Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20140405

Stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by charles schwab, proud supporter of the pbs newshour. And by bnsf railway. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And friends of the newshour. 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 more americans went looking for work in march, and more people found it. The Labor Department today reported a net gain of 192,000 jobs, although many were in lowerpaying industries. Revised figures also added 37,000 more jobs in january and february than first estimated. The Unemployment Rate for march was unchanged at 6. 7 . Economics correspondent paul solman goes looking for trends inside the numbers in just a moment. On wall street, the jobs report failed to stop a selloff driven by slumping tech stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost nearly 160 points to close at 16,412. The nasdaq fell 110 points to close at 4,127. And the s p 500 was down 23 at 1,865. For the week, the dow and the s p gained a fraction of 1 ; the nasdaq fell a fraction. Army officials at fort hood, texas, now believe an argument most likely sparked wednesdays mass shooting. Specialist ivan lopez killed three soldiers, wounded 16 other people, and then killed himself. The base commander, Lieutenant General mark milley, said today that investigators no longer think Mental Illness was the cause. His underlying medical conditions we do not believe are the direct precipitating factor to the incident. His underlying medical condition is not a direct factor. We believe the immediate precipitating factor was more likely an escalating argument in his unit area. Woodruff the general gave no details about the argument. But lopez father said in a statement my son could not have been in his right mind. He was not like that. Meanwhile, the army identified the three men who died. All were activeduty soldiers, and one had just returned from afghanistan. Supporters of gay marriage have won another victory. After a hearing today, a federal judge in cincinnati announced he will strike down part of ohios ban on samesex unions. He did not order the state to allow such weddings, but it will have to recognize those performed elsewhere. Federal judges have issued similar rulings in 7 other states. The hunt for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 went under water today. Lucy watson of independent Television News reports from beijing, where relatives of the chinese passengers are keeping a close watch. Reporter it is the technology that all hopes are pinned on in the bid to find out why flight 370 just disappeared. Devices out for the first time take the search beneath the surface of the ocean. The underwater search is being carried out by a british and an australian ship along a 150mile track more than 1,000 miles off the coast of perth. A giant microphone, a ping locator will listen out for a signal from the black box while an underwater robot scours the seabed for wreckage. But the battery life of the flight data recorder can run out after 30 days potentially leaving just dice to find it. Everybody wants to find that downed aircraft, and i dont think anybody is withholding anything in terms of what needs to be done to do the job. Reporter but that is not what the families of many passengers believe. This mans only son was on board. He thinks the malaysian government is withholding information. I dont believe my son died. I believe everyone on board is still alive. Its a conspiracy. Reporter the malaysians are having to accept scrutiny while continuing to hope and pray for those on board. Woodruff this was election eve in afghanistan, and it was marred by a fatal attack on a western journalist. A Police Commander shot and killed an Associated Press photographer, Anja Niedringhaus, in eastern afghanistan. A. P. Correspondent kathy gannon was also shot but survived. The attack came as nearly 200,000 afghan troops deployed to protect polling stations for tomorrows president ial vote. The police chief in kabul said theyre ready. We are doing our best to ensure security in case the enemy carries out any kind of attack in kabul. Our forces have the ability to eliminate the threats quickly and prevent them from creating any problems or threatening our people or our elections. Woodruff final results in the election are not expected for some weeks. In ukraine, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk warned his country will never accept russias annexation of crimea. Instead, he said kiev will focus on austerity measures, including raising gas prices and cutting pensions. He called it the price of independence in the face of russian economic pressure. Secretary of state john kerry warned today the Obama Administration is reevaluating its role in trying to foster middle east peace talks. He spoke after a week in which the palestinians resumed seeking u. N. Recognition and the israelis canceled a release of palestinian prisoners. In morocco, kerry said its reality check time. There are limits to the amount of time and effort that the United States can spend if the parties themselves are unwilling to take constructive steps in order to be able to move forward. Both parties say they want to continue. Neither party has said that theyve called it off. But were not going to sit there indefinitely. Woodruff kerry originally hoped for a Peace Agreement by the end of april. Now, hes asking the two sides just to keep negotiating. Still to come on the newshour whats behind the job gains in march . Author Michael Lewis on the threat of highfrequency trading; on the eve of afhgan elections, a look at how women in that country are treated; shields and