emotional climax to a journey of more than eight months for curiosity. the recovery, itself, even joined the party with a tweet that read "i'm safely on the surface of mars. gale crater i am in you." just minutes later curiosity sent back its first set of black and white images from the crater showing its wheel and shadow. the $2 been 5 billion project came down to what scientists dubbed the seven minutes of terror. depicted in nasa animation, a highly complex series of landing maneuvers never before/x'p trie. curiosity began the atmospheric acrobatics into the thin martian air at 13,000-miles-per-hour. a supersonic parachute deployed to help slow the one-ton object as it hurdled toward the planet. then the heat shield separateed from the recovery and the parachute came away. and from there, a kind of sky crane powered by eight rockets supplied the final braking and used a set of cables to lower curiosity to the surface at a speed of just two-miles-per-hour. from orbit another u.s. spacecraft, the mars reconnaissance orbiter captured images of the parachute deploying. color photos of video of the landing were expected in the next few days. meanwhile, back on earth... [applause] the excitement carried into the post landing news conference. deputy project manager richard cook. >> that rocks, seriously is that cool or what? [cheers and applause] i have been lucky enough to have done this now four times and it never gets old. seriously. it's just a great experience. >> now, that it's on mars curiosity will spend two years collecting samples that may show whether there was ever life on the red planet. the robot is loaded with a number of cameras and other tools, including a power drill and a laser. first, though, engineers will check out the systems before sending the craft on a test drive. some reaction now on a very big day. first, from one of the principal leaders of the nasa team. john grunsfeld is an associate administrator at nasa. i spoke with him earlier today after "curiosity" landed. >> john grunsfeld thank you for joining us and congratulations. i think we heard this in the cheers but what was the reaction there today? >> well, you know it was really interesting because you know, this is the culmination of over five years of work, 7,000 people around the country to make the curiosity recovery the mars science laboratory and last night here in pasadena, california at the jet propulsion lab, the mars hit the top of the mars atmosphere for seven minutes of terror before it landed safely on the surface. at each of the critical events the guided entry, the parachute opening the sky crane rockets lighting the lowering down of the crane, it was just one image of disbelief after another that everything was really coming together and working. to the point that when the s crane put the curiosity recovery gently on the surface and we all saw the data that indicated that it had landed, there was almost a moment of silence when people said wow. it made it. and then, of course, the team erupted in just jubilation that it had actually worked. and fortunately, the curiosity recovery was programmed to take a couple of quick snapshots and send postcards back, little stamps, if you will, of the images at the landing site. it was the start of that jubilation all over again. >> what were you most worried about on this 350 million mile mission? were there any indications of trouble? or did things go smoothly the whole way? >> amazingly, it was i would say pretty smooth the whole way. in fact, so much so that you know in the last few days, you know, the few of us were tart stocus werestarting to worry whe miss. the team screwednized everything. we've honed our skills from the mars exploration recoveries and the reconnaissance orbiter our experience at other planets, orbiting saturn. we launched the juno mission to jupiter. this is you know, one of the most talented teams we have at nasa and at nasa, i think, we have the best of the best on planet earth. maybe mars, too. that is one of the things we will try and find out with curiosity. >> and what are you looking for in the images in the data coming back from curiosity? what do you expect to see and to learn? >> well, these early images are just really engineering images pictures to tell us a little bit about where we landed. and over the next few hours and over the next couple of days we'll start to get more of a perspective where we landed. we targeted the curiosity recovery to land in an area called gale crater. and specifically, it was targeted because it is a very deep crater and in the middle is a mountain that has been dubbed mount sharp after a keltic geologist and in the sides of this mountain we see evidence that water flowed on mars. we know that in other places and we've actually land now with the phoenix lander on ice, but what we want to study is the history, the water history and the geological history of mars. and we can do that just as on earth we studied the grand canyon to go back a couple billion years in earth's history on mars we can go back even further through the study of rocks and the minerals to try and understand how did mars form? how did it evolve? what were the conditions like billions of years ago when mars was warmer and wetter and in those times, could mars have supported life? and maybe if we hit the grandslam and there was life on mars we might be able to detect in the geology in the rocks themselves, the chemical signatures of that which what would likely have been microbial life but that is a longshot. we have no idea whether mars supported life and that is why we sent curiosity to answer that question. it's part of the quest to answer that fundamental human question that we all want to know is