Woodruff plus, the future of the u. S. Labor movement. After a string of union setbacks in the Auto Industry and the public sector. Those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs 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 tensions inside and outside ukraine ratcheted higher today, as lawmakers prepared to approve a new government. In crimea, prorussian demonstrators clashed with supporters of the protest movement. Meanwhile, russian president Vladimir Putin ordered surprise military exercises near the border with ukraine. Well get more on all of this, right after the news summary. The u. S. Militarys Top Commander is warning the impasse on a security deal with afghanistan could embolden the taliban. Army general Martin Dempsey chairman of the joint chiefs spoke a day after president obama ordered plans for a total u. S. Withdrawal by years end. Mr. Obama also spoke with karzai by phone, for the First Time Since last june. Today, karzais spokesman played down any tension between the two. 2014 is the year of withdrawal of most of us forces anyway. And there was no such discussion of a complete withdrawal in the conversation as suggested in the media. Rather the point was to provide for an orderly withdrawal as already planned and already scheduled ifill the u. S. Wants to leave about 10,000 troops in afghanistan after 2014 to help train afghan forces. So far, karzai has refused to sign ifill state media in syria reported today the army ambushed and killed at least 175 rebels in a major attack. The official account said it happened south of damascus, in the ghouta area thats held by the opposition. Syrian television aired this footage from the aftermath. It said the slain fighters belonged to an Al Qaedalinked group, and that some came from abroad. If confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest attacks by Government Forces in the area. Another ban on samesex marriage has fallen, this time, in texas. A federal judge today declared the states prohibition unconstitutional. But he postponed enforcing the decision, pending the outcome of appeals. This follows similar decisions in utah, oklahoma and virginia. A top House Republican opened a bid today to overhaul the nations tax system but its unlikely to advance this year. Republican dave camp chairs the house ways and means committee. He called for lowering the top income tax rate from 39. 6 to 25 . Hed also impose a ten percent surtax on earned incomes over 450,000 dollars. House Speaker John Boehner would not say if the Party Supports the bill, and he refused to discuss the details. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Listen, theres a conversation that needs to begin. This is the beginning of the conversation. The idea of tax reform is to get our economy going again, provide better, more economic growth, more jobs, and higher wages. The way you do that is bring down rates. And to bring down rates you clean out a lot of the garbage thats in there and the special interest issues that are in there. Ifill the last Major Overhaul of the tax code was in 1986. That data breach at target stores before the Holiday Shopping season took a hefty toll on the companys bottom line. Profit dropped 46 in the fourth quarter, and revenue slipped more than 5 . The data breach allowed hackers to steal personal information on millions of target customers. The company says its working to win back the confidence of customers. On wall street today, the Dow Jones Industrial average gained more than 18 points to close at 16,198. The nasdaq rose four points to close at 4292. And the s and p 500 was up just a fraction, at 1,845. Still to come on the newshour tensions in ukraine shift to a key region bordering russia; one studys promising results on child obesity; bringing safer, cleaner cooking stoves to the worlds poor; how one bank reportedly helped hide billions from the i. R. S. ; plus, the future of the u. S. Labor movement. c woodruff more now, on ukraine. Proposed new leaders were introduced to protesters in kiev today. But that was overshadowed by mounting concerns over Russian Military moves. In a Late Afternoon statement, the white house said all of this, as tempers flared between pro and antirussian factions in crimea. Lindsey hilsum of independent Television News is there. Reporter the police struggled to hold them back. The crowd was surging forward, trying to force their way into the crimean parliament. On the one side, russians, many of whom would like crimea to secede from ukraine. On the other, Crimean Tatars with their pale turquoise flag,c who support the new order in kiev, and are largely hostile to russia, which they see as their historical oppressor. The protests may be over in kiev, but the repercussions are being felt across ukraine. Here, the tatars are delighted about the new authorities. But the russians are spoiling for a fight. And some tatars were not convinced peaceful protest is the way to combat the crimean russians allying moscow. When it comes down to putin, you have to have fists. He doesnt understand good words and diplomacy. You have to show some physics too, so if they dont listen to us, we dont exclude some physical actions here, like in kiev, too. Reporter so you would turn to violence . No, no, no, no. We are for peace. But we want them to hear us. Reporter some on the russian side werent keen to talk to a british journalist, a representative of europe, which many see as fascist. translated we dont say the british are fascists, but i live in crimea, and we want to join russia. Reporter the tatars were determined to stop a parliamentary debate on secession. Some seized a russian