Majestic animals, from a criminal enterprise determined to destroy it. The poaching situation of elephants in africa is actually at crisis levels. At this rate most of our Wild Elephants will be gone in 10 years. Woodruff those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions 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 the president s remarks about the threat posed by the terrorist group known as the Islamic State prompted push back in washington today. At the same time, the groups war for dominance in the middle east threatened to spill over another border. Woodruff turkish tanks took up positions along the border today, overlooking the besieged syrian town of kobane, where Islamic State forces are battling kurdish fighters. Stray mortar shells landed inside turkey, as thousands of syrian kurds escaped into that country. translated we fled from cruelty. The dogs of the Islamic State went into our village and destroyed our farming lands. Now we cross to turkey. I hope turkey will accept us otherwise we will seek shelter from the arabs. Woodruff u. S. Airstrikes hit Islamic State positions near kobani over the weekend, and again overnight. President obama offered his explanation for the militants rapid advance, in his 60 minutes interview on sunday. Well, i think our head of the Intelligence Community, jim clapper has acknowledged that i think they underestimated, what had been taking place in syria. I mean, he he didnt just say that, we underestimated isil. He said, we overestimated the ability and the will of our allies, the iraqi army, to fight. Thats true. Thats absolutely true. And i and and and these are the people that were now expecting to carry on the fight. Well, heres what happened in iraq. When we left, we had left them a democracy that was intact, a military that was wellequipped, and the ability then to chart their own course. And that opportunity was squandered over the course of five years or so. Woodruff but republican critics sharply disagreed. On c. N. N. Today, arizona senator john mccain blamed the president by singling out the failure to get an agreement with iraqs former Prime Minister, to keep some u. S. Troops in iraq. We predicted this and watched it. It was like watching a train wreck, and warning every step of the way that this was happening because a residual force would have stabilized the situation and, of course, maybe had a break on maliki. It is a direct result of our failure to leave a residual force behind. Woodruff as for syria, foreign minister fuad muallem told the u. N. General Assembly Today the assad regime supports airstrikes against Islamic State and other militants. translated we believe that priority should be given to work on the concerted efforts of the International Community to combat the terrorism of isis and Jabhat Al Nusra and other al qaeda affiliates. The alqaedabacked alnusra front has fought the Syrian Government and been at odds with Islamic State since it broke with alqaeda last year. But now that both factions are being hit by air strikes, al nusras leader warned on sunday of retaliation against western targets. Muslims will not stand idly by and watch muslims be bombed and killed in their countries, while you are safe in your countries. The price of war will not be paid by your leaders alone. You will pay the biggest price. Woodruff despite such warnings, the white house gave no sign today of easing off the air campaign. Woodruff well delve deeper into what u. S. Intelligence knew, and what it should have known, about the Islamic State challenge, later in the program. Afghanistan inaugurated a new president today, for the first time in a decade. Ashraf ghani will head the new powersharing government, succeeding hamid karzai. Ghani was sworn in at a ceremony in kabul. He, in turn, swore in president ial rival Abdullah Abdullah as his chief executive. Ghani also made a new appeal for peace. translated fighting is not the solution to the political differences, we proved that political differences can be solved through political negotiations. Therefore, i call upon the oppositions of the government, especially the taliban and others to join political talks. Woodruff the Inauguration Day ceremony was marred by a Suicide Attack in kabul minutes before ghani was sworn in. It left seven people dead and blew out windows at a checkpoint near the citys airport. Security forces flooded the scene. The taliban claimed responsibility. New fighting erupted in part of Eastern Ukraine today, as rebels backed by russia shelled ukrainian troops at donetsk. Officials said 12 people were killed, including seven ukrainian soldiers, in the worst ceasefire violations in more than a week. Meanwhile, russia warned it will retaliate if the European Union or ukraine pushes ahead with a freetrade agreement. The Prime Minister of israel painted Islamic State and the Palestinian Group hamas today as part of the same threat to humanity. Benjamin netanyahu spoke to the United Nations General Assembly and criticized leaders who praise attacks on Islamic State fighters, but condemn israels war on hamas in gaza. He called them branches of the same poisonous tree. As Hamas Charter makes clear hamas immediate goal is to destroy israel. But hamas has a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. So when it comes to their ultimate goals, hamas is isis and isis is hamas and what they share in common all militant islamists share in common. Woodruff netanyahu also likened militant islam to nazism. And he blasted palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas for accusing israel of carrying out a war of genocide in gaza. Woodruff california governor jerry brown has signed a law requiring colleges to define when someone consents to sex. The statute is the first in the nation and calls for, quote, an affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement. It also mandates faculty training in handling complaints, plus Student Access to counseling and care. Opponents had argued its not the states business to define sexual consent. The nations leading Pediatricians Group recommended today that sexually active teenage girls use longacting Birth Control. The American Academy of pediatrics called for greater use of i. U. D. s or hormonal implants to reduce pregnancy rates. The group still recommends condoms as well, both for Birth Control and to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Bank customers are shelling out more on fees than they were year ago. Bankrate. Com reports charges for using outofnetwork a. T. M. s jumped 5 , to a record 4. 