I designed just hours ago. Those are just some of the showers were covering on newshour major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by ive been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. The ones getting involved, staying engaged. They are not afraid to question the path theyre on. Because the one question they never want to ask is, how did i end up here . I started schwab with those people. People who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. 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 foundations. 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. Ifill there was no rest for the winterweary across the south today. The latest storm to hit the region sent Power Outages heading toward the halfmillion mark. Newshour correspondent kwame holman has our report. Reporter the stinging sleet started falling in georgia overnight, and by morning everything was crusted with a coat of ice, just what many across the south were dreading. Were getting ready for the ice, cause thats what were concerned with, not the snow. Reporter ice already was weighing down tree limbs and power lines, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in georgia and elsewhere. And, that number was expected to rise steadily. As the storm kept moving, freezing rain, sleet and snow were forecast to cover a wide swath of the south, from west of the mississippi, across georgia and up the coast through the carolinas. In north carolina, black ice already was wreaking havoc on the roads, with cars in the raleigh area spinning out. Dont put your stupid hat on. Reporter the states governor, pat mccrory, warned residents to prepare now, not later. Get your batteries out, flashlights, transistor radio out. Get warm clothing out. I hope were overprepared and underwhelmed by this storm. I hope the forecasters are wrong but that map doesnt show theyre wrong. Its coming. Reporter snow accumulations were expected to range from an inch all the way up to a foot and a half in some places. In alabama, the last round of storms forced officials to buy more salt and spreaders to deal with the snow. I think were as well prepared as a southern town could be for weather like this. There are predictions that this will get worse before it gets better. Reporter the warnings sent people to Grocery Stores in droves to stock up on the basics. Ive just got bread, cereal, crackers, soup, just things you can make pretty easily. Reporter and for air travelers, the storm meant widespread cancellations, more than 3,000 today alone, with the number expected to be even higher tomorrow. Ifill another major storm struck parts of britain, fueling more of the extreme flooding that began a month ago. The storm pummeled southern england with heavy rain and winds gusting over 100 miles an hour. It added more misery in a region where hundreds of homes are inundated and more are threatened by the river thames overflowing its banks. Under growing pressure, prime Minster David cameron vowed today to spare no expense on recovery. When it comes to this relief effort, money is no object, well spend what is necessary to help families, to help people, to help communities get through this very difficult time. I have to say, things are likely to get worse before they get better because of the very high levels of rainfall weve seen, and we see very serious high winds as we speak here in this house today, but whatever can be done to help, will be done. Ifill its already estimated the flood damage will top 800 million. The weathers become an issue at the Winter Olympics, too. It was 63 degrees in sochi today, so warm and sunny that people hit the beach, sunbathing. Some even went swimming in the black sea. As for the results,a spoiler alert tune out for a moment, if you dont want to know who won just yet. In snowboarding, american Kaitlyn Farrington captured the womens halfpipe. And in a first, skiers from switzerland and slovenia tied for the gold in the womens downhill. Well get more on the games later in the program. Ifill a study 25 years in the making has cast new doubt on the value of mammograms. Canadian researchers studied nearly 90,000 women. They reported today, in the british journal b. M. J. , that the screening had no effect on Breast Cancer death rates. Well take a closer look right after this news summary. Ifill the senate gave final approval today to raising the National Debt ceiling, after Republican Leaders cast crucial votes to overcome a filibuster. The measure passed the house yesterday. Also today, the senate followed the houses lead and repealed cuts in costofliving adjustments for military retirees. Ifill president obama has signed an executive order raising the minimum wage on federal contracts. At todays white house ceremony, he officially hiked the wage from 7. 25 cents an hour to 10. 10. A group of minimum wage workers joined him for the occasion. Lets not forgot not only is it good for the economy; its the right thing to do. Theres a simple moral principal at stake. If you take responsibility and you work as hard as these folks work, you work fulltime, you shouldnt be living in poverty. Not in america. We believe that. Ifill the increase affects several hundred thousand federal contract workers, out of more than two million. Another one Million People enrolled for Health Care Coverage last month, under the Affordable Care act. That brings total enrollment to 3. 