rubio called it half baked, seriously flawed and dead on arrival. rubio, like john mccain, is a key gop negotiator. >> leaks don't happen in washington by accident. this raises the question that many of us continue to wonder about. does the president really want to a result or does he want another reason to beat up republicans so he can get political advantage in the next election? >> reporter: in the draft from "usa today," the white house would let undocumented immigrants apply for a new visa so they could legally live and work in the u.s. they could seek perm nents rane residency if they lose english, u.s. history and civics. the white house insists they are committed to working with republicans. >> we're going to continue to work with senator rubio on these. he says it's dead on arrival, let's make sure it doesn't have to be proposed. >> reporter: negotiators plan to unveil their draft legislation next month. 34 minutes paragraph tst th. police questioning two men after her daughter was killed. she was gunned down friday night in the suburban down of north chicago, illinois. the 18-year-old victim's mother she was out walking with friends and one of them may have been the intended target of the gunman. hours before she decide, mcfarland's 14-year-old sister attended president obama's address in chicago. >> four letters written by john lennon's killer to the cop who arrested nipp eed him in 1983 a sale today. in the letters, he says he hopes they can be friends and that he feels close to the officer offer since his arrest. t sentencing bureau says he told them why he killed the former beetle in 1980. >> i spent five hours with him after i arrested him. and he was telling me about all the phoniness in the world that all these rich people don't give to the certain charities that, you know, he would like. three years after this guy killed john lennon that he admits he had a hit list. >> he claims chapman's hiss list was jackie kennedy onassis and walter cronkite and actor john c. scott. those letters are going for an asking price of $75,000. >> a man accused of slapping a toddler onboard a delta airlines flight is out of a job this morning. 60-year-old joe hundley charged with assaulting a minor was suspended by his employer. but now the company says they have let him go. according to court papers, jessica bennett and her 2-year-old son were sitting next to hundley on a minneapolis flight this month when the boy became fussily, hundley used a racial slur and slapped that little boy in the face. >> i could not believe that he would say something like that and -- to a baby or about a baby and then to hit him was just, i -- i felt like i was in another world. i was shaking. >> unbelievable. bennett and her husband called the actions heinous and hateful. hundley's attorney says he plans to plead not guilty to the assault charge. a southern california woman can finally hohn yort hero father that she never knew. her father died in 1945 right before she was born. his world war ii medals including a purple heart and silver star were discovered in a box in a west hollywood apartment building laundry room four months ago. sunday they were handed over to highland. >> the fifth one i opened had all the letters in it. and staring me in the face was a purple heart. >> tears of joy and surprise and shock. but to me, it means today we are honoring his memory. >> his father was second lieutenant heiman markel. they confirm for her what a great man he really was. 37 minutes hast past the hour. to the rest of the world, a fascinating sight. but to those up close, a really terrifying experience. more on this meteor impact on the people of one community coming up. >> it was terrifying to me. >> no kidding. all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. welcome back to "early start." this morning people are still picking up the pieces after that massive meteor shot through the sky over russia. that meteor triggered a blast that damaged buildings, blue ewt windows and injured thousands of people, many of them children. we have a reporter live at the lake where the meteor appeared to hit the how are people doing today, phil? >> reporter: well, john, where i'm standing, people are curious, inquiztive because they're coming here to this frozen lake to get a look at a confirmed impact site of at least part of this meteor. the hole in the ice, although it started to freeze over again, is just behind me here. over the weekend russian scientists have been combing this area. they say they found 53 confirmed meteorite fragments. they say the makeup of the fragments, they are small. they say they are high in iron and consistent with meteorite that's have been found everywhere else around the world. so the scientists are pretty sure they know what came down here. but the time that thing was streaking through the sky, the people of this region have no idea what was going on. they were terrified. some are very rattled, especially the children. this small siberian village is usually a quiet place. 