>> this land may not be worth much in value, but this land has fed our people; this land has given to us. and we are still here. >> woodruff: we have the latest from philadelphia, where a church leader is on trial for protecting priests who molested children. >> warner: and jeffrey brown talks with peruvian writer mario vargas llosa about his new book and the importance of literature. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> growing up in arctic norway, everybody took fish oil to stay healthy. when i moved to the united states almost 30 years ago, i could not find an omega-3 fish oil that worked for me. i became inspired to bring a new definition of fish oil quality to the world. today, nordic naturals is working to fulfill our mission of bringing omega-3s to everyone, because we believe omega-3s are essential to life. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. >> 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. >> warner: the economic news was grim-- anemic job creation and higher unemployment in may. and it hit wall street hard, along with jitters over china and europe. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 275 points to close at 12,118, its worst drop in six months. the nasdaq fell nearly 80 points to close at 2,747. the dismal mood on the markets matched the picture painted in the labor department's report. the lines at job centers and fairs across the country are long and getting longer. >> i put in so many applications online and in person, and it is like, "oh, we just hired somebody" or it's "we found somebody better qualified." >> warner: in fact, today's report showed the economy created a net of just 69,000 jobs in may, only half of what was forecast. what's more, far fewer jobs were created in march and april than first thought. the original numbers were revised down by 49,000. all this drove the may unemployment rate up for the first time in 11 months to 8.2%, as more people went looking for jobs but not finding them. and a new report in europe today showed unemployment in the 17- member euro-zone hit a record 11% in march and april, as manufacturing slowed in britain, germany and france. ( cheers and applause ) president obama, speaking in minneapolis today, pointed to europe's troubles as a leading factor in the sluggish u.s. recovery. >> we've had a crisis in europe's economy that is having an impact worldwide, and it's starting to cast a shadow on our own as well. and all these factors have made it even more challenging to not just fully recover, but also lay the foundation for an economy that's built to last over the long term. >> warner: but appearing on cnbc, republican presidential candidate mitt romney said blaming europe won't wash. >> if the president's policies had worked, if he'd been able to get america back on track, why, we'd be looking at what happened in europe as being a problem, but certainly not devastating. these numbers are devastating. you've got a lot of middle- income families that wonder whether the job they've got they'll be able to keep. this is very bad news for the american people. >> warner: the news may be especially bad for the more than five million who are long-term unemployed. the number of people out of work for more than six months grew by 300,000 in may, even as extended unemployment benefits begin to run out. we take a closer look at what's behind the weaker jobs picture. and for that, we turn to daniel gross, economics editor and writer for yahoo finance. and diane swonk, chief economist at mesirow financial, based in chicago. let me begin with diane swonk. fill out this report for us, this picture for us. what are the numbers behind the numbers? >> well, it really was a dismal report. what we saw was a return of something that had been absent for a bit. and that was the gap between public and private sector employment. we had sort of seen the state and local sector, many people thought the cuts were behind them, and they wouldn't be the headwind that they were last year at this time when many teachers were being laid off. well, in this report we saw teachers again being laid off that counted for more than half of all the layoffs in the public sector were teachers at both the state level and local level. then we started to see postal workers disappear at the federal level. so the private sector was sort of carrying the economy in the past. and then we had seen finally the public sector headwinds begin to abatement that now has reversed again. and that was consistent with something else we saw this week with gdp numbers showed that in fact instead of roycing in the first quarter, state and local government spending contracted. and so this is something we really worry about along with construction spending which showed construction spending today actually contracted at the public sector level again so all those public sector projects are now being completed and you're losing employment from it as well. >> and daniel rose, what did today's report tell you about where we are right now? >> well, we've had for the last few years which is a crisis in employment. and diane is right to note this dichotomy. the public sector has lopped off about a million jobs in the last two years. everyone from teachers to construction workers, bureaucrats, et cetera. and the private sector has added 4.3 million. there seem to be a lot of job openings. the bureau of labor statistics publishes every month the jolt survey which says how many jobs are open. there are about 3.7 million at the end of march. that's the highest in several years. and even though unemployment claims are falling, fewer people getting fired, they don't-- employers do not seem to be filling the open positions. and that could be because of a lack of skills, it could be because of geographical problems. there are a lot of jobs open in north dakota where very few people live. and a lot could be fear that the demand won't be there to justify hiring new people. >> warner: diane swonk, why do you think employers aren't hiring more? or at a faster pace? >> well, certainly the economy is not growing fast enough to justify a lot faster pace. but i also think we had some seasonal problems in the beginning of the year where it was very warm in places like here in chicago and you could play golf and people went out