brooks on the weeks news; plus, the death of an Award Winning photojournalist in afghanistan. Woodruff the latest jobs report is our lead focus tonight. It was once again widely awaited for what it tells us about the strengths and weaknesses of the labor market. Our economics correspondent, paul solman, spent much of the day unpacking the data. He kicks off our coverage, part of his ongoing reporting on making sense of financial news. Reporter todays jobs headlines featured employment growth chugging along in march, employers posting solid job gains for the second straight month. Kristin butcher chairs the Economics Department at wellesley and came by the home office near boston to explain. We have some real bright spots in this employment report. We have 192,000 new jobs counted in the Establishment Survey, and in addition to that, there are revisions upwards from the previous couple months of the year. Reporter and the Establishment Survey is when they ask employers how many jobs you. Yes, so how many checks are going out the door. And so we have about 192,000 new jobs. Within that, theres some nice things as well, which is that temporary Business Services seem to be up, and that tends to be a bellwether because temporary Services Mean that theyre hiring temporary workers in advance, we think, of hiring full time workers. Construction numbers are also up, and those tend to foretell changes. Construction tends to be quite sensitive to downturn in the economy, and also sensitive to upturn. Reporter the report included a milestone, according to the bureau of labor statistics more than six years after the start of the great recession, the economy has regained all the private sector jobs that were lost. Bls commissioner erica groshen. The private sector lost 8. 8 million jobs during the job market downturn, and its now gained 8. 9 million jobs since the employment low in february 2010. Reporter but behind the headlines, the population has continued to grow, and thus the Unemployment Rate remains high, unchanged from last month. We have many people who are still looking for work who have not been able to find it. Im worried that the employment topopulation ratio, which is a measure of how many people have jobs just relative to the population, has remained pretty much the same since last year reporter if were adding a couple hundred thousand people, almost, to the total population every month, and were only adding roughly that many jobs to the economy, then we wouldnt be affecting the Unemployment Rate at all. So i think were going to need to see many months of job growth like the one we saw before the Unemployment Rate comes down substantially, and before that employmentto population ratio begins to come up. Reporter another cause for concern u7, our own more inclusive measure of un and underemployment, went up to 14. 75 in march, nearly 24 million americans, driven by a big jump in the number of part timers looking for fulltime work. As to all the talk about the brutal winters Economic Impact the weather affects things, but we shouldnt be focusing on what happens month to month in the short term anyway, and those things get smoothed out. Reporter but we should be focusing, says professor butcher, on the nearly 4 million americans whove remained jobless for 27 weeks or more. We have about a million fewer longterm unemployed this year than we did at this time last year, so the numbers of people who are longterm unemployed have come down, but the rate is about the same and the average number of weeks unemployed is still quite high. Reporter in washington, the senate is expected to pass an extension of benefits for the longterm unemployed next week. However, the measure faces an uphill battle in the house. Woodruff and, in fact, lets zero in now on the problems many longterm unemployed americans are facing in the labor market and what can be done to help them. Hari sreenivasan has our conversation. Sreenivasan ofer sharone is a sociologist at the m. I. T. Sloan school of management whos trying to help tackle these issues. He cofounded the institute for Career Transitions last fall. Its focused in part on assisting people between 40 and 65 years old with college degrees. Youve studied this a little bit. What are some of the problems unique to the longterm unemployed . Good evening, hari. Yes, two things really jump out. One is people talk about experiencing a black hole. They are applying online, putting in tremendous effort to find a job and getting no responses. This, i think, is partly a result of discrimination against people who are longterm unemployed by virtue of the duration of their unemployment. I can say more about that, but theres another experience thats really important, which is just a toll on ones sense of self, the Emotional Experience of looking for work for month after month and not finding it. Many people tend to start to doubt themselves, to have the experience of selfblame, despite the fact were still in unprecedented territories since the Great Depression for longterm unemployment, its easy to lose sight of that and to feel that its something youre doing. And this is a particularly american whitecollar phenomenon, thats what my recent book focused on, looking at how, when youre trying to avoid the black hole and, instead, networking, this becomes a highly personalized process with a lot of focus on building rapport, chemistry, and when you have negative labor market outcomes, you take the result personally as well. Sreenivasan do these feelings of selfblame get worse the longer youre unemployed . Absolutely. So each time a person tries to network, has an interview and then is unsuccessful, the sense of maybe theres something about me