Brighter future, but others fear some students may be left behind. You know, you can find people who think what has happened is the greatest thing to occur in the history of urban education and people who think its the worst thing. I think people, most people who are being honest will admit its someplace in the middle woodruff those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. Charles schwab, proud supporter of the pbs newshour. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. 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 two senior senators agreed today on a bipartisan bill to address long delays for veterans seeking medical care. Those who wait longer than 30 days for appointments or live more than 40 miles from a v. A. Facility could use private doctors enrolled in medicare or other federal programs. Republican john mccain of arizona and independent Bernard Sanders of vermont sponsored the legislation. You will be able to go to the doctor of your choice, under the strict supervisions of the v. A. This is a bill mostly for people in very rural areas who now have to travel long distances to get the health care, this will make their lives easier. Ifill also today, acting v. A. Secretary sloan gibson visited the Phoenix Medical Center where reports of falsifying data and secret waiting lists first surfaced. Meanwhile, the president s nominee to fill the Top Health Care position at the Veterans Affairs department withdrew today. Jeffrey murawsky said he feared a long Senate Confirmation fight. Woodruff there is no fight over sylvia burwell, the Senate Confirmed her today as the new secretary of health and human services. She had been the president s budget director. Burwell takes over from Kathleen Sebelius who oversaw the difficult rollout of the healthcare. Gov website last year. Ifill in iraq, sunni fighters stepped up attacks in the north against forces of the shiite dominated government. Dozens of gunmen ambushed security checkpoints and police stations in samarra, starting a day long battle. Seven police and soldiers were killed. The militants have already seized parts of ramadi and most of fallujah. Woodruff president obama and british Prime MinisterDavid Cameron had a new warning for russia today block weapons from entering ukraine, recognize the new leader in kiev and stop supporting prorussian separatists or face new sanctions. The leaders met as part of the group of seven summit in brussels without russian president vladimir putin. President obama said putin can choose to rebuild trust or not. We will have a chance to see what mr. Putin does over the next two, three, four weeks, and if he remains on the current course, then weve already indicated that kinds of actions that were prepared to take. Woodruff putin answered by wishing the g7 leaders bon appetit before flying from st. Petersburg to france for tomorrows dday commemorations. Ifill theres word of more mass killings in nigeria by the islamist terror group boko haram. Witnesses said militants dressed as soldiers slaughtered at least 200 people in the countrys northeast on monday. Later, police said 42 more people were killed early today. Woodruff chinese courts sentenced 81 people today on terror charges in an ongoing crackdown in the Western Region of xinjiang. State media said they planned terrorist activities and carried out murder and arson. They are among scores of people whove been arrested after a series of deadly attacks blamed on ethnic uighurs. Ifill vietnam has released new video to prove its claims of chinese aggression in the south china sea. The footage shows a chinese ship chasing and then ramming a vietnamese fishing boat on may 26th. The fishing boat then tipped over and sank, but all ten people aboard were rescued. It happened near a huge oil rig that china deployed last month in disputed waters. Woodruff the latest probe of the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill in the gulf of mexico concludes a giant machine that could have prevented the 2010 disaster was riddled with defects. The u. S. Chemical safety board said today the blowout preventer on the macondo well failed because it had faulty wiring, a dead battery and a bent pipe. It said similar devices are still being used worldwide. Ifill in economic news, european banks will start paying fees on deposits with the European Central bank. The negative Interest Rate could push them to lend the money instead and stave off deflation. The chair of the securities and exchange commission, Mary Jo White, proposed new rules to rein in highspeed trading. And on wall street, the Dow Jones Industrial average gained 98 points to close at 16,836; the nasdaq rose 44 points to close at 4,296; and the s p 500 added 12 to finish at 1,940. Ifill still to come on the newshour. G. M. s probe into the recalls of millions of faulty cars. New details in the story of army sgt. Bowe bergdahl. Plus, new orleans move to all Charter Public School district. And possible sweeping changes to how u. S. Financial markets are regulated. Woodruff General Motors released its own internal report today about a decadelong failure to recall cars with ignition switch problems. The investigation found a dysfunctional system within the automaker that didnt take enough responsibility for years. But it also absolved the very top leadership of any kind of cover up. What valukas found in this situation was a pattern of incompetence and neglect. Woodruff General Motors c. E. O. Mary barra laid out the much anticipated report by former federal prosecutor anton valukas. She told g. M. Employees in warren, michigan, the findings are, brutally tough and deeply troubling. Repeatedly, individuals failed to disclose critical pieces of information that could have fundamentally changed the lives of those impacted by the faulty ignition switch. Woodruff that longrunning ignition switch defect, going back to 2002, is now linked to at least 13 deaths, and federal Officials Say the number may rise. Since february, g. M. Has recalled 2. 