1,000 people living just south of the city. but on friday morning, they, like everyone in the region, were shocked by what they saw. an intense light followed by a trail of smoke across the sky. this kindergarten worker says the 20 children who were in this room ran to the window when she saw the lightment she felt something was wrong and moved them away. she says she was still facing the windows when the meteor's shock wave hit. as the windows blew in, flying glass cut olga's face and hands. she didn't notice because she was worried about the children. most were safe but terrified. but one was bleeding heavily. this 3-year-old sasha suffered deep cuts to her head and face. her mother ran to the kindergarten after she heard the blast. i was shaking, she says. i grabbed her and started to calm her down. a lot of kids were crying, too. this woman was also in the room that morning. she wasn't hurt physically by the blast but her mother says she's traumatized. she's been too afraid to stand next to windows and she keeps asking if the glass is going to break again. this woman says she understands what the children of this village are feeling am she says the blast was so terrifying it rekindled her own childhood memories from the second world war. most of the visible damage to the buildings and people of this region can be easily repaired. but the meteor's impact on some will take longer to heal. so while some pieces have been found on the surface, a mystery remains what now lies beneath the ice? the scientists are pretty sure that larger fragments of the meteor are sitting at the bottom of the lake. divers went in over the last couple days, they couldn't see anything. it's very city down there. the visibility is very poor. so scientists believe the best chances of finding remaining fragments will come with the spring when the snow and ice melt. they'll be able to access the lake more easily across this vast snow covered sigh deberian landscape. they're sure that fragments made tote other areas. >> that will be so interesting to see. such a terrifying story. thank you for being with us this morning. 44 minutes past the hour. whiskey drinkers, toasting a change of heart from a big bourbon maker all thanks to you, the customer. that story coming up. plus, hungry rabbits, yes, hu hungry rabbits wreaking havoc at a major airport. how could something so cute cause so much trouble? omnipotent of opportunity. you know how to mix business... with business. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. and go. you can even take a full-size or above. and still pay the mid-size price. i could get used to this. 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[ male announcer ] engine light on? come to meineke now for a free code scan read and you'll say...my money. my choice. my meineke. 48 minutes past the hour. let's get you up to date. here is christine romans with our top stories. >> we learned less than an hour ago that for 32 straight days now gas prices are up. the spike is happening at a terrible time for millions. the national average for a gallon of regular, $3.73 a gallon this morning. and, you know, folks over at gas buddies says you'll see $4 a gallon in new york city area and chicago. earlier thissier than we ever have before. this comes at a time when we're struggling with high home heating bills and shrinking pay cuts. a brazen jewelry heist at a posh manhattan hotel, two young men walked into the lobby of the four seasons at 2:00 saturday morning and while one of them spoke to staff members sh the other pulled out a sledgehammer and smashed open a case filled with jacob & company jewelry. they made off with $160,000 in watches and pend ants just like that. chalk up another win for argo. ben affleck's film beating "lincoln" again. it completes a sweep of the four major gild awards. next up for "argo," the oscars. don't water down the whiskey. come on! don't mess with my whiskey. that was the outcry from makers marked bourbon makers. they abandoned the plans to water down the product. thousands of makers protested and now in fact -- >> you won. they won. >> the long national nightmare is over. >> i was actually watching that story very closely. >> do you drink it? is that krur drink of choice? >> no, but i buy it. my fiance drinks it. i wonder why are you doing this? i thought it was a ploy. >> it's a conspiracy. >> yes. indeed. >> and it's over. >> they say it tastes the same. >> from whiskey to orange juice, maybe together, farmers on edge today with plunging temperatures in the southeast. jennifer delgado is in the weather center in atlanta right now. what weather are we talking about? >> i don't know. i think that sounds like dangerous combination, mixing that with orange juice. we are talking about cold temperatures out there. once again this time in florida. and now this means this could threaten the citrus crop. of course, we're worried about that. temperatures right now this morning are in the 20s. gainesville as well as jacksonville, 26 degrees. now we are looking at temperatures remaining very cold through about 9:00 a.m. and that's why we do have that hard freeze warning in place as well as the freeze warning. anywhere especially in the northern part of florida as well as in central florida, that's where we're going to be experiencing the coldest temperatures. typically it takes about four hours for temperatures below 26 to start to see some of the crops damaged. but, of course this is home to so much of the orange juice around the world. another area dealing with cold condition and strong winds coming especially later in the day, up in the northern plains. in fact, we have a blizzard warning affecting north dakota and into northern parts of minnesota. that means we're going to be looking at winds today gusting up to about 40 miles per hour. this is going to be blowing that know. right w, fairly quiet. it will be kicking in. as we get through the day, we'll see some locations picking up eight to ten inches of snowfall. on a wider picture though, rain through parts of the midwest. that extends all the way down towards texas. quiet in the northeast. again, continues to be cold down in florida. we'll send it back over to you. >> all right. jennifer, thank you very much. 70% of the country's orange juice comes from florida. when you see temperatures like that down there, you know -- >> you're going to be paying