Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20160915

Really scared. Ifill all that and more on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by lincoln financial committed to helping you take charge of your financial futuren and by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Fr supporting science, technology, and improved economic, performance and financialc literacy in the 21st century. Supported by the rockefeller foundation. Promoting the wellbeing ofro humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. E more at rockefellerfoundation. Org Carnegie Corporation of new york. Supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of International Peace and security. At carnegie. Org. Ovra, er and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Wae ad ifill for Hillary Clinton, its the first day back. The democratic president ial nominee returned to campaigning today after recuperating from illness. Re she looked rested and recovered, as she boarded her flight toli north carolina, and headed welcome back to stronger together. How are you doing . I am doing great, thank you so much. Ifill clinton had last been seen sunday in new york, nearly collapsing from pneumonia in nep york. Today, she appeared back in the with an event in greensboro. Im not great at taking eight easy even under ordinary circumstances, but with just two months to go until election day. Sitting at home was pretty much the last placech i want toan ifill clintons aides released a letter from her h doctor on wednesday. It rated the 68yearold candidate healthy and fit toar serve as president. She explained later to reporters. Im going to close my campaign focused on opportunities for kids and fairness for families thatsie been the cause of my life, itt will be the passion of my presidency. Were offering ideas, not insults. Ifill republican donald trump, who is 70, publicly released this letter today from his longtime doctor. It said trump is also healthy, that he takes cholesterol medication and a low dose of aspirin. Trump discussed his medicalp status in an interview, airing today on the dr. Oz show. If elected at age 70, you would be oldest person to ever enter the oval office. Yeah, just about the same age as Ronald Reagan and hillary is a year behind me. I would say just based on my life, i feel as good today as i did when i was 30. Ifill the g. O. P. Nominee also talked today of cutting greatly improved growth, at the Economic Club of new york. Over the next 10 years, our Economic Team estimates thatth under our plan, the economy will average 3. 5 growth and created a total of 25 million new jobs. H you can visit our website. Just look at the math. It works. Ifill meanwhile, more evidence the race is tightening, with a cbs newsnew york times poll giving clinton just a two point lead. Le it also suggests an Enthusiasm Gap 51 of Trump Supporters say theyre very enthusiastic about voting. While only 43 of clinton supporters say the same. As of today, the candidates have 54 days until election day, and just 11 days until their first, scheduled debate. Well look at how the president ial race is shaping up in the critical state of ohio,ng later in the program. Woodruff in the days other news, the United Nations blamed syrian president Bashar Alassad for delays in getting humanitarian aid into the a country, despite the new cease fire. U. N. Officials want to send convoys into aleppo from turkey, but they say syria isnt providing permits. In geneva today, u. N. Specialia envoy steffan de mistura complained that valuable time is being wasted. These are days which we should have used for convoys to move with the permit to go because there is no fighting. The Russian Federation is agreeing with us about this. This is something that requires to take place immediately. Woodruff meanwhile, in syria, amateur video purported to show Government Air strikes on rebel groups in homs and idlib, in violation of the ceasefire. Syrias main ally, russia, reported 45 rebel violations, in the last 24 hours. Ifill a selfdescribed hit man in the philippines now says president Rodrigo Duterte personally ordered killings by death squads. Edgar matobato says it happened when duterte was mayor of the Southern City of davao. He testified today at a senate investigation. Its looking into killings of 3,000 drug suspects, since duterte became president. Woodruff back in this country, president obama todayy, created the First National sanctuary in the Atlantic Ocean the marine monument encompasses 5,000 square miles off new england, and includes underwater canyons and mountains. The designation means a ban on commercial fishing, mining andn drilling. Ifill the head of the i. R. S. Will avoid a congressional impeachment vote, for now. Instead, John Koskinen has agreed to testify at a house hearing next week. Republican conservatives accuses him of impeding an investigatioi into tax treatment of tea party groups. Koskinen has denied it. Woodruff and, wall street headed back up, with Tech Companies leading the way. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained 177 points to close at 18,212. The nasdaq rose nearly 76 points, and the s p 500 added 21. Ifill still to come on thee newshour, the rise in computer hacks against political playersa a g. O. P. Stronghold in ohio up for grabs. The changing economy, where big businesses employ far fewer people, and much more. Woodruff this years Political Campaign has a new and different wrinkle cyber hacking has led to regular public releases of documents and private emails involving the Political Parties and key players. Maca democrats are the most frequent targets. But its not only them. O the list of electionseason cyberattacks is growing. The latest target former secretary of state colin powell. A trove of his emails appeared online this week after his personal account was hacked. In one referring to g. O. P. Nominee donald trump and blacke voters, powell