Barbara hope zuckerberg. Corporate funding is provided by mutual of america designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why were your retirement company. Provided by pport has been and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. From the tisch wnet studios at Lincoln Center in new york, hari sreenivasan. Sreenivasan good evening, thanks for joining us. A historic, dangerous heat wave is gripping much of southern europe, setting record triple digit highs this week and is expected to continue into next week. At least two deaths are blamed on the heat wave meteorologists have nicknamed lucifer. The european Weather Service issued its highest red alert heat warning to at least nine countries, including italy, many of the balkan countries and southern poland. Weather officials in spain predicted temperatures there could hit a scorching 111 degrees today. The extreme heat has intensified wildfires and crop damage, and authorities urged residents and tourists to stay indoors and drink plenty of fluids. This as a new European Commission study predicts europes death toll from extreme weather could rise sharply if dramatic steps arent taken to slow global warming. Scientists projected the number of deaths from high heat alone could reach more than 150,000 people a year by 2100. Back home, the Pacific Northwest is reeling from its own historic heat wave. Thursday was a recordbreaker for many for cities, temperatures hitting 102 in eugene, oregon, and 105 degrees in portland, just two degrees short of the alltime high of 107. Portland also extended its rainless streak today marking its 50th consecutive dry day. Only yesterday, the u. S. State department delivered its first written, official notice to the United Nations that it intended to withdraw from the paris climate accords. The search is on for three u. S. Marines missing after their osprey tiltrotor aircraft crashed today off the east coast of australia. The unconventional osprey, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a plane, was based in okinawa and had lifted off from a Navy Aircraft carrier. The marine corps says 23 other people on the aircraft were rescued. No word on why the osprey crashed and an investigation is underway. There have been three osprey crashes or crashlandings since 2015. The political crisis in venezuela deepened today as Government Security forces surrounded the office of the chief prosecutor luisa ortega diaz. She denounced the move as a military siege. The new Constitutional Assembly met today for the second time and voted to remove her from office. It was chosen last sunday in what the u. S. And other critics charge was a fraudulent election. The assembly, comprising supporters of president nicolas maduro, has vowed to crush his opposition and is widely expected to dissolve the oppositioncontrolled congress. Putting pressure on maduro, the south american trade bloc mercosur this evening suspended venezuela indefinitely. At least 120 people have been killed in four months of violent opposition protests. The office of special counsel robert mueller, apparently for the first time, has asked the e request by the mueller teamp that is investigating possible collusion between President Trumps Election Campaign and russia was not a formal subpoena, according to the New York Times. The times also reports investigators have questioned witnesses about secret payments made to flynn by the authoritarian government of turkey during the campaign. And the Associated Press has learned that, in an amended financial filing, flynn revealed he had an advisory role during the campaign with a firm linked to cambridge analytica. Thats a software datamining company which helped the trump campaign, and whose former Vice President is trump strategist steve bannon. Find out why cities in the Pacific Northwest have reached record temperatures. Visit www. Pbs. Org newshour. Sreenivasan today, secretary of state Rex Tillerson began a five day trip that includes stops in the philippines, thailand and malaysia. Among the issues on the agenda the extrajudicial killings that have taken place in the philippines during president Rodrigo Dutertes war on the drug trade. It is estimated that police have killed more than 2,500 alleged drug offenders since duterte took office a little over a year ago. For more on mr. Tillersons trip i am joined from washington, d. C. By lindsey ford, the director of Political Security affairs for the asia society. So, how does Rex Tillerson broach this fairly uncomfortable topic . You know, i think hes going to be direct, and i suspect the message is going to be look, we understand that you have problems domestically in terms of the situation with drugs flowing through the country, but youre creating an issue thats becoming a bilateral problem because youre going to see people in the u. S. Congress and the administration more broadly, its going to make it challenging for us to cooperate in really important areas that we need to, like dealing with isis in the south, Maritime Security in the South China Sea, and a number of other issues. So i suspect theyre going to deal with this quietly but very directly in the conversation. Sreenivasan lets talk a little bit about that. The South China Sea issue, for example. At times president duterte has distanced himself from the United States and really said he doesnt need the type of security arrangement that we have now. He has. You know, its been a challenge, i think, in the South China Sea trying to figure out how to