didn't prevent the hike, and what action they might take in the coming months. >> ifill: margaret warner examines the latest turmoil in egypt, where the armed forces issued an ultimatum, telling the nation's leaders to respond to protesters or face a military takeover. >> woodruff: and jeffrey brown profiles david hallberg, the first american to be a principal dancer in moscow's storied bolshoi ballet. >> in russia, it's in their blood. it's in their culture. it's the sort of pride and sense of purpose that, to me, is to inspiring. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and 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. >> woodruff: officials in arizona say a wildfire that killed 19 firefighters yesterday has now destroyed more than 8,300 acres and engulfed 13 square miles. the fire is still burning unchecked tonight, leaving crews to carry on their work with heavy hearts for their fallen colleagues. >> views from above showd orange flames consuming the arizona skyline. as more than 400 firefighters tried to contain the yarnell hill fire which has more than quadrupled in size since yesterday. sparked by a lightning strike on friday, it's located 85 miles northwest of phoenix and about an hour southwest of prescott which is home to the granite mountain hot shot firefighting crew seen here in a training video from 2012. the city's fire department confirmed 19 of the elite team's 20 members died yesterday while battling the blaze. the surviving member was moving equipment at a different location. the bodies of the team were retrieved from the site today. a day after fire chief dan fryhoe mournd those lost. >> fire departments are like families. so the entire fire department, the entire area, the entire state is being devastated by magnitude of this incident. these are the guys that will go out there with 40, 50 pounds of equipment and walk five miles. they'll sleep out there as they try to develop fire lines and put protection between homes, natural resources and still try to remain safe. these are quality people. >> woodruff: officials said in battling the flames the firefighters were forced to wrap themselves in tent-like shelters made of fire resistant material like these seen in the training video. a last-ditch method used in hopes that the fire would burn over them. 19 roses were among the items left at a makeshift memorial outside fire station 7 in prescott where the granite mountain hot shot team is based. this morning, arizona state forestry division spokeman said weather conditions continue to be erratic. >> this weather has really caused havoc on this fire with the types of fuels. an had as we said yesterday, thx area has not been touched by fire for over 40 years. we've been in over a ten-year drought throughout the state. >> woodruff: hundreds have been forced to leave their hes. one man described escaping with his wife as the fire moved in on their property. >> we had to drive through the flames to get out of our gate. it was already that bad. within two minutes, i'd say if we waited another two or three minutes, we wouldn't have got out of there. it was that fast coming in. >> woodruff: an investigation is underway into the death of the firefighter. president obama issueded a statement calling the firefighters heroes and said his administration would help investigate how the death happened. for more, i spoke a short time ago with william welch, a reporter for "usa today" who is covering the fire in prescott. and kevin willette of the national fire protection association. he's worked in the field for more than three decades, including serving as past fire chief of wilbraham, massachusetts. thank you both for being with us. william welch, i'm going to begin with you. in prescott where it's begun to rain. but tell us what is the latest on the condition of the fire? >> well, judy, you know, this rain... rain is always good for battling fires but this one not necessarily because it's thunderstorms. as you may know, lightning is what started this fire. thunderstorms can create lots of unpredictable winds that aggravate the fire and make it difficult to predict. it could be what's happened yesterday, the difficult-to-predict fires, where they're going to move. right now the fire is out of control, uncontained, over 8,000 acres have been burned. we're expecting that number to grow significantly later today. >> woodruff: do the firefighters there now have the support they need? >> well, they're getting it. there are about 400 firefighters e fire has been under the:00 command of an arizona team. they're going to relieved just to give them a break. and the fire will go under federal command at 6:00. >> woodruff: and william welch, what are the fire officials there saying about this terrible tragedy, how these 19 firefighters from this elite team were killed? >> well, there are an awful lot of questions that remain to be answered we haven't gotten any of the details on exactly the circumstances. we do know that this team of 20 hot shots that are elite, they're well trained, very young, very fit. they carry a lot of equipment. almost like a combat patrol. 50, 60, 70 pounds of equipment. shovels, interesting tools that they carry. they do physical labor, trying to build lines in places where you can't get heavy equipment. this particular crew was a municipal crew which is somewhat unusual. this one is part of the prescott fire department. in fact, it was about 20% of the entire force, and they were headquartered at this station number 7 which we're standing right in front of. >> woodruff: it's not known how much experience they had working in wild fires? >> we believe they were experienced. we'll find out more shortly. but we are told by the fire chief and others that they were very well traind, highly trained and experienced. >> woodruff: ken willette with the national fire protection association, given your long experience, tell us what are these hot shot teams? who are they? how do they operate? >> al with, judy, the hot shot teams are comprised of 20 individuals. they have a tremendous amount of training in fire behavior, in