and did a lot of things. they remodeled their home, home improvements, repairs, moved some employment and pulled it forward. but we're much weaker than that we see today. i think forefactor is one n a low growth economy which you get after you have the kind of financial crisis we did, the low growth subpar recovery, you add to that this forefactor, the uncertainty about everything from europe where exports are slowing to china. china's largest client is europe. and that now is slowing means the stuff we sell to china which is a lot of industrial equipment, manufacturing equipment, orders have begun to slow. all of that taking off some of the star in the u.s. economy from the manufacturing sector. it did hire but not as fast a pace. it is slowing today. but on the other side of it there is this sort of unwillingness to unleash the cash corporations have on their balance sheets. they've got over $2 trillion in cash on their balance sheets and they're unwilling to make a bet on our future because they are both concerned about maybe an implosion in europe causing ripple effects here in the u.s. in terms of another financial crisis, or even more so, worried about rising taxes and the fiscal crisis we face, the fiscal cliff, they call go, at the end of this year where taxes are going to go up and expired tax cuts ex.and automatic spending cuts will go in. and it affects pain industries as well. those spending cuts that are mandate ready actually retroactive. >> daniel gross, president obama certainly cited the picture in europe as a contributing factor today. how much of it do you think is international factors like the slowing growth in china as diane swonk mentioned and europe versus domestic weakness? >> well, i think a fair amount of it is domestic weakness. but things aren't that weak domestically. we've got construction spending numbers 6% higher than a year ago. we've got car sales today 17% higher than a year ago. retail sales are 6 or 7% higher than they were a year ago. the underlying demand is growing. i think it has a lot to do with fear and this sense of being shell shocked from 2008, 2009 when companies found that demand evaporated and they were left with far too many employees. if you have a service business which most of businesses in this country are, your biggest input, cost is labor. and so if you are caught with a lot of employees at a time when you don't have the business, your profits quickly turn to loses. i think employers to a degree are kind of shell-shocked by what they went through in '08 and 09 and as a result very hesitant to get out ahead of demand. >> so are you saying you think this is in part really significant part psychology drive snen it's not just the numbers or what they see out there as growth. >> well, i think, look, the economy, psychology matters a great deal in investment. it's all about fear and greed and expectations. sentiment. we always report these numbers on consumer confidence and how people are feeling. for people in lots of businesses, that stuff really matters. if you are a car manufacturer, you're going to look at how many cars you sold the last few months and how much inventory you have but are you also going to look at business confidence and consumer confidence to decide should i add another shift. should i employee more people. should i make more cars, so i think confidence does have a great deal to do with it. i don't think it has an awful lot to do with regulation, or even taxes. if you are a dry cleaner or a restaurant, your most immediate problem is are there enough people coming through my door next week to justify adding another person or am i foregoing business by not bringing on additional staff. >> so diane swonk, did you see any bright spots in these numbers? >> well, the ongoing bright spot has been the hiring in the health-care industry. so we did see that continue to show incredibly strong gains. the health-care industry still adding to numbers and with the 1947 baby boomer its now retiring and consuming more health care, that will be something that you will see continue. although it is interesting. our consumption of health care and services has now become discretionary and it's actually growing at a slower pace than overall consumption which is something we didn't see in the past. and that's because of the trade off people are making. the other silver lining is the weakness that markets are reacting to globally have brought down oil prices quite significantly. it's trumped any saber-rattling in iran and that's very important. prices at the pump have been falling over the last month quite dramatically and they will continue to fall. and that's like a de facto tax cut to consumers and will help to buoy consumer spending even as employment remains somewhat 2e7 i had over the summer. and i think that's a very important thing in terms of keeping the momentum going and allowing us to reaccelerate by the end of the year. certainly we hope that happens. this has become deja vu. 9 problems we are facing are the same problems we faced last two years where mid year we hit a crisis either from europe or our own fiscal situation, the debt debacle of last summer comes to mind, combined and that causes a pause in economic activity. when you are already going in a traffic jam and sort of, you just got passed an accident, you accelerate a bit and then you see another accident, and everybody slows down. we just never hit a cruise control speed in this economy. >> none of this good news for the long-term unemployed. dieage swonk, thank you very much. and daniel gross. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: shields and brooks on today's jobs report and other matters; native american tribal lands under water; a catholic church official on trial in philadelphia; and peruvian novelist mario vargas llosa. but first, the other news of the day. here's kwame holman. >> holman: despite other signs of a slowdown, u.s. auto sales were up in may by double digits. chrysler sales rose 30% over this time last year, and both ford and g.m. had gains of better than 10%. toyota was up 87%. it faced severe vehicle shortages a year ago after the japanese earthquake and tsunami crippled its factories. the european union got a boost today in its bid to rein in public spending and the debt of member states. officials in ireland announced voters there ratified the e.u.'s new fiscal treaty, with tighter rules on deficits. but in debt-stricken greece, the leader of a radical left coalition vowed to cancel an international austerity package if his party wins elections this month. >> i want to make clear that the first act of the government of the left, as soon as the new parliament is sworn in, will be the cancellation of the bailout and its implementation laws. >> holman: the greek vote is june 17. new polls show the pro- and anti-bailout factions running neck and neck. the u.n. human rights council condemned syria today for last week's massacre in houla. the panel called for an independent investigation into the 108 civilian deaths. at the same time, thousands of syrians staged mass protests, charging the regime and its gunmen carried out the massacre. activists said security forces opened fire, killing five people. in neighboring lebanon, the u.n.'s special peace envoy kofi annan conceded there's been no progress. >> i know we are all impatient. we are also frustrated by the violence, by the killings. so am i. i think perhaps i'm more frustrated than most of you. because i'm in the thick of things. and would really want to see things move much faster. >> holman: meanwhile, news emerged of another mass killing- - 11 factory workers killed thursday by gunmen. the opposition and the syrian government blamed each other. a record-breaking wildfire kept growing in new mexico today, and fire officials said it could burn for weeks. the big blaze has spread across 340 square miles in the gila national forest. a wall of thick smoke hovered today over the isolated, mountainous area, where more than 1,200 firefighters labored. the fire is the largest ever in new mexico. a florida judge has revoked bond for george zimmerman in a killing that touched off nationwide protests. he's charged with murdering 17-year-old trayvon martin in february. the judge originally let zimmerman go free on $150,000 bond. today, he ruled the suspect misled the court about how much money he had raised from a web site. zimmerman was ordered back to jail within 48 hours. britain made ready today to celebrate queen elizabeth ii's diamond jubilee-- 60 years on the throne. we have a report from richard pallot of independent television news. >> ed is a luted from the appropriately named hms diamond, echoing around portsmouth harbor this morning to officially begin the celebration. >> hip hip hooray. >> those who have known just a fraction of the queen's reign already have the wave mastered. as the carriage took them to school in the midlands. as elsewhere both young and old prepared for four days of festivities and thanks. >> we all love the queen. we just want to celebrate. we're here today -- >> reminiscent of the queen's silver jubilee, some 35 years ago. then most streets or at least one nearby have some sort of party. and this time 9,500 streets in england and wales will be shut as residents celebrate. far eclipsing the numbers of last year's royal wedding. while in bath, a flag that has been unused for those entire 60 years was unif you recalled once again, at the very same building where it hung for the kor nation. -- coronation. >> holman: those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: more now on today's jobs report with shields and brooks. that is syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. you're together again. great to have you. >> so not the greatest jobs report, mark, what does it mean for the presidential election? >> judy, there's no silver lining. it is not a tin lining, not a chrome lining, there's nothing that is good here for the president. the late bob feeter who was george herbert walker bush's campaign chairman and pollster remarked after the 1992 campaign which president bush lost that while the economy was improving, that it takes a full three months before that for people to get a sense of change and improvement in the economy. and this is getting closer. we're now into june. and these numbers, when people attitudes are starting to solidify on how they feel about the economy. so i guess the only bright spot if there is one, in margaret's piece, retail sales are up, car sales are up, gas prices are still down. but what was missing it seemed to me from the administration and the president was any sense of this is what we want to do. i mean should he call 9 republican house and say we have to pass the highway billing passed the senate, we lost 28,000 construction jobs this is something we ought to do right now. instead of sort of a back and forth, and it's europe and it's too many problems. >> woodruff: and the white house is saying, the president is going to say in his saturday address tomorrow he will call on congress to do something. >> yeah, i'm not sure how much-- i mean listen, we are borrowing a trillion dollars a year, borrowing 40 cents on the dollar, dow really think if we bore a trillion.1 a year somehow that will magically transform the economy. i'm dubious. this is structural problem, as people said. it's the fear factor. you've got, first of all you had health care, what is my health care going to look like. then the budget debacle which is most the republicans fault last summer. then you've got europe which is in a stage of, i think, slow collapse. then you've got china and india growth slowing. then 9 fiscal cliff in december. so you've got just uncertainty piling on uncertainty, government introducing uncertainty even more than we've already got. and so the economy six months out really matter approximates in elections. and there's not that much reason to think it's going to get suddenly better. >> so is there time? i moan maybe it's not the time yet to ask this question. but is there time for the president to turn it in his direction? >> is time running out for him. >> well, it's an an even race t really is it is within the margin of error. but i think it's the kind of race that if the numbers continue to trend in this direction, and we all pray as americans that they don't, because we don't want to see further suffering, the statistics don't bleed but we know behind all of these numbers that there are human beings and families that are facing tragedy every day. but you know, then it becomes a race about disqualifying, a campaign