6 million older cars because of the problem, which caused engines to stall, air bags to fail and power steering and brakes to malfunction. Barra acknowledged the auto maker faces public outrage that it took so long to act. This recall issue isnt merely an engineering, or a manufacturing, or a legal problem. It represents a fundamental failure to meet the basic needs of these customers. Reporter the c. E. O. Announced 15 employees found to have acted inappropriately have been fired. More than half were in senior or executive roles. At the same time, she maintained there was no conspiracy at the top to cover up facts and no evidence that employees made any trade off between safety and cost. Barra said its still not clear why engineers and others largely ignored a problem that would have cost 57 cents to repair. If this information had been disclosed, and i believe this in my heart, the company would have dealt with this situation much differently and appropriately. Reporter with g. M. s findings in hand, congress is expected to announce a new round of hearings. But some lawmakers are already calling the companys report part of a Public Relations campaign. Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of connecticut. This report leaves so many questions unanswered and fails to identify where responsibility really should be placed. Firing a few underlings is no substitute for acknowledging moral and legal responsibility. And this document seems more designed for the defense of the company in court than acknowledgement for responsibility for the more than 13 deaths that the company so far refuses to acknowledge. Reporter Going Forward, g. M. Has created a fund to compensate victims, led by lawyer kenneth feinberg. The names have not been officially released. But in april, when barra appeared at a senate hearing, families also traveled to washington, holding up pictures of loved ones killed or injured. We are the people left behind when a loved one got into what was supposed to be a safe car. A g. M. Car. A car that g. M. Knew for years was dangerous and defective. Reporter g. M. Has already paid a record 35 Million Dollar fine, and the ignition switch recall, plus others, have cost the company about 1. 7 billion dollars so far. At her press conference, mary barra did not go deeply into the culture of g. M. That valukas described in his report. One where, he wrote, no Single Person owned any decision, and there was, a phenomenon known as the g. M. Nod, everyone nods in agreement and the nod is an empty gesture. More on all of this with two watching it closely. Micki maynard is a contributor to forbes magazine. Shes the new director of the Reynolds Center for business journalism at the Cronkite School at Arizona State university. And eric gordon is a professor at the university of Michigan Ross School of business. Welcome you both. Miki, do you both, what did you learn from this internal report that wasnt known before . Well, what i learned is that General Motors doesnt really have a way to explain what happened. Its very interesting because there is a lot of material, a lot of emails, slides, that sort of thing. But what we dont find out is why these General Motors employees really didnt push to get this matter resolved. And mary beforea was asked about this today, was it fear, was it intim decision an she just sort of skirted the problem. So thats the answer that im looking for and we dont have have it yet. Did you hear an answer to that question . I didnt hear it but i may have read a clue to it in the report. A gm employee named Steven Oakley said occasionally tried to get the attention of higher ups by using what he called hot wards, and he gave an example, stall. He said that he was reluctant to push on safety issues because he thought his predecessor had been pushed out for having done just that. I think that might be a clue to what the problem was at gm. Well is that, is that coming through s that being acknowledged by the leadership of gm . No, i think they went to great pains to do the opposite. Right in the opening the c. E. O. Said the real problem here is that lower level people didnt do whatever it took to get it to the attention of the high level people, its the fault of the low level people. They didnt bang the drums loudly enough. Well, we have at least from one person some idea about they why they dont bang the drums loudly enough and the rest of the report i think you get a second idea which is it will take a lot of drum banging. Because, in fact, a lot of people at gm did know about the problem. Batted it back and forth and all of those actions apparently somehow werent enough to get it to the attention of the higher level people. Miki, this raises the question which we mentioned. And i want to ask you about this. Culture where theres a nod or a gesture, what was that all about . Right so, there were a couple of instances that are defined in the report. One is the gm nod, apparently this is where everyone sits in a meeting. Ideas are exchanged, solutions are suggested. Everyone nods in agreement, leaves the room and nothing happens which has to be absolutely maddening to a manager. And then the other one is called the gm salute and i have witnessed this myself where people sit with their arms crossed, sort