3 million. The obama administrations target originally hoped to sign up seven million by the end of march. In afghanistan, a firefight broke out today between n. A. T. O. Troops and afghan soldiers, killing two from each side. Officials said it happened in a province east of kabul after a heated argument turned violent. It was unclear what triggered the argument. Ifill north and south korea have held their first highlevel talks in seven years. Delegates from the communist state crossed the demarcation line to meet with their south Korean Counterparts on the armed border. The meeting came at the norths request, but no agenda was disclosed. Ifill the opposing sides in the syrian peace talks stalled again today. So far, the Assad Government and the Opposition Syrian National Coalition have failed even to agree on the agenda. The s. N. C. Appealed today to russia to help force a political transition, which the regime rejected out of hand. This is what we are demanding from russia, to respect the Syrian People and to stand with them and to prevent any effort to disable a political solution and to go into side negotiations that are not in the interests of the Syrian People. They misused the agenda, started with raising the issue of the transitional government, in contradiction with the main priorities as identified by the geneva i paper. Ifill meanwhile, the opposition said nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the threeweek period since peace talks began last month. From contractors. A federal jury found that in return, he steered millions of dollars in city work. Auto giant toyota is recalling 1. 9 million of its prius hybrids made since march of 2009. The company says a Software Glitch can cause the vehicles to stall. The recall affects more than 700,000 cars in north america. Wall street mostly idled today after a fourday rally. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost nearly 31 points to close below 15,964. The nasdaq rose 10 points to close at 4,201. Pioneering t. V. Comedian sid caesar died today at his home in los angeles. He was best known for your show of shows and caesars hour in the 1950s. His work with imogene coca in dozens of sketches virtually created comedy on t. V. A number of writers on those shows, including carl reiner, mel brooks and woody allen, went on to even greater fame. Sid caesar was 91 years old. Still to come on the newshour; new questions about the effectiveness of mammograms; republican senator marco rubio on ways to tackle poverty; the 3d printing revolution; the latest from the sochi olympics; plus, europes struggle with immigration. Wooduff theres new fuel in the longrunning debate about the value of mammograms for some women, and whether too many are being overdiagnosed. The research, done over more than two decades, found annual screenings did not reduce the risk of death among women between the ages of 40 and 59. It also found more than 20 of Breast Cancers detected through those mammograms would have been found otherwise and were not lifethreatening. The study comes amid questions about who should be screened and how frequently. A Government Panel recommended most women under 50 could skip yearly mammograms. But several professional societies recommend them for women 40 and above. We assess the latest findings with dr. Gilbert welch of the Dartmouth Institute studies who writes about these issues. Hes the author of overdiagnosed making people sick in the pursuit of health. And doctor carol lee, director of the American College of radiology, which criticized the study. Woodruff welcome to you both to the newshour. Dr. Welch, to you first. In brief, what did this study find . Well, judy, i think theres two things that are really important about this study. And first, is that its about screening mammogram fee not diagnostic mammography. Diagnostic is where a woman finds a new breast lump, goes to the doctor and the doctor orderers maam gram to find out what the lump is. We all agree, diagnostic mammography is a useful tool. The second thing to know about the study is that it compared mammography plus a very careful physical exam done by nurses to a group that just got the careful physical exam. In other words, its testing the value of finding things that could not be felt, really small abnormalities. And thats its major finding; that theres no point in find being the really small abnormalities that maaming fee can find. Thats very important thing for everyone to recognize. Woodruff beyond that, it found that there were problems with these screening mammograms . Absolutely. All screening tests come with some potential for benefit. But they also come with some known harms. And the most familiar to people is the problem of false alarms, worrisome findings that have to go through biopsy and multiple tests before theyre put at rest or maybe theyrener put at rest and youre just told you dont have cancer but youre still normal. But theres also a new problem that were recognizing which is finding cancers that will ultimately never matter to the patients and we call that overdiagnosis. Its an unusual idea where you have cellular abnormalities that meet the pathologic definition of cancer and yet they never grow forward. They never grow. They regress. They disappear. And yet we dont know which ones they are so we end up treating everybody. And 21 of the side effects of screening maamography is it leads more women to be treated for cancer some of whom didnt need treatment in the first place n this study a longterm find up in a screening is the best way to de deuce how often that happens. As you said in your open, about 1 in 5 invasive Breast Cancers turn out to be overdiagnosed. Woodruff let me turn to you dr. Carol lee. The American College of radiology is critical of the study. What about the first finding, that screening mammographies overall dont have a benefit . Well, this study was not actual a new study. This was just an update of a study that was first report of the nearly 25 years ago that was that showed no benefit 25 years ago, and so its not surprising that it showed no benefit on the updated analysis. I think what needs to be recognized is that there are a number of other large randomized prospective studies of screening mammography that do indeed show a