about disqualifying euro upon enterment and that's not an attractive or appealing. it's not hope in change, it's blood and guts. >> i without say it's also hard to do. most elections are referendums. and on the record. it's very hard for an incumbent to make a choice election. so the president is going to try, he is going to have toment to some extent you have to feel sorry for him. to some large degree this is in the his fault. i don't believe a president has control over a quarterly economy in any case. but the your pone situation is certainly those his-- not his fault, the chinese slowdown is not his fault. and the europe thing cannot be underestimated. there was a study by some economists this week that say greece leaves the euro peacefully. that reduces growth to 1.7. say it brings spain and italy, it as much messier, then 2 is even worse. obama has really very little control and he's sort of a victim of this myth that presidents control the economy your to your. >> woodruff: so mark, he may not be responsible for it all but will bear the brunt. one thing he has been saying, he has been going to individual state, swing states where the economy is doing a little better than for the country as a whole am could that provide some salvage? or -- >> it's providing encouragement, console says-- consolation for democrats that know the winds have turned north. i think, judy, in the final analysis, people's assessment of the economy is national. it's the national unemployment rate. it's dow jones average. it's how people feel about the country. those are all national figuresment you may feel better personally about your own situation if your state is doing better. it probably helps in a place like ohio because you can make the case there that the president's initiative and leadership on the auto bailout has made the and turned ohio around. i think you can do that. but right now, iowa is in dead heat that is an unemployment rate. >> that-- would you like to think he will be saved by tracking, that-- fracking, that the energy industry will pull him out even though he hasn't been the strongest champion. you look at the polls. the swing states are not out of the ode. you know, the growth in the oil sector, energy sector isn't bringing him that much. and in places like ohio they are just dead even, colorado, dead even amount of lot of those states, just dead even right now. >> meanwhile, remarkable story in "the new york times", your paper this morning, david, about the white house being behind this massive effort to do a computer attack on iran's nuclear program. so-called stuck-- mark, what are we to make of this? >> i think, judy, there are several parts to it i mean first of all, it's a message that we are doing more to pursue our national security then simply putting boots on the ground and troops in places like iraq and afghanistan. i think it's also a message that to those who are urging military confrontation or invasion to iran, that we are-- have means of disabling and certainly hurting their capacity. >> almost imvisible means. >> almost imvisible means. and i think it's also, at a political level, an attempt just as the drone story was earlier in the woke, to show the president as a commander in chief, hands on, personally engaged, personally involved and to communicate strength. >> woodruff: north "new york times" story, your paper, how closely the president is monitoring and making decisions on who gets hit. >> right. and the latest story was, well, the latest story was david sanger, a remarkable story. and i think president bush pulled obama aside before the inauguration and said we've got these two programs. 9 drones. the stuck-- they didn't call it that, they called it olympic games. here's what you should do. and i think obama has continued extremly aggressively. he's kind of a ruthless guy polit clee and in foreign affairs. and i think he has done it pretty well. there are some clear doubts about drones and legitimate doubts. should a white house have the power to essentially assassinate people. and we as the government most vuller-- vul neverable to cyberterrorism because of how much we rely on computers, we are now on record of saying yes, we have suffered-- we are doing it to others. so there is double edge sword here. nonetheless i think the bottom line is that especially vis-a-vis iran these are pretty effective programs. if you think government can't do anything, they were -- the iranians are wondering what is going on. why are these things spinning weirdly out of control. they were firing people, they thought there was something wrong with the machinery. we had people in our intelligence agencies doing something pretty impressive i would think. >> i would just say that there are a number of people who have grave moral reservations about the overreliance on dron. there is something nice about it because you don't see. >> woodruff: almost ant septic. >> ant septic and i don't get blood or gristle on my hands. i don't see people suffer. i think that was an attempt to show that the president is personally engaged, concerned about the collateral damage that he has subcontracted this out, been indifferent or just sort of delegated. but at the same time, i think the question asked is who would you least want to have as president right now, do you want that person having these powers. i mean i think the-- has been the criticism of the will be rals and the democrats on the left because it's barack obama. but if it were newt gingrich or somebody without they don't think as highly of or might think-- . >> woodruff: macking those decisions. >> making those decisions. >> woodruff: two surrogates in the news, david, this week. former president bill clinton and donald trump. trump out there talking up how he still doesn't believe the president was born in the united states. he is a surrogate for mitt romney. bill clinton saying that he doesn't agree with the obama approach of criticizing romney's record at bain capital. >> first on trump, he is certainly a mixed blessing. but i do think there is a positive side to the blessing. the negative side is obvious. but the positive side is there are a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of immigrants who go to trump university who buy trump books, who like the idea of trump tower. he is