35 per transaction. Average Overdraft Fees were nearly 33. Banks have raised those fees to make up for federally imposed curbs on other fees. On wall street today, the Dow Jones Industrial average lost nearly 42 points to close at 17,071. The nasdaq fell six points to close below 4,506. And the sandp 500 slipped five, to finish under 1,978. Woodruff still to come on the newshour failures by the secret service to protect the white house; how the u. S. Misjudged the Islamic State militants; calls for democracy as thousands of protesters fill hong kongs streets; authors take aim at amazon; detroit neighborhoods get badly needed face lifts by knocking down dilapidated buildings; and, protecting african elephants from poaching. Woodruff the secret service is under scrutiny again for its handling of security of the first family. The Washington Post reported today that the recent fence jumper made it farther into the white house than was previously disclosed, and even overpowered one secret service agent. This, on top of a new report that showed a botched handling of a previous attack. The president does retain confidence in the leadership of the secret service and in the men and women of the secret service. Woodruff the white house found itself defending its defenders again today. Press secretary josh earnest addressed reports of an incident three years ago, that could have put the first family in danger. Whats required in an environment like this, is a Security Organization that is adept, that is nimble and that can be constantly both reviewing and upgrading their posture as necessary. Thats difficult work, but the president and first lady have confidence in the ability of the secret service to do it. Woodruff the Washington Post reported saturday that it took four days in november 2011 before the secret service realized a gunman had shot at and hit the white house seven times. The president and first lady were away at the time, but daughter sasha and her grandmother were inside. Reports of shots fired were not linked to the white house itself until a housekeeper spotted broken glass and a chunk of cement knocked loose by a bullet. The shooter, oscar ortega hernandez, who was from idaho, fled the scene, but was later arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The new disclosures came only a few days after an iraq war veteran jumped a fence, ran across the lawn and made it just inside the executive mansion. Officials have since put up new barriers, keeping tourists and passersby even farther away. Woodruff we get more from the Washington Post reporter who broke both these stories, Carol Leonnig. Carol, thank you for being with us again. So new information about this man who jumped the fence last week and got into the white house. And now it turns out farther than anybody thought. Yes, people have been making jokes today that he went in and made himself a sandwich. Its really disconcerting that some sources who come to us and whistleblowers who have come to the congressman have recounted something more serious about this Security Breach about ten days ago. Omar gonzalez apparently not on made it to the front door and opened it, he made it past the guard who was stationed inside that area and into the east room. Most, you know, members of the public havent seen the east room except on television or on the internet. But its the ornate, elaborate room that the president uses for addresses and receptions. And this person was tackled there after making it all the way to the south end of that 80 foot long room. This suggests that he had a lot of opportunities to be close to other people in the house. And as you all know, the president and his daughters had just lifted off in their helicopter at that point from the south lawn when Omar Gonzalez made a break for it on the north lawn and got in the house. Woodruff so carol, this means yet another layer of secret Service Protection was breached . Yes. And you know, im glad you bring up the layers. We wrote a story about a week ago about the five security layers that former agents had highlighted for us. And they said, you know, its just is a mazing that the success of layer was be breached. First the countersurveillance guys on the outside, that see suspicious activity and jumpers then the uniform Division Officers who are supposed to be able to collar that person. Then the canine dogs who are supposedding released. Knock down an intruder. Then fourth, a swat team that is on the ground, able to respond to a crisis, and then fifth, a Uniformed Division officer who is supposed to be posted on the outside of the door at all times. All of those we know failed. However, what we didnt know until today was the account of that is spooling out to us, was that there was another secret Service Officer post odd inside who appeared to be caught unaware that there was an intruder coming here with a and about to burst through the door. When he was caught unaware, though he tried to collar him he overpowered with her and barrel past her and into really the heart of the ceremonial white house. Woodruff and this just raises all sorts of new questions so i also want to ask the about the story this incident in 200 20121. It was known there was a shooting. The man behind it went to prison for 25 years, who was not known was how much the secret Service Botched