are we alone in the universe? is there life elsewhere. >> john grunsfeld of nasa, thank you again. and congratulations. >> thanks very much. and i hope everybody looks forward to a very exciting couple of years on mars. >> woodruff: and some perspective on this feat now from newshour science correspondent, miles o'brien. he joins us from houston. >> miles, they could barely wipe the smiles off their faces. there was such elation there among the nasa team. was there a different level of excitement about this than other missions, do you think? >> yeah, judy i have a smile on my face seeing john thinking about what lies ahead over the couple years as curiosity starts exploring mars in ways we have not seen it. but the stakes were so high in this case. the mars program on the line. facing budget cuts. there is a lot of concern about what is next after curiosity. matter of fact as this landing was occurring a blue ribbon panel was going through and replanning future missions because of cuts proposed by the obama administration which would hit the mars program very hard. couple that with the fact that it's $2.5 billion worth of cookies in one basket coming down. not having two recoveries as we had in 2004. ratchets up the pressure in ways that are hard to imagine. imagine people having a career where a decade gets baked into that one, seven-minute period and you get a gold medal or you don't show up for work the next day. that is what was gng on in the room so the eruption makes a lot of sense. >> so they were feeling the pressure from everywhere. and from the public. the people all over the world wereatching this. >> yeah, it's interesting how mars captivates people, judy. back to the pathfinder mission in the early '90s that was one of the first great internet spectacle moments millions of hits when we were not on the internet like we were. last night surpassed any records we can imagine on internet access to a news event. what, i think, interests people and so exciting about this, it's really unprecedented if you think about it in history, the average person armchair scientists you and i have access to the same data at the same time that the scientists do. we can all be on mars together and armchair analyze this data together we are all on mars as part of this effort together and there's nothing quite like that in science, really and nothing quite like that in space. >> we heard john grunsfeld explain the search for life -- i did not get the word right, small life, i guess it is. on mars. very small life. >> yes. how much do they know miles, help us understand how much they already know and how much yet there is to discover? >> well, we've been going through a slow interim process of building the story of potential life on mars. you know, spirit an opportunity about settling a question that we think we knew that at one time mars was warm and wet. they have of evidence to say that was in fact the case. we don't have to debate that anymore. if there was debate prior.kz now, what else do you need for life? three things; wherever we have moisture and water on this planet we have life, and some source of energy, whether it is the sun or the ocean coming from the center of the earth essentially. and we have to have some sort of carbon material. those are the three things for life as we know it. we know that water was once there. now let's go after the issue of the carbon. and that is what curiosity is all about. it's going to go through and think about it. you could take a big drill and try to drill a core sample or take advantage of what mother nature did which is create a huge hole in the ground there with the asteroid three billion years ago which lays bare all the layers of sediment with reveal three billion years of history if you know how to read it. curiosity knows how to read t the scientists in pasadena know how to read it and we will tell the story of what happened along the way there over the next couple of years. >> and miles do we expect the information is going to come back in a burst at the end of the two years? or in a steady stream for the next 24 months? do we know that? >> well, first of all, everybody has to be patient on this one. if you recall with spirit and opportunity, the pictures started coming down immediately. those were sprint missions designed to last 90 days. opp.ñ! years 8 later. based on that math, curiosity could last 30 years. 30 times longer. the fact is this is a much more complicated mission. it is baseline for two years which is one martian year, 98 weeks. so they will take their time understanding this complex machine how it operates on mars. the first month we'll see images for sure. we are not going to see it move until september. we are not going to see it drill into a rock until the fall. it will take a while as it builds up steam and the pipeline gets going, we will start seeing science very intriguing science coming down, i predict. >> well a very exciting start and we'll try to contain our impatience. miles o'brien thank you. you're welcome. >> brown: still to come on the newshour, investigating the shooting in a sikh temple; syria's prime minister defects to jordan; the unfinished business congress left behind; and climate scientist james hansen. t first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: for the third straight month, mitt romney and the republican party have raised more campaign money than president obama and the democrats. romney and the republican national committee reported today that they brought in more than $101 million in july. the president and the democratic national committee raised $75 million. the election is just over three months away. the company that triggered chaos on wall street last week