more money. >> it is a big deal. 5 # minut 52 minutes after the hour now. president obama finally getting to play a round of golf with tiger woods. it took four years to coordinate. they met at the inauguration in 2009. they vowed to play a round some day. one of the things that slowed it up, there's a little bit of a scandal for tiger woods right there. he had a couple years where i don't think the president would be too happy to be seen playing golf with him. now it happened. even though the white house let zero pictures happen of the vent. they would not let the white house press corps see it or photograph it. rest assured, it did happen. president obama and tiger woods have played golf together along with houston astro's owner jim crane and outgoing u.s. trade rep ron kirk. >> it caused quite a commotion in that area. a lot of private planes had to be he is exhorted by f-16s. imagine that, you're in your little cessna and two f-16 fighter jets on either side. >> and the girls were in aspen. >> they were skiing. so he had time off. >> yes. >> all right. 5:53. they are cute and cuddly and causing major damage at a airport. what do when the bunnies attack? 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[ sigh of relief ] how sharp is your business security?o! can it help protect your people and property, while keeping out threats to your operations? it's not working! yes it is. welcome to tyco integrated security. with world-class monitoring centers and thousands of qualified technicians. we've got a personal passion to help your business run safer, smarter, and sharper. we are tyco integrated security. and we are sharper. try our entrees, snacks and new salads. wild salmon with basil, garlic chicken spring rolls, and now salads, like asian-style chicken. enjoy 100 delicious varieties under 400 calories. lean cuisine. welcome back. 56 minutes past the hour. we're taking a look at the top cnn trends on the web this morning. when bunny rabbits attack, hundreds of these critters are doing thousands of dollars worth of damage to parked cars. this is denver international airport. it seems they really like to hide under warm engines and they love to chew on the ignition cables. apparently they're made of some soy product. so officials hope granulated coyote urine will get the rabbits out of their hair. >> you are a big supporter of the coyote urine. >> that's exactly what i would do. get rid of them. >> all right. 57 minutes after the hour right now. sink a half court shot and get a semester free tuition. >> great story. >> the head basketball coach at canada's university gave it a shot. nothing but net. this is the tuition shootout. it's been a staple at friday home games for brandon's men's and women's teams. the athletic department decided to give the option of anyone in the building take the half court shot for them instead of picking a player, one lucky student chose the coach. that was a very, very smart choice. and a very good shot. a semester free tuition. well done. >> the coach said pick me and the kid did. look at that. >> all right. to check out our other top cnn trends, head to cnn.com/trends. >> there are plenty of big stories in the news over the last few weeks which means lots of material for the late night comedians. so you knew it was soon as it happened that saturday night live would take marco rubio's watergate moment and run with it. but it was their carnival cruise spoof that had people talking and laughing all weekend. >> one of the helicopters flying above us dropped down a couple papers. we thought we would catch you up on what you missed this week, all right? >> hey, hey, there is a god! there is a god. he has not abandoned us, okay? let's see what's in the news. the pope resigned. oh, lord. >> wait. hey. here's something fun. north korea successfully launched a nuclear -- nope. >> here we go. i got one. hey, you guys remember oscar hi pistorius? do you remember the olympic runner? it says here that -- nope, nope, no. >> okay. hey, this is interesting. okay. you guys think you might have it bad. but do you have it worse than 4,000 stranded on nightmare cruise, that is about us. >> yeah. >> that's enough. enough of the headlines! >> "early start" continues right now. crude awakening. oil prices have americans paying more for gas than ever before at this time of year. country music tragedy, what drove troubled singer mindy mccready to apparently take her own life? and making history. danica patrick does what no woman in nascar has ever, ever done before. ever, ever done before. a big deal. very excited for danica patrick. i'm john berman. >> i'm zoraida sambolin. monday, february 18th, 6:00 a.m. in the east. let's get started, shall we? two big stories we're following this morning that could both affect your pocketbook. a cold freeze could ruin crops in the south. and gas prices skyrocketing for 32 days in a row now. while you were sleeping, gas rose 1.6 cents overnight to a new national average of 3.73 a gallon. increase is coming at an awful time for millions of americans. zain asher is at a new york city gas station. what are drivers saying? >> reporter: drivers are definitely dismayed. gas prices pretty exorbitant. $4.15. that's for regular. premium as high as $4.45. we do expect gas prices to continue to rise. let me show you the numbers so you can see what it looks like across the country. arrive price, $3.73 a gallon in hawaii, that's the highest -- where the highest gas prices are. $4.28. the cheapest is actually in wyoming. $3.17. and as you mentioned, zoraida, a bad time for americans in terms of price increases. gasoline. you have more americans spending more on heating bills and tax increases as well that has a huge