this. What exactly went wrong. I think the story is sort of in three parts. A lot of what went wrong was from an investigative standpoint. So as you have already well described, this shooter pulled out a scum eye auction rival, pointed it at the white house, parked on constitution avenue and struck the residents of the obamas seven times, two going into the windows of a living room that mish ohl bama has described as one of her favorite rooms. Michelle and the president were not at home at this time. But sasha was at home. The youngest daughter. Motherinlaw Marian Robinson was there and malia, the older daughter was on her way home. But what, happened was the secret Service Leadership decided that it was very unlikely that this shooter, the gunshots that were heard, were aimed at the white house. They thought that was likely impossible that somebody could shoot that far. And they deduced that instead two gangsters were shooting at each other. They found an abandoned car very soon after the gunfire was heard on the south lawn, abandoned and crashed inside it was this knockoff semi auction rifle, knock off ak47. And again they deduced this was one of the gangsters cars. But what they didnt investigate very fully was the evidence of damage that was very clear on the outside of the white house, and on the trim and balcony. And also most importantly, they didnt focus on their own staff on the grounds that night. There is an officer named Kerry Johnson who told fbi agents later that she was underneath the trim and balcony and readied a shotgun when she heard gunfire. She thought an attack was coming over the south lawn. She heard debris falling over her head on the balcony. These are all those red flags, that wow, maybe something hit the white house. But she you know, was afraid to counter her bosses who said to her we have investigated this and determined it something else. Woodruff two questions very quickly then, what does that say about what the way the secret service is run, number one, and we know it was under a different director then. And number two, has all this been fixed today . Well, as for the, you know, what are these things indicate. Kerry johnson didnt feel comfortable rebutting her bosses narratives. Officers in the secret service and leadership that night, that friday night brushed rushed to a hasty conclusion and didnt look very hard and didnt ask very many questions. So it almost seems like, you know, some of the complaints that weve heard over the last several months that the agency is a little too complacent, that it hasnt had a serious attack or assassination attempt and thus is sort of starting to get lulled to sleep. Thats one thing, a worry that is raised. Second, that its a topdown Leadership Culture where, you know, you better turn and dont mess with our thought process about what happened here. That certainly looks like it was Kerry Johnsons experience. Woodruff well, it an extraordinary report, story, and two extraordinary examples of reporting am we thank you very much. The other part of it we didnt even have time to talk about is the anger on the part of the president and the first lady after this incident in 2011. Again, great reporting, Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post. Thank you, Judy Woodruff the protests which took over the streets of hong kong this weekend and sparked a crackdown by police continued today in force. Hundreds of thousands were out tonight to protest what they call a curbing of democracy and interference by beijing in picking local leadership candidates. The Chinese Government says the demonstrations are illegal. We have a report from lucy watson of independent television news. This is a young generation empowered by unity. Once again here to galvanize prodemocracy in a peaceful way. In a city that is fighting to maintain its rights and liberties. Tear gas and pepper spray confronted them last night. Because their demands pose a threat to their own government and that of mainland china. Alex chow was arrested for his involvement but believes this is the only way. You negotiate, you ask the government response but you can see all the meths for loss pog we are and then you have no way britain handed over hong kong in 1997 with beijing a growing to a one country two systems principal principles. The people believe that autonomy is being diluted by to the being allowed to elect their next set of government to a fully democratic process. The iron hand of china is tightening its grip. I hope the chinaee Chinese Communist party wont repeat what they did in 1989, the Tiananmen Square massacre and make themselves criminals of history. This family watched and experienced yesterdays violence but are here again, hopeful, even woodruff we pick up now on the president s statements that the Intelligence Community underestimated the Islamic State groups capabilities and overestimated the Iraqi Militarys willpower. For that, im joined by frederick kagan, director of the critical threats project at the American Enterprise institute. He was a leading advocate for the surge of American Forces in iraq in 2007. And steven simon, he was a their pregnant daughter wanted to return. I want to let them see now we are here. We are want freedom. There is a decidedly different atmosphere with protestors chanting peace, love and unity in the absence of Police Presence because they believe the momentum of this movement is growing, as the numbers increase. Its thought around 300,000 people are here tonight. Proving that generations in hong kong are undetered from their goals, done in the hope it heralds a future. We pick up now on the president s statement that the intell advocate in 2007. We welcome you back to the program. Thank ning thanks, judy. Lets divide this in two. Two comments the president made here. Number one, he said that the Intelligence Community was caught off guard about how fast, how strong isis was growing, how do you see that . Well, i mean