a symbol for a lot of americans of social mobility, of starting a business and making it. and so i do think he brings an audience, an important audience around so did is not automatic that you want to write the guy off. for president clinton, i don't think he should be out campaigning because he's former president, his independent thought, he is going to say what he thinks and he thinks that romney has a sterling records. that's to the going to be the strict talking point of the came page. i sort of like president bush's strategy to stay out of the campaign. i think former presidents should make pronouncements, not try to be surrogates for candidates. >> i disagree on both counts. i think donald trump -- >> donald trump is an unmitigated disaster. the same national survey that had the two men, bill clinton 67/29, favorable, donald trump was 29, 67 unfavourable. and that is the assessment. he talks about the birth of things. and one out of four believe that the president was not born in the united states. these are people, this is an expressed belief. nobody really believes it, because they loathe barack obama, they believe it it is the same way when somebody is against it, the science of global warming, they don't like it because they don't like the remedies of global warming so they reject it. that is what this is. he is not appealing to anybody. he is raising an issue that does mitt romney disservice. the problem is this is a campaign where all holes are barred for money. and will you go anywhere to get money. donald trump, donald trump in las vegas, sheldon adelson, $2 million. that's the price he paid with a day of stories about -- >> you are saying he does have a following and it is all about -- >> it's about money and i just think bill clinton is the most successful at it. the democrats did not have a surrogate. the romney administration has not developed a team of surrogates. >> the most effective ads are bill-- . >> finally, less than a minute, john edwards, verdict, to the guilty on one count and hung jury on the rest of it. >> yeah, i was glad he got acquitted, not that i think he is a sterling model of character but there are things you should not be prosecuted for. and i think what did was wrong but not prosecuted for. and so i thought it was fine. >> woodruff: it was all campaign finance violation whether he didn't tell the truth about spending campaign money for his mistress. >> yes, rich lowrie who is a colleague of ours on the show from time to time made the point that john edwards ought not to be in jail, he ought to be under a rock. and i means that's the sentence. the sentence is that wherever he goes, it's the first line of his obituary, unless he takes the talents which are enormous and really does something with it. and you know, outside of politics and public service. i mean i think he's capable of it he is a person of great car is pa and great talent. and i will be interested to see what he does for the rest of his life. >> woodruff: we will leave it there. mark shields, david brooks. thank you both. you can see still more with mark and david on the "doubleheader." that's on our web site coming up after this program. >> warner: now, coping with climate change. in this edition of our series, hari sreenivasan reports from the louisiana gulf coast, where rising sea water is claiming the land people have lived on for centuries. louisiana public broadcasting was our partner in this report. >> sreenivasan: it used to be a long walk for theresa dardar to reach her ancestors' cemetery here in coastal louisiana. we had to take a boat ride with her to visit the burial site that is surrounded by water, because coastal louisiana is sinking and the sea level around it is rising. >> we're not going to have anything for our children to see, you know, if it keeps on washing away, if they don't try to stop it some kind of way. well, they'll never see what we saw. >> sreenivasan: dardar is a member of the pointe-au-chien tribe. her tribe and several others settled on the edge of louisiana in the 1840s. that's when the indian removal act forced thousands of native americans off their land. they headed south and west to the bayou. now, different forces are taking their land away, again. albert naquin knows the sea is coming for his ancestral home. how much of this was all land? >> all that water was land. actually, it was all land except for a few ponds here and there. >> sreenivasan: isle de jean charles is a narrow ridge of land located in terrebonne parish. it is home to a native community descending from choctaw, houma, biloxi, and chitimacha indians. naquin is chief and grew up on the island. he left several years ago when the rising waters' damage to his home and livelihood became overwhelming. >> i was born there in 1946. >> sreenivasan: and what was life like? >> life was good. life was... it was like paradise, actually. if i was to be reborn again as a child, i'd want to be raised there, if the community was like it was back in 1946. >> sreenivasan: in the 1950s, the island was 11 miles long and five miles across. now, it is no more than two miles long and a quarter mile across. where residents once used to trap, hunt and plant gardens, dead trees stand in ghost forests because their root systems were unable to adapt to the saltwater intruding from the gulf. alex kolker studies what is happening here. he teaches coastal geology at the louisiana universities marine consortium. >> the ground at which louisiana sits on is sinking, and it's sinking at a relatively high rate. >> sreenivasan: he says some of the reasons that the land is sinking and eroding so quickly are manmade ones. in the 1920s, people built levees to channel the mighty mississippi river. that prevented floods, but robbed the marshlands of necessary sediment. without sediment, the barrier islands and wetlands that protected the coast from intense storms sank into the gulf. the marshes were damaged even more by decades of oil exploration. from the air, you can see the miles and miles of canals that were used to transport fuel out. even after the wells were shut down, the canals remained open, leaving pathways for the saltwater of the ocean to eat away at the freshwater wetlands. now, the rising sea level has added to the problem. the average sea level in southeast louisiana