Ifill and. The changing light in San Francisco is a sea light, an island light, and the light of fog blanketing the hills. Ifill a poets ode to a San Francisco that once was. Activist, author and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti laments the citys latest boom. A new brand of dot com millionaires and general Silicon Valley money have moved into San Francisco with bags full of cash and no manners. Woodruff those are some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by it doesnt matter what kind of weather. It doesnt matter what time of day or night. When mother natures done her worst, the only thing that matters to us, is keeping the lights on for you. Were the men and women of the International Brotherhood of electrical workers. Keeping the power on in communities like yours, all across the country. Because when bad weather strikes, well be there for you. The i. B. E. W. The power professionals. At bae systems our pride and dedication show in everything we do; from Electronics Systems to intelligence analysis and cyber operations; from combat vehicles and weapons to the maintenance and modernization of ships, aircraft, and critical infrastructure. Knowing our work makes a difference inspires us everyday. Thats bae systems. Thats inspired work. Lincoln financial committed to helping you take charge of your life and become youre own chief life officer. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. 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 search teams and investigators have begun collecting the shattered bits of a german airliner that smashed into the french alps today. The plane went into an eight minute descent before it was lost near a popular ski resort, 700 miles from paris. There was no distress call, but officials said theres no indication of terrorism. Paul davies, of independent television news, reports. Reporter their journey should have taken them high over these mountains. Instead, for reasons that have yet to be explained, flight 9525 dropped down on to these slopes, killing all those on board. These are first pictures of wreckage scattered across the mountainside. There is very little that is recognizable. Thousands of fragments from a plane that was carrying Business People holidaymakers and schoolchildren returning to germany from an Exchange Trip. An emergency worker scrambles down the slope. The size of the task facing the these images. The crash site close to a ski resort is 2,000 meters above sea level and can be reached only by helicopter. Recovery teams are on standby but its likely to take days to locate all the bodies. The flight data recorder has already been found< this is the airbus a320 operated by the germanwings Budget Airline that left barcelona this morning. 144 passengers and six crew were on board most of them german and spanish nationals. At dusseldorf airport, they had waited in vain for the arrival of flight 4u9525. People who had been expecting to greet family and friends comforted by airline staff. Already it was clear there was no hope of survivors. Germanys chancellor merkel told of shocking news coming in from france. Nowhere more will that shock have been felt more than in this German School in the town of halton. 16 students had been on an Exchange Trip to barcelona. All are lost. The local mayor says its the darkest day in the towns history. The pain is being shared across europe. Here relatives of some of the 45 missing spanish nationals comfort each other. Theyre being flown to france to be closer to the crash scene while the Recovery Team tries to bring their loved ones down from the mountain. Woodruff by this evening, the state department was still trying to determine if any americans were on the plane. Well get an experts take on the job facing the crash investigators, after the news summary. Ifill president obama today declared the on again, off again israelipalestinian Peace Process all but over. Thats after israeli Prime Minister benjamin netanyahu, in the final days of his reelection campaign, appeared to rule out a palestinian state. Netanyahu has since backtracked a bit, but the president sounded unimpressed today. What we cant do is pretend that theres a possibility of something thats not there. And we cant continue to premise our Public Diplomacy based on something that Everybody Knows is not going to happen, at least in the next several years. Ifill mr. Obama also played down reports of personal animosity in his relations with the israel leader. He said, this cant be reduced to lets hold hands and sing kumbaya. woodruff on another issue, the president brushed aside a report that israel has spied on u. S. Nuclear talks with iran. The wall street journal said the israelis acquired confidential information and shared it with u. S. Lawmakers, to undercut any agreement. Israel denied the report, and the president said israel has been briefed on the negotiations. Ifill forces loyal to yemens proamerican president fought today to turn back advancing shiite rebels. The rebels, allied with iran, have already captured much of northern yemen. Today, they seized two key towns in the south before being forced to withdraw a few hours later. The rebels also entered a port on the red sea, near a key sea lane for oil shipments. Woodruff theres word the Islamic State group has recruited at least 400 children as fighters in syria in the last three months. The syrian observatory for human rights reports the young recruits are under 18. One appeared in a video this month, executing an accused spy. Ifill in nigeria reports circulated today of another mass kidnapping by boko haram. This time, residents say thec islamist militants took more than 400 women and children from a northern town this month. Nigerian