director clapper said that they had underestimated the isis threat and the Iraqi Security forces but when you go back and look at the testimony that general anyone the dia director gave in february and a number of other testimonies and statements t is pretty clear that the Intelligence Community leadership was tracking the rise of isis and seeing the threat and seeing the danger. And so i dont think it sounds like the Intelligence Community really missed this one in a big way. Hasnt director clapper, though, said this in so many words, that they were caught off guard . Yes, de say it in so many words but he also went on to give more context than that. And what he really specified was that they had not been able to estimate accurately the will to fight of both sides. And that, you know, may have helped them not see mosul fall as rapidly as it did. But thats a very particular issue. What he did not say was that they had fundamentally missed or misjudged the rise of ice nis general or the threat. He cant say that, really. And he wouldnt say that because his people have been testifying to it. And all this is in the context of we know theres limited intelligence capability inside syria anyway to know exactly whats going on. Well. Woodruff inside isis, as it was growing. Well, right, because we closed our embassy in damascus, that deprived us of a lot of capability and we have had limited intelligence in iraq also. Since we pulled out and we did not succeed in negotiating either a followon force as agreement or followon intelligence agreement. Woodruff that is the other part of this i want to ask you about. Because the president also said, he said the Intelligence Community overestimated the ability and the will of the iraqi army to fight. What is your take on that . Well, i think that there were a lot of warning signs about weaknesses in the Iraqi Security forces that good an test analysts were tracking in 2013 and laying out. And there was a lot of dezrtions, there was a large amnesty the Prime Minister maliki granted in 2013 which were indicative of morale problems. Im sure the Intelligence Community was aware of those. Im sure that it was aware of the risks. I think what director clapper was saying was that from the standpoint of putting a really fine point on it and saying well, at this moment, isis has the capability to do this and the Iraqi Security forces will fold, that they didnt estimate. But i suspect that in terms of generally understanding the state of play, again, i would be se have surprised if the Intelligence Community missed that fundamentally. So when the president went on and i was just looking at his interview with steve kraft of 60 minutes, he said the u. S. Left a dem october see in iraq that was intact. He said a well equipped military with the ability to chart their own course. But he said it was squandered. And weve heard this argument before from the administration. That i belief, their view and the view of many that all this was squandered by the former Prime Minister maliki. I think the situation we left behind in 2011 was squandered. I think by maliki and by president obama. I think that the failuretomaintain suit any kind of u. S. Military support for the iraqis was critical. Among other things, its misleading to say that the iraqi army was actually properly equipped. It wasnt. It hadnt been designed to stand on its own. It didnt shall it had no air support of its own, no ability to police its own airspace testimony had a variety of lax and Intelligence Surveillance and reconaissance that everyone expected the u. S. Would continue to provide. So when we pulled out in 2011, it wasnt just about pulling out our ground forces, it was about withdrawing from the Iraqi Security forces, enablers that they thought they would continue to have. And leaving them in a bad condition to deal with the fight that they fasd. Woodruff what about the point that frederick kagan, that the president went on to say. He said this before. He said this cant be a u. S. Military operation alone. In essence he was saying its got to be something that the iraqis want or how can the u. S. Go in and make it happen. And hes pointing out if the Iraqi Military isnt going to fight, how can the u. S. Go in and dot fighting for them, if they dont want it to happen. I have to say, this is one of the most offensive arguments that has been made about iraq all along. Which is that somehow iraqies are children and craven and lazy or cowardly and dont want to fight. So unless we really boot them in the rear end and push them forward, then theyre just not going to do it for themselves. Thats false. Iraqis have fought like lions against al qaeda in iraq. They fought like lions against shia militias when our troops were there and they fought like lions for some time after our troops had left. What they need is assistance. They need u. S. Assistance, concrete sis dance on the ground and a willingness that we have shown before but that this president seems no the to have, to share the risks with them and share the burdens against a common enemy. Because the biggest problem with this afering that says if the iraqis dont stand up, then what can we do, is it implies that it doesnt matter to us what the outcome is. But if this group is as much of a threat to us as the president says it is, and i believe that it is, then we have to have a solution to this problem even if the iraqis arent going to stand up and do it. And when he was asked that question, he punted. Woodruff well, because i mean when you put it all together, the president is acknowledging the Intelligence Community made mistakes. But hes saying the philosophical view of the administration was how could the administration how cot u. S. Continue to conduct this fight if the iraqis themselves didnt care enough to do it on their own. Right. And i think the biggest problem here is that the philosophical view of this administration is that they campaigned on, end this