intensifies. I think of it as putting more salt on an open wound. It becomes harder and harder to continue with the search and, in some cases, people do stop searching. I think this is a piece of the puzzle of why we have this decline in labor force participation, which is also at historic low rates. Sreenivasan lets look at the demand side. Does the marketplace discriminate against the longterm unemployed . You and your peers have done research on. This lets say you have one candidate who has a job who might not have as much relative experience and one candidate who hasnt had a job in a long time but would fit to what the employer is looking for, is there discrimination in the marketplace . Yes, i think we have pretty good data showing there is exactly that kind of discrimination. There is a work of my colleague, did a resume audit study, virtually identical resumes except for the duration of unemployment and match of skill. It turns out that people with a better match in terms of skill that the company is looking for get lower rates of call back to interview, much lower, than people without relevant skills but with short duration of unemployment. So this is, in some ways, a very shocking finding and i hope employers listening to this Pay Attention because theyre passing up and missing a lot of great talent that is being overhooked by these kind of practices. Sreenivasan lets talk about what is working. What encourages this longterm Unemployed Population . Right. So we have been very important in the boston area to find a group of dedicated career counselors and coaches that have stepped up and said we will provide support for free, and lets see what kind of support makes a difference. And were very early in analyzing the findings, but i can say that support does make a difference, the people in our group are behinding jobs at finding jobs at a higher rate than the control group. And i think what theyre reporting helps. At one level, the support is technical. The way a company thats experiencing difficulties selling a product play bring in a consultant who has an external perspective and expertise and help understand what are my strengths, where are the market demands for these strengths, how can i best present myself to the employer, all these things really do make a difference. But theres a second level of it as well which is the emotional part that i think is equally important. Here the support helps people develop a counternarrative to the experience of being rejected over and over, reminding them of their strength, what has led to their success in the past. Sreenivasan and theyre useful to other people. Absolutely. Sreenivasan all right. The Group Context is particularly important here where people see also that theyre not alone in being longterm unemployed, that this is not something necessarily about themselves. Other very competent people are in the same boat. Ofer sharone, thanks so much. Thanks. Woodruff often, when we discuss the financial markets, we show these pictures, shots of traders on the floor of the new york stock exchange, but the trading world changed several years ago. Much of it now is done with computer servers, hundreds of millions of orders done through what is known as highfrequency trading. This week, there is a lot of buzz about a provocative new book focusing on how it has changed and how onethousandth of a second can make a big difference. The book is titled flash boys, the author the Michael Lewis, who also wrote mone money balld other books. Welcome. Yes. Woodruff so you focus much of the story on this new York Financial trader who starts out thinking the markets are all about one thing, discovers that theres something wrong, and basically goes about trying to change everything. Yes. Woodruff why did you focus on him . Because i was working on Something Else and i needed to learn what highfrequency trading was. This is a term of art that didnt exist until three or four years ago and it was my my ignorance was deep on the subject, and i asked big investors if they could point me in the direction of somebody who knew about this. And they said theres this young man, hes canadian, whos basically running around wall street explaining this to us and he knows more about these markets than anybody. So you ought to go see him. I went to see him really just on background to see what he could teach me about this and turned out he was engaged in this essentially attempt to reform wall street from within, to kind of discover what was wrong with the stock market, how predatory activity had arisen in the stock market that hes been on the wrong end of and educating american investors about what was happening. Woodruff so the book is a narrative about him but also a much bigger story. And you also start out writing about onethousandth of a second, a millisecond and lay the story of trying to lay fiber optic cables through mountains and under rivers. Why do you get into all that . I felt this story was in some way a symptom of wall streets larger problem in relation to society and why its gone wrong. The fraction of the second report is the fraction of second is the advantager High Frequency traders have over ordinary investors. Stock exchanges make an awful lot of money by High Frequency traders to be given access to special information and banks are paid to expose their crust merse against High Frequency traders. The system sort of evolved to create incentives that are not in line with the larger society. Woodruff the whole premise of the stock market is a place to go where everyone is supposed to be treated the same but much of the point of the book, as you said, ordinary investors are the ones getting the short end of the stick. In