officials could not immediately confirm the account. Woodruff actress director Angelina Jolie revealed today shes had a new round of preventive surgery, to head off cancer. She wrote in the New York Times that surgeons removed her ovaries and fallopian tubes after a blood test showed a possible early sign of cancer. Jolie had a double mastectomy in 2013 after learning she carries a faulty gene that greatly raises the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Ifill republican senator dan coats of indiana announced he wont run for reelection next year. Hes 71, and said in a statement its time for the next generation of leaders. He gave up the seat once before, in 1999, to keep a term limits pledge. Coats has a solidly conservative record, but he was one of the few republicans who would not sign a letter to irans leaders this month protesting a potential nuclear arms agreement. Woodruff and, wall street headed south, on concerns about the strong dollar and weak utility stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 105 points to close just above 18,000. The nasdaq fell 16 points, and the s p 500 slipped 13. Ifill still to come on the newshour what might have caused the deadly plane crash in the alps. Afghan president ashraf ghaniohu3 comes to washington asking for more help. Utah approves the use of firing squads for inmates on death row. Why some medicaid beneficiaries are being billed for Health Care Even after they die. A San Francisco legend laments life in iran. Woodruff there are lots of questions still being asked tonight about the crash of the german plane that crashed in france. We look at some of the factors that investigators may be pursuing. Alan diehl is an aviation Safety Consultant and crash analyst who has worked with the National Transportation safety board, the federal aviation adminisrtation and others. Hes the author of air safety investigators using science to save lives one crash at a time. Alan diehl, we welcome you to the program. It was daylight. The weather was mostly clear. What do you focus on as you try to understand what happened to this airplane . Well obviously there are three potential areas if you eliminate weather. You have to look at human error, mechanical problems and you cant discount some sort of criminal act, although i know everybody is downplaying that and, of course it is very strange. But this is such a highspeed impact, thats the thing that is so surprising the fact that they descended. Well, you could have a minor problem and get busy and not tell the controllers keeping your speeds up over 500mph in the mountains, that is incomprehensible if youre actually in control of your own faculties and the aircraft. Woodruff why incomprehensible . Well, ive had to make a force landing in the mountains, incidentally, judy, in a light plane the first thing you do when you get down below the level, you want the start slowing down to look for a place to set it down but it appears there was no indication of any kind of maneuvering. I know there have only been a couple eyewitnesses produced so far. The plane was very low, very fast, almost like a military aircraft colliding with the terrain. We havent seen anything like that since 9 11 when the aircraft, of course, hit the buildings and the field in pennsylvania. Woodruff since 9 11. What do you make of the fact that as far as we know, no distress call, no attempt to communicate between the cockpit and the ground, air traffic. Judy we alwiy say that pilots aviate navigate and comun kate but in reality, they aviate, trouble shoot navigate and communicate. So they may have been very, very busy with a fullblown emergency, and its possible that they just became overcome by pressurization, smoke flame, whatever. We dont know. Obviously the recorders will tell the story and im convinced theyll find the recorders. They have already found the one. They always lead you to what else you need to examine. Woodruff they have found one of the black boxes. Does that mean well find all the answers there . Not necessarily, but usually between the two boxes i always say judy, i talk about it in the book the flight data recorder, which has hundreds of channel, it takes several days to download as,as you know. Thats reportedly what they found. That tells you what happened typically, but you have to listen to the voice recorder very carefully to understand the whys. Woodruff anything about the track record of this airplane the airbus 320 that tells you something . Well they have had some problems with the airbus family. As you know, theyre highly computerized more so than the boeings, but basically this is a very safe aircraft. My daughter asked me the other day, should she getc on an airbus and get to her destination quicker so she doesnt have to rush to her meeting or wait for a boeing flight. I told her take the airbus, the most dangerous part of the trip is going to be the drive to the airport. So airbuses are certainly safe. They have a slightly worse track record than their competitors, the 320 competes with the latemodel boeing 737s. The boeings are slightly safer, but these are basically safe aircraft even though weve lost a couple of them recently, this one and the tragic air asia over the java sea early last year. Alan diehl air Safety Consultant, we thank you very money. Thank you judy. Ifill president obama announced today the u. S. Would scale back the pace of its promised troop pullout from afghanistan. Allowing forces to stay in place this year, and revisiting those numbers again next year. That was at the top of the wish list afghanistans new leadership brought to town this week. We agreed to continue to keep in place our close security cooperation. Afghanistan remains a very dangerous