war. And he campaigned on were done, and were not going to be involved in iraq. And for five years while maliki has been making mistakes and i and many others have been calling attention to them and warning and calling on the administration to press malick aye maliki in various ways to try and help in various ways, this administration has shown the most profound disinterest on what is going on in iraq. And i think its very telling that called to account on this, what the president said was somebody else got it wrong. Woodruff we hear you, frederick kagan, the American Enterprise institute. Thank you. Thanks. Woodruff a battle between amazon, a publisher, and some very notable authors is kicking into higher gear this week. Jeffrey brown has the story. Brown its a fight that started last spring over the price of ebooks, when amazon demanded discounts from the publisher, hachette, that was rejected, leading to amazons refusal to preorder, discount or promptly deliver many hachette titles. The publishers authors took the fight public, and now theyve been joined by hundreds of other writers including philip roth, salman rushdie, and ursula leguin. The writers also want the Justice Department to investigate amazon for illegal monopoly practices. Roxana robinson is a novelist, biographer, and president of the authors guild, and one of the leaders of this effort. For the record, amazon has not responded to several invitations to join us. What is this fights about now, has it become a debate whether amazon is just too powerful today when it comes to the market for books . Well, theres several ways to look at it. Yes, amazon is incredibly powerful. It dominates the market if books of all sorts. And it is the reason that everybody became so vocal about it was the fact that amazon targeted writers who were completely vulnerable in the circumstances and unable to change the situation. And so amazon took on the writers for hachette and made it very difficult to buy their books. So these writers have seen plunges in their sales and plunges in their income. And its something that they cant do anything about. We find that unacceptable for a huge marketer who got his start selling books to target writers and make them into victims. Brown of course it is a marketplace, amazon argues, it wants to lower the prices of books, it can sell more books that way. They say publishers dont want this and want to keep the price high for themselves. Well, heres the thing. Amazon has made a public claim saying that they have studies that show that if you drop the price of ebooks, all ebook was sell more. They dont show what those studies are. They dont show any numbers. Its not it doesnt make any sense. First of all it presumes that there is an infinite demand for books which isnt true. If you made all the books on amazon free, they still all wouldnt find homes. So people buy the books they want to buy. Secondly, it wont change peoples reading habits. If you want to read moby dic, youre not going to buy a romance novel just because its cheap. You will buy moby dic. So its not really going to change things. What they want to do is drop the prices of ebooks so they can make more sales, so they make more money. Its not going to help a huge number or huge proportion of the people whose books are sold through. Brown you know t is true, of course, that the publisher hachette included are part of much larger corporations. Theyre big guys too. So i wonder for you as an author and authors you work with, do you look at the publishers as the good guys versus the bad guy amazon . Is there any good guy here . Well, heres the thing. Of course hachette is a huge company. Its a million dollar, billion Dollar International can. Its dwarfed by amazon which is much larger. But the big difference is their attitudes towards books and towards writers. And what publisher does is invest in books. They pay advances to writers. They recognize the fact that it may take years to write a good book, for a biographer, for a writer of history. And they they invest in the book. Amazon doesnt do that. Amazon doesnt do editorial tasks. They dont take a position on the intellectual merit of a book. So in terms of supporting our endeavor, our intellectual property, theres a big difference between these two companies. Brown on the other hand, though, amazon has created this marketplace in which books are so much cheaper for consumers, theyre so much more readily available, millions of people clearly like that. And authors see a changing industry, right . A changing world of commerce. Absolutely. And amazon has by lowering their price, they have driven out of business a lot of bricks and mortar book stores so, there are lots of people who have no choice but to buy on amazon and amazon makes it very easy and we all have to accept the fact that most books are sold on amazon. But that doesnt mean we have to accept the fact that they are targeting writers and punishing us for something that we have no wrol over. Brown have you or other writers you know been in touch with amazon, have they reached out to you at all to find some kind of resolution . Amazon amazon has been very closed mouth about this. They have reached out to someone i know and i was sent a letter asking if writers would support a response that they would make which became public. It was a deal in which amazon and hachette would give money to charity but writers wouldnt make any money. But they certainly have not come to any table as far as i know. I dont know. Both sides are being pretty quiet about this. And just very briefly, this new effort among hundreds more authors, some very prominent authors, this has become a very public matter. Is that a strategy, i guess, on the part of authors . Well, its a circumstances that we find very troubling. And you know, there are millions and millions of readers in the united states. So we are bringing this to the public. All right, roxana robinson, novelist, president of