safety, and it's against standards set by the national wild fire coordinating group so the standards the granite mountain crew trained to is the same standard applied to the federal teams as well as the rest of the state and local teams across the country. and they pride themselves on being physically fit, being fast and able to get in to very dangerous conditions, and work right on the fire line with heavy equipment. they bring in somewhere between 65 and 75 pounds of equipment. they sustain themselves for several days. and they do work that not many firefighters could do. >> woodruff: ken willette, staying with you. in a situation like this when they're working with this wild fire that was out of control, what were they likely trying to do? is there anyway to tell? >> well, not knowing exactly what their assignment was, but it's very typical for these crews to hike in to remote areas and to work directly on the fire line either clearing a trench or a path and removing the vegetation so that the fire will stall. the other thing they may do is in advance of the oncoming fire clear few so that it acts as a fire break not knowing what this crew was doing at the time but those are two very standard operations for a crew of this type. again it's right on the front line where the fire is rapidly advancing with minimal protective equipment because o of... they have to be nimble and be able to respond quickly and work for long periods of time. and they usually have a lookout assigned to monitor fire conditions and to provide for the safety of the crew at all times. >> now, we're told they were carrying emergency gear with them. some of them were reportedly wrapped in some sort of protective gear, but still how vulnerable were they? >> well, what you're referring to, judy, is a fire shelter. and every wild land firefighter who works on one of these teams carries one. they train on it periodically. and they realize that if they find themselves in a very dangerous situation, what they do is clear an area, lay face down with their feet towards the approaching fire and then they take the shelter and starting from their feet over their head and try tout a ka coon around them. now the shelter would help resist the heat in the flame spread as it goes over them. but it's not meant to sustain for any substantial length of time. so not knowing the fire conditions they faced, the shelters might have been effective but we don't know how long the fire was around them and how long that they were able to utilize the shelters for. but it is a standard piece of equipment for all wild land firefighters. >> woodruff: how much harder did it make... how much harder was it for them to do their job given the fact that there hadn't been a fire in this area in years? that you had this sort of ground-level brush that there was, the high heat temperature in the air. >> this was probably one of the hardest firefighting tasks a firefighter can ever encounter. they had to hike in an unknown length of miles to get to the fire front. then with the high heat, the high humidity and trying to work in this area extremely exhausting. and the topography. they had to walk up the hill. and they had to be ready to go to work at a moment's notice. so tremendous physical exertion. and the fire conditions were influenced, as you mentioned, by this low vegetative fuel which is the grasslands and chaperel which is a very low brush that grows to the ground. all of this fuel forms a blanket. once that blanket begins to burn, it just rapidly travels and follows the fuel source. extremely challenging conditions. >> woodruff: a terrible tragedy taking all but one of the members of that elite team. ken willette joining us from boston with the national fire protection association. our thanks to you. and william welch with usa today in prescott. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, european allies react to u.s. spying; interest rates double for student loans; turmoil in egypt after the weekend's massive protests; and an american dancer returns to the bolshoi. but first, with the other news of the day, here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: president obama began the final leg of his three-country african tour in tanzania today. it was the president's first visit to the east african nation. he was welcomed to dar es salaam by crowds waving american flags. obama said he wants to change the u.s. approach to africa to make it a relationship based not just on aid, but on trade and partnership. nearly 300 local and national police have been killed in afghanistan in one month alone. that's according to new figures released today by the afghan interior ministry. at least 618 police officers were wounded. police forces have assumed more responsibility in securing the country as nato-led troops hand over responsibility for combat operations. in texas today, the state legislature came back for another special session to finish up on a wide-ranging bill to restrict abortions. last week, the legislation ran into a 12-hour filibuster by democract wendy davis, but republican governor rick perry called a new session this week solely to vote on the bill. lawmakers referred the bill to committees for public hearings, and then promptly recessed for the republican-controlled legislature has vowed to pass it quickly this time. the tribune company boosted its television business with a deal to buy 19 local tv stations. the $2.7 billion deal with local tv holdings will make tribune one of the nation's largest commercial tv station owners. tribune is trying to sell its newspapers to focus on broadcasting. this deal comes less than a month after another media company, gannett, agreed to buy the belo corporation, nearly doubling its tv holdings. stocks managed modest gains on wall street today, due in part to upbeat reports on manufacturing and construction spending. the dow jones industrial average gained 65 points to close at nearly 14,974. the nasdaq rose 31 points to close at 3434. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: new information about american intelligence activities is causing a rift with allies in europe. ray suarez explains. >> suarez: the latest u.s. surveillance revelation topped the front page of germany's "der spiegel" weekly newspaper yesterday. the report, based on yet another leak from former c.i.a. contractor edward snowden, alleged the national security agency bugged european union offices in washington, new york, and brussels. and "the guardian" newspaper in britain said the u.s. spying also extended to partner nations like japan and south korea. now, two views. >> these are disturbing news. if proven true, they prove... sorry, they demand cull clarification, and the european union is now expecting to hear from the u.s. authorities and let me state clearly that clarity and transparency is what we expect from our partners and allies. >> suarez: and germany's government spokesman criticized the alleged conduct. >> if it's confirmed that, in fact, diplomatic representation of the european union and single european countries were bugged, they must say very clearly that eavesdropping on friends is unacceptable. it is a no-go. we're not in the cold war anymore. >> suarez: french president hollande even indicated the scandal could derail the transatlantic free trade talks jump started at the recent g8 summit in northern ireland. >> we cannot accept this kind of behavior among partners and allies. we do know there is a necessity for controlling systems notably in the fight against terrorism. i don't think that risk exists in our embassies or within the e.u. >> suarez: but secretary of state john kerry said in a foreign ministers' summit today that what the u.s. is doing is commonplace. >> i will say that every country in the world that is engaged in international affairs of national security undertake lots of activities to protect its national security and all kinds of information contributes to that and all i know is that that is not unusual for lots of nations. >> suarez: and president obama in tanzania agreed but also maintained he relies more on personal relationships with leaders. >> i'm the end-user of this kind of intelligence. if i want to know what chancellor merckel is thinking, i will call chancellor merckel. if i want to know what president hollande is is thinking, on a particular issue, you'll call president hollande. if i want to know what, well, david cameron is thinking i call david cameron. >> suarez: earlier today russian president vladimir putin said he had no intention of extraditing snowden. >> if he would want to go anywhere and someone will accept him, he's welcome to go. if he wishes to stay here, then we have one condition. he must stop his work aimed at harming our american partners although it sounds very strange coming from me. >> suarez: later today the news agency reported snowden has applied for politica plit asylun russia. >> suarez: routers reported that snowden in a letter to the government of ecuador says he remains free to make disclosures and says the u.s. was illegally persecuting him. now, two views. david ignatius is a columnist for the "washington post" and writes extensively about intelligence and national and thomas kleine-brockhoff is a resident fellow at the german marshall fund, a non-government organization aimed at strengthening transatlantic cooperation. david ignatius, you heard two top american officials basically say two slightly different versions of, well, everybody does it. does everybody do it? >> well, from everything i know about the world of intelligence, yes, everyone does do it. intelligence agencies exist to break the laws of foreign countries. it's important that they not break the laws of their own countries, but they're out there to steal the secrets that our country... people who run the agencies believe are crucial for safety and security. what's surprising about this latest iteration of the n.s.a. scandal is its hard to imagine that the information being stolen from our e.u. allies from bugged missions and other diplomatic facilities is essential to u.s. national security. and i think that's one of the tricky aspects of this latest thing. does everybody do it? yes, everybody does do it. >> is this a question of degree as much as anything else? we're talking about 38 embassies and diplomatic missions. d.c. and new york, documents referring to them as targets as if we were in a john lekaray novel. >> when you just look at the the sheer number and the size of the snoopinsnooping op operation ine country i was born in, half a billion of communications intercepted in germany in a regular month. millions a day. that is unperceivable. i can't imagine how you can actually do this, how you can keep track of it. the only thing you can hope for is that they do more of it so that they can keep less track of it. but this is the complete surveillance of a country. one in every four citizens of the country of germany per day. this is is clearly unacceptable. and somebody has got to explain to me what they're thinking, what protection of what national security they're actually after. >> suarez: david ignatius, what would the united states want from this kind of surveillance? >> we can only guess but with this very broad collection of i'm assuming telephone and internet messaging, the u.s. is is trying to get as broad as possible a data set so that you can then do analysis within that data set. you learn that somebody who, for whatever reason, is suspicious and visited with this person last month and phoned that person six months ago and then that change in many cases that people are now beginning to talk about leads you to somebody really wants to do harm. an example that the people in the intelligence world describe to me is is the plot by al qaeda to set off bombs in europe in early 2011 which was broken by aggressive cooperative surveillance. i think one thing we'll see as this story goes farther is that european intelligence agencies share in this data and the product of this data the analysis that comes from it. so in that sense they are part of this system. >> suarez: is that a legitimate justification? >> i don't think so, david. because what would you be looking