place. Ifill on his first president ial visit to washington, ashraf ghani qame away with the commitment he wanted most a promise from the u. S. President. Ive decided that we will maintain our current posture of 9,800 troops through end of this year. The bottom line is our men and women in uniform make enormous sacrifices. Their families do too. They service alongside them. This will mean that there are going to be some of our folks who are in afghanistan under the new schedule who would have been home. Ifill the u. S. And International Combat mission in afghanistan formally ended late last year, and the u. S. Military has been steadily reducing its footprint aiming to have only a skeleton force in place by the end of next year. The taliban responded by stepping up attacks and seizing territory from oftenineffective Afghan Forces. And the downsized u. S. Presence led to a sharp reduction in air support for the afghans. Another key Mission TrainingAfghan Forces. They now number 330,000, but the size of the force has fallen as casualties have risen, desertions are also on the rise. Yesterday, secretary of defense Ashton Carter announced the u. S. Would help out here as well committing billions of dollars in additional support. The Defense Department intends to seek funding for Afghan Forces to sustain a strength of 352,000 personnel through 2017. Ifill the announcements and warm words highlight a distinct thaw in u. S. Afghan relations since the0dys of ghanis predecessor, hamid karzai. U. S. Dealings with him had become poisonous, and he ultimately refused to sign a Security Agreement to formalize the american presence in afghanistan. But once ghani took office, the deal was signed immediately. In another sign of renewed goodwill, ghani took pains during this visit to honor the sacrifice of more than 2,200 americans killed fighting in afghanistan since 2001, joining Vice President biden today to lay a wreath at Arlington National cemetery. The new leader is being accompanied by former rival abdullah abdullah, afghanistans new c. E. O. That post was created after last years president ial election was marred by allegations of fraud. translated we now have proved that Political Affairs cannot be solved through the use of guns but can be solved through talks and negotiations. Ifill the two meghcreated a socalled National Unity government, although key positions remain unfilled. Ghani faces many other challenges. A recent, disturbing example the stoning and burning death of a young woman in central kabul by a mob of men. Shed been falsely accused of desecrating the koran. Ghanis u. S. Visit continues tomorrow when he speaks to a joint meeting of congress before heading to new york and the United Nations thursday. Ifill shortly after the white house News Conference ended, i spoke with president ghani. Mr. President , thank you for joining us. You having just come from a pretty successful meeting at the white house. Youre at blair house right across the street right now. You asked the president the freeze troop withdrawals, at least for this year. He agreed to that. And to rethink it for 2016. What about that openended part about next year . Did you hope that perhaps they would give you a more definitive idea of how many troops would be on the ground this Time Next Year . The flexibility that we asked for and the stability has been provideed. With evolving conditioning on the ground, one has to make use of this major opportunity for reforms of our Security Forces and then assess the conditions. Ifill you talk about the evolving situation on the ground. What would you describe as the most urgent threat . The military operations by pakistan have brought about a displacement effect where a significant number of foreign terror groups that are a threat to practically every one of our neighbors near and far have been pushed toward our territory while their leadership and their networks remain in pakistan or elsewhere. A new ecology of terror is forming because the weakening or collapse of the states in the middle east is bringing new opportunities to strengthen these networks. We have to deal with this threat, not just by our own action, but by coordinated action. The beginning of awareness is taking place, but its important to understand that violence is changing its forms. Its rapidly acquiring new sets of capabilities, and unless wec grasp them, we understand them and then preempt them from forming and acting, we will be in a defensive position. Ifill we know that part of this ecology of terror you referred to in the past at least, in the present has been the taliban the resurgence of the taliban in afghanistan. But i also wonder whether isis which we spent a lot of time talking about is also getting a foothold in afghanistan. Is there any evidence of that . Its four faces organize, orient, decide and act. But because its recruitment is mediabased and not just through old personal networks, one has to be both vigilant and cautious in terms of the extent of their presence. We have made sure that it does not go beyond this stage of deciding to act. So weve seen some evidence but it could also be copycatting or in relation and we need to share information analysis in a coherent way, so that then one is not surprised the way one imagines, the way iraq and syria, both governments and analysts alike were surprised. Youre referring to what we call isil or isil. Im also curious about the taliban negotiations. How do you get them back to the table when they wont agree to the basics that they renounce al qaeda that they accept the afghan constitution, that they renounce violence . Is it pakistan . Is that the key to getting them back to the table . Its two things. One is, of course pakistan because pakistan