the authors guild, thank you so much. Thank you. Brown now, how detroit is tackling a Staggering Amount of blight, with the help of technology, apps and even crowd sourcing. The city is going through the largest municipal bankruptcy in u. S. History. Earlier today, the judge overseeing its bankruptcy ruled detroit is allowed to shut off water for thousands of residents if they dont pay their bills. It comes as the city is under all kinds of pressure to turn around its larger situation, including thousands of shuttered buildings. Special correspondent Christy Mcdonald from Detroit Public Television has our story as part of the Detroit Journalism cooperative, funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation and the renaissance Journalism Project of the ford foundation. A demolition crew at work in norbt west northwest detroit. This one crew will knock down up to ten houses in a day. Ronald garison lives next door to this one, vacant for years. Trespassers looted it of anything of value. The man down the street boarded it up. And they used to come rip the boards off and still go back in there. And we have to come board it up again. The numbers are in. There are nearly 80,000 dilapidated structures across the city of detroit. A number so high because of scrappers, vandals tearing everything of value out of Vacant Properties leaving them open to the elements. Once there is structural damage the houses have to come down. Oh yeah. The scrapping is so rampant derek watts says even inhabited homes can be targets. You have to watch your house even if you go on vacation. You can go on vacation, and come back and your house will be scrapped. So you got to watch it, really, 24 hours a day. You know. Thats the thing now. Thats the hustle now. With the city bankrupt and operating under an emergency manager, detroits new mayor Michael Dugan is focusing on the demolition of the tens of thousands of houses stripped beyond repair. And what kind of speed are we seeing and the numbers were seeing. Well, its pretty remarkable. The city has historically knocked down maybe 50 houses a week. Were now knocking down 200 to 250 every single week. Before dugan the citys demolition plan had been slowed by bureaucracy. Dugan took office in january. He says his new team has been able to streamline the demolition program. Now residents like kye are seeing action. I came home one day, these two houses was down first. And then my mother said they were coming back for the other ones because they had the paperwork. So i was, you know, sure they were going to come back and take care of the rest of them. So pretty good. Last year the Obama Administration and michigan Governor Rick Snyder helped create the Detroit Blight Task force. The task force brought together government, foundations and private groups, some for the first time. Glenda price cochairs the task force. She said when everybody started working together, things started to happen. Did you not see impact because there was no concentrated strategy to go neighborhood by neighborhood, where you could actually see a difference. And you finally have it. And we finally have it. You cant do one house on the east side, one house in brightmore, one house someplace else and feel as though youve made a difference. Dow three houses on one block, and by golly, you have made a difference. So you had a stagge stagger Staggering Number of blighted properties. I can only understand there would be a staggering price tag to go with it, remove them. Approximately 1 billion. The city has some of that money in the bank, but its nowhere near enough to remove all the blight which is estimated to take five years. Where does the money come from a cities thats going through a bankruptcy process. Thats a really good question. And so the first 50 million came from the federal government in funds and i got an application now for another 50 million. And, and i think if the federal government continues to see the progress were making, theyll be supportive. In the fight against blight, technology is key. Citizens are using a Smart Phone App to tracks changes in their neighborhood for better or worse. Its called blext. Short for blight texting,. This is crowd sourcing Innovation Court see of a koichl young detroit entrepreneurs. San ra dues Community Outreach for the program. The technologies is a text startup in detroit and they just are geeks about property and wanting property to be used for the highest and best use. Norman is president of the west euclid block club in the midtown area of the city. But this is a way that you know how to to see who own the property, you see everything you need to know. It is part of what it means to be a citizen, you take out the trash, mow the lawns. And done monique of the Nonprofit Group data driven detroit hosts some of the boot camps, training residents across the city. So having this kind of Information Available leads to exactly you want, data driven decisions, so Community Groups can decide where are we going to focus our efforts and our attention. Because they can easily pull up on the public dashboard a map of their specific neighborhood to see where are the vacancies. What we recommended and what they are attempting to do is look at what we are defining as Tipping Point neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods where a little investment will stop the decline. This is the mary grove neighborhood. One of the detroit neighborhoods at the Tipping Point. Theres lots of streets just like this one where you have homes well taken care of but sandwiched in between others vacant and run down. The city is now aggressively targeting homeowners either clean up your property or lose it they are also offering incentives for people to buy homes like this one, to move in and to stay here. Gloria mitchell moved to mary grove in 1978. When people talk about detroit blight and some of the neighborhoods that are up and down, how would you describe how