flag. Scuffles broke out. People started lobbing shoes, water bottles, and other objects. It began to get ugly. The tatars are muslim. The russians paraded emblems of their Orthodox Christian faith. Several people were injured. While others were crushed in the pushing and shoving. They were treated on the spot. Across the border, the russians announced emergency military exercises. They made no mention of ukraine. No need to. The drills were in the nearest region. And the message to the new government in kiev was clear dont mess with russia in kiev, they gathered in the central square, scene of three months of protest to talk about the new government, a new future. But here in crimea, the trouble has only just begun. Woodruff to help us understand all of todays developments, we turn to fiona hill, director of the center on the United States and europe at the brookings institution. Her latest book is mr. Putin operative in the kremlin. And nadia diuk, shes spent decades studying and visiting ukraine, and is a Vice President at the National Endowment for democracy. We welcome you both to the program, nadia diuk, giving these divisions we are seeing in this report and hearing about elsewhere, can this country hold together ukraine . I think what we saw in the film was basically about country qah. I think the government being put together in kiev right now really is trying to address the issue of unity. There are people who have been brought into this lineup that would be voted on tomorrow that are from the east of ukraine. They are new faces. There was an interesting action today in the western city of leviv which is normally known as being pro western and very ukrainian. They introduced a day of speaking russian. So that the and the mayor was leading this to show that whatever language ukrainians speak that they feel themselves to be one country and belong to one you knit. Pushing for unity. But quickly, you brought up this new government who was introduced today to the protestors in kiev. What does that say to you aboutc the direction that this groups thats taken over wants to take the country. I took a look through the names. There are a lot of people there that will be familiar to people who will be watching for the last three months. I think thats with a major concern for people there that somehow the politicians might just take over and sweep away all of the civic activists, all of the people who really have been in some cases put their life on the line for a Better Future for ukraine, to get out the corrupt government. There were a lot of people from the here and it looks like a very serious attempt to combine both professional people. I see that the minister of finances and the economy are actually professional, good solid people who have been if government before and are very familiar. So people with experience. With experience and new faces too. And also slightly different generations which is also good to see. Fiona hill, lets talk about the russians. Theyve mobilized. Theyre doing what moscow is calling wargames what does this is a . This is sending a signal obviously that the russians deem it to be necessary that theyre prepared to intervene in some fashion. We have to say that weve seen these kinds of exercises many times when there were tensions in different regs ons. Not always in the west. Its something that weve seen again time and time when there is some point that the russians are concerned about it is not necessary leigh mean that theyre going to intervene. And as nadia said, the pictures that were seeing that are most troubling coming out of ukraine are in crimea, the peninsula on the black sea, not where the army is and mobile identifiesing forces and exercise are going on. You say it doesnt necessarily mean that theyre going to intervene. What would determine whether they do that or not . I think we have to be very careful when were looking at this situation. Were only at the really the very beginning of a sequence of events now that is going to move us forward in ukraine. The russians are standing back. Theyre looking at what is happening. And i think it would really be, if its deemed that there is going to be some serious threat to their interest directly, crimea is one of the places where that could happen because that is the black sea fleet, the russian fleet that has a longterm lease on parts of the peninsula. So if there seems to be some kind of physical threat to the black sea fleet one could enadviceage that there might be some kind of action. But not necessarily in the the way theyre thinking about it right now. Woodruff the leadership, this new leadership thats in formation, nadia diuk, in kiev and you talk about other parts of the country. They have to be very aware of what the russians are up to. What would their reaction be if russia tarted to makec news toward intervening in some way . That would then be an international situation. And i think it would go far beyond the beyond the ukraine. I think the white house actually put out a Statement Today where they did reference an agreement where osce members really should be informing each other of any being european security. Yeah. Organizations, although the russians have before intervened in countries or threatened to intervene where they see the russian speaking people need pog protection. They did, they threatened this a lot in the Baltic States in the 1990s. And that is one of the pretexts that they could use. Fiona hill, what is the impact . How is a Statement Like the one that camec out today, secretary kerry saying it would be a terrible mistake or words to that affect for the russians to do something, the white