fact, today, we know the attorney general, eric holder, announced theres going to be a government investigation of highfrequency trading. What was so intriguing to me was that ordinary investors includes everybody from the most sophisticated Hedge Fund Managers right down to the person sitting at the computer terminal and trading on their etrade account. Everybody who doesnt have the speed to have the highfrequency traders, who dont have their machines inside the Exchange Given preferential access by the exchanges is on the wrong side of the transaction. So thats why i think brad is able to create a movement is hes got quite powerful people on his side. Woodruff this has caused a stir. A lot of people are writing and talking about it. Some of the financial journalists are writing about it, people who work in the markets. One of the things that ive read that theyve said is that the people you say who are being hurt the most, they say are actually the folks who let me quote here, its the big investors who are hurt the most, theyre the ones competing against each other and that the culprits, they say, are the stock exchanges. I think its true the exchanges are culpable and theyve sort of advocated their response to provide a fair environment for investors to trade in. And the banks are also culpable because they control the stock market order flow. 70 of stock market workers go through the big banks and its hard to know what happens to your stock market or even if youre a big, sophisticated investor. I think theres a problem. The criticism that Little People arent hurt, its just big people, it doesnt make such sense to me because the big people were talking about are much wall funds and pension funds. Theyre institutions. T. Row price, that manage the savings of a lot of Little People so, yes, their transactions are big but theyre representing the interests of the american investors and the Little People, like you imagine the guy sitting there in his etrade account, trading, you know, 500 shares of some stock, his orders are being sold by his broker to some highfrequency trader whos paying for the right to trade against it. Why would someone do that . Theyd do that because they have a chance to exploit that order. Woodruff but they also have a chance to gain off the order. If the market goes up or down, thats a separate issue. The question is do they get a fair market price. And the problem is that the way the market works now, investors generally, from most sophisticated to the smallest, are essentially operating with yesterdays prices. So woodruff because the market because theyre moving so fast. So the people trading against them, the High Frequency traders have todays prices. So imagine you had the results of the horse race before the race was run and you can walk into the track and make bets against people about the race. Thats not really a fair environment. Woodruff let me just read one other critique of the book and that is what youre writing about, according to a couple of financial journalists who eve ee read, happened six years ago. High frequency trading, the profits dropped from 8 billion to 1 billion in other words, that youre behind the curve with this. This is so this is not true. Its true that the main character of this book and the investors who are concerned start to see problems in the market about 2008, so its true that its the first time they sensed that whenever they trade someone has anticipated what theyre doing and running in front of them. But first, no one actually knows how much highfrequency traders are making. The estimates are usually smoke and mirrors who has some tying to highfrequency traders. They dont release their profits. Its possible that their profits are less than they may have been a few years ago but are not small. Theyre certainly not a billion dollars but if theyre less its because the banks got better at billing them. The revenues are the scalp, how much theyre taking out. The bigger problem is the whole structure of wall street has been compromised of the stock market has been compromised to serve the interest to have the highfrequency traders and the result of the market is much less stable than it should be. So we get flash crashes and i. P. O. S that dont work and outages at the exchanges. Woodruff and what you want from this book is what, michael . I want reform of the market makes a lot of sense, the stock market, but i think its a bigger issue than that. I think this canadian kid is actually engaged in trying to repair wall streets relationship with the rest of the society by creating the proffers replaced like a stock exchange. So i think its to restore relationship between society and wall street. Woodruff with a different financial mechanism. Yes, a different model. Woodruff Michael Lewis, the book is a wall street revolt, flash boys. Thanks for having me. Woodruff this weekends elections in afghanistan are expected to produce the countrys first democratic transfer of power. And in one sign of social progress, hundreds of women are running for provincial council seats. Afghanistan, however, remains a hostile place to many women. Thousands have been held in jail or safe houses, accused of moral crimes such as refusing to accept forced marriages or running away from abusive husbands. Thats the focus of this report from the center for investigative reporting and filmmaker Zohreh Soleimani. Its narrated by amanda pike. Filmmaker Zohreh Soleimani has been cover the issue of womens rights in afghanistan for more than a decade. Shes reported progress for women since the fall of the taliban in in 2001. But today womens rights and security are under assault from all sides. Taliban insurgents, tribal warlords, even