your neighborhood and your street fits into that . It fits right in the middle. We have quite a mix here now, where it went from working class, its now retirees, former working people. Its families, new, old. Its everything here. This mary grove home is about to be seized by the Detroit Land Bank authority. The land bank has been in operation for years with little notice. Now the mayor has hired more staff including attorneys, computer teches and a communications director. Detroit Land Bank Authority is pretty simple, really. We are a place that is a clearinghouse for Vacant Properties in the city of detroit. Our goal is to either sell it to somebody that wants to live in it, auction it off to get somebody to live in it. And if we dont have any other options we will demolish the property. The land bank has started a Pilot Program called the forgivable grants program. In mary grove suburban based tolmer bank is putting up seed money for home buyers, money it does not expect to be repaid. Patrick runs the banks grant program. We are going to give a Million Dollars of our money in these grants that are forgivable grants for people who want to live in this neighborhood with their families, and be here for a long period of time. Here auction winners can receive up to 25,000 to fix up their homes if they promise to live in them for five years. Wow, first try. In mary grove, jay meeks take possession of the house he won for just over 8,000. Its structurally solid, on the outside. Its a decent size. I like it. Meeks is 29. An upwardly mobile ph. D student who grew up nearby. He lived on the east coast, but recently returned home. I am excited about the opportunity for great things to come and my ability to contributetothem. So. If the mary grove Pilot Project works, other parts of detroit might get financial incentives like this one. That is if this city can recruit more charitable lenders to bring more people back into the neighborhoods woodruff finally tonight, the threat to africas elephants, reaching crisis proportions. The world is taking notice and this coming weekend an international march for elephants will be held in cities in the u. S. And around the globe, including in kenya, where jeff visited recently and had a close up look at the situation. Brown the african elephant, it is the largest land animal on earth. Weighing up to seven tons these behemoths move more gracefully and sometimes faster than seems possible. When youre up close it can take your breath away. And yet today theyre among the post threatened animals. Theres perhaps no better place in the world to see elephants in the wild than here at Amboseli National park in kenya under the shadow of mount kill man jar owe but there is a massive slaughter of elephants going on throughout africa and there are great fears that scenes like this might be impossible in the not so distant future. The of elephants in africa is at crisis levels. Were losing 100,000 elephants in three years. At this rate, most of our Wild Elephants will be gone within ten years. Brown kahumbu of the Group Wildlife direct is referring to scenes like this, horrific, gruesome and all too common. Elephants killed for their magnificent ivory tusks. Elephants need their does tks for fighting, feeding and playing. But to poachers the tusks mean big money, despite the 1989 International Ban on the trade ofan can elephant ivory, demand for tusks has grown. Especially in china. Where ivory carvings have long been prized and new wealth has pushed the price per pound to historic highs. Poachers can make more than a years salary by killing one elephant. And experts say today they are organized and well armed, with clear connections to cartels, militias, even terrorist groups. You see the victim of ivory fortune. Heres one casualty, orphanned elephant, aged 2 month to 3 years all over kenya. Given shelter at the a Wildlife Trust in Nairobi National park. Edward has been caring for them for more than a decade. We see their emotions when they come in. They are sad. How you can tell. You can tell because they dont want to sit with you or they dont want to feed from us. They dont want to play with us. Most of the time, like, looking down, like crying, like moaning. And you can tell that is a mode of sadness. Its amazing to walk among them like a group of young children, jostling one another and you. Older ones caring for the babies, their trunks and keen sense of smell used to identify a visitors. In Amboseli National park we learned pore about the elephants complex and highly developed family and social lives. And about their communication skills. Their ability, for example, to sense danger. Using one of more than 70 different sounds, they can warn friends and family of potential threats or just say hello. The Deputy Director of he research at the amboseli trust for elephants. Based near the swamplands of the national park, where elephants eat, drink and escape the dry dusty salt plains. She says she knows every one of the parks 1500 elephants. Not just by names but also by date of birth, family history, and even personality. And the elephants know her so well, they dont mind when she drives her land rover into the center of their herd. The sound of her voice, scents of her shirt, all familiar to them. The founder of the trust cynthia moss sums up the research. Theyre very complex, very highly intelligent they have very large brains, very complex and convoluted brains and they have a very rich social life. But moss adds they are smart but theyre not smart enough not to get killed by people with ak47s, so and thats where these men come in. Theyre among the 300 plus rangers who patrol in and around the park for a private foundation dedicated to stomping the poaching of elephants and rhinos t say huge area, some 2 million acres, impossible to cover fully. And its grueling work. Big life rangers hike through thick, thorny bush, sometimes for days at a time in search of threats and signs