wrote, he takes us for idiots. Another referred to Democrat Hillary Clinton as greedy, not transformational. The messages were posted on a site thats reportedly an outley for hackers tied to russia. Clinton, today, did blame the russians. The white house wasnt saying we dont necessarily want to reveal sources and methods that the fbi uses to conduct these kinds of investigations. Woodruff all of this follows the july release of thousands of Democratic National committee e mails. They were published on wikileaks just before the democratic convention. Wikileaks tweeted a link to more d. N. C. Files. The web sites founder Julian Assange, claimed in an interview with the newshour last month, that its done in the public interest. And that performs an ongoing role leading to great works in investigative journalism,ea successful court cases, civil, litigation, criminal process, and, of course, also contributes to public understanding during woodruff meanwhile, politico reports hackers are also targeting state democratic officials. R and congressman michael mccaul, chair of the house homeland h security committee, says republican operatives have been hacked as well. Om still, in washington yesterday, the president s Homeland Security advisor, lisa monaco, played down any threat to the integrity of the election. But added but the efforts of malicious actors to intrude upon voterou registration databases and other elements of our critical infrastructure, as well as our voting infrastructure, is of concern. Woodruff the white house says if there is a response to the hacking, it may not be announced in advance, or ever. For a deeper look at the actors and the politics behind the hacks, we turn to dmitri alperovitch, cofounder and chief Technology Officer atch crowdstrike, the cyber securityr firm that investigated online breaches of the democratic partt over the summer, and david sanger, chief washington correspondent for the new yorker times. And we welcome both of you to the program. Dimitri, let me start with you. How does this cyber hacking of the democrats and others this year compared to what weve seen in previous elections . Well, its really fascinating right now not in the sense that Election Officials are getting hacked, Election Officials are getting hacked weve seen it in other countries over the course of the last couple years in ukraine where the russians have been aggressive in trying to disrupt the president ialdi election if Parliament Tree elections in ukraine. On whats important is its happening in the united states. That weve never seen before and speaks frankly to the boldness of these adversary easies are dg this to all advocates. Woodruff the administration is not naming th russians so how strong is the evidence is that who is it, the russians. The likes like were the ones brought in to investigate the dnc and the Democratic Congressional contain committee hacks and protecting a number of organizations across the political spectrum. Li now i can tell you based on our investigations were very confident russian intelligencege operatives were behind thosee intrusions. Woodruff david sanger,f what is known about the motivehe of the russians . Its not entirely clear, judy, what their motives are, may be. Be this could have started as a generalist peen ahmadinejad operation and of course espionage operation and itser considered fair game by espionage by foreign intelligence groups, includinglu by the nsa and the cia. We do this in our efforts to understand whats happening in russia, china and other places. But what is different as dimitri said is taking that information and in the lingo of the industry, weaponnizing it. Ng in other words releasing this in public. And that is something we havene seen much against american officials. We got a first taste of it when phone conversations betweenen victoria muland, a Senior State Department official and an american embass du dur in ukraie were material was stolenl probably a long ago up to a year ago perhaps earlier this yearis and then released this summer just before as you said the Democratic National convention. N so the timing seemed designed to disturb the election. The big fear of course, and we wrote about this in the timess this morning, is that were only at the beginning end of this and the next step might be the election vote itself. El woodruff how much damage, before we talk about whats ahead, dimitri, how much damageg has been done snls it possible to quantity and whats coming. Certainly the impact of various official not just at the president ial level but at the sort of local and state levels whose private dossiers and other Campaign Information is being released. Its hard to tell whether itset going to impact specifically but theres no question its impacting this race and weve already seen some resignation of Senior Democratic Party officials as a result of these leak. Woodruff back to you david, we heard julian awe assae in this case theres no question he carries a series hard strong feelings against Hillary Clinton because shes critical of him during that huge dump of state Department Cables back in 2010. Do we believe that it is between the russians and Julian Assange and anybody else involved, wikiw leak that the democrats are going to continue to be the main target here . They could well be, though the leaks from secretary powells emails were obviously highly critical of donald trump as well. So that doesnt quite fit the narrative. But Julian Assange has made no secretsecret of his distaste of Hillary Clinton and neither is vladimir putin. Vl its important to remember, judy, in putins mind and secretary clinton personally intervened in the 2011 parliamentary election. Mrs. Clinton denounced as a rigged election. And putin believes that encouraged three protests against him and his party. So he protested that at the time and in his mind, this may simply be returning a favor. Woodruff well im going to ask both of