members of parliament. Kaled is a spokesperson for a governor and prominent advocate for afghan womens rights. I received threats. These days, the enemy is focused especially on women. The enemy never wants women in afghanistan to advance. Reporter soleimani went to a safe house, for women who escaped abuse or forced marriages. Hello, id like to hear about your cases. Mader, describe your problem for me. My problem is my brotherinlaw. He raped me in my Fathers House. He also raped my 12yearold sister. For the next two and a half years, my family wouldnt let me leave the house. Finally, i escaped and came to the safe house. What do your parents say . I told my mom and she said, i cant do anything about that. If i had told my father, he would have beaten me. My mother said, whats done is done. Im not Strong Enough to do anything about it. I hope that people like the man who raped this woman will be arrested soon and forced to face the consequences of their actions. A young woman basira came to the safe house to escape a forced marriage. I loved a young man but my father would not let me marry him and forced me to marry someone else. I went to my husbands house. He beat me and screamed at me all the time. I told my father, i dont want this man. Why did you marry me to him . Why did you marry me away that night . You should have killed me and buried me in your garden rather than marry me to him. Parents who dont want the happiness of their children, i love them so much and still love them. They dont even come to ask about me. They dont ask if their daughter is alive or dead. Manisha madiri runs a network of safe houses throughout afghanistan. We met with her on a recent visit to washington, d. C. She recalls a time in the 1960s and 70s when afghanistan was a very different place. Afghanistan was being called, you know, little paris. It was very modern for that region. Women were in schools, women were in universities. They were Walking Around like women here, wearing skirts, pants, whatever they wanted. But nadiri says 30 years of war have eroded rights for women. Today, tribal traditions are gaining strength, most notably cases of father forcing their daughters into early marriage. In some parts of the country its a way of life, really. We dont know what the numbers are, probably thousands and thousands and thousands of women. The girls who have been given away dont have a voice or a way to protest, and the father, hes the father. He could force the girl to marry at whatever age he wants. In the majority of cases, they think this is their godgiven right. Reporter many girls run away from forced marriages and abusive husbands. If discovered, they can end up in prisons like this one in kabul. My name is sohala. I ran away with the man i loved and lived with him three and a half years. My father found me, had me arrested and i was sentenced to six years in prison. My son was born in prison. Thiwhen this girl was five ys old her father pledged her in marriage to an old man to settle a blood feud between their families. We first met sohala several years ago. Her father was unapologetic for putting her in prison. Islam does not let her do whatever she wants. She must marry whoever she chooses. Islam says whenever a man wants to marry away his daughter, eight, nine, ten, doesnt matter, the woman belongs to him and has no right to refuse. But nadiri says this is a tribal custom, not islamic law. The men have never heard its against islam to force your daughter to get married. In 2012, president karzai released solahala from jail as part of amnesty for women but its impossible for her to go home. Shes been living in a safe house run by nadiris organization. My father doesnt recognize government laws. He only recognizes tribal law. Nadiri and her lawyers are trying to help sohala obtain a divorce from her arranged marriage. You went home once. What happened . Six months ago, i went to my Fathers House with my divorce papers from the court. They all attacked me and started beating me. We took a Police Escort with us because we knew it was a dangerous situation. As soon as they saw her, the women in the family started to attack her. The men in the family came out with guns, they were shooting in the streets, and the police had to whisk her and take her away in order to save her life. Filmmaker Zohreh Soleimani was able to convince sohalas father and brother to meet with her. Her brother started the blood feud by eloping with the old mans wife, the man sohala would be forced to marry to avenge her brothers crime. Her brother refuses to let sohala marry the man she loves. If she goes with that donkey of a man, she will be killed. We are not afraid. We are not afraid of dying. We are not afraid of beating. We are not afraid of killing. For us, its like killing a sparrow. Its nothing. I think the only option she has is to leave the country. Either go to a neighboring country or some other country, but if she stayed in afghanistan, im pretty sure her father or brother will find her and kill her. Wwe have other cases that are more dangerous than hers. Our work is very controversial. We have resistance from all over. The taliban is an obvious threat but also members of parliament, the minister of justice maybe a year ago went in front of parliament and was calling shelters brothels. He eventually apologized but shows how people think. As the country prepares for president ial elections and the u. S. And other International Forces aim to withdraw later this year, many wonder what kind of future lies ahead for young women like sohala and the young women who work to protect them. Woodruff and to the analysis of shields and brooks thats syndicated columnist mark shields and New