calibrate the relationship with the philippines over the last year. At times, president duterte has seemed like he, obviously, wants to take a much more conciliatory approach towards china. Most recently hes discussed things like joint exploration again, in some of the areas like reid bank. But he faces domestic challenges at home facing a you have seen parts of the philippine congress, as well as parts of the philippine government, including the ministry of defense really saying theyre not okay with that approach. And hes had to walk that back at times. So hes trying to tow a fine line between wanting to be more open with china but recognizing at the same time a lot of people in the fill feens pooens have real concerns about chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea. Sreenivasan what about the fight on isis . Whats the role that the philippines is in now . Theres a real concern right now that were facing a situation in the southern philippines where potentially youre going to have a new sort of haven for violent extremists that will become something that is attracting extremists, not just within the philippines but elsewhere in the region, potentially foreign fighters fis from other regions as well. Weve already seen some growing connectivity between isis in syria and the rebel groups in the southern philippines. And i think this is a growing concern. And so even though it looks like the siege right now is hopefully drawing to an end in the near term, i think the United States well as other governments in, Southeast Asia, need to have some really careful conversations about how do we enhance our intelligence coordination, counterintelligence coordination so we dont see a growing isis safe haven occurring in Southeast Asia. Sreenivasan and this all comes in the context of u. S. Military support in the philippines over the last several years. And President Trump is supposed to have a trip there in november. And i imagine that will be another topic that that youll see secretary tillerson want to discuss because this will be the president s first trip, and theyre going to want to tee up some positive deliverables in the relationship. So i think on the philippine side, theyll probably be very interested in, without a t. P. P. , the Transpacific Partnership trade agreement, what kinds of economic priorities does the Trump Administration have for countries like the philippines in Southeast Asia . And on the u. S. Side, i think in particular, theyre going to want to see that that some of the concerns more recently with scaling back defense cooperations and, you know, president duterte talking about hes not sure exactly whether theyll follow through with the enhanced defense coongz greement that gives the United States more access to philippine bases. Theyre going to want to see some assurance that were making progress on the implementation of that agreement. Sreenivasan lindsey ford of the asia society, thanks so much. Thanks very much. Sreenivasan here in the United States much of the talk about income inequality centers around the socalled top 1 . However, i recently spoke to an author who sees americas class divide in much broader terms. It is Pretty Simple to do. Sreenivasan scholar Richard Reeves believes the United States is in need of some self reflection about income inequality. I think america doesnt want to have a conversation about class because it is uncomfortable with it. Sreenivasan reeves is a co director of the Brookings Institutions Center on children and families. His new book, dream hoarders, argues that while the top 1 of americas wealthy receive so much attention, the more significant divide is between the top 20 and everyone else struggling to achieve the american dream. Reeves suggests the advantages of those at the top are gained simply by being part of the right socioeconomic group. By supporting certain policies and behaviors, they protect their status and keep others out. A dream hoarder is someone thats a member of the american upper middle class so, on the top rung in terms of the income ladder but is then using that position to rig certain systems or certain markets so that they succeed and that their kids succeed. So, rig the housing market, rig the education market, some say rig the labor market. And so, its basically like a cartel in business, if you like, but youre using your power in an anticompetitive way rather than in a competitive way. Sreenivasan we all want to think of ourselves as middle middle class, but were not. I think nine in ten americans define themselves as middle class in one form or another. And its obviously an attractive thing to say were all the same class, were all in the same boat. Youre stretching the definition of middle now to include people with very healthy six figure incomes right at the top of the distribution. And at some point, the word middle ceases to mean very much. Sreenivasan reeves defines the upper middle class as families making 117,000 or more a year. To illustrate the difference between them and everyone else, reeves points to this statistic between 1979 and 2013, the total pretax income for the bottom 80 of americans grew by 3 trillion. The much Smaller Group that makes up the top 20 , their income grew by 4 trillion, 1 trillion more. Reeves says the upper middle class income gains mean a greater benefit from the governments Home Mortgage interest Tax Deduction and more power to insulate themselves in better schools and neighborhoods. If youre in the upper middle class, you get to