Of houses, renting them out, and then they take em in big pools and they sell em up to the new york stock exchange. Ifill and. Basketball, sports is the hook, but once you get them hooked family. Love. Friendship. Ifill using basketball to get kids to read. A novel in verse that won this years highest honor in young adult literature. He was active. There was action. Thats what i like. I like to inspire and show children that poetry is cool. Woodruff those are some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by this is about more than work. It is about growing a community. Everyday across the country, the men and women of the i. B. E. W. Are committed to doing the job right, doing the job safe, and doing the job on time. Because while we might wire your street, were also your friends and neighbors. I. B. E. W. The power professionals in your neighborhood. Lincoln financial committed to helping you take charge of your life and become youre own chief life officer. 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 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. Ifill the recovery of bodies and wreckage from downed Germanwings Flight 9525 continued today, as investigators announced a startling finding that the pilot in control of the plane when it crashed into mountainous terrain, did so intentionally. 150 people lost their lives. Jonathan rugman of independent Television News filed this report from near the crash site. Reporter treading their way through alpine pass, these are the relatives of those who died in these alpine passes two days ago. They want to be close to their loved ones last living moment, however all those moments are. The countryside here is remote and splendid, though now scarred by disaster. No one here is calling this an accident anymore. This was always going to be really difficult journey for these families to make, made even more difficult by the revelation that the copilot appears to have crashed the plane deliberately, killing himself and 149 other people. It was this mangled cockpit voice recorder which gave up his secret. It seems the copilot locked the captain out of the cabin and then steered the plane into its final descent. The prosecutor handling this investigation talking of deliberate intent to destroy the aircraft. translated the most plausible and possible interpretation for suss the copilot refused to open the door of the cockpit to the flight captain and activated the button to start the descent. Reporter the prosecutor described the flights final ten minutes. He said the captain left the cockpit, perhaps to use the bathroom, leaving the copilot alone at the controls to start the planes descent. The captain is heard pleading to be let back in but there is no response. The only cockpit noise, the sound of the copilot breathing normally with passengers heard screaming just before the moment of impact. The copilot was andreas lubitz, a 28yearold german, relatively junior with over 600 hours of flying experience, not on the police radar and, we are told, with no known link to terrorism. Cockpit doors have been strengthened since the september 11th attacks, but this airbus video shows how flight crew should be able to open the door from the outside on a key pad though crucially that code can be overridden with a lock switch inside the cockpit for up to five minutes, and thats what experts believe happened on tuesday morning. This was as close to the crash site as relatives reached today. The National Flags of those killed unfurled in honor of the missing dead. Ifill todays revelations have spurred serious concerns over safety and flight protocols, ranging from cockpit access and security, to pilot training. Newshour aviation specialist, miles obrien, joined me a short time ago, via skype. Miles, thanks for joining us. It seems the question everyone is asking tonight is how could this happen . Yeah. Its probably more in the realm of psychiatry and psychology than aviation in some respects but you have to look at the big picture here, gwen, and the system that is facing tremendous demand and a lot of cost pressure. A lot of pilots are required to fill these seats and fly these aircraft. Theres a Pilot Shortage most everywhere you look in the world right now. Meanwhile, the pay for pilots is low. So theres a lot of pressure on the airlines to get people in these seats quickly, and you have to ask the question if the whole vetting process which weve relied on for generations in aviation if that has somehow been short circuited and we just dont know the people flying airplanes as well as we used to. Ifill describe the rules for cockpit access normally. Well, since 9 11 everything changed, of course. We reinforced the cockpit door. Its not anything you can easily barge through. Thats the design. The way it works is when you go out, the person behind the locked cockpit door really has all the authority. You have to acknowledge somebody trying to come in and unlock the door. There is a component of this though, that does afford access to the cockpit if there was an incapacitated crew. Both crew members or one crew member will pass out and unable to respond, through a series of steps you could gain access to the cockpit, but as long as the person on the other side of the door in the flight deck doesnt want somebody in, you can keep them out. You started we talking about this being an almost psychological exercise. What does the age and experience level of this pilot have to do with this investigation . We know hes 28 years old. We know he had a lowerthannormal flying record. But does that mean anything as we begin to get to the bottom of this . Well, you know theres no black box for the human being and im not equipped to psychologically analyze what might or might not have been going on inside this persons mind, but i do know