York Times columnist david brooks. Gent min, i have to say before we start talking, that was a very difficult report to watch. Lets talk about the Supreme Court decision this week. David closely court 54 rule that there should be no limits on the total amount donors can give to political candidates and parties. What did you make to have the decision with the majority and minority justices. I see a silver lining. My view is that for 40 years weve had these Campaign Finance reforms and they have been failures. Money is coursing through our system more than ever before, incumbents use the laws to advantage themselves and one of the reasons i think they have been failures is weve tried to crush money in places like Political Parties and it squished into opaque super pacs and sort of hidden channels. So weve weakened the parties and strengthened the special interests and i think one of the things this decision does in a small way is strengthens the Party Establishments. So the Party Establishments which are more transparent than the super pacs, more accountable, which involve more people, which have National Coalitions are strengthened by this decision. So i think its in some small way a step in the right direction because the way to solve all the money in politics is not to pretend we can get money out of politics. That will never happen. We have to channel it in ways to see it and hold it accountable and i think the parties are the best vehicle for that. Woodruff mark, step in the right direction . No, i dont think so. To revisit the historical record. From 1976 to 199 , we had six president ial elections, and it was run under the Campaign Finance reform act of 1974. In all six of them, every candidate agreed to limits of what he could collect in contributions and what he could spend in seeking a nomination, and they all abided by it, and the reality then each of them accepted public funding for the general election and they could collect no other. Thats six president ial elections during which we had incumbent defeated in 1976, an incumbent defeated in 1980 and later an incumbent defeated in 191992. So it wasnt incumbent protection act. Ronald reagan four times accepted the limits and contributions of what he could take, what he could spend and public funding for the general elections. So i just think the idea that it didnt work, it did work. It worked brilliantly. George w. Bush changed it in 2000 when he went to private financing for the nomination but accepted public funding in the general and, quite frankly, so did it was broken in 2008 when barack obama decided he wasnt going to do that. I say that because, going to the chief justice, there is nothing more basic to our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders, and i wish they felt the same way about voting rights, which they didnt. Somehow this giving these people, these five majority justices must be her meticly sealed. They are unaware of the fact that big money buys access in washington and access purchases influence, it is as simple as that and they have basically given a green light, a further green light after Citizens United to the biggest money, to have the bigger voice in our politics and sound out and drown out the voice of just ordinary citizens. Just first on the historical record, i agree with mark about the presidency. I think the presidency is a bad way to measure the effective Campaign Finance because in the presidency there is so much publicity, so much money floating around, everyones got a lot of money and publicity. If you look at the house and senate races, in the 1970 when we started this last chapter of Campaign Finance, the incumbents had on average 3 for every 2 for the challenger, 3 to 2. Now 4 to 1 or 5 to 1. The incumbents have a ton more money because they rig the system to help themselves because they have networks of small donors. Now the amount of incumbents reelected is going up and up. Its a lot safer to be an incumbent. So i think theyve used the Campaign Finance reforms, passed laws to help themselves stay in office and i think thats one to have the flaws that we have in the system. Woodruff and you think thats going to change . Well, on the separate issue of this particular decision, i you know, i want to limit the effects of the power of donors. No question about it. Roberts opinion doesnt strike me as stupid. Im not sure id agree with how its going to shake out. The opinion is if you want to give to one or five candidates, why shouldnt you have the right to give to 20 candidates. Hes seeing it from free speech grounds. Doesnt seem rational to say if you can give to twenty, you can give to five. Woodruff but theres not a limit on individuals. The way it strengthens the parties, it raises caps we can give to the party and the party can create joint super committees pooling money and deciding which candidates to give it to. Chief Justice Roberts and the majority just apparently are oblivious to the robber barons of the 19 0s, the watergate, the soft money scandal of 1990 and the influence of money. Their limitation, their narrow definition of corruption is a bribe. I give you 10 and say i want your vote on the teachers bill, and you agree. I mean, it has to be that. And i just have to read something. All right. Joe scarborough does the morning joe, was a member of congress from florida from 1995 to 2001. And after he left the center for responsive politics, all talked to insiders, and they and joe had this to say, the lobby over china was disgusting theres no way mfn would have passed in 95, 96 to 2000 if all these companies hadnt come in flooding and making Campaign Contributions and asking for peoples support. That drove the debate every year with