effect on wages. drivers here were really dismayed as they watched gas prices increase and paychecks decrease. what some people had to say. >> i don't have no choice. what it is. what can i do? i still buying it. i can't do nothing about that. >> i have to support the family, and it's -- now days pretty expensive. i pay $40 for the gas, and $200 for the taxi. so i take hardly, you know, sometimes $60, $70. i work 12 hours, so it's not enough. >> reporter: also i want to mention one interesting statistic. the eia said in 2012, the average american spent $3,000, representing 4% of the typical american worker. that's the highest percentage income spent on gasoline in the last 30 years. zoraida. >> so frustrating, because there is not much we can do about it, zain. thank you very much. a freeze warning you might soon feel at the grocery store. jennifer delgado following the developments right now. >> hi, zoraida. temperatures continue to fall. 25 degrees for many locations, ok allah, jacksonville, gainesville. temperatures dangerously cold throughout the morning. that's why we have a hard freeze warning in place cross parts of northern and central florida. anywhere you see blue this means we are expecting temperatures to stay in the mid 20s and that will last until 9:00 a.m. look at the cold air extending down toward areas including south florida. of course, we talked about gas prices. but how does this affect florida and the citrus crop? i want to point out for florida it is really essential to the economy. keep in mind, florida grows 75% of the orange crop in the u.s. and then 40% of the world's orange juice supply. so certainly this is an area that we need to follow. as we go through the rest of the morning, we'll see numbers climb above freezing by 10:00 a.m. we'll continue to follow that. and zoraida, everybody is wearing purple insteexcept john. >> typically he wears purple. but today he did not. >> i'm sorry i screwed up everyone's plans. i'll try to do better. the country music world in mourning that troubled singer mindy mccready committed suicide. she was found dead in her arkansas home with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. last month, the father of her 10-month-old son died afternoon apparent suicide. she talked about that painful, awful experience weeks ago in her last interview with nbc. >> i have never gone through anything this painful. nor will i ever again. >> michelle turning following developments from los angeles. good morning, michelle. >> good morning, john. a really tragic end to a troubled life. mindy mccready was seeking help. she checked in to rehab. she appeared on "celebrity rehab," as far as he knew she was trying to get better. spoke to don lemon last night. listen. >> she had been doing very well. things looking up for her. she had children with a boyfriend who ended up killing himself a few weeks ago. she was struggling after that. actually, was admitted herself to a psychiatric facility. and there is a cautionary tale here about the stigma of mental illness and the way the public attacks celebrities who take care of themselves. she became so fearful of the stigma and the way people responded to her being hospitalized she checked herself out prematurely and we have what we have. >> at the heart of mccready's struggle she can leaves two children without their mother. other stars went to twitter. carrie underwood said i grew up listening to mindy, so sad for her family tonight. and leann rimes says my heart goes out to mindy's family. i knew her well. it's a horrible tragedy. may peace be with her son's. and wynonna judd said unbelievable and sad. god be with the family and those babies, surround them with your grace and mercy. just a bizarre side note. mccready is the third person from her season on "celebrity rehab" to die. mike starr of alice in chains of an overdose and joey cobar died of of opiate intoxication. so sad. and hugo chavez has returned to venezuela. he will continue his treatment in venezuela. the type of cancer he is bat limg has not been revealed. and a new development in the battle over immigration reform. republicans angry about president obama's plan that have been leaked and warned they will fight any attempt by the administration to impose reform without input from them. a key element of the draft proposal would put illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship after waiting eight years. the white house insists it is working with republicans to come up with a bipartisan plan. danica patrick racing into history. living in the really fast lane. she earned the pole for the daytona 500. in fact, the first time a woman sat in the pole position for any nascar sprint cup series. she has the inside track for daytona next sunday. joe carter live in atlanta to tell us more about this really historic moment. >> good morning, guys. a milestone moment for sports and for women as well. danica patrick has to be happy, proud and relieved. yesterday, she had to wait for two hours to secure the pole win. 35 cars had to go after her. an anxious moment. certainly, danica in indycar and stock car career, made history racing before. but not like this. winning the poll means danica's car will start front row on sunday, but starting from the front doesn't necessarily mean she has a greater chance of winning on the daytona 500. the last driver to win the pole and the ration was 13 years ago. to secure the top spot is by far her big 'chooechlt in her stock car career and she spoke with cnn's don lemon about that last night. >> i think understanding the scope what that means and what that will end up meaning, or if any, something that happens down the road. in the moment, it's about thinking about what i need to do for next sunday and trying to make some more history. >> now, nascar's history or statistics do not suggest danica patrick has a good chance on sunday. vegas believes she has a better chance. her odds 125-1 before she won the pole. now 22-1. vegas likes her odds. >> we'll go with vegas, at least i am. what's reaction from the nascar world? >> this creates a lot of buzz around the sport, around the premiere race. every driver in nascar benefits from this. more eyeballs will tune in to thursday's duel race, saturday's nationwide race, sunday's big race. more people are going to become fans of nascar than before. this helps the sport of nascar that's suffered from declining tv ratings. as they said before this is a mile phone for sports and women this is a big week for the daytona 500. 