you about something and david you wrote w about this today, you just raised it. Dimitri, how vulnerable are u. S. Election systems, how possible is it, how likely is it that outside actors could interferen with voting the election in november. Theres certainly no question there are vulnerabilities in our election system. We have electronic votingin machines in certain counties that dont use paper ballots. So if theyre hacked, theres actually no way to tell what the original vote intention would have been. Ha if theres a back up paper ballot thats printed out thene you can always go back and recount the vote manually. In though cases it would certainly be safe against hacking. I think it depends how close the elections going to be. If its going to comeel down lie 2000 to a few hundred votes and certain counties theres certainly potential for manipulation that could occur. If its not even close and its a land slide its not going to have any effect. What i worry more than the manipulation of the vote is the shadow cast on the integrity of the process. Even if there is proclamations by the attackers that they attacked the election or manipulated the vote whethere they had actually done it or not, lets going to convince some voters if their cam date lost that their candidate lost that their election was rigged and the person they were voting for should have won. Woodruff david you did a great deal of reporting on thiss what did you find. Judy, the Voting Machines themselves are pretty hard to hack because they are off line. As dimitri points out in five states, theres basically no paper trail, and i think thats pretty dangerous. Secondly, while they may not be able to manipulate the vote itself, it could cause a lot of disruption that could make the clearings in 2000 hanging in florida look like a comparatively small problem. They could, for example, alter data on Voter Registration rolls so people can show up to vote and their names would be missing. They probably do a provisional ballot but it would take a while to sort that out. Theres question about the safety of the systems in which their votes once tallied on election eve are once transmitted in the state once thats encrypted or not. Several states do it differentle and the fact they do it differently is a little source of protection. Finally judy theres the system we all use to report the election results. R so you know, when the newshour and others report results on election night, youll be getting early tallies from the ap. If somebody got into that reporting system and you had false numbers or slightly altered numbers, then there would be a discu discrepancy ben what we heard on tv at night and the numbers as they came in for the actual vote count. And that would also as dimitri points out, create some doubts about the system. Even if its only the real vote count that matters. Woodruff disturbing and i know it merits furthermore reporting on it. Rt dimitri alperovitch, david sanger, thank you both. Thank you. Thank you. Bo ifill in ohio, donald trump and Hillary Clinton appear to bl in a dead heat. But the stakes are higher for trump. The Buckeye State has voted for the winning candidate in every election since 1964, and no republican has ever won the white house without it. Tonight, we begin a twopart look at two counties that tell the tale. E john yang starts our reportingar in a suburb outside of columbus. Yang september in delaware, ohio, means the annual allhorse parade, the biggest event of itf kind east of the mississippi. Is among those gathered along the parade route, we found enthusiastic supporters on both sides in the president ial horser race. Retired educator Gail Carpenter is voting for donald trump. We need a bull in a china shop to break things up. Its not working. The economys bad. Im very worried about iran and north korea. A. I feel like he will do what he needs to do to keep us safe. Yang Jen Villanueva henkle,u who works with children, backs Hillary Clinton. Shes done a lot for women and children and People Living in poverty for the entire history of her career. We support her and were excited to see her be our nextnd president. Yang but there were also folks like julie lamb. T l its been a crazy ride for the last year. Im republican, so thats probably the way im gonna go,o, but not necessarily that crazy about that candidate. Yang and here in the most republican county in ohio, that could spell trouble for trump. Polls in the state show him locked in a tight contest with clinton. No republican has won the white house without winning this state. Wi both campaigns have opened field offices here within the pastfi week. This is ohios wealthiest and fastestgrowing county. Farmland is quickly giving way to manicured lawns and big houses. Republican president ial candidates have won this county every election, since before this diner opened in 1932. Thats where we met kyle kondikh of the university of Virginia Center for politics. Hes written a book on ohios role in picking president s, the bellwether. What a republican needs to do is run up the score in ohio in the conservative Rural Counties and the highincome, highly educated suburban counties that are typically very republicanub yang like Delaware County. Like Delaware County. And thats the path to victory. And i think we saw that with george w. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Yang if trump isnt doing quite as well as republicans typically do in some of those places, that might be a problem for him and hell have to make up the votes elsewhere. Which is why voters like john stark, who owns a construction company, are a threat to trumps chances. Your first election, president ial election, what year . Le 1984. Yang and you voted for . For reagan. Yang and which partys candidate have you voted for ever since . The republicans. Yang until now . Yeah, i think this is the first time not to, honestly. Yang was that a difficult decision for you . No. When i first saw trump, i knew i couldnt vote for him. laughs yang nothing trump has said or done since has swayed him. The Republican Party to me i a party of small government, low regulations, low taxes. Were not really sure what hee stands for except himself xc he likes to talk about himself a lot. Yang trumps economic message doesnt resonate with voters in this prosperous county, like stark he says business is good, and his son got a job as an audio engineer a within a week of graduating college. Voting for clinton was never an option. His candidate libertarian gary johnson. Do you worry that voting for johnson would, could help clinton . I guess i dont care you know, i gotta, you gotta have principles, right . Yang but its not as if clintons having an easy ride here, even though she holds a cathy okunlola was an enthusiastic Barack Obaman supporter in 2008 and 2012. This time, shes backing clinton but without that same excitement. Shes not gonna get up and have those huge inspiring rallies that obama did, you know . Hid laughs its not like a big party when you walk in the room forro hillary, but she gets the job done. And she really wants to help people, i think like shes doing it for the right reasons,i i think. Yang a stayathome mother of two young daughters, okunlola said her main goal on election day is to beat trump. T i really dislike trump. I never really believed he would be the nominee, but hey, here we are. R so im voting for hillary. Yang she struggled to put her feelings about clinton into words. Theres that kid in yourr class, that just plugs away at everything, you know . Theyre not a, exactly the popular kid, and theyre not exactly super talented at musici or anything, but they just, they study hard, and they show up, obama would have been the prom king and everybody wouldve loved him. Wo e everybody went to school with somebody like that, you know . That everybody wanted to be around. And shes not that person, butso she is somebody where if you were in trouble, thats who you wanted. laughs e you know . Yang voters like stark and okunlola could well decide who wins ohio and, perhaps, the presidency. Analyst kyle kondick i would suspect the margin between trump and clinton in Delaware County will be smalleru than they typical margin between a republican and democrat inin this county and that could be very helpful to clinton, but trump may have opportunities to make that up in some more traditionally democratic places that might be a little bit more republican this time. Cr yang as voters face very unpopular choices and try the to pick a winner in theic president ial horse race. For the pbs newshour, im john yang in Delaware County, ohio. Ti ifill tomorrow, john yang crosses the state to report from a Traditional Democratic stronghold, where donald trump is hoping to make inroads. Mo woodruff but first, Big Companies today are not creatin nearly as many middleclass jobs as they once did, and thatsare been one of the concerns in thih campaign. Economics correspondent paul solman went to detroit where ideas for spurring a new era of local manufacturing are taking shape. Its part of his weekly series, making sense. Reporter a mustsee stop on the grand tour of decaying detroit the plant that, for decades, clanked out auto chassis for g. M. General motors at its height had 900,000 employees, career ladders galore, they were providing a lot of benefits, creating good middleclass jobs. G. M. Today has about 220,000 employees around the world. Its about as many as it had ino 1928. Reporter but sociologist jerry davis says the g. M. s of yesteryear, though models of productivity and Even Economic equality, are history. What happened to General Motors didnt just happen to General Motors. There are about half as many public corporations today, as they were 20 years ago. Reporter so instead of General Motors, u. S. Steel, Eastman Kodak and i could go ono and on, what have we got . The big corporations today dont really have that manys employees. Theyre not providing careere ladders, theyre not creating middleclass jobs. Blockbuster had 80,000 employees and 9,000 Stores Across the country, netflix does the same thing with fewer than 4,000 people. If anybody tells you they workto at facebook, probably they mean they are a contractor because only about 12,000 people00 actually work at facebook. They are worth 300 billion but very few people actually work there. 30 reporter in a new book davis calls it the vanishing American Corporation and poses a pivotao question what will rise from the wreckage . Megafirms that hire relatively few workers . Madeanywhere product peddlers like nike . Theyre the biggest sneaker and Sporting Goods company in the world but they dont actually make most of the stuff with their name brand on it. They design it, they market it from oregon but the productionon is done by contractors all around the world. And that model is spread widely, its not just sneakers, its not just garments, electronics,st pharmaceuticals, pet food, you name the product and you can find somebody to manufacture it and put your name on it. Reporter nikeification,ca davis has dubbed it, exemplified by another multinational with a detroit foothold ikea. The ikea model is you manufacture it somewhere, you ship it out around the world, so this model might be a very good model for customers because its very inexpensive. Its not the worlds best furniture but you can live with it. Reporter and you do have to assemble yourself. Or hire someone to do it for you. Indeed, these days, a world of temps is only a moment away. A business like upwork allow you to find contractors to do programming and other tasks available around the world. Czech republic, u. S. ,ub croatia, philippines. Reporter but the technology that allows for such wonders,s and the wage exploitation of a global race to the bottom, also suggests a more appealing future for work in america. You can go to this website