for? the e.u. embassies? what terrorism would you be looking for when you bug the e.u. embassies, the greek embassy, the german embassy? there's a blatant double-standard here with regard to u.s. citizens and e.u. citizens. and, yes, it is true that european agencies would be cooperating in this. but we're more than ten years post 9/11. i think there is a serious review of what's actually appropriate. it is now in order in the case like this. >> suarez: does this rise to the level where it could actually jeopardize the ongoing negotiations about e.u./u.s. trade ties? >> that's what president hollande is suggesting. in my personal view i think that would be the wrong target but it does from my perspective does need a stern response from the e.u. now, in a world where you cooperate with each other, you always, when you do not cooperate any longer, you hurt yourself. so the thing becomes self-defeating and harming the trade negotiation it self-defeating. if i was looking at this problem, i would be looking for something that hurts the u.s. more than it hurts the europeans. but it doesn't need a response. >> suarez: is this a one-week story, david ignatius, or is the kind of blow-back you're seeing from europe to be taken seriously? >> i think the snowden revelations as a whole are going to have ripple effects that will last for years. i think that it's important to distinguish between broad surveillance programs looking at meta-data. trying to find the needles in this vast global haystack that threatens germans and americans and people around the world. but distinguish between... (noj8 audio) (stand) by) keeping everybody safe or safer for the past decade. >> suarez: but it sounds like that's not going to be enough of an explanation. >> i don't think so. i think people over in germany certainly would now say, yes, we can means now now it means yes we can. so the trust is seriously undermined. there is certainly a difference between popular opinion and elite opinion. there are, of course, the realists who would say everybody does it. but not everybody does it as well as the americans. but certainly the populations all across europe will ask the question whether they're more threatened by u.s. surveillance or by terrorism. if the local domestic spy agency had to do it on their own. >> suarez: david ignatius, gentlemen, thank you both. >> woodruff: we return now to >> ifill: the interest rate is doubling from 3.4% to 6.8%. for the lower to moderate income students who borrow that money, the hike could cost them from $1,000 to as much as $4500 over the life of the loan. the student loan debate briefly became an issue during last year's presidential campaign until congress agreed to freeze the rates for a year. but that deal runs out today. we look at this issue and the broader problem of student debt with two people who watch it closely. kevin kerry of the new america foundation and ann johnson of the center for american progress. let's start at the beginning. how is it that these rates got so low in the first place because they were higher and then they were cut. >> yes. there's a couple different loan programs that the federal government has. the stafford loan program has two kinds of loans. a subsidized loan for low and moderate income families and an unsubsidized loan basically for everyone else. the subsidized loan has been at 3.4% for the last few years. last year it was set to double. student advocates and organizers were able to keep that rate low but this year, today, the rates are set to double again. there will be about 7.5 million students who will see their interest rates double. >> ifill: most people think about interest rates going up slowly. how does it double? how did that happen? >> this all goes back to the last time congress set the interest rates for federal student loans. the interest rate currently isn't based on anything other than whatever congress wants it to be. back around 2006 they set it at 6.8% which seems like a pretty good number at the time because interest rates were higher then. over time interest rates have gone down. there's been a lot of attention given to the cause of student debt. so congress decided to temporarily cut it in half. that cost money. about $6 billion a year. to lower interest rates. so they gave it an expiration date. the expiration date originally was a year ago. they extend it for one year. now it's going back to the permanent rate in law which is currently 6.8%. >> ann johnson in the year since it the can was kicked down the road, what happened? wasn't there supposed to be a deal of some kind? >> yeah. they think there's a couple of things that have been going on. one is that broadly people are are starting to talk more about student debt and the impact of student debt on the economy as a whole. i mean if you look at there's 37 million americans who have student debt. it's really interesting when you look at the age breakdown of the people who hold the 1.1 trillion dollars of debt that exist. over half the people who have student get are actually over the age of 30. and 15% of people who have student debt are over the age of 50. so this isn't just an issue that is impacting, you know, 18-to 22--year-olds. it's an issue of broad economic consequences for millions and millions of americans. as we got into the debate this year there was much more attention paid to what are some long-term solutions that we can look at to address student loan interest rates in the long term and really get a handle on student debt? >> ifill: i do want to talk about the long-term solutions. i want to ask you, kevin kerry, what happens if you have a chunk of this debt, if you're one of those 20- to 50-year-olds who still owe money on your college loans and student loans, does your interest rate go up on the outstanding amount? >> no, this will only affect new loans that are made as of this year. >> ifill: what are some of the solutions that people have been proposing for this? >> well, there are a number of solutions. president obama proposed a solution in his budget this year. there have been solutions proposed in both the house