is rising at a rate of three feet every 100 years. that is according to 60 years of tidal gauge records. that's unusually high, say scientists like torbjorn tornqvist of tulane university. >> prior to the industrial revolution, the rates of sea level rise along the gulf coast, was about five times lower than it has been in the last century. the last time we-- this whole region-- experienced rates like at that rate is more than 7,000 years ago. >> sreenivasan: scientists say that, as the earth's temperature increases, the oceans also warm and water expands. the combination of rising oceans and sinking land means that louisiana's coastal sea level is rising at a higher rate than other coastal areas, says kolker. >> so, south louisiana has experienced rates that may be on the order of several centimeters a year, so maybe up to an inch a year, in some cases. >> sreenivasan: and the results of all that water are stark. in just the last 100 years, louisiana's coast has lost 1,900 square miles of land. that's an area of land the size of manhattan lost every year, or a football field every hour. >> the lesson that south louisiana can provide to the nation is what a high rate of sea level rise can do to the coast. and that is it can convert into open water, it can allow storm surges to propagate further inland, and be destructive to infrastructure and even people's lives. >> sreenivasan: it is a hard lesson and may get even harder. the state of louisiana recently drafted its own 50-year plan to restore the coast. state officials admit that maintaining the current coastline may be next to impossible, and they are trying to prepare for scenarios in accordance with the intergovernmental panel on climate changes reports, which predict that sea level rise will accelerate in the next century. but what does this mean for the native residents? many here lack the resources to leave. several tribes in the region are not recognized by the federal government, meaning they have no access to the assistance and benefits entitled to other native peoples. remaining residents like doris naquin say they are rooted on the island. >> you can't just uproot. like this oak tree, you can't just uproot it, and say, "well, i'm going to plant it somewheres else," because you know its going to die. you won't be able to plant it somewheres else, because it's too big now. well, we know too much, and we're too rooted and grounded here. >> sreenivasan: chris brunet is staying put as well. >> being native american, being a choctaw indian, its not like it's passive. it's very much home. this land may not be worth much in value, but this land has fed our people, this land has given to us. and we are still here. and this land may not be much, but this land is ours. >> sreenivasan: in spite of being in a wheelchair, and requiring an elevator to reach his house on stilts, chris brunet takes care of his niece and nephew, ages nine and ten. >> if you're living down here, it also takes a commitment. it's got to be more than just, "well, this is where i'm from." you got to say, "i want to live here, in spite of..." >> sreenivasan: storms frequently submerge the only road connecting isle de jean charles to the mainland, leaving residents like brunet stranded. >> if somebody gets sick, well then, they need to be air-med out of here. but that's just one of the things that you deal with. >> sreenivasan: but they are among the few who have stayed. less than 30 families now make their home here. too few to make levees worth the expense, according to louisiana's latest coastal plan. garret graves of the coastal protection and restoration authority was interviewed by our partners at louisiana public broadcasting. >> we determined that it would take literally hundreds of millions of dollars to build a levee around that community. you have about 30 homes there, and so when you do the math, looking at the amount of money it would take and the homes, it didn't rank as high as some other investments. we have put what we refer to as non-structural investments-- elevating homes, and in some cases, if the community chooses to relocate to other areas, we may even be able to provide assistance in that manner. but you have to prioritize. >> sreenivasan: those who remain are not giving up hope that their home will be saved. >> we're going to fight for it, and we're going to go to meetings and do whatever we need to do. >> sreenivasan: chief naquin supports those who choose to leave, but he also worries for the fate of his tribe as people are displaced and the tribe scatters. and for theresa dardar of the pointe-au-chien, the gulf is swallowing her tribal identity. what's a tribe without people or land? >> well, there is no tribe if you don't have, i don't think. i think you need your people and you need your land. our land is slowly washing away. >> sreenivasan: a cost that cannot be calculated for coastal louisiana. >> woodruff: there is much more about this subject on our web site, including slide shows with the residents of the threatened area, and arial views of how the land has changed over the last 50 years. >> warner: a philadelphia jury began deliberating today in a landmark criminal case against a catholic church official. monsignor william lynn is the first church figure to be targeted not for molesting children, but for concealing the abuse. lynn, secretary of the clergy for the philadelphia archdiocese for 12 years, is charged with conspiracy and endangering children. prosecutors say he protected suspect priests, and reassigned them to jobs where they could abuse children. closing arguments concluded yesterday after months of emotional testimony from victims of abuse, and lynn himself taking the stand. john martin has been in court throughout the 11-week trial, covering the story for the "philadelphia inquirer" and joins me now. >> thank you for joining us. let's start w tell us a little bit pore about monsignor lin what did it mean to be clergy of the secretary-- secretary of the clergy. >> right. >> woodruff: . >> warner: and then what is he accused of actually dmoing that job. >> okay, as secretary for clergy he was the more or less the human resources manager for all of the priests in the archdiocese in phil fism he was the official who responded directly to cardinal anthony bev lack watch. and he