and see these great designs for beds, chairs and tables and so on. The kind of thing that you might buy at ikea. But these are designs that yougn can download and create locally. Reporter instead of assembling ikea furniture themselves, that is, why cant americans also make it . To their own specifications . This is basically an ikea like chair thats made out of metal but you could make it out of plastic or wood. Wo reporter these are just prototypes or models . Ls yes. These are the designs online shrunk to a tiny version. But you could make a full sized version of this this afternooner reporter so davis took us to techshop detroit, where vasily vincent was using a computer controlled cutting machine to cut a table leg based on an online design. M for a monthly fee, techshop members access all manner of gadgetry. Faithe olsen was working the water jet cutter. Its using steam, its using water pressure. Its basically using erosion to cut through thats eighth inch aluminum on there right now. Reporter wow, so thats cutting through aluminum now. Yup. Its just cutting right through it. Reporter techshop is for pros and rank amateurs alike. F the manager is will brick. So who is this . Is the red baron . Yeah right i like to imagine thats me in the cockpit there reporter brick cooked up this model airplane for a summek camp. One of the things we taught kids to do was to build an air frame and then and then uh add a radio control mechanism to actually be able to remotely pilot it. An reporter so, future makers learn how to do it themselves, while entrepreneurs hatch theha products of tomorrow. The rope runner was the brainchild of kevin bingham. He came up with this thing that allows you to scale a treea go up and down without changing kit, and be as nimble as say a spider monkey, right . He came into tech shop, drew up some prototypes, made some wooden mockups, and cut out the finished aluminum pieces, assembled all that, and thend engraved his logo and the phrase made in detroit, which i love, into the Powder Coating on the sides of the apparatus. L reporter what davis seesr budding in detroit is an alternative to a world run by nike and ikea manufacturing brought back to america, made possible by evercheaper technology and repurposing the Industrial Infrastructure of the past. Consider the green garage, a sociallyconscious Business Incubator housed in a former modelt showroom. We are a Diverse Community of about 211 locallyowned food businesses reporter Devita Davison of foodlab deploys local kitchens for entrepreneurs baking cakes,c for instance. Taking advantage of the underutilized Community Kitchen space, in churches, Daycare Centers and head start. Ad reporter Amany Killawi cofounded launchgood, a crowdfunding site for muslims. It can be anything from someone creating their first childrens story, to an app, to starting their own business, bur then you also have specific personal causes like helping the First Australian hijabi ballerina. I think many times muslims are a seen as a source of problems in the world and were here to show them as a source of solutions. Reporter the businesses here represent jerry daviss dream of a workforce that makes locally, but thinks globally. These are businesses that are meant to last a long time. They are part of a broader ecosystem and their goal is really, what can we do to makeo detroit as a community, stronger. Its a very different modely than, how do we create the most shareholder value, how do i retire before ive reachedlu drinking age . Reporter a visit to the red panda space, a whole office, gave davis a chance to relive his days in the college rock band, ivan pavlovs salivationo army. Today, professional groups like wilco and the Red Hot Chili Peppers use red panda guitard effects to create new sounds. Owner curt malouin designs the pedals himself and has them made within fairly easy reach. That allows us to have better control over the quality and more flexibility, so that we can experiment with new products an be on the leading edge of the market, but we can also then ramp up production really easily when we get a hit product. Reporter turns out malouin assembled the very first pedal back at techshop, where plentyty of other doityourselfers are inventing things on shared equipment. John osbourne dreamed up a box making machine. It only takes about 15 seconds to change from one box to a completely Different Box so its the only machine of its kind in the world. Reporter and with so many a folks turning out small runs of bespoke products, you need all kinds of boxes. And its now technically feasible, says jerry davis. Er this is a place where Capital Equipment is so cheap and so easy to use that children can t learn to use it in two hours and if its that accessible, why do we need corporations . Reporter but if everybody can make everything by themselves there are no more manufacturing jobs why do we need to have jobs if there are other ways to provide those same results, then maybe we could organize our tima differently. Maybe we could be a maker on Tuesday Morning and a farmer on tuesday afternoon and a mash up dj on tuesday evening. And we could all have more rewarding lives with more control over our time. Reporter hey, maybe you could all make tv stories like this one. But until then, this is paul solman, economics correspondent every day of the week reporting from detroit. Ifill last night we brought you stories of american women forced into marriage in thisca country. Tonight, in part two of her exclusive report, special correspondent Gayle Tzemach lemmon tells us of americansof taken overseas for the same reason, both women and girls,bo who often find themselves beyond the assistance of their own government. Nd i was a kid, i hadnt really grown that much, so i was really scared. Reporter jada was just 12 years old when her father took her from the u. S. To live in saudi arabia. And her future was about to change dramatically. How