12 years ago today, dale earnhardt died on the very famous track. >> thank you very much. next hour, soledad will speak with lyn st. james. rookie driver in 1992. the first woman to win that award. and more details emerging about the night olympic icon is car pistorius allegedly murdered his model girlfriend, including more details about the room where the killing seemed to take place. live to south africa, that coming up next. 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[ crows ] now where's the snooze button? welcome back, everyone. major developments in the case of oscar pistorius, the south african olympic runner charged with murdering his model girlfriend. a south african official close to the case telling cnn that reeva steenkamp shot four times through a bathroom door at the pistorius home and that he carried her downstairs while she was still alive. we've also learned that pistorius has been forced to bow out of five races that he was scheduled to participate in. we have more from south africa. good morning, robyn. >> reporter: we know that reeva steenkamp was planning to spend the night at her boyfriend's house. they found an overnight bag and herridge pad as well. what perhaps started off as a prevalentine's evening turned out so tragic, bloody, so badly the next morning. we're starting to hear from reeva's family. her mother speaking to this newspaper for the first time. the headline, "my baby loved like no one else." she, like everyone else in the country is asking why, why, why. still real no sense of what created this tragedy and what fueled oscar to shoot her. those sorts of questions i think might be answered in a bail application hearing on tuesday. but also, another development in all of this is that rather strangely, rather eerily, reeva made her television debut on south african screens. take a look at this. just days after being shot and killed at the home of her boyfriend, olympian oscar pistorius. reeva steenkamp appeared on south african television. >> you fall in love with love. >> this is how the beach adventure began. while the television adventure began, her boyfriend oscar pistorius spent the weekend in jail. prosecutors plan to charge pistorius with her murder. a charge strongly rejected by pistorius and his family this is his uncle, flanked by his sister, who struggles to keep herself together as they make a brief statement together. >> as you can imagine, our entire family is devastated. we are in a state of total shock. oscar was happy in his private life than i've seen him in a long time. >> reporter: investigators combing through his house in this high-security complex are starting to piece together what they think happened on early valentine's day. cnn has been told and local media is reporting that steenkamp was shot four times through a closed bathroom door, and then pistorius carried her downstairs where she died. neighbors told police they heard shouting before the shooting. still no solid explanation as to why he might have shot her. pistorius appears in court on tuesday for a bail hearing. he hasn't entered a plea yet. while pistorius is in court, reeva's family said there will be a memorial service on tuesday. south africans will be able to watch adventures on the reality show, which airs for another nine weeks. producers leased this final message from her, meant to be to the cast which now becomes her last words. her last good bye. >> i take with me so many amazing memories and things that are in here that i will treasure forever. i will miss you all so much. i love you very, very much. >> reporter: imagine how hard it is for her family to watch that. >> awful to see that. robyn curnow. thank you very much. here is christine rom answers with top stories. >> reporter: gas prices going up 32 days in a row. 1.6 cent increase overnight, sending the national average for a gallon of unleaded to $3.73 per gallon. hikes creating a lot of misery with americans dealing with home heating bills rising and shrinking paychecks thanks to the payroll tax cuts expiring. in new york city or chicago, expect to see $4 a gallon earlier this year than ever before. the man behind the bombing of the world trade center in 1994 is asking for a break. ram ramzi yousef is lifting a life sentence and is not able to communicate with the rest of the world. his lawyer is asking for a lifting of that restriction. a leather bomber jacket owned by president john f. kennedy has sold for $570,000. this belonged to late david powers, the identity of the winning bidder has not been revealed. and john berman has not said whether he's in or not. >> i have a jacket already. it's not $500,000. let me tell you that right now. 19 minutes past the hour. how many of do you this. check out an item in the store and look for a cheaper price online? absolutely. best buy's plan to end that strategy forever. i'm dr. sanjay gupta. and this week on "the next list" -- >> like to work with electronics in fashion and that's kind of what people stereo typically think of as adding technology to a garment. this is a thermo chromatic scarf i created. one of my favorite materials to work with is thermo chromatic. it changes temperatures with color. when you wear it in cold temperatures, snowflakes appear and they grow larger as the temperature gets colder. so i put an ice pack underneath. when the temperature drops below 65 degrees, a small snowflake appears, but at 32 degrees, it's colder and the snowflake will grow larger. >> oh, my gosh. how do you do that? >> with the thermo chromatic. >> sunday on "the next list." 