helped deal with-- with their assignments. any time the priests are problems, transfers and such. and he learned when he took the job that part of his job included investigating priests who had been accused of sexually abusing children. investigating and making recommendations to the cardinal about what to do about those priests. >> warner: and so what is he charged with doing. >> specifically, in this case, he is accused of just with two priests, with actually making recommendations to put these priests in parishes after either knowing or suspecting that they had already abused children. so therefore endangering children by putting these priests in a position to do it again. >> warner: so how did the prosecutors go about building this case in terms of getting into specific instances? >> well, and this is interesting because in philadelphia here like diocese all over the country, this blew up in the wake of boston after 25002. so what happened in philadelphia was there were many victims who came forward at that point in time. and there was a grand jury investigation back then by the district attorney in philadelphia. that grand jury investigation ended up a 500 page document, a report was issued outlining all of these claims that the church had hidden and concealed abuse over the years, yet at the time because of the law, the prosecutors decided the statute of limitations prevented them from bringing charges. this case against lin n this case they have two instances where the statute of limitations has since been amended so they were able to bring those charges and then they ultimately reintroduced all these old cases. and it was kind of a real pillar of the case is that prosecutors were able to reintroduce all these old claims against dozens of priests who weren't charged by claiming that only by hearing them will jurors understand the pattern, the long-standing pattern of practice that church leaders in the archdiocese of philadelphia used for decades to hide clergy sex abuse. >> warner: and the prosecutors called many victims to the stand s that right? that must have been incredibly emotionalment and how did monsignor lynn respond when he was in the courtroom and heard this? >> it was emotional. and it was, again, many of these stories had been printed in black and white in the previous grand jury report. but to actually see these witnesses come and take the stand and tell the story in their own voices was really compelling. i mean these were grown men and women who were telling things that happened 30 years ago as if they were yesterday. and they were very emotional. monsignor lynn said when he took the stand he's heard these stories and that he was pained by them as well. but again and again he said he did what he could but that his hands were to a certain extent tied. >> warner: but what was his basic defense? was he saying that he wasn't really in the position that you say he was? he didn't really get to make those appointments? >> right. he says a couple things. first of all, that his job was merely to make recommendations to the cardinal and to other aides to the cardinal. and it was the cardinal t was archbishop bevilacqua who alone had the power or authority to remove priests, who were suspected or believed to have abused children. lynn says he did what he could. he did as much as he could given the rules it that he had. his lawyers would put forth all sorts of memos to suggest that within days of getting an allegation lirntion would recommend a priest be removed from a parish and sent for treatment. >> warner: and tell us about, there was one particular document, some kind of a secret list of suspected pedophile priests that monsignor lynn had prepared. >> this became what both sides called the smoking gun in the case. and the existence of a list was known years ago. lynn had testified years ago in a previous grand jury that yes, he did make a list early in the '90s identifying priests who were suspected of abuse. but nobody could find this list. and just this year it happened two weeks after bevilacqua died, the cardinal had died, church lawyers said we found this list. it was hidden in a safe that nobody knew about. on this list that monsignor lynn had himself drafted in 1994 were the names of 37 priests. and he had them listed in three categories. either diagnosed as pedophile, priests who were guilty of sexual misconduct with minors or priests who were suspected but against whom the evidence was inconclusive. so this list was something his lawyer said this list was something that he compiled because he wanted to try to get a grasp of the problem going on in philadelphia. prosecutors said this list is the smoking gun because there were names of priests on there in 1994 who stayed in parishes for years to come after that case. >> warner: and john let me just ask you, how widely is this case being watched nationally by the church? >> i think it is being watched nationally for two reasons. one, there r i have been told there are prosecutors in other jurisdiction. and we know about in kansas city the bishop there has been indicted or charged in a similar sort of endangerment case. so prosecutors are watching it in terms of a potential blueprint. the idea of the first time being able to go after the institution for covering up clergy abuse. and then the second aspect of it is here in philadelphia, there is a belief among some advocates that if monsignor lynn is found guilty there is going to be a wave of lawsuits. and those lawsuits, as in other archdiocese, in other diocese could potentially cripple this. and this would be probably the largest to be impacted like that. >> warner: well, john martin of the philadelphia enqirrerer, thank you. >> thank you >> woodruff: finally tonight, jeffrey brown talks to one of the world's leading writers, a man who folds history and contemporary politics into his writing. >> brown: receiving the nobel prize for literature in 2010, mario vargas llosa told his audience a story, his own. >> "once upon a time, there was a boy who learned to read at the age of five. this changed his life. he learned a way to escape a poor house, a poor country, the poor reality in which he lived. >> brown: the acclaimed story- teller, one of the most celebrated writers in the spanish-speaking world and beyond, learned from the