managed to stave off collapse today. knight capital group got $400 million from an investor group in exchange for majority control. knight's stock plunged after it flooded the market with false orders last wednesday, due to major computer mistakes. on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained 21 points to close at 13,117. the nasdaq rose 22 points to close near 2990. security all along egypt's border with israel was on high alert today, after an attack that killed 16 egyptian police. authorities said more than 30 islamist gunmen assaulted a sinai border post at the town of rafah on sunday. today the scene was littered with burned-out vehicles. some of the attackers had died in israeli air strikes after storming the border fence. egyptian officials vowed to hunt down the rest. >> my deep condolences to the egyptian people and families of the victims of yesterday's attack. this criminal act will not go by easily and there will be a quick response soon. >> sreenivasan: egypt'muslim brotherhood, in a web site posting, attributed the attack to mossad, the israeli intelligence agency. israeli officials dismissed that claim and said the attackers were likely islamist militants from gaza. they charged the actual goal was to kidnap an israeli soldier or civilians. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu: >> i would also like to express sorrow for the killings of the egyptian soldiers. i think it is clear that israel and egypt have a common interest to keep the border between us quiet. at the same time, it turns out, time and again, that when it comes to the security of israeli citizens, the state of israel must and can rely only on itself. >> sreenivasan: sunday's attack was among the worst ever against egyptian soldiers. it marked an escalation in a long-running islamist insurgency in sinai. the boy scouts of america is promising to do more to bar sexual predators from its adult ranks. the statement followed a "los angeles times" report sunday. it focused on the scouts' so- called "perversion files" of more than 1,200 cases from 1970 to 1991. the "times" found at least 125 cases of men suspected of sexual abuse moving from troop to troop. they did so despite a blacklist meant to prevent that from happening. olympics the u.s. team had ups and downs. spoiler alert. if you don't want to know the results yet. in soccer, the u.s. women beat canada 4-3 to advance to the gold medal match against japan. and jennifer won the gold medal in the women's pole vault and gabby douglas failed for the bid in the gold medal and placed lastn the bars. and nick de popolo tested positive for marijuana he ate a tainted brownie before the games. and felix sanchez we captured the men's 400-meter hurdles. he is 35. back to jeff. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jeff. >> brown: more details emerged today about yesterday's deadly shootings at a sikh temple in wisconsin. yesterday we received the call from inside the sikh temple there was a problem going on and that somebody was firing inside of there. >> the gunman killed six people and critically wounded three more with a .9 millimeter handgun before being killed by police. this morning he was identified as wade waud a 40-year-old -- wade michael page, a fowrd 0-year-old army veteran. >> there's much put out in the media regarding him and some of that we are looking at. we can say that he was in the military. from 1992-1998. he had a general discharge. and that he was inedgal for reenlistment. >> police and standard officials felt sure that the gunman acted alone. they had nothing to say about a possible motive for the shootings. but f.b.i. special agent therese carlson said the case is being treated as a possible domestic terror incident. >> there are indicators that this could be a domestic terrorism case. we are happy to take it on. the definition of domestic terrorism is that use force of violence for social or political gain. so that is obviously what we are looking at. >> today, one watchdog group, the southern poverty law center reported page was a "frustrated neonazi." indeed violence against half a million sikhs in the u.s. increased since 9/11. some claim that the turbines are islamic symbols. but sikh leaders in wisconsin insisted they would not be intimidated. >> if you see a turbine gentleman in this kre, he or me is likely to be a sikh. we like to take pride in who we are. and we like to display that with conviction. >> reporter: the shootings also echoed in india where the majority of the world's 27 million sikhs live. there were protests in new deli and voices of outrage and frustration. >> it's very shocking. a country like the u.s.a. which says we are the superpower in the world. could not protect their own people in their own country.)yq >> in washington president obama offered condolences to the oak creek victims and appealed to americans of all kinds to come together. >> we don't yet know fully what motivated this individual to carry out this terrible act. if it turns out as early reports indicate that it may have been motivated in some way by the ethnicity of those who were attending the temple, i think, the american people immediately recoil against those at attitudes. >> coming weeks after the murders in colorado, the president called for soul search being gun violence and again stopped short for calling for new laws. law enforcement officials in wisconsin said the gun used in yesterday's shooting had been purchased legally. an and for more on this, we turn to latoya dennis, who's covering this story for milwaukee public radio. and amardeep singh, co-founder and director of the sikh coalition, the largest sikh civil rights organization in the united states. starting with you