house itself putting out a statement. How is that read by moscow do you think . The problem we have right now is we have all kinds of competing narratives about what is happening. The russians have also been accusing frankly the united stitz and the European Union have directly intervening here as well. So sometimes the statements are not received in the way that we would hope they are in moskow. This might be seen as grandstanding in fact. Rather than as a very clear statement that there is a red line here. We were as nadia suggested in the situation before in 2008, before the war with georgia in august of 2008, similar statements were made on all kinds of sides. And there was also a situation there where many citizens of russia, people without were living in the ses sessionist republic had assumed russian citizenship were deemed to be at risk by the russian government. And again there was a situation where we saw momentum towards an intervention by russia. A lot of statements made. So we have been in this kind of very tense, difficult situation before. Well, you both saying were early in this process. And nadia diuk, you were talking about, of course, the new leadership being introduced. The next government being introduced to the protestors today. What is it that the people of ukraine are going to be doing in the days to come, their leadership that is going to send a signal to the world one way or another about what is going to happen . We know theyve got crushing economic problems. Theyre looking to the west to help them out, or to moscow. Well, firstly, the government was prevented to the people today but it does actually have to be voted on by the parliament tomorrow. There is a good chance that it will, that this list will go through. But the political leaders have at every step of the way needed to check what theyre doing with the people who through the last three months have been a little bit more radical and demanding than the politicians. The people generally want to have justice. They want to see that the corrupt politicians that were leading this country for the last three years were somehow brought to justice and made to account for the crimes that theyve committed, the killings that have taken place. And also for a lot of the money that they have stolen which this weekend we saw these rather surc rel pictures of what this money was spent on. An fiona hill, just for now i hear you saying the russians will hold off before they make any dramatic decisions here. That will really depend on what happens on the ground in ukraine. Again it depends on how russia sees its interests being served or threatened in some way by events. I think we also have to be very well aware that the situation in ukraine is such that this government may not stick. Theres an idea that theyre trying to balance the whole competing interests. Ukraine goes to a whole series of successive governments. And this will be a great concern to moscow as well, about the position of future governments will be, what stamps they take to the just on domestic issues but also on the foreign relationships. And if governments seem to veer very quickly towards europe or towards other sets of relationships, and neglecting the very important ties that the russians have with ukraine. That would have an effect. That would have an effect. If he owna hill, nadia hnk you. Owna hill, nadia thank you. Ifill researchers are assessing, and in many cases, applauding, a new paper that reports a substantial drop in Childhood Obesity among the pre school set, a 43 decline. Its raising interesting questions about whether a shift in Public Health policies helps explain whats happening. Reporter First Lady Michelle Obama has become the face of the administrations antiobesity campaign, encouraging young people, especially, to eat better, move more and slim down. Now, the centers for Disease Control is reporting some progress. Among preschoolers aged two to five, obesity rates have dropped from 14 , to about 8 overall during the past decade. Its welcome news, since overweight preschoolers are five times as likely to become overweight adults. Possible causes for the drop include efforts to promote breastfeeding, cut consumption of sugary drinks and encourage exercise. The first ladys lets move campaign, for instance, has focused on changing nutrition and exercise habits among children. Planting and harvesting a white house vegetable garden. And collaborating with celebrities like comedian will ferrell. Also is diet cola . Is that a vegetable . Ifill and yesterday, the administration unveiled new rules that ban marketing of unhealthy food in schools. I think we can all agree that our classrooms should be Healthy Places where kids are not bombarded with ads for junk food. Reporter former new york city mayor Michael Bloomberg also took up the cause, moving to eliminate trans fats and limit the size of sodas and other sugary drinks. Still, the c. D. C reports the apparent progress among pre schoolers does not extend to other age groups. Instead, a third of American Children and teenagers, and more than twothirds of adults, remain obese or overweight. Ifill Christina Economos of Tufts University watches all this closely. Shes an associate professor at the schools of medicine and nutrition science. She also helps lead an initiative called childobesity180. Org okay, Christina Economos, give pe a sense of how significant the news of this decline is. Good evening, these results are unequivocally amazingment and we really need to applaud. But we cant stop yet. This is ac small snapshot and its a small group of children within the United States. And we need to r