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[ male announcer ] with no blackout dates, you can use your citi thankyou points to travel whenever you want. visit citi.com/thankyoucards to apply. no relief. gas prices up again. climbing every day now for more than a month straight. is it the next sars? doctors on forward after discovering a new case of a deadly virus. and new this morning, the man accused of slapping someone else's cranky toddler on an airplane hears from his bosses. >> i bet it wasn't good news. >> not the kind of news he wants to get, i'm sure. i'm john berman. >> i'm zoraida sambolin. 30 minutes past the hour. gas prices are skyrocketing while millions of paychecks you know are shrinking. every day for a month now, gas prices have jumped. national average for the price of regular unleaded is 3.73. up 1.6 cents. that happened overnight. zain asher in new york city. i imagine drivers are angry this morning. what can you do? >> reporter: there is simply not much we can do. at this particular gas station on tenth avenue, gas prices are certainly a lot higher than the national average. regular gas here, $4.15. premium $4.45. bottom line, we will see gas prices rise even higher, terms of the national average, $3. 73 per gallon is the national average. some states where gas prices are even higher than that. i'm talking about hawaii, california. hawaii, the most expensive place to buy gas. $4.28. california, not much far behind. $4.10. and in wyoming, the cheapest place to buy gas. $3.17. you mentioned, zoraida, that americans are spending more money on heating bills. also, paychecks shrinking. taxes are going up. i spoke to some taxi drivers who say they are spending as much as $40 a day, $60 per day. here is what they had to say. >> i have to support the family. and now days it's pretty expensive. i pay $40 for the gas to take myself and $200 for the taxi. so i take home sometimes 60, $70. i work 12 hours. it's not enough. >> reporter: some drivers say they watch gas prices rise so much, their take home pay is shrinking to $40 a day, $30 a day. >> everybody is so maxed out. what is pushing the price so high? >> crude oil is to blame. you will see demand for crude oil increase. refineries. refineries closing down. some of them closing down for maintenance. some refineries are closing down for good and that's causing supply to shrink and pushing prices up. zoraida. >> zain asher in manhattan, thank you. medical news that might put you on edge. a new corona virus in the uk, potentially fatal sars-like virus identified in september of last year. experts say they would not be surprised if it came to the u.s. senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen joins us now. explain this to us. how dangerous is this? >> this vir success particularly vicious, john. you talked about 12 cases. 5 out of those 12 have died. people get pneumonia and kidney disease, but -- and here is an image right from the authorities in the united kingdom. that's the bad news about the virus. and the good news about the virus, it's actually hard to get. it's thought people are getting from animals, but once it gets to people, but not spreading from what we can tell person to person to person to person. not seeing long chains of transmission like we do every year with the flu. it is possible that there has been some person-to-person transmission, but it's been very limited and so far, they think they have only seen it among people living in the same households. they are not seeing it like by sitting next to a sick person on the airplane. >> we did call it a sars-like virus. that doesn't sound good. how scared should people be about this? >> the experts i talked to said people should not freak out. those were their exact words. they said, again, we're not seeing say someone get on a bus and the rest of the bus get sick. that's not what's happening. what we have seen so far is that this appears to have started in the middle east and now we're seeing the few cases in the united kingdom. but, again, not seeing long chains of person-to-person transmission. the same expert said you know what? wouldn't be surprised if it came to the united states given the volume of global travel. but it could be one person and might stop there. >> something to watch nevertheless. elizabeth cohen, thank you very much. 34 minutes past the hour. the top trend on the web. the man accused of slapping a toddler on a minneapolis to atlanta flight has lost his job. 60-year-old joe hundley was suspended by the aerospace defense company he works for. now he's been fired. he is charged with assault for allegedly slapping the 2-year-old after using a racial slur, leaving the boy as mother in shock. >> i could not believe that he would say something like that. and to a baby or about a baby and then to hit him was just -- i felt like i was in another world. i was shaking. >> they would have been arresting me for slapping the guy. hundley's attorney says he will be pleading not guilty. do mott mess with maker's mark. that's the message from the lovers of the high-end bourbon. they have abandoned plans to water down the product. the idea was to stretch the supply to meet rising demand. thousands of maker's mark customers have protested. it won't. >> you won! president obama finally getting tee it up with tiger woods. took four years for this to happen. they met at the 2009 inauguration and vowed to play a round someday. when the first lady decided to take the first daughters skiing in colorado, the president hit the links in palm city, florida. jim crane and ron kirk also played. >> i'm sure the president enjoyed playing with tiger woods. this ended the rehabilitation for tiger woods. >> this is legitimate now? >> if you are playing golf with the president, your image is probably fully intact once again. 