i know the details are just emerging what more can you fill in as to the alleged gunman? who is known so far? >> well, what i can tell you, right now, is that police and neighbors in the area where he lived say that he was a bit of a reclues. he was not necessarily mean but he was not a friendly guy. he was not someone who allowed you to get to know him. as far as what police are saying about him, they are saying there's not yet a motive. they are not ready to talk about that. we do know they were at the duplex where he supposedly lived last night in that area was cleared out for a while. people have been allowed to return home but we don't know if anything was uncovered there. >> as for the moment, though, they do feel confident that he acted alone? >> yeah, yesterday there were reports on the scene as many as four shooters and police say that they are pretty certain at this point he watt the lone gunman and that the reports of multiple shooters were just in the heat of the moment and the people had different vantage points and no one was sure about what was going on. to ensure that they did have the guy and there was only one, the area was locked down for quite sometime while s.w.a.t. came in and searched. >> and what did we learn today about the victims? >> le what we learned there were five men and one woman and they ranged in age from i believe it was 39 to the 80s. and you know it's just a sad time for the victims and their families. there was one police officer who was critically wounded. and i believe he was shot eight or nine times at close range. he is still in the hospital with two other people who were wounded. >> they described rather dramatic scene when he arrived on the scene. and trying to help one of the victims. and then was essentially, i think the word that waspw[aáuses "ambushed." >> exaly. the lieutenant brian murphy was the first person on the scene, i do believe. and he was ambushed by the gunman. he was shot again eight or nine times at close range. other officers arrived and they did not realize at that time that officer murphy had been shot. and you know, they told the gunman to put down the gun. and he did not listen. he fired at the vehicles. and they returned fire in exchange killing him. >> amardeep singh i would like to bring you in. there is, of course, a lot of confusion about your community and so i want to ask you straightforward question. how do you define yourselves? what is a sikh. >> a sikhism is disciple at the end of the day, the definition of a sikh is a learner and disciple. and you know we have three core tenants for our daily lives. we believe in working hard and honestly and we are arrest respecting our creator. and we believe in sharing our bounty with others and the third obligation is remember god in everything we do. i'm remembering god as a signifier of this obligation we wear the turbine as an external uniform. our turbine is a reminder to us of our obligation to stand for justice and be compassionate and loving in our interactions with people. >> and in the united states we use the number i've seen half a million does that sound right? and when did most of the community come? and how spread around the united states? terms of communities? >> the sikhs came to the country 100 years ago and there were two major population drives in the united states. first in the mid-1960s when immigration law was changed to allow more people from asia to come to the united states. there was a big population surge. and in the 1980s, when there was political unrest in india, involving the state where sikhs reside let to reled to a large n coast. the east coast and the west coast have larger populations. >> what nature are they to help think about the context for what happened yesterday? >> yeah just to give you a sense. since 9/11 our original saying, the sikh coalition documented literally thousands of either hate crimes instants of employment discrimination, school bullying, complaints of profiling by customs border patrol, transportation security administration, sort of complaints of discrimination that run the gamet. and we found though this hate crimes in a violent acts have largely dissipated minus what happened yesterday since 9/11 what remains and persists are less violent forms of discrimination. in particular, school bullying. and workplace discrimination and those still remain and endure i believe it's because we have had 11 years since 9/11 in which the american public when they see a turbine and a beard on tv it's the image of a terrorist. so we created a culture in this country after 9/11 where turbine equals terrorist. and sikhs have been collateral damage of that association. >> so is it a situation where members of the sikh community around the country work closely with law enforcement? or stay in touch to just precisely because of such incints as you've described? >> yeah, you know, i think our law enforcement has been wonderful after 9/11 and, again, this incident is a good example of law enforcement circling the wagons doing their job and working to protect the community as best they k but the real problem is that we have not done enough as a community or the country to change hearts and minds. until folks understand that when they see a person like me that i might be a construction worker or gas station worker or teacher or lawyer or doctor or dentist rather than a terrorist. until we change heartsp minds we are going to continue to run into the problems we've seen post 9/11 with school bullying, hate crimes and employment discrimination and profiling. >> la toya back to you in terms of where this goes next as we said, there is a lot of focus on whether the alleged gunman wade michael page has these connections