of their elbows pointing out, almost defiantly as if to say this is someone elses responsibility, 9 elbows pointing out and not mine. And you know when outsiders can read the culture like that i think you have an issue. I think you have an issue of people who maybe say theyll do something, dont do it and that shows that they dont trust management or they dont have faith in each other to solve the problem. And we should have pointed out, i meant to say this earlier, we did invite General Motors to send a representative to be part of this conversation. They kleined. Professor gorden, what we want to understand though in the two of you are getting at this is what was it that stopped the information about this ignition switch that clearly people at lower levels knew about, as long as more than a decade ago, maybe 15 years ago, that didnt move up the chain . I think there are two things. And they are somewhat touched on the report if you read it carefully. One is its a highly technical legal culture. For example, they said that mary barra really didnt know anything that was going on. Well, actually, she knew about the stalling, the moving stall problem but she didnt know that it was caused by the ignition switch. So no problem there. So i thinks there a a very technical, we went on technicallities kind of culture. Theres also a dont do anything that louses up a product launch. Theres a story about an attorney who i think is one of the people who lost his job, bill kemp who somehow getses involved in a story thats going to be run in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the could balance and he wants to try to do something to soften the story and is advised by another gm attorney that it probably wont work. And his comment as related in the report is something along the lines of wow, if this story runs, we had better not look as if we havent done Everything Possible to support the new product launch. I think those two factors combined make it very difficult to expect information thats negative about a gm product to make it up the line. So miki maynard what about these 15 individuals who were fired and i guess some others were suspended. How would you characterize the roles they have had in the company and why no one at the highest level is having to answer for what happened . Well, first of all, one of the people who was fired is an engineer named ray digeorgia digiorgio. And he is probably in the a household name but a name wellknown to us in the auto industry. Because this is the fellow that apparently approved gm changing the part in 2006 for repair, but not changing the part number. As the sister of an engineer i can tell you that engineers keep very careful records. And you would not modify a design without changing the part number. But that made it impossible through the years for General Motors to tell which ignitions were defective and which ones were okay. And that continued to be a problem until last year. So you have six years of investigation going on. The part number seems to be fine, the design seems to be fine. And they cant find it so hes one of the gentleman that was let go. The head of the could Balance Program was apparently let go. Other people in legal, in engineering, in Public Policy which usually means washington. But one of the things i und so interesting was that the report specifically says that mary barra, Mike Milliken who is the head of gms Legal Department and mark royce who is head of Global Product Development all knew nothing about this. These are three very senior people at the company. People you would think would be getting briefings on matters like this and instead apparently the information never got to any one of the three of them at the top of the company. So with just 30 seconds left, professor gordon o what are the we can expect this is not the end of this. It is certainly not going to be. In fact, i think today, especially the press conference that was held today probably damaged gm. I think the lack of transparency, they almost peytonly selfserving approach that seems to have been taken has fired up the critics. I think there will be hearings. I think the hearings will be pretty nasty and i think the easy path that the c. E. O. Got because she was knew will not be available the next time around. Professor eric gordon, miki maynard we thank you both. We did invite General Motors. They declined to participate. Thank you both. Ifill a White House Briefing containing more information on the deal to free Army Sgt Bowe Bergdahl from taliban captors hasnt quieted many lawmakers. So the president and other Administration Officials launched a vigorous defense of the prisoner swap that led to his release. I make absolutely no apologies for making sure that we get back a young man to his parents. Reporter after days of rising criticism over the bergdahl deal, president obama pushed back. I think it was important for people to understand that this is not some abstraction. This is not a political football. Reporter in brussels, the president defended trading five senior taliban figures and not telling congress it was imminent. We had discussed with congress the possibility that Something Like this might occur, but because of the nature of the folks that we were dealing with and the fragile nature of these negotiations, we felt it was important to go ahead and do what we did. Reporter in fact, it was reported today, officials kept the planned exchange quiet in part because the taliban threatened to kill bergdahl if it became public. During an interview with the bbc, defense secretary chuck hagel said, bergdahls life and health were in peril. Its eas