of the animals themselves. Where the injury is, so it can oh, i see. Once you come across that incident, to follow that until we get it. Home the endangers whineos hunted for their prized horns, officer joseph explained the dangers and difficulties of catching poachers before they strike. They they got everything. And they can come quickly. As soon as they know where an elephant or whineo is. So to be easy to come down, and hit it and go up. So you you have to ago quickly too. Yeah. So have to be always ahead of them. And big life has had an impact making thousands of arrests in its fouryear existence. That is a huge deterrent. The cofounder says theyve worked hard to engage the locals, mostly members of the masi tribe including using them as paid informants. If you can get the Community Behind them, living with these animals f they are behind t than that is 90 of the battle. Youre not fighting the community, theyre fighting for you. Did the word get out, is it getting out. The bush telegraph works so fast. The bush telegraph. Yeah, you know, you make an arrest this morning, and by lunchtime everybody in the whole area knows about it. Still, its a small success in a war that bonham and others fear is being lost. I think we are containing it here. But when you put that against what is happening across the rest of the continent, you know, the situation is out of control. Controversial the eak charged with the task of protecting the elephant, the Kenya Wildlife service, believes the situation is not that dire. Assistants director told us that the government takes this very seriously and is throwing resources into it. This is a mission that people are seeing, that poaching is out of control. From kenya point of view the activist paolo scoffs at that and says the government is afraid of scaring off tourists. At the moment, tourists are wondering whether it is safe to come to kenya in part because they are seeing photographs of dead elephants t means there are people running around protected areas with guns. Doesnt make you feel very secure. If things are bad here, she and others say, theyre even worse elsewhere in the continent where war and other problems make it impossible to fight poching. As the sunset on this day at least, all seemed peaceful for the mighty beast living under the mountain. The looming question, how much longer will it remain that way woodruff again, the major developments of the day. The Washington Post reported the man who jumped the white house fence ten days ago got much deeper into the mansion than initially disclosed. And u. S. Air strikes again hit Islamic State targets in iraq and syria. At the same time, turkish tanks deployed along the syrian border, where the militants battled kurdish fighters for a key town. On the newshour online right now, 32 years ago today, three mysterious deaths in the chicago area sparked a panic over tampered tylenol that gripped the nation. Read how that episode forever changed the way we consume over thecounter medications, thats on our health page. And in case you missed it, saturday was american graduate day on pbs. As part of the special broadcast that focused on education, Hari Sreenivasan led a conversation about the importance of exposing children to books as infants and toddlers. Heres an excerpt why is oral reading so important to a young mind. It is so important because how much it really helps develop their brains. Children receive that nurturing by being in their parents lap, they learn early word and letter recognition. They learn what a book s they learn that books have a beginning, middle and end. They have positive associations with it, so when they start preschool or kindergarten or anything else, and the teacher pulls out a book, they say oh, its a book. And they dont do what too many children do is to look at that and say oh my goodness what is that. So if we didnt have that y is it so hard to catch up . Its hard to catch up because the first thousand to 2,000 days of life are so critically important to children. The brain is much more plastic at that time. They really, all the skills we use in learning really are developed in those first five years of life so we need to do it earlier. We dont have as great an ability to do it later question. But its not as effective. We woodruff we have a link to the entire american graduate day program on our website. And thats the newshour for tonight. On tuesday, an inside look at one of the most expensive medical facilities in the country, and the difficult choices families must make in the final days of life. Im Judy Woodruff, well see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. For all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by ive been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. The ones getting involved, staying engaged. They are not afraid to question the path theyre on. Because the one question they never want to ask is, how did i end up here . I started schwab with those people. People who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. And by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Captioning sponsored by Macneil Lehrer productions captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org this is nightly Business Report from Tyler Mathisen and susie gharib. Flareup of protests in hong kong grabbing wall streets attention. And increasing concerns about potential longterm economic repercussions. Too big to fail . Six years after aigs bailout, was it legal . Its former ceo is in court trying to prove it was not. And economic improvement. A new survey says things are looking up. So why does one Federal Reserve official want to wait and wait to raise Interest Rates . We have all that and more tonight on nightly Business Report for monday, september 29th. Good evening, everyone. Todays closing numbers on wall street dont really tell the story at all. Yes, it was a down day, but at the opening bell, it looked like it could have been o