to any kind of neonazi or extremist groups. what do we know so far? and what is law enforcement looking at at this point? >> well, law enforcement is not confirming this at this point but it's being reported by the southern poverty law center that the alleged shooter did have connections to you know, white supremacist groups and at one point he was the lead singer of a white supremacist band. again, this is not being you know, this is not being reported bylaw enforcement. but other people are digging into his background. and the southern poverty law center says it's been tracking the shooter since 2000 and that you know this is definitely the guy. >> and mr. singh, you are there in the community. what about the local community there in the milwaukee area? what are its concerns right now? >> i think right now, what i've noted being an outsider coming from new york to support the community here, is that there is a lot of shock. my guess is that when the funeral services start happening for the victims we'll start seeing people really starting to grieve. what i've noticed is a combination of shock and a lot of gratitude for the good work of law enforcement addressing this issue and the strong hand of the federal government particularly the president in reaching out to the community and conveying the nation's support of the sikh community in our moment of need. >> amardeep singh and latoya dennis thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: next to syria, where the ruling government suffered more defections today as the civil war raged on. margaret warner has the story. oday we've announced the defect of mr. riyad hijab syrian prime minister. >> with that, a spokesman for the prime minister delivered another blow to president bashar al-assad's government. >> he was chosen to be part of the criminal regime but he decided to join the syrian people and their blessed revolution. >> word came that three other cabinet members had defected. syrian statexq minister riyad hijab was fired. and a replacement assumed his duties. riyad hijab is a sunni sworn in six weeks ago. he was thought to be a loyalist to assad and served home to a large population from the present's minority sect. in neighboring turkey today rebels with the free syrian army that riyad hijab's defection is a sure sign that time is running out for assad. >> what happen second natural. the regime is get close to the end. the collapse began after the killing of the committee in damascus and the defection of the prime minister is the beginning of the end and will be followed by the capture of aleppo in the future god willing. >> meanwhile fierce fighting ranged on in aleppo syria's capital. rebels are trying to withstand heavy shelling from tanks and helicopters ahead of an expected all-out forces. the opposition is mounting attacks too. in damascus, a bomb blast ripped through the state tv building wounding three people. no one claimed responsibility, but bombings and suicide attacks have become more frequent in damascus. on another front in the escalading civil war this hour takes us back to syria where news coming out of the country says terrorists kidnapped 48 iranian pilgrims. >> yesterday video emerged of what were said to be 48 iranians kidnapped off a bus saturday by syrian rebels. iran insisted they were shi'ite religious pilgrims visiting a shrine outside damascus. the rebels said they were thugs sent by iran's revolutionarycp guard. today, the rebels reported three of the captives been killed by army shelling in damascus and they threatened to kill the rest if the assault did not stop. and fo for more on all of this, i'm joined by two scholars with new books on syria. bassam haddad directs the middle east studies department at george mason university. his new book is "business networks in syria." and david lesch is a professor at trinity university in san antonio, texas. he interviewed bashar al-assad several times between 2004 and 2009. his new book is "syria: the fall of the house of assad." dave kartunen beginning with, you what significance do you see in the latest defections coming on top of earlier ones? >> well, they are serious blows to the regime coming on top of earlier defections as well as the imprsion that the reb bells on the ground are making military inroads against the regime. however, you know, the office of the prime minister is not a very powerful position in syria under bashar it is mostly an administrative post. it's been a disposable one since the beginning of the u uprising. and perception is more important than reality and the perception the regime is on the defensive. it could be crumbling with these increasing defections. and if many of the syrians who are viewing this also see it as crumbling, especially those sitting on the fence then you could have a cascade of defections which will undermine the foundation of the regime. >> bassam haddad what would you add? the significance that he was sunni? >> well, that is at this point not significant. the main point about the defection of the prime minister is the that the office of the prime ministeroyk as my colleage said has for decades been an administrative office and it was not connected and is not connected to any serious threat of power. so that itself makes it less relevant that many people might assume. the second point is the conflicts itself right now descended into a purely military conflict. which means that such defections will in actuality will have little effect on the manner which the conflict proceeds. but it will actually open the door for more defections that many people have contemplated for sometime but now will probably actually carry out. >> dave kartunen, you've been close to this circle or you had