of representatives and the senate. some people say let's just keep it at 3.4 for longer. others, including the president, have proposed tying interest rates to market rates. so the president proposed that your rate would be essentially the ten-year federal borrowing rate which is about .8% right now plus another, actually it's about 1.8% plus some more to cover the federal cost of borrowing. that would actually bring the rate down to 2.7% because the federal government's interest rates are very low right now. your rate wouldn't vary. whatever the rate is when you borrowed the money would be the rate for the life of the loan but if interest rates were to rise over time, then the statutory rate would rise along with them. >> ifill: any discussion about letting them rise but then capping them? >> yeah, that is actually the center of the debate. whether or not and how or to have a cap on interest rates in the future. interest rates are really low right now. borrowers would be taking out loans this year or next year would get a pretty good deal. if we look into the five or ten years from now interest rates are projected to go up. those borrowers could be facing interest rates of 8 or 10%. we think it's important that there is a cap on that rate. that's been the center of a lot of the conversation. >> ifill: as for having these conversations, theoretically, assuming these conversations are happening, is there any discussion or any agreement about where... how much debt an individual should carry? >> well, the amount of money you can borrow through this subsidized stafford loan program is already limiteds so you can't borrow. >> ifill: more broadly than just the stafford loan. >> not really. the underlying cause of this whole debate, this reason that this has become such a high-profile issue that it was part of the presidential campaign last year is because the price of higher education has gone up so much faster than the ability of students and families to pay for college. so they have to borrow to make up the difference. that's why we have a trillion dollars in outstanding debt. as important as it is to keep loan paims affordable and keep interest rates that at a reasonable level that's just the interest on the debt. the real problem is the debt ill self-and the fabt that people have to borrow to go to college. really this debate one way or the other isn't going to change that. >> ifill: what do you think about that. >> i agree on principle. we have to exist the existing $1.1 trillion and figure out ways to help borrowers and keep interest rates down in the future. but i also think what is really at the heart of this is the cost of higher education and making sure that americans have an opportunity to get a degree to pursue a four-year school or a trade school oar a community college degree to be able to help them get a good job. if cost is prohibited that's a problem sneb college affordability sounds like a really big nut to crack which this seems like congress can do something about more or less immediately. is that debate frozen as well? >> congress doesn't control what colleges charge. congress sets this rate. it can do what it can do. right now it's debating what it has control over. college tuition is largely in hands of state governments that have been cutting funding to public universities. that's one of the reasons that public universities have been raising tuition or a lot of students go to colleges that are private nonprofit or for profit. they charge more or less whatever they like. so congress can't recollect or as has chosen not to regulate college prices. it can only regulate the price of the money that people can borrow to pay that tuition. >> ifill: are colleges having that debate, that discussion? expwroo. >> i think that the people who want to attend those colleges are going to force people to have that conversation. the cost is becoming, you know, so high. in the last 0 years tuition has gone up over 1,000%. the funding levels at the state and low level have continue butted to students paying more through tuition and i think it will be up to young people and their families to really sort of push that conversation. what can we do to actually keep costs down in the first place. >> ifill: the conversation doesn't end with interest rates. it just goes on. >> that's right. ifill: ann johnson of the center for american progress and kevin kerry of the new american foundation, thank you both. >> thank you. ifill: there is more about each of the proposals online plus can you graduate debt free? use our calculator to find out. and we have collected your stories about student debt. fine tales of success, failure and advice on our website. >> woodruff: we return now to instability in egypt, and new questions about the political future of president morsi. margaret warner reports. >> warner: following an outpouring of dissent from millions of antigovernment demonstrators in the streets of egypt yesterday, the country's top generals today gave president mohammed morsi 48 hours to respond or said the military will. their ultimatum came in an audio statement read on state television. >> the armed forces repeats its call for the people's demands to be met. if the people's demands are not achieved before the agreed period of time, then it is the duty of the military to announce a road map for the future and to take measures to supervise the execution. >> warner: late today after the statement hundreds of thousands amassed again in cairo's tahrir square and in what the protesters took as a show of solidarity a.a.r.p.ie helicopters swooped over them dangling egyptian flags. today's ultimatum from the supreme military counsel hark ened back to the council's removal of hosni mubarak in february 2011 after 18 days of protests. those in tahrir today were denouncing their first post mubarak president, morsi, and his muslim brotherhood movement. >> he made several promises that he did not fulfill. he only fulfilled the brotherhood's promises. he's been here for a year now and nothing has ha he has not accomplished anything. the whole country came out. >> warner: five non-brotherhood ministers resigned their posts today but that didn't mollify this opposition leader. >> i don't think the resignation of any of the officials would be of any importance right now because, i mean, 30 million people have been in the streets yesterday asking for the resignation of the president. anything less than that is nonsense. >> warner: estimates of yesterday's multicity crowds were unconfirmed. but clearly many millions turned out for the rallies organized by a group calling itself "rebel" in arabic. since being elected last year, morsi and the brotherhood have consolidated power ramming through a new constitution and pro islamist measures. meanwhile security is faltering, the economy is in shambles. tourism never recovered from the 2011 uprising and now there are major fuel shortages. sectarian conflict is also rising in the mostly sunni muslim nation. president obama today urgedded morsi to seek consensus. >> although mr. morsi was elected democratically, there's more work to be done that creates the conditions in which everybody feels that their voices are heard and that the government is responsive and truly representative. >> warner: though yesterday's massive outpouring was peaceful last night brought a different story. the brotherhood's cairo headquarters was torched. men inside fired on protestors, killing several. in cairo today, a morsi supporter said the brotherhood would fight to protect their elected president. >> the battle is over the identity of this state right now. since the revolution happened the forces that we call secular are fighting so that egypt's identity will not be an islamic identity but i insist that egypt's identity must be islamic. >> warner: when the military ousted mubarak, it took overrunning the country. in today's statement the military council said it would, quote, not take part in the political or governing arena. as of midnight tonight, there have has been no public response from president morsi. routers reported that u.s. joint chiefs chairman martin dempsey spoke with the chief of staff of the egyptian armed forces today. for more on the latest protests and the military's ultimatum we turn to michelle dunn director of the atlantic council center for the middle east and hussein ibish, a commentator and blogger who writes a weekly column on the middle east for foreign policy and the daily beast. welcome to you both. as we all know, there have been many protests since president morsi took office. how significant is is is this latest turn of events and the military's ultimatum today. >> the protest seemed to be the largest than ever has taken place in the country even large he than those who displaced mubarak. the military statement today giving a 48-hour deadline after which we they will impose in kind of political plan, to me, this says it's perhaps already over. >> warner: you mean president morsi's. >> it seems they made a decision that they're very, very likely, i think, to move president morsi out of the way and to impose some other kind of a political process. >> warner: do you see it as that sort of drastic, the last 48 hours? >> i do. it's a game-changer. what happened yesterday is extraordinary. there's no recovering for the president. what exactly the armed forces has in mind is not clear. and i think they have given morsi and the muslim brotherhood some space. that 48 hours which is now down to about 39 or 38 hours, the clock is ticking. to do something, to extricate themselves from this would be essentially to give up a great deal of the power that they've accumulated by forming some kind of national coalition unity government, by announcing new presidential elections by some kind of date certain, responding to the dissatisfaction of the public. i this i they're very unlikely to do that because as the muslim brothers and the president have proven unwilling to compromise. they're not conciliatory people. but that i think is the only thing that could save them from some imposed solution by the military. >> warner: why has, michelle then, why has the military intervened now? i mean, there have been -- i take your point. the protests have been nowhere this large -- but they've stood by through a lot of ups and downs in the past year. a lot of unrest. >> i think in order to understand what's going on in egypt, we have to see there are more than two players here. you have the islamist. you have the secular opposition camp. you also have the institutions of the egyptian state, of the mubarak state. we're still there. we're not really changed by the egyptian revolution. >> warner: by that you mean? by that i mean the military is part of that. the police, the judiciary, the state media, all the ministries. there are six or seven million bureaucrats in egypt. those parts of the state have been becoming more and more disenchanted with the muslim brotherhood over the year that morsi has been in power. what we have seen is they have started to come over to the side of the secular opposition more and more. and the last straw i think was the military. the military had to deal with the brotherhood with morsi. they were sticking with them. but i read that statement today as saying our deal is done. and that they're switching sides. once the state has switched over to the side of the opposition, theb the handwriting is is on the wall for the brotherhood. >> i think that's exactly right. i mean, look, here's the thing. what you saw yesterday was another kind of democracy. millions and millions of egyptians essentially doing what amounts to a petition recall referendum that we might have in a state. basically they're demanding a do-over. there is a huge outpouring of national buyers' remorse regarding president morsi and the muslim brotherhood. i agree with michelle. the military has basically that something has got to be done about this. the amount of power and authority that's been accumulated by the presidency, by the muslim brotherhood and their allies is too much for ordinary egyptians. their heavy handedness, the way they've broken all their promises and the way in which they've been moving the