this the industry has remained safe over the years through a long, slow apprenticeship, and that has been sped up in recent years and concurrent with that theres been tremendous pressure on the airlines to make a buck. Its a very difficult business. Theres a lot of pressure to keep the salaries of pilots low. So you have to wonder you know is the process not selecting the best people for the job and are we, in fact, not training them up to standards we prefer because its frankly cheaper. Ifill and its a selfpolicing question about whether a pilot who has responsibilities for so many lives is in the mental state the fly. Exactly. I mean basically when you get hired by an airline, they do a psychological test. Thats the last you get of a psychological test. The firstclass medical done by medical examiners every six months does not include a psychological test. They might say, hey, how you doing, that kind of thing, but nothing much more beyond that. So the system took care of itself. Back in the days we had threeperson crews. We had largely military crews. There was a siv a vetting process which really distilled who ended up in the cockpit and there were fewer cockpit seats to fill after all which took care of this situation. Now that this is a different environment, the airlines and the regulators perhaps need to look at psychological components and vetting these people in a different way. Ifill now that we have seen this crash site, which is horrific and so many little pieces, how does the investigation proceed Going Forward . Well, we have the big pieces. If you had to pick one black box to find the cockpit voice recorder in this case is the one so i think, you know some of the Key Information that we need is in there. It would be nice to have the flight data recorder just to corroborate what weve heard about control inputs by the remaining flight crew member but this goes back to an ongoing issue in the industry. We have the capability, the technology, theres no reason why when a plane is nonresponsive for as long as ten minutes that we cant somehow get a view inside that cockpit, cameras in the cockpit, and streaming data from the aircraft so we know whats going on. Theres no reason not to do this except for money. Once again, i think this brings us back to our theme. Ifill miles obrien joining us by skype. Thank you so much. Youre welcome gwen. Woodruff closer to Home Communities across oklahoma and arkansas are cleaning up today after being hit by this seasons first round of tornadoes. Twisters ripped through both states yesterday, killing at least one person in tulsa. The storms flattened homes and businesses, toppled power lines, and caused multiple injuries. Oklahoma governor mary fallin toured the damage in moore a town hit hard in 2013 by a powerful twister that killed 24 people. Weve been down this road before. We know what to do and im just very grateful that we have so many people that worked so hard over the night to make sure that people were safe, to make sure they werent injured and then to certainly make sure that we keep our roads and highways blocked off from power lines that were down and make sure that the traveling public was also safe. Woodruff fallin declared a state of emergency in 25 oklahoma counties. Tens of thousands of residents are still without power. Ifill the governor of indiana declared a Public Health emergency today to help contain an h. I. V. Epidemic. Rural scott county near the border with kentucky has recorded 79 new h. I. V. Cases since january. All were tied to intravenous drug use of the prescription painkiller opana. Republican mike pence is against needleexchange programs, but made an exception and authorized a shortterm program. This is all hands on deck. This is a very serious situation. We will not only contain the spread of this virus but we are going to speed relief and medication to people that have been affected by it. And were going to arrest its exposure and through an aggressive Law Enforcement effort, were going to find the people that are responsible. Ifill the centers for Disease Control and prevention recommended needleexchange to help keep the number of h. I. V. Infections at bay. But state Health Officials still expect the number of cases to increase, as more people are contacted. Woodruff department of justice officials have arrested two illinois cousins, both of them national guardsmen, on charges they were joining Islamic State fighters. One man was arrested at a chicago airport last night, and was allegedly leaving for egypt to join the militant organization. The cousins allegedly told an undercover f. B. I. Agent they had plans to attack an illinois military facility. Ifill in iraq, the battle to take back the city of tikrit from Islamic State militants lost the support of shiite militias today. But it comes a day after the u. S. Joined airstrikes on the city. In washington, general lloyd austin, the head of u. S. Central command, told a Senate Committee the u. S. Demanded the iranian backed militias leave before the u. S. Got involved. Id like to just highlight sir, that three tours in iraq commanding troops who were brutalized by these shia militias i will not and i hope we never coordinate or cooperate with shia miltias. Ifill austin went on to say there are now about 4,000 iraqi forces, commandos and Police Fighting for the city, with american help. Woodruff u. S. And iranian officials went back to the negotiating table in switzerland today, with a Nuclear Agreement deadline looming. U. S. Secretary of state john kerry and his iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad zarif have significant gaps to overcome before march 31. Negotiations have already been extended twice over the past two years. Ifill more than 1,000 civilians have been killed by the militant Group Boko Haram this year. Human rights watch said they died in attacks from northeast nigeria, to neighboring cameroon, chad, and niger. Ahead of this weekends elections, the Nigerian Government has brought in mercenaries from south africa and the former soviet union to push the militants back. Woodruff back in the u. S. Stocks on wall street extended their losses for a fourth day. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 40 points to close at 17678. The nasdaq fell 13 points, and the s p 500 slipped nearly five. Ifill the 15th century monarch, king richard iii, received a proper burial today in leicester, england. Royalty, religious leaders and the archaeologists who discovered richards remains in a parking lot in 2012, were all in attendance. The longlost king died in battle in 1485, and was buried without a coffin in a church that was later destroyed. Scientists identified his remains by his distinctively curved spine, radiocarbon dating and d. N. A. Tests. Ifill still to come on the newshour yemens descent into chaos, the region reacts. How bad news for florida homeowners has become good news for investors. Both parties agree on a way to help medicare doctors get paid. And, the 2015 Newberry Award Winning novel on poetry, race and basketball. Woodruff the chaos in yemen has taken another dramatic turn, as neighboring saudi arabia entered the fight against rebels in the country with airstrikes. The operation began overnight as saudi jets flew from the sunni kingdoms southern desert, and bombarded military targets in the yemeni capital of sanaa. The goal drive out shiite Houthi Rebels whove taken over much of the country. The saudi ambassador to the u. S. Announced the Campaign Last night in washington. We will do whatever it takes in order to protect the legitimate government of yemen from falling and from facing any dangers from outside militia. Woodruff the strikes flattened a number of homes, killing at least 18 civilians. Residents were left searching through piles of rubble for survivors. Jonathan bartolozzi of mercy corps is in sanaa, and spoke with the newshour via skype. People were woken up by explosions. When people found out that it was actually a formal military intervention, people were quite shocked. We had a situation where the military targets that they were aiming for were quite specific woodruff thousands of houthi supporters took to the streets of sanaa, protesting the saudi air strikes. But at a separate rally in the Southern City of taiz, scores of yemenis cheered the action. The saudis are joined in the effort by other persian gulf nations, as well as sudan, jordan, and egypt. Those nations back yemeni president Abed Rabbo Mansour hadi, whos been in the port city of aden since fleeing sanaa last month. Today hadi left the country under saudi protection and arrived in riyadh. translated it was an obligation to answer the call of president hadi. Egypt has announced its political and military support to yemen and also to join the coalition through air, naval forces and land if the matter calls for it. Woodruff the head of the arab league added his backing. translated it took place after the failure of all trials to stop the houthi coup detat, after their persistence to take escalated steps against the constitutional legitimacy and the National Yemeni will. Woodruff meanwhile, the houthis key supporter, iran denounced the strikes. Yemen became the latest flashpoint in a longsimmering conflict between teheran and riyadh for regional dominance. Irans foreign minister translated military action, especially military action from outside yemen against territorial integrity and against the yemeni people will have no result but bloodshed and slaughter of the people. Woodruff the u. S. Authorized logistical and intelligence help for the campaign, but at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services committee, the top general overseeing u. S. Operations in the middle east had few answers. I dont currently know the specific goals and objectives of the Saudi Campaign and id have to know that to be able to assess the likelihood of success. Woodruff the chair of the committee, Arizona Republican john mccain, said the airstrikes stemmed from a total absence of u. S. Leadership. Woodruff joining me now to shed some light on what the new developments mean for the already smoldering sunni shia split in the region are David Rothkopf, editor and c. E. O. Of Foreign Policy magazine. And trita parsi, president of the national iranianamerican council and author of single roll of the dice obamas diplomacy with iran. Welcome to both of you. David rothkopf, what prompted the saudis and their allies to get involved militarily . Al qaeda has been causing unrest in yemen for some time. Whats different now . Well, i think whats different now is the rise of the houthis. The fact theyre aligned with iran the principle rivals of the saudis in the region, and the fact that yemen has a very long boarder with saudi arabia, so if, in fact this country became a satellite of the iranians, it would pose a real strategic threat to the saudis. I also think the other thing thats driving it is that the saudis and the gcc countries, the egyptians and the others that are solved dont really feel that the United States or any other foreign power is going to have the ability to help stabilize this. So they had to take some action on their own. Woodruff trita parsi, would a houthi takeover in yemen pose a strategic threat to saudi arabia . Well absolutely. I think the panic you have seen in saudi arabia to some extent understandable in the rivalry with the iranians. 20 years ago the saudis essentially encircled iran. They were funding the taliban and iran was also checked by samanich. 20 years later its pretty much the opposite. Iran has more influence in afghanistan and in iraq and in syria th