endry. what is this inter circle, that really has power? and is it mostly aloe white, the sect that the shi'ites splinter sect that assad is from? >> it is. it is mostly ala white. there are sunnies supporting the regime in the business community but in the inner circle since the regime chose a security solution of this since the beginning of the uprising the military ascended in power more so than it had been. including bashar al-assad's brother and many of the other particularly generals in the military security apparatus. it is a very opaque ruling structure that has been difficult to penetrate by people on the scene for many, many years. but since the crisis began it's getting tighter and tighter and tighter and smaller and aloe white with the sunni defections. >> bassam haddad do you think that the president can control the country with a ruling circle that is becoming primary almost aloe white? they are only 10% of the population. >> the picture is not as stark. it's important to recognize that still the top levels in the military and security apparatuses are still sunnies and in society there are still large pockets if not very large pockets of support. not necessarily for the assad regime but for a prevention of a fall into the abyss. what is reporting has been ignoring especially from the west, is that syria is falling apart not just as a regime but as a country. and that is actually the biggest tragedy that i think is being shoved aside in favor of focusing on clichish things as the dictatorship in this situation where if the assad regime falls we are looking at a very, very tough process of reconstructing the country and certain parties benefit and these are the parties we should look at including conservative arab states some european states and the united states. >> let me go back to david. based on your time with assad explain to us the best you can his psychology at this point. are you surprised thatim& he is seems clearly not interested in any kind of deal any kind of power sharing? >> no, because over the years, i think he bought into the authoritarian structure of power in syria as happens frequently in regimes across the world not just in syria. and they have a bit of a differential terne active reality that has been constructed around them and thus they really do believe they are protecting the the country. that is the mandate for the assad's father and son ruling syria to provide security and stability and i believe they are still trying to do that perhaps without realizing totally that their security solution is caution more instability in the long-term. but syria has been under threat from the outside over the decades. so it doesn't take much to convince many syrians there are forces from the outside lurking with forces on the inside against the regime. >> do you agree there have been analysts in the u.s. government study sa sad that he seems -- assad that he seems disconnected from reality. would you go that far? >> no. because he has a different reality. you know, the syrians have a the nature of threat based on their historical experience which is different from ours. to them it's real and to them it's very true. and as bassam haddad said there is a different picture painted by the western press divorce from how they see reality. and which is the truth is very hard to discern but it's somewhere in the middle. >> bassam haddad briefly before we go, the u.s. government continues to call on other members of the regime to defect. those who are closest to him, do they have much incentive to defect especially members of his aloe white sect? >> there's little incentive for people to defect especially members of aloe white sects. >> because? the ship will either sink or swim altogether and the community is within that ship even if they resent the manner in which the regime dealt with the uprising. >> is that because they feel that essentially if this regime goes down they are going down? >> it's not -- that is a good question. it's not just a feeling. there is a real fear right now, a projected fear that the aloe white community and other minority groups will actually have to pay the price for just being such on their id in terms of how they are identified. and unfortunately, the united states has done a lot more to provoke rather than actually push the opposition to do things such as engage in dialogue in order to prevent a calamity. and that is actually where the story should go. because this is bound to happen unless there is this kind of interference that calls for dialogue which turkey, the arab states and the united states have prevented the opposition from doing. >> all right. bassam haddad thank you. and david lesch at trinity. thank you.ç÷ >> woodruff: tonight we begin a series of reports on the unfinished business congress left behind when it took off for its august recess. among the issues remaining on the table: whether to extend the bush-era tax cuts, protecting the nation from cyber attacks, helping the postal service's fiscal picture, and a farm bill that would have provided emergency relief for drought- stricken areas. more than half the counties in the continental u.s.