Scientists are watching how an ecosystem can grow from nothing. Anything biological that was remaining after the landslide wouldve been completely vaporized. It was just a barren landscape, gray and pumice colored, covered with rocks. Woodruff all that and more, on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by love me tender love me true we can like many, but we can love only a precious few. Because it is for those precious few that you have to be willing to do so very much. But you dont have to do it alone. Lincoln financial helps you provide for and protect your financial future, because this is what you do for people you love. Lincoln financial youre in charge. Fathom travel, offering cruises to cuba and the dominican republic. Travel deep. Bnsf railway. Genentech. 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 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 the federal regulations governing overtime pay are changing for the First Time Since 2004. The u. S. Labor Department Says its final rule, issued today, will be a boon to middle and lowerincome workers. Business groups say in fact, its going to hurt those very employees. The new rule means another 4. 2 million workers will be eligible for overtime pay. Vice President Joe Biden hailed the move at an event today in columbus, ohio. Weve got to right this ship, and this is a very important piece of doing it because millions of people are going to start to get paid not more than they deserve what they deserve. And mark my words, the benefits are going to be beyond the compensation. Woodruff under the change, the salary threshold to qualify for timeandahalf pay goes from 23,660 dollars a year to more than 47,000 dollars. The Obama Administration says it will boost wages by 12 billion over the next decade. Thanks mainly to inflation, the number of fulltime workers who currently qualify for overtime has plunged sharply, from 62 in 1975 to just 7 today. The restaurant and Retail Industries will see the greatest effects from the new regulation and theyre strongly opposed. David french is with the National Retail federation. By executive fiat, the administration is effectively demoting millions of workers from salaried exempt employment to hourly and likely nonexempt employment. In the real world, these changes are not going to benefit the workers they are promising overtime to. This is really a bait and switch. Woodruff some University Officials have also warned they may have to raise tuition or scale back services to abide by the new guidelines. And in a statement today, Republican HouseSpeaker Paul Ryan vowed to fight the overtime rule. He said this regulation hurts the very people it alleges to help. Many Small Businesses and non profits will be unable to afford skilled workers and be forced to eliminate salaried positions. The rule takes effect december 1st. After that, the salary threshold will be automatically updated every three years. Well have an interview with the secretary of labor, right after the news summary. In the president ial campaign, Republican Donald Trump put out a list of people hed consider nominating for the u. S. Supreme court if hes elected president. He named 11 federal and state judges eight men and three women, all of them white. In a statement, trump said the list is based on constitutional principles with input from highly respected conservatives and Republican Party leadership. The nations top intelligence official warns that foreign hackers are spying on president ial candidates. James clapper, the National Intelligence director, says thereve been signs of Cyber Attacks on the campaigns, as there were in 2008 and 2012. His office said the motives range from philosophical differences to espionage. There is word from nigeria that the first of the chibok girls has been found. The military says she was rescued yesterday in a remote forest, with a baby. More than 200 girls were abducted by boko haram militants just over two years ago. None has been seen since, until now. The rescued girl says a few have died, but most are still captive. To asia now and in sri lanka, rescuers used sticks and even bare hands today to dig for victims and survivors after mountains of mud buried their homes. More than 220 families were missing in a hardhit district, located in the central part of the island nation. Olivia kinsley of independent Television News reports. Reporter another life claimed by these massive mudslides, caused by torrential rain that has been hammering sri lanka for days. Hundreds of thousands of people have had to abandon their homes. Entire villages have been buried, bodies are being pulled from the mud. Those still alive, and still stranded, are being rescued one by one. Reporter with more rain on the way, theyre putting out sandbags in the towns, but for low lying villages, the water and the devastation has been unstoppable. With rescuers struggling to reach those in some of the worst affected areas, the death toll will surely continue to rise. Woodruff search parties found 17 bodies before they suspended operations for the night. China today played down ongoing military exercises along its coast, facing taiwan. The Defense Ministry said the drills are not aimed at any specific target. They began just days before taiwan inaugurates a new president , who leans toward independence. Beijing regards taiwan as a renegade province, and has never ruled out using force to bring it back into the fold. The chinese also condemned a u. S. Move to slap duties of more than 500 on imported flat steel. It is used in car bodies and appliances, and china has a glut of it. The u. S. Says