country in their direction bit by bit is just... it's overreaching. it's overreaching. it's too much. it's gone too far. >> warner: michelle dunn, do you think if the economy were cooking along and conditions of daily life weren't as dire as they are, that you would still have this political outcry? in other words, how much of it is that this government has not delivered and, in fact, life is worse? and how much of it is political disenchantment and a power struggle still between existing forces who have been opposed for a long time? >> well, these are are the three elements, right? as hussein said there this this element of overreach the brotheredhood failure to compromise and reach other forces. there is the element of the old state trying to come back after the revolution which normally happens after revolutions. and then there's this element of the break of the economy. frankly problems that anybody who is president of egypt right now would face. that they haven't been able to get back on track. i want to add an important note of caution, that the brotherhood is not going to disappear even if morsi is removed from office. i'm very worried about the possibility of ongoing unrest and violence by islamists if there is, if morsi is removed from office. >> warner: let me get you both to turn your attention on the united states here. you had president obama making a statement today. and you had the joint chiefs chairman martin dempsey, his counterpart in egypt. what is the u.s.'s number-one interest here and how should this administration be dealing with the situation now? >> i think we need to be very clear. much clearer than we have been with the muslim brotherhood in egypt and around the middle east about what our values are and our interests are. and to not be fascinated by trying to understand them. they are not that difficult to understand. they are the religious right of the arab world and they want power. so, for example one of the things we really node to stress is that the only way out of this situation for egypt -- and this is a message for the muslim brothers and the president and it's a message to the military -- is an election. clearly there was one but clearly the egyptian public is not satisfied. we don't have a stable situation. we don't really have a workable constitution. we don't have a functioning parliament. all of those things require the will of the people to be respected. and also we need to make the point again and again that not only do we have our interests but also our values are not democracy as majority. there are individual rights, human rights, women's rights, minority rights. they have to be respected. even by 50% plus one. >> michelle dunn, if you're president obama right now, you're confronted with this situation. one, what... one, are you a centrist. but two, how do you this? >> when the united states looks at egypt security is always first and foremost. egypt borders israel. we have this very troublesome sign apeninsula in which there are terrorists and weapons and all kinds of things. the united states is going to think first of keeping a relationship with whoever is in power in egypt in order to secure the interest. beyond that, i hope that in dealing with egyptian military leaders who, you know, are likely, i think, to bring about a political change in the coming days, i hope the united states is saying to them, please, hand over power to civilians promptly. promote a consensus process, a round-table process. don't hang on the way you did last time. last time the military hung on to power for 18 months. it was not pretty. the united states was in a really uncomfortable position because we give billions of dollars of assistance to the egyptian military. >> we made a very big mistake in reacting tepidly to morsi enormous power grab a few months ago. we must not do the same with the military this time. there needs to be an election. egyptian people have to decide. >> warner: thank you both. thank you, margaret. ifill: finally tonight, >> ifill: finally tonight, an american dancer in one of the world's most storied ballet companies. jeffrey brown caught up with david hallberg in new york as he prepared to return to russia. >> brown: it was with this leap in 2011 that david hallberg made history in moscow. russians like nureyev and baryshnikov have famously come west to dance in the u.s., but as the prince in "sleeping beauty," hallberg became the first american principal dancer of the bolshoi ballet, the world's largest, with more than 200 dancers-- an institution that's remained at the center of russian culture since its founding in 1776. hallberg's performance was broadcast on live television, and in the end won over both critics and a russian fan base often leery of outsiders. he's now a duel citizen of sorts. he spends part of the year with the american ballet theater in new york, where we talked recently about his experience of ballet and the bolshoi. >> in russia, it's in their blood, it's in their culture. and unlike anywhere else in the world, it's this sort of pride and sense of purpose that to me is so inspiring to see. >> brown: the word "bolshoi" means "big," and the massive theater has survived everything from revolution to world war to the rise and fall of communism. sarah kaufman is a pulitzer- prize winning dance critic for the "washington post." >> ballet to russians is really like baseball or hollywood to americans. it's kind of the perfect vessel for the russian soul. you can compare the bolshoi stage to yankee stadium. >> brown: if the bolshoi is an unlikely place for a south dakota-born, arizona-raised kid to end up, hallberg, now 31, credits fred astaire with setting him on the path, beginning at age eight when he watched "top hat" on tv. >> i was glued to the way he moved and sort of his suaveness, you know, his seamless way of movement. he was a huge inspiration to me when i was young. >> brown: that initial interest was followed by years of work with kee juan han, former director of the arizona ballet school, now with the washington ballet. >> it was not just his physicality that was so