buy an expensive house, more expensive than most people can afford. You then get a deduction from the treasury for doing that, so youre helped by the government to buy this expensive house. You can then use local zoning ordinances or land use regulations to ensure that only people like you can live in your neighborhood. And then, you can organize your School Admissions policies based on neighborhoods, which means that even Public Schools can actually be predominately affluent and high quality because of the way weve organized it. Sreenivasan reeves calculates almost 40 of the upper middle class live near Public Schools with the best test scores, according to the data from the u. S. Census bureau and the nonprofit, great schools. Its like an xray. It exposes the class fracture when schools get involved and when you think about kind of integration. Sreenivasan take this Elementary School in new york citys affluent Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. P. S. 8 is predominantly white, with test scores considerably above average. When the citys Education Department rezoned the area two years ago to ease overcrowding in p. S. 8 and assigned children to nearby p. S. 307, some p. S. 8 parents rebelled. P. S. 307 had served predominantly lowincome minority students with lower test scores. Its not that anyone sat down and said, look, lets do some devilish scheme, lets find a way to rig the system and design tax and education, housing like in this way, but it is the result of the interaction of those different kinds of systems which many of us benefit from. And candidly, we all support those sorts of exclusionary mechanisms because its in our shortterm immediate self interest to do that. Sreenivasan in the end, the Brooklyn Heights school rezoning went through, but reeves says the class gap in education continues right on through college. You also talk a little about the idea of legacies and giving you a leg up if your parents went to the same college. How. How does that play out . Because most of the Ivy League Schools say, no, no, no, we dont really do that, not to a great extent, anyway. There is something deeply troubling about the idea that my kid should get preferential treatment getting into a particular college because i happened to go or my wife did, whereas the kid of an immigrant by definition cant benefit from that, or a kid who was born poor, first in their generation to go to college. So, thats something symbolically, deeply unfair about that system. Sreenivasan besides that idea, a slightly more public example might be internships who gets them, how diverse that actually is. One survey suggests that three in five graduating College Seniors have done some sort of internship. Many employers will give a job to someone whos done an internship. Theyll certainly value someone whos done it. So, its become quite an important Transition Institution in the last 20 years. And what you find is that, first of all, many of them are unpaid, which means almost by definition that theyre biased in favor of those who are from affluent backgrounds. But also, and even more egregiously in some ways, they are often handed out on the basis of who you know or as a favor. Well, thats just cheating in terms of an open labor market and the kind of social norm we need to shift. Sreenivasan some critics of reeves work argue that laying the blame for lack of upward mobility on the upper middle class is misguided. In a recent Washington Post oped, economist Robert Samuelson wrote though Economic Opportunities abound, the capacity to take advantage of them does not. That, not hoarding, is our real problem. As for parents, why make them feel guilty for wanting to help their children . What are parents for, after all . Lets not blame the struggle of the lower middle class and poor on the success of the upper middle class. The two are only loosely connected, if at all. But reeves says being a successful parent shouldnt mean rigging the playing field. The question then is, wheres the line . When does this sort of Good Parenting become some form of hoarding or kind of cheating . Because were all so in favor of a fair society. How do we manage schools . How do we vote on a local zoning bill . Do we play the legacy card or the donation card . How do we operate in our own institutions . Its not quite good enough just to say, well, everyones doing it, because thats the moral reasoning of a sixth grader. If my kid comes home and says, i cheated in math today, but everyone was cheating, do i say, well, thats okay, as long as everyones cheating, its fine . , another person might have to move down. And that runs counter to everything weve ever grown up with oh, there is plenty of room at the top. We can all get there. It is a zero sum game. You know, the top 20 can only ever contain a fifth of the population; thats just a math statement. And so, to that extent, if you want more people moving it back up 20 , you do need some more people coming out of it, falling down. But downward mobility, while mathematically necessary, is also deeply unpopular both on a personal and a political level, and i think thats true for all of us. Very few of us are willing to decide which of our kids are going to be nominated to go down in order to create more room for poor kids to rise up. But it is a necessary, necessary part of the story. Sreenivasan the last 100 meter race of his career did not go as planned for usain bolt. He came in third place at the World Championships in london, losing to two americans