did you first find out what your father had planned for you . Ah well, one day we were walking to a store and he told me to stay on his right side, because they do that there, so other men know that the women that they have on their right side is for sale. Reporter jada, whos last name we are withholding at the request of her lawyer, hadnt even started high school when her father, a convert to islam, moved them both to jeddah and began trying to marry her off. Shes thousands of miles away and theres nothing we can do. Reporter jadas family back in new jersey was terrified when they heard what her dad had planned. An jadas mother had died suddenly a few years earlier but her aunt shirley says her sister, mecca, rose up to fill the role. Se i was at work and i got a text that said help me. You know we didnt like what are you talking about help me and shes like no help me my dadsat trying to sell me. Reporter over the next few months, mecca tried to support her little sister, to plot her return and save her from apl marriage. Other than texting i neverha got to physically hear her voice. So i didnt know if she was crying at the moment or if she was scared. Sc im just looking at text messages. Reporter the messages grew increasingly desperate. I was literally losing sleep like every day. In depressed. Going to work depressed, because i really didnt know what to dow reporter mecca contacted everyone she could think of, including the u. S. Government. Even though the embassy was meant to help americans it was they had to still go through, they had to still use saudi arabia laws. S. Reporter in the end, it was up to the family to protect jada. I i started to feel like we were exhausting everything cause it seemed like everybody was saying, well, you know, you know, theres really nothing we can do. y so my aunt started savingd money to get jada home and i started just contactingct everybody and thats when i came in contact with casey. Reporter casey is caseyep swegman, a counselor at the Tahirih Justice center, an organization in northernor virginia devoted to protecting immigrant women and girlsim mecca reached her via a Human Trafficking hotline. In over three months, she gathered information about jadas case, working with mecca on strategies to get her sister back. I think as an advocate if jada hadnt had mecca, it wouldve been a profoundly different experience. Reporter together they succeeded in bringing jada home before any marriage could take place. Today she is a star student about to Enter High School and dreaming of collegeho at ucla. But not everyone is so lucky. I according to the Tahirih Justice Center Thousands of american women are forced into marriages every year. Tahirih runs one of the only forced marriage programs in the country. 400 girls and women to help them either avoid or escape a forced marriage. Rl i remember the engagement. Im in this crazy dress and im dressed up. An reporter american citizen lina alahri was 21 when her father took her to his native yemen, amid the ongoing war, veiled as a visit to her ailing grandmother. Once there, the formerre California High School almond blossom queen contestant she quickly learned that she was about to marry a man whom shed never met, forced by her father into a marriage she did not want. F she says she tried everything to avoid it. Wa the first thing i imagined but i knew that wasnt an option. Reporter according to custom, alahri was taken to her new husbands home, where she was expected to consummate the marriage while his whole family waited for proof. I remember my father inlaw telling me what is the problem . Why are you not doing it . The faster you do this the faster you get to go home. The faster that you have intercourse is the faster that you can come home. Reporter but alahri was 8,000 miles away from her home. And no one, it seemed, could help her. Not even her government. You think, i am a u. S. Citizen and the one thing that you want to do is you want to take off at the u. S. Embassy and then, they are your savior and theyll fly you out. Reporter but it wasnt the case. E thth a close friend of alahris wasie able to contact the u. S. Embassy in sanaa, yemens capital, on her behalf. Tell her that were unable to intervene directly, their response read. If she can find her way to the u. S. Embassy, we are open. But she couldnt get there because it was too dangerous. And in the end she consummated the marriage. She felt it was her only path to getting home alive. Sometimes the only way out is through. The whole system had failed lina, the world failed lina. Reporter Casey Swegman took on alahris case after her best friend back in california contacted the group. When a womens only option for getting to safety is to s capitulate to rape, into ate forced marriage, that is a failure of the entire system. We failed them by not having mechanisms to prevent them from going overseas and being forced into marriage in the first place. As reporter Michelle Bernier toth is the managing director for overseas Citizens Services in the state Departments Bureau of consular affairs. Ic theyre being held against their will but in accordance with local law because theyve been legally married in thatau country. And their spouse now has Legal Authority and control over what happens to them. And contrary to a kidnapping or a hostage taking, there is a legal basis for that action that is one of the big deals, a huge, challenge. Americans usually think that if theyre threatened overseas, the state department can swoop in and rescue them, but the reality is much more complicated. Both young women in this story reached out seeking help from abroad. But the truth is, americans dont take their laws with them when they travel. H reporter in both cases here, these young women were able to orchestrate trips back to the u. S. Then12yearold jadas family won custody of her. When she came to the u. S. For a visit with her father. And alahris