impressive, but the intensity of the way he worked was very impressive, too. >> brown: the teacher and pupil spent six days a week and countless hours, focusing on strength, conditioning, flexibility, and mental toughness. >> i am not easy to work with, because i always believe that the dance world is not an easy place. >> he did not kill me with kindness. >> brown: did he almost kill you with the amount of work? >> yes. my parents would sit in on my private lessons from time to time, and almost called child protective services. but i was so naive at the time, i didn't know anything else. i didn't know how hard i was working. and that served as a sort of perfect ground to mold me into a ballet dancer, and i've carried that to this day in my professional career. >> brown: to reach that goal, hallberg also had to overcome something else: intense bullying. >> i was the only boy in my environment that danced, so i was out for the count and made a target of bullying. but i never questioned it. i never doubted my love for it. i never decided whether i should quit or not, to try to fit in because everyone was making fun of me. it was my respite. it was this sort of escape for me. >> brown: dance critic sarah kaufman says all this preparation, and hallberg's ability to play a variety of roles, have made him a special talent. >> he's a thinking dancer. when you watch him in rehearsal, he's not so much focusing on the steps and he's not so preoccupied with his technique. he's thinking about the interpretation. he's thinking about what he's going to bring to the role in terms of the character. he can play your lover, he can play your assailant-- he can combine that all in one role. so there is no dancer i can think of, male or female, in the ballet world who is like that. >> brown: but a dark cloud has hung over russian ballet since last january, when the bolshoi's artistic director, sergei filin-- the man who offered hallberg a position at the historic company-- was badly burned after an attacker threw sulfuric acid in his face, leaving filin badly scarred and nearly blind. bolshoi dancer pavel dmitrichenko was arrested for allegedly paying a convicted criminal to carry out the plot. russian police say dmitrichenko felt that he and his girlfriend, a fellow ballerina at the bolshoi, were being overlooked by filin and not given prominent roles. reports have also suggested that filin may have been a target because he was trying to make the bolshoi more open, including recruiting dancers from outside russia. hallberg was in the u.s. at the time of the incident, recovering from dance injuries. >> it's an absolutely unacceptable act and attack. sergei is a visionary in the sense that he is pushing bolshoi theater into the future. he really has the best intentions for the theater, and is pushing a new generation of dancers and a new repertoire, and i can't support that sort of vision enough. >> brown: do you have any fears yourself about going back? >> certainly. i would call myself naive if i didn't. but i made a commitment to bolshoi theater. >> brown: but you say certainly you do have some fear? because if the attacks had anything to do with a sort of idea of reaching beyond the russian-ness, you are the personification of that. >> i am indeed. but i'm not going to let an attack like this derail my career. i mean, this is my career, and it doesn't last forever. >> brown: hallberg, a prince of the ballet world now, also says he's eager to move beyond the prince roles in the future, and help create new ballets both here and in russia. >> ifill: you can go behind- the-scenes with david hallberg online at our art beat page. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. a wildfire in arizona burned out of control after killing 19 firefighters on sunday. it's the nation's largest loss of firefighters in a wildfire since 1933. the national security agency leaker, edward snowden, applied for asylum in russia. in a letter blamed president obama for trying to block his asylum petition. and egypt's military issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the country's president to come up with a power-sharing agreement. >> ifill: the votes have been tallied, and the winners of our science rap contest are... hari sreenivasan has the envelope, please. >> sreenivasan: ernesto lara of silver spring, maryland, raps about boiling points. a group of high schoolers from sunnyvale, california, rhyme about kinetic energy. and flint, michigan, middle schooler jacob poole breaks down minerals. they're all winners of our first ever science rap contest. check out their rhymes on our home page. an on our business desk, some sensible advice for collecting social security, even if you don't need it to live on. and we want your feedback. what do you think of our science coverage? take our survey, which is on the home page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll profile trey anastasio, the guitarist and lead singer for the band phish. i'm gwen ifill. >> 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: moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions 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 clic >> this is "bbc world news." funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu, newman's own foundation, giving all profits to charity and pursuing the common good for over 30 years, and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers work hard to know your business, offering working to nurture new ventures and offer capital for key strategic decisions. expertise and tailored solutions in a wide range of industries. what can we do for you? >> and now "bbc world news.">> this is bbc world news america reporting from washington. egypt military tells the president he has 48 hours to meet the protesters demand or it will intervene in this crisis. >> the assumption is that the army will intervene to give them the tree over the president. it may not be that simple. tragedy in arizona. 19 elite firefighters are killed a battling huge blaze. 150 years after the battle of work the fields are full of soldiers once again. we meet the reenactors.