the allure of corporate dollars flooding into members bank accounts. Quite bluntly, i saw money change votes. I mean, they just seem unaware of this that money is that they want to see the appearance of corruption. All you have to do is look in las vegas last weekend. You had five Republican Former governors showing up at sheldon to beg for his support. They debased themselves woodruff the governor of ohio. Sheldon, thank you for inviting me, god bless you for what youre going, for 93 million . I have studies that show the reason Washington Real Estate is booming and there are so many lobbyists in town, it pays. The corporation who is invest in lobbyists, pays in terms of tax loopholes and subsidies, it pays. The sheldons, koch brothers, we want to force them into the parties. Not that theyre trying to kiss up to special interests, but so the parties have the power and can direct the money. At least they have a national constituency. At least they have to think about national majorities. If limitations worked for Ronald Reagan four different times, if he could accept it and win an election in an equallyfunded general election, that is, to me, the golden period of american politics from 1976 up to 199 1996 and reallyo 2008, basically, when we did have public funding. It would be so much cheaper for American People if we had public funding for elections. Im a little nervous about public funding. Its better than what we have now. Woodruff i want to leave time for baseball. Quick question on the healthcare law. Did the administration get 7. 1 million americans to sign up. Has the democrats and the white house stanched the bleeding on this or is it still the massive liability that the republicans say . The numbers are moving a little in the healthcare laws favorite. Still i think it will be a alba troughs for the democrats. But the president had a mess, fixed it, mobilized a lot of authority and did it. Turned the corner. A complete turnaround . I dont know. But this is a white house very short at smiles and gone from finger poynting to limited dysfunction this past week. The republicans are in the danger of rooting for the country to fail. They look bad that way, i mean, and i want to say to them, cheer up republicans, eventually things will get worse. They couldnt handle this good news. Woodruff we want to leave time for baseball. Opening week, how is your team going, mark . The nats. The red sox. Woodruff im sorry. They had the good luck of opening against the nats but they did lose today. In boston, the world champions opened up today, and it was exciting and classic. Opening day is really a marvelous thing. I mean, generations of males and i guess females have come up with counterfeit excuses woodruff even females laughter were 0 and 3 so far with this moral victory. Nonetheless, the irish hammer who turned himself from a mediocre second baseman to adequate and good hitter, took the first two days of games off because his wife delivered a baby, noah, and thats heroic, moeller victory for the new york mets, nay be the only kind of victory were achieving but set a good example. Woodruff but there are male sportscasters out there criticizing Daniel Murphy and said he shouldnt have taken time. A pro Football Player on the air said he was wrong about it. I think it was because it was opening day. If hed taken off two games in the middle of july, wouldnt have meant anything. But opening day but he picked a no hitter woodruff i just want to get both of you on the record if somebody took off two days in the middle of july, wouldnt have been a big thing. But opening day, i think thats it. Woodruff but youre on the side of the wife or different of noah that he had both his parents there and hell remember it well. I wish the newshour would have let me take off when my three kids were born laughter woodruff mark shields, david brooks, thank you. Woodruff we return to afghanistan, and a deadly attack on two veteran Associated Press journalists by an unlikely perpetrator, an Afghan Police officer. Hari sreenivasan has more. Sreenivasan the shooting happened this morning in khost province. Photographer Anja Niedringhaus and reporter kathy gannon were traveling with election workers and under the protection of Afghan Soldiers and police when one of the Police Officers approached the car and fired several shots. Niedringhaus was reportedly killed instantly. Gannon is in stable condition at an afghan hospital. We are joined by the Associated Presss Senior Vice President and executive editor Kathleen Carroll. First of all, do you have any update on the health of kathy gannon . Well, shes had some surgeries and we are optimistic about her recovery, but shes still being treated and that will be true for some time. Sreenivasan how did you know Anja Niedringhaus . Anja was a photographer for most to have the im i have been editor of the a. P. , about 12 years, and we worked together at the olympics and on war coverage and on many issues, a quite infectious personality. Its hard not to be drawn to anja. Sreenivasan tell us a little bit about that personality. People have been describing her all day in various ways, kind of a magical pide piper. Anja covered many dreadful things throughout the course of her photography career, wars in every place they existed from the 90s on, but also sporting events and everyday life. What was wonderful about anja is that she found grace and calm and ordinary Human Behavior in the face of some of the worse situations life has to offer. Sreenivasan and is that what the Pulitzer Committee or other people around the a. P. And the world saw about her pictures . What about her pictures made them so special to you some. Anja was a very open person and