beijing is dumping the steel and hurting american firms. And on wall street, the Dow Jones Industrial average lost three points to close at 17,526. The nasdaq rose 23 points, and the s p 500 added a fraction. Still to come on the newshour millions more eligible for overtime under new labor standards; documented atrocities in an isis stronghold in libya; billions of dollars later, why v. A. Wait times are actually getting worse, and much more. Woodruff lets return to one of the biggest moves made by the Obama Administration to affect americans takehome pay the new rules on overtime. Many others consider previously exempt from overtime. William brangham interviewed the secretary of labor from the white house earlier today. Reporter welcome, secretary perez. Why this change . And exactly what kinds of workers are you trying to help . Sure. This change is designed to forth fie two basic forth i fie foo pilars of number one is middle class jobs should pay a middle class wage and number two, when you work extra, you should be paid extra. And the problem were solving here, william, is that over the course of time, the threshhold, that differentiated people who were exempt employees, that is exempt from overtime eligibility versus people who are overtime eligible t hasnt kept up with the cost of living. And so it has really, really diminished its purchasing poker with. And secondly in 2004, the Bush Administration issued a new rule. And they frankly took virtually all the leverage away from workers an gave it to businesses. And thats why you have workers working 70 hours a week managing Retail Stores and other stores, and making 25, 30,000 a year which is basically at minimum wage. Were trying to fix that problem by doubling the threshhold from 23,000 to 47,000 and change. Reporter a number of Industry Groups have crittized criticized these rules am i would like to address the concerns. One is the employees will reclassified some salary workers into hourly workers to avoid paying them the overtime. They argue these rules could then mean a demotion for millions of workers. Well, actually, i just met with a group of people, the Vice President and i in ohio. A remarkable employer that has 600 employees, national footprint, and actually one of the things he did, was he converted their managers to hourly employees and guess what happened. Theyre making more money. And when you talk to their employees who are managers, who are making more money, they fell pretty good about themselves. And so this notion that suddenly workers are going to feel diminished stature, we did a lot of outreach on this. And you know,s that that wasnt our experience. And employers have a lot of flexibility. If you are making 40,000 now and the new threshhold is 47,476, you can still call that worker a salaried 40,000 employee whos overtime eligible. So they are still a salaried employee. The Business Owner that the Vice President and i met with, they made a different choice and it worked for their workers. Flexibility is the watchword of the fair labor standards act. And this new overtime rule. So employers have plenty of options. Reporter will is another concern that employers might cut back a workers hours to avoid paying them overtime or they might just lower wages to compensate if they have to pay it. Could these rules end up triggering a pay cut . Well, you know, in 2004 there was the rule put in place by the Bush Administration and employers were faced with this. And i hear this criticism that actually theyre going to reduce their wages. Well, then it stands to reason that that should have happened in 2004 as well. But at least to the best of my knowledge it didnt. And heres why it didnt then and it wont now. These are the most valuable employees in many peoples workforces. They open this stoor, they close the store, they hire, they fire. They go to the bank and deposit the money. They are the glue that keeps the organization together. Rational employers dont take the glue that keeps the organization together and then cast them avoid. And thats inconsistent with a sound business practice. And so i appreciate the concerns, but you know, the employee is out of balance because so many managers have lost their leverage. And were trying to restore that leverage. Reporter i mean its not just industry that has raised questions. Some leaders in Higher Education an nonprofits have also expressed a fear to what this could do to their workforce as well. Well, weve done a lot of discussion with higher ed. And what they learned when we would discuss this issue with them is they have remarkable amounts of flexibility that they were unaware of. We had someone from higher ed say oh my god, my teachers work 70 hours a week and now have i to pay them overtime. Actually thats not true, bawt the fair labor standards act exempts teachers, research assistants, wide categories of employees. I heard from a Public University about all the challenges of compliance but they were unaware of the fact that Public University can give comp time in lew of overtime pay for these workers. An when they heard that, you should have seen them, the light bull be went off. So i think there is a pretty good road map for compliance for folks in higher ed. And i would note this, william, which is that you know, over 50 of the 4. 