plan for freedom was even more intrepid. With the war in yemen pounding outside her windows, she worked with tahirih and her best frienh from home to orchestrate the plan. After marrying the stranger she, then returned to the u. S. On a pledge to acquire visas for heru inlaws. When she landed in the states, tahirih was waiting. It took several agonizing months for each of them to fin their escape routes. Now on american soil, tahirihh has helped them restart their lives and continues to offer counseling and support. But swegman and her colleagues still feel these are isolated successes, over a problem few americans even know exists forced marriage in the united states. I think the worst outcomes are probably somewhere out there, with a women who maybe only have the 15 minutes to cals but i never heard from her again. And i think, you know the bad endings are the ones we never see. Ou reporter pbs newshour attempted to contact both alahris and jadas fathers and received no reply. Today, home once again in california, alahri considers swegman a member of her own family. To have that support and have that love from somebody who youve never even met before, it makes a huge difference. Tahirih and like casey and i feel lucky to have all that. Because if it werent for those people, you dont know where youd be. Reporter but now the former miss almond blossom contestant is back. Studying and working toward a future she nearly lost. Im Gayle Tzemachlemmon for the pbs newshour in california. Ifill online you can watch the first of gayles reports and a conversation about the series. And tomorrow, join our twitter chat about forced marriage at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, with gayle and a number of experts and advocates. Find the link on our website, pbs. Org newshour. Woodruff now, what specific skills employers want from college graduates, and what a college can do to prove students are ready. Hari sreenivasan has the story as part of our special series this week on rethinking college. Sreenivasan Graduation Day at Georgetown University. It takes four years, more thanth 200,000 dollars, and a lot of hard work to get here. But now more employers are asking, what does a fouryears degree really mean . What true marketable skills cana new graduates offer the work force . Georgetown university is trying to answer that question. Were hearing from employers. How do you differentiate between two graduates . Ou sreenivasan professor randall bass leads the colleges designing the future initiative. If youve got a pile of ten graduates who all have degrees from quality liberal artser schools, and they all look more or less alike in terms of their formal credentials, are there ways to differentiate them . E sreenivasan last semester, bass and colleagues at georgetown offered a free experimental course for students who want to further distinguish themselves. Fo instead of receiving ang traditional credit, students who meet the requirements are awarded a digital badge. What we see in the badges is a way of trying to help students tell a story about some dimension of their learning that might otherwise be merely a line of their resume. T its easy with a degree to show what youve learned in biology or in business. But its not easy to show what youve learned in terms of leadership. U sreenivasan erika cohen derr, who was part of the Georgetown Team that designed the new badge, says employers want to know more about as students disposition. These are the soft skills, they are skills like empathy, communication, ethical leadership. The disposition that a student has that they bring to any teame or any group. A resume has never been enough, and thats why this concept of badging is appealing to me. , sreenivasan job recruiters, like desy osunsade, see Digital Badges as a way to better define talent. Un we spend a lot of time and money as recruiters trying to make sure we have the perfect fit, because recruiting is expensive. Av sreenivasan osensade recruits for arabella philanthropic investment advisors. She says a degree doesnt say enough about a potential hire. It tells me the persons line of study, it doesnt tell me if they are good at things like critical thinking, problem solving, do they work well in teams, do they have oral communications. A resume, with a degree from anywhere does not tell me that. The digital badge offered by georgetown is called thee catalyst badge. Alexis onieseleh participated in the pilot. In the catalyst badge is just affirming that. We see something that needs to be changed and just go about it. Proving that you are an agent of change is accomplishing theen goals that you set for yourself. Sreenivasan don fraser, from the education design lab, works with georgetown, george mason university, and university ofsi virginia, as part of a larger effort called the 21st century skill badging challenge. Sreenivasan if im an employer, im going to get a better employee, if they have badges that say they are a Problem Solver or critical thinker, good oral communicator . If theres rigor in thoseni t badges, and those skills areil valuable, in the work youre doing, i would say yes. Sreenivasan more so if thane if they came out with a specific degree . Exactly, because they have been working to specificallyif acquire those skills, which is totally different than thell implicit way we believe they are getting right now, hoping thatg by the time they graduate and get these degrees, theyvegr gained these skills in some capacity. Sreenivasan Anthony Carnevale is the director of the Georgetown University center ono education and the workforce. Whats happening is the onpp the job training is no longer sufficient, because employers dont commit to employees for a lifetime the way they used to, so weve got to get our own job training. W sreenivasan in may, alexis onieseleh graduated from georgetown with a major in Global Health and a minor inea womens gender studies. Since