she was open to life and open to new people and everybody will tell you she had the most wonderful laugh, and it was just the first thing you noticed about her. And the people she was photographing, she was open to them as well, and i think that showed in her work. It had it pulled you in because you were invited by anja to experience what she had experienced and to see these people on their own terms, not as icons of some horrible conflict, but ordinary people who had been thrust into terrible circumstances and were still finding a way to have a Birthday Party or a place to play on a battleground or a cigarette in a quiet corner of a terrible field. Sreenivasan you mentioned she wasnt just a war correspondent, she has several images in the field. She has the flack jacket on, embedded with troops, covering libya, but she has great photographs of, say, i conk rafael nadal. Thats true. A favorite story about anja is at the beijing olympics in a race and there were hundreds of photographers there, anja was there but she set up five camera bodies on a piece of wood and aimed each camera at a lane and she operated it with a wireless device with her foot so that she was going to photograph him with the camera in her hand and also five cameras operated by her toe. It was pretty amazing. Sreenivasan that is amazing. Were heading into tomorrows election in afghanistan. You have to be thinking as a News Organization youve still got people there. Does what happened change your plans for coverage . Well, throughout the course of the history of the a. P. , weve had losses as bad as the one we suffered today yet we still cover the stories. Were not cavalier about the safety threats and we spend all our time, i do personally and the staff here and our security teams, focusing on how we can do our jobs safely. But we never go away. The story of afghanistan is important and we will still be there. Are there specific topics that anja and kathy like to cover, especially considering how long they have been working in afghanistan and pakistan . I think if you look at their work what you find is each of them had a passion for our country that people wanted to forget and often did forget, or wanted to dismiss and often did dismiss. They each found in a different way something compelling about afghanistan and they didnt want the world to forget or reject this place, and it wasnt just the conflict and it wasnt the politics. It was the people and their struggles and their joys and the sheer ordinariness of life that was possible in a beautiful but sometimes very tragic place. All right, Kathleen Carroll from the Associated Press. Thank you so much. Thank you. Woodruff again, the major woodruff again, the major developments of the day the Labor Department said the economy added 192,000 jobs in march, and has now recovered all the jobs lost in the recession. Army officials at fort hood, texas, said they now believe an argument, not Mental Illness, is what set off wednesdays shootings. And afghans made ready for tomorrows president ial election in the face of taliban threats to attack voters. On the newshour online right now ever wonder what medieval literature scholars see in hbos hit series game of thrones . You can hear about chaucer and king arthur on our art beat page. Also on our arts page, a tribute to kurt cobain on the 20th anniversary of his death. We asked musicians, radio hosts, and producers to reflect on nirvanas legacy. All that and more is on our web site, newshour. Pbs. Org. And a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. Gwen ifill is preparing for washington week, which airs later this evening. Heres a preview. Ifill tonight, triple threats, how the Supreme Court, congress and the white house all conspire to remind us of the entanglements of money, politics and power. Thats later tonight on washington week. Judy. Woodruff on tomorrows edition of pbs newshour weekend, correspondent Stacey Tisdale looks at the wide range of tax preparers as april 15 fast approaches. Heres an excerpt from her report. Anybody today can hang up a shingle and be a tax return preparer. Nina olson is the national tax preparer advocate, an independent office created by congress to represent the voice of the taxpayer inside the i. R. S. If you get your haircut, if you go to a locksmith, theres all sorts of professional certifications, but not for return preparation. So theres no exam to pass . No exam. Requirement you have to be educated on tax law . Nope, you can just hang up your shingle or not, just do it on your kitchen table. We are at our peril, we are harming taxpayers by not insisting these people have a basing level of competency. Woodruff and well be back, right here, on monday with an afghan election update, plus whats devastating moose herds in the northeastern u. S. . Thats the newshour for tonight. Im judy woodruff. Have a nice weekend. Thank you and good night. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. 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  this is nightly Business Report with Tyler Mathisen and susie gharib. Stocks are not after hitting alltime highs stocks drop like a rock. The nasdaq tumbles, dragging even the bluest of the blue chips down with it. Why and is there more selling ahead . The labor market hits a milestone. American businesses have regained all the jobs lost to the recession. After adding almost 200,000 in march, whos wihiring and what does it mean for the economy . We have all that and more tonight on nightly Business Report for friday, april 4th. And we bid you good evening, everybody. Im bill griffith. Im susie gharib. Topping our news tonight, a nasty selloff on wall street today. The selling came despite a strongs