tales of others. >> reading was such an enrichment of my life. and it was that pleasure that i had as a very young reader that is probably the origin of my vocation. >> brown: so here's a younger version of the writer, eh? >> yes, that's probably in the '70s. >> brown: vargas llosa and i met recently at the americas society in new york to talk about his life and work. he was a key figure in the latin american boom of the 1960s and '70s, when the literature of a continent burst on the worldwide scene, the product of writers including gabriel garcia-marquez of colombia, julio cortazar of argentina, carlos fuentes of mexico. >> it was a fantastic experience to share it with so many writers. it was very interesting, not only because the rest of the world discovered latin american literature, but because latin americans discovered that they had a literature of their own, that was, until then i would say, very isolated and concentrated in very, very small minorities. this has changed very much since-- very, very much. >> brown: the peruvian-born vargas llosa helped lead the way with novels that explored contemporary latin american life and politics, from comedy to tyranny, as well as its layers of history. his new novel, titled "the dream of the celt," paints on an even wider canvas. it's based on a real-life character, an irishman named roger casement, who in the early 1900s went to the belgian congo and, later, the amazon, and wrote scathingly of colonialism's abuses and horrors. >> i think the great merit of roger casement is that he was a first european denouncing this, and denouncing this not as an exceptional phenomenon but as a natural consequence of what colonialism is in its roots. >> when you have a real life character, and you've done this before to great effect, how much freedom of imagination do you allow yourself? >> total freedom. i investigate and i take notes. all these for me are just an exercise to put into action inventiveness, fantasy. in general, i think my freedom of invention is not limited when i use historical characters. on the contrary, you know, the real facts give me a lot of suggestions and ideas to fantasize around. >> brown: i would imagine, knowing a number of your other novels, that when you heard of this story, you were drawn to it because it allowed you to look at history and a lot of other important themes, right? >> oh, yes. and i have always been fascinated and seduced by history, which i think is very close, very close to literature. >> brown: different ways of telling a story, is it? >> yes! telling a story, and also of creating a kind of order, an artificial order that puts some sense in this chaos in which we live. the other reason why i like these, let's say, large subjects is because i have lived in a country and in a region in which all these basic problems are not yet solved. if you live in america or in france or in britain, these basic problems are, in a way, already solved, you know. but in latin america-- peru, colombia or ecuador or cuba or venezuela, these basic problems are yet unsolved. >> brown: indeed, vargas llosa has been a writer very much engaged in the history of his own time. in 1990, he plunged directly into the political arena, running unsuccessfully for the presidency of peru. and a long-running column on politics and culture for the spanish newspaper "el pais" is distributed to this day throughout latin america. a collection of those essays, titled "touchstones", is available in english. vargas llosa says that, for latin american writers of his generation, literature was never an isolated endeavor. >> we were trained as writers with the idea that literature is something that can change reality, that it's not just a very sophisticated entertainment, but a way to act. today, these ideas have disappeared practically among the new generation. now, the young writers consider that it's too pretentious to think that literature can produce this kind of thing. but when i was young, when i started to write, we were totally convinced that literature was a kind of weapon. >> do you still think that? >> let's say with less naivete, with less optimism than back when i was young. but still, i don't accept the idea that literature can be just entertainment and that there is no consequences of literature in the real world. if this is true, i think gives the writer a kind of responsibility that is not only literary but also moral. >> brown: all right, mario vargas llosa, nice to talk to you. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: may was the worst single month for job growth in a year with only 69,000 new jobs. and it pushed the national unemployment rate up to 8.2%. the grim numbers sparked a sell- off on wall street. the dow industrials lost nearly 275 points. and the u.n. human rights council condemned syria for the massacre of 108 people in houla. and to kwame holman for what's on the newshour online. kwame. >> holman: we have more on today's jobs numbers with paul solman's own measure of unemployment. that's on his "making sense" page. plus, tonight's "need to know" features a comprehensive look at massachusetts' health care reform, pushed by then-governor mitt romney, and how it's working now. find a link on our homepage. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. margaret. >> warner: and that's the newshour for tonight. on monday, we'll look at the fierce national debate on government's role playing out in the recall election in wisconsin. i'm margaret warner. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. "washington week" can be seen later this evening on most pbs stations. we'll see you online, and again here monday evening. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: at&t by nordic naturals >> 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. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> this is "bbc world news america." funding for this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu. newman's own foundation. and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers use their expertise in global finance to guide you through the business strategies and opportunities of international commerce. we put our extended global network to work for a wide range of companies, from small businesses to major corporations. what can we do for you?