36 minutes past the hour right now. take a look at this how is this for creepy? getting letters from a high profile convicted murderer, saying he wants to be your friend. more on the killer pen pal, coming up. to be the world's best sport sedan... ♪ ...people noticed. ♪ the all-new cadillac ats -- 2013 north american car of the year. ♪ for a limited time, take advantage of this exceptional offer on the all-new cadillac ats. exceptional offer i've always kept my eye on her... but with so much health care noise, i didn't always watch out for myself. with unitedhealthcare, i get personalized information and rewards for addressing my health risks. but she's still going to give me a heart attack. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. music: "make someone happy" music: "make someone happy" ♪it's so important to make someone happy.♪ it's so important to make meone happy.♪ ♪make just one someone happy ♪and you will be happy too. [ dog ] you know, i just don't think i should have to wait for it! who do you think i am, quicken loans? ♪ at quicken loans, we won't make you wait for it. our efficient, online system allows us to get you through your home loan process fast. which means you'll never have to beg for a quick closing. one more way quicken loans is engineered to amaze. bonkers, look at me when i'm talking to you. we're joined by a very dangerous soledad o'brien, looking at "starting point." >> you want my jacket, don't you? >> i do. she's making history once again. danica patrick snags the daytona 500 pole position. something a woman has never done before. can she bring home the big victory next weekend? we'll speak with lyn st. james, 1992 rookie of the year. first woman to win that award. a man loses his job after accused of out of control behavior on a plane. a couple said he screamed at them to keep their toddler quiet, he then used the "n" word and smacked the kid. the youngest person ever to be nominated for best actress oscar. i sit down with the star of "beast of the southern wild" and she is too much. quvenzhane wallis. 41 minutes past the hour. citrus farmers on edge. jennifer delgado in the weather center. what can you tell us? >> it is certainly cold across parts of southern florida. temperatures falling. we have 25 degrees out there. popular temperatures from gainesville, jacksonville, and temperatures will stay below freezing as we go through the next couple of hours. in fact, a hard freeze warning in place until 9:00 a.m. that means some of the vegetations, like oranges, of course. the vegetation that certainly doesn't need cold temperatures. we'll look at this potentially affecting the region through 9:00 a.m. especially in blue. this is where it's going to be the coldest. keep in mind, it takes about four hours with temperatures below 28 degrees to start to see damage out there. but, of course, temperatures this cool out there not a good situation. as we show you right now, high temperatures for the afternoon. will warm up nicely. mid to upper 60s. temperatures running 15 to 20 below average across parts of florida. up in the northern plains, still dealing with snow. in fact, a blizzard walk rning place. we'll see snow blowing around with winds at 40 miles per hour. in effect until 6:00 this evening. you can see the snow right now, some of these locations, 5 to 10 inches of snowfall. also talking about the working into western parts of michigan tomorrow. really the weather goes down very late tonight, but on a wider view, expect windy conditions across parts of the midwest. storms screaming from texas all the way to missouri into iowa. out in the west, warm and sunny, but, of course, down in the south. very chilly. >> thank you very much many. gas prices going up for a 32nd consecutive day. a 1.7 cent increase overnight. sending the average to $3.73. these hikes are creating a lot of misery with americans dealing with home heating bills and shrinking paychecks, thanks to the payroll tax cuts that expired. >> two men are being questioned in the death of a woman who was killed just hours after her teenage sister attended a speech on gun violence by president obama. there is her picture right there. janae mcfarland was gunned down. she was out walking with friends and one of them may have been the intended target of the gunman. hours before she died, her 14-year-old sister attended president obama's gun violence address. four letters written by john lennon's killer are up for sale. he says he feels close to the officer ever since the arrest. listen to spiro tell cnn why chapman said he killed the former beetle. >> he was telling me about all of the phoneiness in the world, that all of these rich people don't give to the certain charities, that, you know, he would like. three years after this guy killed john lennon, that he admits that he had a hit list. >> spiro claims chapman's hit list included jackie kenned onassis, walter cronkite and more. the asking