graduation, she has been helping with her Parents Company and will start a more serious job search this fall. Here it is certification catalyst credential. I had to pass a certain level of criteria, which you can find here, and if you click there, it will take you to this websitw which tells you everything i needed to do to become aer catalyst. The catalyst credential is awarded to a student who embraces challenges, demonstrates initiative, pursues positive social change. You host them online andd theyre hosted digitally, people have the ability to click on that badge and get at the metadata associated with how the learner, the student, achievedde that particular badge. So if i am so inclined, i can look at assessments that were a part of that badge, i can lookge at the work, the body of work that the student did in order tr earn that badge. The same degree from different schools producesdi different workers. Sreenivasan some emerging for Profit Education ventures see a much bigger role for Digital Badges. Anitdg a degree doesnt say a lot, a badge or a micro credential, can say a lot more. Sreenivasan ryan craig is the author of college disrupted the great unbundling of higher education. The primary credential that we use in our labor market is the degree, thats the sort ofee default credential. Micro credentials, or badges breaks that down into literally competencies. What microcrendentals are signaling the shift from degree based hiring, to competency d based hiring. Linkedin, its not just for top executives, its for you, and its a great place to start your professional career. Tes sreenivasan craig points to microsoft and its recent purchase of linkedin as new players in the field of post secondary education because they offer educational training, certificates, and a marketplacei to display skills. Competency marketplaces they way in which a decade from now are the way in which a decade from now most Postsecondary Education will be purchased. Sreenivasan but Anthony Carnevale cautions that commercial badges, micro credentials, and certificates need more scrutiny. Ad its a whole industry where i theres no transparency and no consumer protection, so let thet buyer beware of what happened to the people who took this course, got this badge. So people can tell if something is worth the money. Sreenivasan alexis oni eseleh says she recently used the catalyst badge in a job interview. The interviewer asked me to talk about a time i showed initiative, and i was able to talk about the digital badge and all the steps i had to take ini order to get it to qualify for it, and even encouraged her to go look at it on my linkedin page. Sreenivasan this fall, designers of the badge challenge are expanding their reach to colleges with nontraditional students, who often have a harder struggle to find jobs. In washington, d. C. , im Hari Sreenivasan for the pbs h newshour. Woodruff and a nice postscript to the story this month, alexis onieseleh started a job as a media buyer at an ad agency on madison avenue. A and online, a look at whether remedial classes really help College Students succeed. Thats at pbs. Org newshour. Ifill and now to another in something we thought might be of interest to you. Be a town in Washington State is home to a group of serve former lab chimpanzees who have been given a Second Chance to live out their lives in the rural pastures where they are honorary citizens. The story comes to us from television kccs in seattle. Diane and i have been here now a little over eight years. So they are hanna honorary cs and are known throughout the world. Annie is a really sweet chimp and shes best friends with my feet. She adores my feet. E he is spur goofy spu goof supero they are just in love with my hes the oldest of the group, about to turn 43. Foxy is known around the world now for her level of trade offs. She has about 400. 00 the manner is like watchingt out for everybody. This is the boss of the group. She really likes instagram. Ns this area is an open enclosure so it was the first time the chimps were outsidet without something over their heads so they could actually see the sky. Y. Some of them it was the firsti time they ever stepped on grass actually in their entire lives because many chimps were born in captivity. We never go into the enclosure with the chimps. Th aggression is a normal part of chimpanzees life. Nz and so its just not safe. But also we want to respect their space, they are territorial and we want to ass much as we can respect their boundaries and let them be chimps. Ifill and thats the newshour for tonight. On friday, correspondent williae brangham reports on the showdown between the Standing Rock siouxr tribe and Oil Companies over th pipeline in north dakota. Im gwen ifill. Woodruff and im judy woodruff. Join us online, and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. For all of us at the pbsal newshour, thank you and goodws night. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by lincoln financial committed to helping you take charge of your financial futuren the lemelson foundation. Committed to improving lives through invention. In the u. S. And developing countries. On the web at lemelson. Org. Iv and with the ongoing support of these institutions 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 newshour productions, llc captioned byca Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org this is bbc world news america. Funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, newmans own foundation, giving all profits from newmans own to charity and pursuing the common good, kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for americas neglected needs, and aruba tourism authority. Planning a vacation escape that is relaxing, inviting, and exciting is a lot easier than you think. You can find it here, in aruba. Families, couples, and friends can all find their escape on the island with warm, sunny days, cooling trade winds,nd