-- shown here in red-- have been declared eligible for federal disaster relief because of the drought. the farm bill is where we start tonight, with reporter daniel newhauser. he covers congress for "roll call." thank you for being here. >> thank you. with such a clear need out there, why didn't congress get this done on the farm bill? >> well, the major problem with it is that 80% of this bill funds the supplemental nutrition systems program known as food stamps. >> 80%? that is $400 billion. the house bill cuts $16 billion and that is too much for democrats and not enough for conservative republicans who want to cut more when this gets to the floor. i've been told by republican aides that if they brought this thing to the floor, the fight, the rift among the republicans would be so devastate to go would hurt them electorally because it's so close to the election in november. >> you are saying -- tell us about the division among republicans over this. >> sure. basically it is a matter of philosophy. they do not agree with food stamps. they want to cut $30 billion. but the leaders knew that they could not cut that much in the original bill --. >> the republican leadership. exactly. they would not get democratic support and they cannot pass it with >> what is it on the republican side who is opposing who wants deeper cuts in the food stamps? >> for instance there is a congressman tim houlescamp he vowed to offer an amendment to cut $33 billion. that is what they would have cut in the paul ryan budget. >> a serious cut. it's very serious cut. and there was not unanimity among republicans. many of them realized they could not cut that much. so speaker baner was facing a real division in his own. >> he still is. he said was the first to say last week that he just does not see 218 votes to pass this thing. >> were food stamps the only disagreement over this farm bill? there was agreement on the drought portion of it on the farm portion of it? >> a lot of agreement. and there's minor issues that they would be able to hash out and subsidies but the food stamp issue is the major force is this not getting through congress. >> talk a little bit more daniel about who is on which side on the food stamps. is it most conservative republicans? is it regional? geographic? >> every farm bill is regional to a certain extent. we have a good example in iowa. a drought-ravageed state and a huge agricultural center. we have steve king one of the most conservative republicans in the republican congress and he has been for sometime. he isvñub nay tough race against christy billsack, the agriculture secretary. and would object to snap cuts or object to food stamps in any normal setting but because his state is such an agricultural center and because the drought is so bad he wants it passed. and he is being hit back home not just by christy but by constituents. we are seeing this sort of pressure to get this thing done. >> you were telling us earlier today, the republican leadership was looking at the kind of pressure that these members were going to face as they went home. what do they expect is going to happen? it is a five-week recess. >> five-week recess it may take nothing short of a grassroots ground swell of constituent anger, pressure from ag groups to get this done when members come back. the divisions have been that badment they tried to pass a one-year extension of the 2008 farm bill and pulled last-minute because they did not have the votes. they barely squeaked through the drought aid package in the house and the senate refused to take it up because they have passed the five-year farm billism and they were not willing to go along with the deeper food stamp. >> that was not in the house drought aid package but there would have been cuts to conservation programs and environmental programs. >> it was a separate issue. what is seen at stake? in terms of looking at the farm communities around the country and they are facing as we described a terrible drought. what do they face? what is at stake here? >> this legislation expires in september 30th. after that, they would pretty much lose subsidize, lose emergency disaster relief and right now the people hit the hardest are livestock producers, cattle and sheep and tree producers because of the drought and also because of wildfires that happened in this past year. the emergency relief that was passed in the current farm bill actually expired in 2011. so they have nothing to fall back on right now. >> quickly what are the prospects for when congress comes back in september? >> we'll see. really, like i said, it will take this big constituent anger and members feeling like they are in danger for their jobs if they don't pass something. >> daniel, thank you very much. thank you. >> brown: next, climate change and extreme weather. scientists will now be looking very closely at this summer's data to try to better understand the latest drought. but today, a new paper was published linking extreme heat episodes of recent years-- including the texas and oklahoma drought of last year-- with climate change. it came from one of the first scientists to call attention to the phenomenon: james hansen, head of the nasa-goddard institute for space studies. hansen is also a professor of earth and environmental studies at columbia university. he spoke earlier with hari sreenivasan. dr. hansen thank you for joining us. >> sure. help us in a nutshell understand your findings. >> what we show is that there is a connection to the extreme weather events that we've been seeing. the probability of these unusually hot, hot spells, forest fires and extreme droughts has increased substantially over the last few decades. we had shown in -- i had shown dice in the 1980s when i testified to congress about global warming. and i said that the frequency of unusually warm seasons was going to increase. i used one dice for typical or average climate that existed 50 years ago. there were equal chances of average climate which was represented by a whiteside of a dice or unusually warm season which was red or cool which was blue. you had equal chances of those. but what we said is by the end of the century would would have loaded dice so that only one side would be normal, one side cooler than normal, and four sides would be unusually warm. now, in fact, that is what has happened. however, what i didn't think about at the time in the 1980s was that as we push the climate toward these hotterm.p climates, the higher temperatures, the extremes, the highest temperatures will be very extreme. and we are now getting about 10% of the area in a given summer is covered by what we call three standard deviation anomalies. those would have occurred only once or twice out of a thousand times. 