price? $75,000. among the few humans who have experienced a falling meteor up close. they are telling the really terrifying story. live in russia, up next. when push comes to shove. a college coach looks to motivate one of his players. more ahead. the one thing that 99 percent of investors can expect to find in their portfolio, is unexpected risk. bny mellon has the vision and experience to help. we look at the full picture... to uncover risk, find opportunities, and create a plan that's best suited for you. bny mellon. welcome back to "early start." people in russia cleanin up the mess after a massive meteor shot right through the sky. imagining up to that? it injured more than 1,000 people, many of them were children. phil black live this morning near chelybinsk, russia at the lake where the meteor actually hit. how are people doing there today? >> reporter: well, today, sfw r zoraida, they are curious and are trekking across the lake to get a look at the confirmed point of impact. a fragment of the meteor, still in the sky, plummet to the earth and smash into the lake. they saw snow and ice go into the area and then steam coming up from the hole. behind us is a large hole of the ice. part of the is frozen over, it must have been hit by something of great force. here on the surface, russian scientists have found 53 individual pieces of the meteorite, so they now know what it was. at the time when that thing hurt li ling through the sky, people didn't know what it was. they were terrified. many still rattled by it, especially the children. >> reporter: this small siberian village, usually a quiet place. 1,000 people living just south of the city of chelyabinsk. on friday morning, they, like everyone in the region, were shocked by what they saw. an intense light, followed by a trail of smoke across the work the 20 children in the room ran to the windows when they saw the light. she felt something was wrong and she moved them away. she was still facing the windows when the shock wave hit. when the windows blew in, flying glass cut olga's face and hands. she didn't notice because she was worried about the children. most were safe but terrified, but one was bleeding heavily. 3-year-old sasha suffered deep cuts to her head and face. her mother ran to the kindergarten after she heard the blast. i was shaking she says. i grabbed her and started to calm her down. a lot of kids were crying too. another woman was also in the room that morning. she wasn't hurt physically by the blast, but her mother says she's traumatized. too afraid to stand next to windows and keeps asking if the glass is going to break again. this woman understand what the children are feeling. the blast was terrifying, it rekindled her own childhood memories from the second world war. most of the damage to buildings can be easily repaired, but the meteor's impact on some will take longer to heal. russian scientists believe there might be some bigger fragments of the meteor at the bottom of this lake. some dyers have been in to take a look, visibility poor, they will take another look when the ice and snow melts in the spring. >> fascinating to see. phil black live. thank you very much. >> one of the coolest live shots. >> 52 minutes after the hour. danica patrick has made racing history before but never like this. patrick won the daytona 500 pole to be the first to secure the top spot in the premiere nascar race. does this increase her odds of actually winning the race? >> can we celebrate the victory for a minute. >> i am, but joe carter here with the bleacher report. how good are her chances? >> short answer? not so great. it means she will start in the front of the pack for the race, but doesn't necessarily mean she will win the race. the last driver to win the pole and daytona 500 was dale jared in 2000, 13 years ago. it does increase the sport's popularity. jeff gordon, his daughter, he wanted her to take a picture next to danica patrick. dad, i don't want to take a picture with you, i want to take a picture with danica patrick. what does this mean to the history of nascar? and for her young fans out there? >> one of the coolest things, to be able to think that parents and their kids are having that conversation at home about it. and to -- you know, i've heard stories about a kid, boy or girl, saying, but mommy, daddy, that's a girl out there racing then they can have that conversation to say you can do anything you want to do, and gender doesn't matter. your passion is what matters. and that's cool. >> it is cool. all right. n nba's biggest event, brings out the biggest stars. last night the all-star game. faces like p. diddy. and spike lee. a lot of dunks. d. wade and lebron james, off the backboard alley-oop. his head, look how close his head gets to the rim. that guy has major elevation. more of the same this time carmelo anthony to lebron james, the clippers chris paul named game's mvp, dished out 15 assists, scored 20 points. a very close one. 143-138. lots of offense. you can call this an old-school way of motivating a player. cal head coach gives alan kravin an earful and pushes his player square in the chest in a time-out. emotional moment. but i think it's sort of -- startled some, but really mott vated crabb, after the exchange, he returned and scored 14 of 23 points to help his team beat usc. 7 -66. for more sports news, go to bleacherreport.com. watching that video guys, reminiscent of the bobby knight indiana days, seeing that, sports, a very emotional game at times. >> do not approve. >> thank you. they are cute, cuddly, and causing some costly damage at a major airport. look at that. how could that cost major damage? 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