benefit in terms of losing deaths from Breast Cancer among women who get screening mammography. So this is just one study that was really an out liar and there were several criticisms of the study in terms of how it was designed, how it was conducted 25 years ago, and those same problems were not corrected in the reanalysis, obviously, and so im not surprised that these results were similar. I think its very important for women to understand that there are a number of other studies that do show decreased deaths among women who get screened. Woodruff let me turn back to dr. Welch, and its a lot to ask you to address. But number one, her reference to the fact that theres a problem with the methodology; and, number two, the fact that there are many other studies that dont find these problems. Yeah, lets deal with those one at a time. And theres been a long history by a very few people to try to discredit this study, in part because they dont like the result. And the problem has been that they are suggesting the randomization was not good, that somehow sicker patients got in the mammography group. The longterm follow up actually proves that is not right. In fact, its very hard to select 80,000 people into two groups purposefully and get exactly the same death rate in each year in each group. Thats actually a pretty good finding and this is was a well randomized study. Woodruff let me ask dr. Lee to respond to that point. There were excess of advanced Breast Cancers in the screening arm of the trial early on, suggesting that more women with preexisting advanced Breast Cancers got placed into the screening arm of the study, as compared to the control arm. Woodruff do you want to respond to that, dr. Welch . I think the simplest thing to say is 20 suggest that everyone look at figure 2 in the article which is prima facie evidence that you had pretty good randomization. 25 years later the death rate of the two groups is exactly the same. Thats a pretty good argument for randomization. And dr. Welch what about the other point she made that there are many other studies that show there is a benefit. There are not many other studies. Depending on how you count there are eight or nine randomized trials of screening mammography. Theres no study like this and thats why i started ton clear what the comparison was. The comparison was in the intervention croome it was a screening mammogram plus this careful physical exam. No other study did that. The control is just the physical exam. So what is being tested here is the question of what is the value of finding small abnormalities . Thats the important lesson. Woodruff well lets theres no value to it. Woodruff dr. Lee, do you want to respond there that and then i have a final question. Yeah, i do. I do. Its been shown that the death rate from Breast Cancer in this country has declined; whereas, it had been rising steadily up until the mid 80s, it declined with the introduction of regular screening am mammography, and since the mid 80s, the death rate in this country from Breast Cancer has been reduced by about 30 . Now, some people will argue that that is because of improvements in treatment. But we know all of us who take care of women with Breast Cancer know that it is much more likely that treatment will be successful in achieving a cure when cancers are caught early in their most treatable stage as opposed to when they are advanced and have spread, and mammography can achieve that. Let me just finally ask both of you, what should women listening to this debate take away from this . How should they think about mammography Going Forward . Dr. Wellch . I would say they should take warp theres a lot of professional disagreement and we dont disagree about the value of treating really high blood pressure. The professional disagreement tells you this is a really close call. And im not suggesting women should not have mammograms. They should just have the voice. Its a genuine choice, a close call. It has probably some benefits and it also has some harms. Dr. Lee . I think that the evidence speaks for itself. The decline in Breast Cancer deaths in this country over the last 0 years has been due in large part to earlier detection by screening mammography, and so certainly having the mammogram or not having the mammogram is an individual choice. Nobody is ever forced to have a mammogram but i think its important to recognize in actual practice mammography over the years has saved lives. Woodruff dr. Carol lee and Gilbert Welch and women will taken to pay close attention to all of this. Thank you. Ifill in recent months the stubborn prosperity divide between the rich and poor in this country has gained the attention of both democrats and republicans. The issue is the focus of our ongoing series, closing the gap, last week judy spoke with democratic congressman George Miller of california about how he believes the problem should be tackled. Today, i spoke earlier today with senator marco rubio in his capitol hill office. The Florida Republican recently unveiled his own antipoverty agenda. Ifill senator rubio, thank you for joining us for this discussion. Everyone seems to be talking about inequality and theyre also talking about opportunity, different definitions for economic growth. Are these all part of the same economic argument to you . They can be. Here is why. We look at what has distinguished this from the world. Its the idea that no matter where youre born in like or what the circumstances are when youre born, like your parents being poor or not connected to power, you have a chance in this country to go as far as your talent and your work will take you. We pride ourselves open that and rightfully so. It made us exceptional. What troubles us now, the research now shows that there are other countries where the circumstances of your birth matter less than they