50 years ago. but now, they are occurring about 10% of the time. that's the wildfires, the extreme droughts, the heatwaves. those are now significant chance of having those. and those are the things that have big economic impacts. >> so explain how we know that these events are happening and that they are not part of any natural cycle? >> they are, in fact, a product of global warming and we can see that easily. one thing, i think that the public can appreciate what we call the bell curve. you know when you have a random variable they tend to fall on both sides of the average value. sometimes colder than normal. sometimes hotter than normal. and this is the way this bell curve looked in the 1980s. but as time went on, as the planet gets warmer, it starts shifting toward the right. and you get more red and less blue. and by now, this past decade it has shifted so far that we've got about 10% of the cases out here in this extreme warm anomaly more than three standard deffations. and -- deviations. and averaged over the whole summer it is a few degrees warmer celsius warmer. but that is a big effect. to see how important that is look at moscow two years ago, texas last year and the midwest this year. >> your research shows that the temperature increases between the last 30 years and the 30 years before that, have increased by about a degree fahrenheit. is that within the sampling error? is that significant? >> oh, it's significant. it's much larger than the error of measurement. and it'sñuaãenough to change the frequency of these extreme events by a large amount. so it's important. in fact it's now driven our climate outside the range that has existed the last 10,000 years that this gee logic epic that we call the halacine. >> one of the scientists we asked for comment said you are paying attention partly because it's dr. hansen. the science report in 2007 has id some of the same things he is saying now. is there new science? new findings that you are talkingnh about today? >> yeah, absolutely. they did not show this sort of a shift in the probability distribution for the temperatures of summer season. thins is extremely important. because it's the large anomalies that have the practical impact. can you see what's happening in the midwest this year. >> dr. james hansen, thank you for joining us. >> thanks. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day, nasa celebrated a perfect landing on mars. the "curiosity" rover set down safely after the most complex set of space acrobatics ever attempted. wade michael page as the gunman who killed six people at a sikh temple on sunday. before being killed himself by police. and the prime minister of syria defected in the latest blow to the government as it battles rebels in a civil war. >> brown: what interests or concerns you about cyber security and internet vulnerability? on wednesday, margaret warner will talk to joel brenner, author and security expert, and we want your questions for him. tweet us using the hashtag @questionsforjoel. the syria story continues on our world page. go there to see a slideshow of syrian refugee's makeshift homes in lebanon. and you can see our full coverage of the mars landing and additional commentary from miles. find that on our science page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: and again, to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the afghanistan conflict. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. here, in silence, are 11 more. >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at the big money coming in and being spent in the race for the white house. i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. 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 n.b.r. >> tom: good evening. i'm tom hudson. susie is off tonight. a rescue for knight capital. the trading firm stays in business thanks to a $400 million investment. erika miller reports on a take- over offer for best buy. the founder of the struggling electronics chain wants to take it private. and the mars rover has landed on the red planet. we'll see what u.s. companies hope to gain, by signing on to the mission. that and more tonight on "n.b.r.!" a $400 million lifeline today for knight capital group, a company that makes up some of the plumbing of the u.s. stock market. the market maker has been fighting to survive since a trading software update went hay-wire last week, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, it's stock price cut by two-thirds and now a rescue by some of its competitors. >> reporter: the deal by a half dozen wall street firms to invest in knight allowed the company to, quote, "resume normal operations immediately," end quote, according to knight. those behind the $400 million deal are investment banking firms jefferies, stephens and stifel financial, private equity giant blackstone, trading competitor get-co and customer t.d. ameritrade. ameritrade was one of knight's big customers that stopped doing business with it after wednesday's trading trouble. ameritrade has since returned as have other big customers. as for its investment in knight, an ameritrade spokesperson tells n.b.r., quote, "we have an interest in preserving choice and competition in the markets," end quote. knight capital matches buyers