2 million workers who are going to directly benefit from this rule have a college degree. And ever 80 v some college. I always thought the mission of higher ed was to help prepare workers so that they can be productive citizens and punch their ticket to the middle class. So you know, its a little inconsistent to have that mission and then say well, hey, wait a minute, we shouldnt be raising wages of our graduates. Especially when i see the salaries of like the football coach at a couple of the universities that came to talk to us us to. When you pay them five, six, seven Million Dollars a year, you ought to be able to anything out a way to make sure that the person who manages the cafeteria in one of your halls can get a middle class salary. Reporter all right, labor secretary thomas perez, thanks very much for joining us. Thank you. Woodruff now, to libya. Chaos has gripped the north african nation since the fall of moammar gaddafi, with at least two governments and multiple factions simultaneously vying for power. Now, theres word of wholesale atrocities by Islamic State forces in the coastal city of sirte. Fighter jets, flying for libyas u. N. Backed government, are bombing around sirte, and allied Ground Forces are pushing back as well, to stop Islamic State militants from expanding beyond their stronghold there. 120 miles of the central libyan coastline, in and around sirte, has been under the militant groups control since early 2015. Nearly twothirds of sirtes 80,000 people have fled, and been forced to rely on humanitarian aid. translated the nationalities of isis fighters are all foreign tunisians, egyptians, sudanese. They came in and created a state of fear and terror for the people and families, so we fled. And theyre all foreigners, none of them are libyans. We fled with nothing. Woodruff now come disturbing details of whats happening inside sirte, in a Human Rights Watch report based on interviews with those who left. It tells of dozens of beheadings by sword, floggings and crucifixions, fathers forced to marry off their daughters to isis fighters, and all females over the age of ten forced to wear the conservative black cloak, the abbaya. On monday in vienna, secretary of state john kerry announced an agreement to arm the internationally recognized government in the fight against isis, also called daesh the International Community will support the Presidency Council as it seeks exemption from the u. N. Arms embargo to acquire those weapons and bullets needed to fight daesh and other terrorist groups. Woodruff but it wont be easy. The u. S. Commander in africa, general david rodriguez, said yesterday its hard to tell which of many armed groups have aligned with the u. N. Supported regime and which have not. We take a closer look at those groups and what the United States is doing in libya. Im joined now by Frederic Wehrey of the middle east program at the Carnegie Endowment for international peace. He was a military attache to the u. S. Embassy in tripoli during the george w. Bush administration and he visits the country regularly. Welcome back. Remind us again how libya got to the state, two warring governments the same time, multiple fighting groups. Ever since the fall of quad ar qaddafi there is a governance faction. The country split into civil war, two government, two sets of militias, there is this new u. N. Unit government in tripoli that is still very week but the eastern faction doesnt recognize it. So you have this vacuum and that is a ripe condition for the Islamic State toin setter itself as they have in the town of cert. Woodruff so how strong is isis, in libya right now. The estimates are about 3,000 to 6,000 fighters bolstered by foreign volunteers from abroad. And they control about 120 miles on the trip of coastline in the center. Woodruff and how big a threat does that represent given Everything Else going on in libya . Its destabilizing to the countrys growth. Its also a threat to europe. And especially neighboring states. Weve seen the Islamic State in libya plot attacks against neighboring tunisia. Woodruff so lets back off a little bit here and go back to the role of the United States. You just mentioned nato. What does this mean . The u. S. Was out of libya, then it was in, out. Where is the u. S. Right now in libya . Well, the u. S. Is really behind this new unity government in tripoli. And they are obviously to used focused on the Islamic State threat. I think more broadly the u. S. Wants to insure that this government succeeds. That we dont repeat the mistakes we made after the fall of qaddafi. But the First Priority is protecting this government and then helping it fight the Islamic State. And i think thats going to be done through some training, through assistance, through the lifting of the arms embargo as we heard. Woodruff but we heard secretary kerry say the u. S. Is going to be arming the right government. But we also heard the general say its not clear which group is which, on which side. How confusing is it . It very confusing. This is the problem we facial in all the states, who do you partner with. In the case of libya, there is no union fie government, chain of command or army. You have to pick among these militias and it is a dangerous game. You dont know who you are dealing with. They may turn against you or one another. A great risk is that by arming then we could actually fuel the civil war. I think the general is very right in proceeding quite carefully. Woodruff how do you do that . How does the United States do that . There have been reports now of u. S. Speks operations on the ground. And what they are troo trying to do is assess these militias, their capacity, their will who are they aligned w before they begin training and assisting them. But you have to vet them for human rights violations, you have to recruit the right ones and make sure they are under the control of a democratic government. Woodruff what do you think should be done,