Communitys perks to urban neighborhoods. When we initially started beacon hill village, there were 11 of us who got together on a cold november day with this abstract determination that were not going anywhere. Ifill a veteran political reporter looks back at the transformative 2012 election and how it permanently changed politics. We talk to the Washington Posts dan balz about his book, collision 2012. Everything changes from one cycle to another. I dont think ive seen as many changes in one cycle as we saw between 2008 and 2012. Brown and can apps for babies be educational . Or are they harmful entertainment . We look at one Advocacy Groups complaint to the federal trade commission. Ifill thats all ahead on tonights newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. And by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Brown a badly damaged Nuclear Plant in japan loomed over budget talks today in tokyo. Officials are working on ways to stop contaminated runoff at the site from poisoning the surrounding sea. The radioactive water is escaping from the fukushima Nuclear Plant into the ocean at a rate of 300 tons a day. Thats enough to fill an olympic sized Swimming Pool in less than a week. And, it began soon after the earthquake and tsunami shattered the plant on march 11, 2011. Three of the Nuclear Reactors went into meltdown. None of that was known until tepco the plants commercial operator discovered radiation spikes in water samples last may and began creating a chemical barrier underground. The company made the problem public in late july. That spurred the japanese government to act. Prime minister shinzo abe is now pledging to become more involved. translated as a nation, we ourselves will take firm measures against the issue, and will not leave it entirely in the hands of tepco. Brown the measures could include an effort to build a new barrier by freezing the ground so the water cant get out. translated building such a largescale water barrier by freezing the ground, is unprecedented anywhere in the world. We believe it is necessary that the country steps forward in supporting its construction. Brown meanwhile, a university of Tokyo Research team has found multiple radioactive hot spots on the sea bottom, near the fukushima plant. translated we have detected over 20 spots around with levels of radiation five to ten times higher than the surrounding areas, with diameters ranging from tens to hundreds of meters. Brown the news dealt a further blow to the regions already struggling fishing industry. translated just when i thought people had started to want to eat fish again, this news is going to hit our reputation as fishermen once more. Its once again just typical tepco. Brown for now, tepco is going ahead with its 40year, 11 billion cleanup of the plant. The government could end up spending 400 million in the effort. And were joined by arjun makhijani, an engineer specializing in nuclear fusion. Hes the president of the institute for energy and environmental research. And kenji kushida, Research Associate in japanese studies at stanford university. Arjun makhijani, let me start with you. Translate for us first to bring us up to date. What exactly is the problem now and how serious is it . So there are a couple of different problems. One of the problems is what theyve found in the groundwater, what actually is there. So, so far weve been concerned about an element call cesium 137 and 134, which is radioactive. But now they have found strarchum 90, which is much more dangerous, at levels that are 30 times more than cesium. So to give you an idea of the level of contamination if somebody drank that water for a year, it would almost they would almost certainly get cancer, so its very contaminated. So thats one problem. The other is the defenses to hold back this water from the sea seem to be overcome. So now the contamentd waters, 70,000, 80,000 gallons is flowing into the sea every day. Brown do we know how far out to sea this contaminated water is going and what happens to it when it goes into the sea . When it goes into the sea, of course some of it will disburse and dilute. Some is taken up by the life in the sea. The thing about south africanium, it targets the bone, because its like calcium, so this is a problem. We dont have measurements far out to sea. The Woods Hole Institute has done some surveys and they were surprised by how continuing radioactiveity they found, but no clear explanation yet. Brown well, kenji kushida, how has this news been received in japan and what is the level of trust at this point in both the company and the government . Well, clearly, trust in the company has gone down quite seriously, even from a low point after the accident. And the government does need to basically they dont have to call an election for about three years, so the government is trying to shore up its decision to support restarting Nuclear Reactors by showing some kind of commitment to preventing this disaster from getting too much worse. Brown well, what kind of steps is it taking and how much has it we just heard the clips in the setup talking talking abt action. What kinds of things are they proposing and how energized, how seriously are they taking this . Well, it seems to be fairly serious because the budget that theyre asking for is for the following year, for the fiscal year of 2014, to help shore up the defenses against this. And tepco itself, its been de facto nationalized. So, in essence, its basically the governments problem. The buck stops with the government. So how to deal with this 400 tons a day of water pouring into the passageways into the react buildings, thats a problem that the government has to deal with and about 50 of the population in a recent poll was against restarting nuclear react orlz after certifying their safety, and about 40 were supporting the restarting. And the government, as a strong supporter of restarting reactors, do feel its quite a bit of their responsibility to deal with it. Brown well, i want to come back to that subject, but first arjun makhijani, what about these measures that theyre taking to try to stop the contamination, the leaking water building tanks, walls, freezing the ground . Well, you know, they already built this chemicalreinforced wall, and what happened of course its like a dam, so you have water coming in from upstream, above the plant, and then at a certain point, its going to overtop the dam. Its like constant rain coming into a reservoir. And so that has been the problem is those defenses have been breached because theres too much wart and not wall and at a certain point thats always going to be the case. It seems to me theres a risk the same thing will happen with with this new wall. They already had a wall and it didnt work. Building a new and longer wall would worm for sometime. The other problem is, of course, you need a massive amount of water to freeze that much soil. It would be a mile long, apparently. If you have a power failure, another major earthquake they had a power failure a few months ago when a rat ate through a wire and that would then be very, very problematic. Now youve got so much water behind. We actually sent a proposal to japan two years ago, some colleagues of mine and i, saying you should park a super tanker, or large tanker offshore, and put the water in it, and send it off someplace else so that the Water Treatment and the Water Management is not such a huge, constant issue. Brown sounds like still an ongoing experiment. Yes. Brown kenji kushida, come back to this question you were raising about the politics of this and the cult ofure Nuclear Power there. There are still a lot of people that want to feel its necessary for japan. Where does all that stand . The funny thing about the recent japanese politics is that the Nuclear Issue didnt wasnt part of the main issues that were debated. It was mostly about the economy. And there was partly a reason for that, as i just mentioned, the public is pretty deeply divide over this. Interestingly, in tokyo, the local candidate from tokyo metropolitan area was running on an antiNuclear Power platform, and he got elected pretty safely. So what we see here is the antiNuclear Power public i mean, this is reinforces all their worst fears. The operator that doesnt seem to be in control, the government that says its going to back it up, but the technological hurdles are just very high to doing that. On the other hand, you have a fairly silent majority minority of about 40 who do think that some of the other reactors are necessary for maintaining japans economic competitiveness, because japan doesnt have any natural resources. So in the absence of Nuclear Power, they have to import very large amounts of liquid natural gas to basically generate the power that they need. So theres this economic constraint that they see. And thats sort of where the public stands in its divisions. Brown im sorry, i was going to ask very briefly, arjun makhijani, those kinds of debates is what happens still rattling the whole Industry Worldwide . Well, i think it is different in different places. It rattled germany and they decided to shut down. I dont think its rattledly the u. S. Industry very much. But french are somewhere in between. They, of course, get 75 of their power from nuclear, and theyve decided or the president has said that they will decrease their nuclear to 50 . Theyre having a Big Energy Debate much more serious than weve had. Brown all right, arjun makhijani, and kenji kushida, thank you both very much. Thank you. Ifill still to come on the newshour d. N. A. And the legacy of Henrietta Lacks; growing old, but staying at home; dan balz on how 2012 changed elections and the reliable but troubling new way to calm babies. But first, with the other news of the day. Heres kwame holman. Holman a thousand firefighters raced today to save half a dozen small communities in Southern California from a rapidly growing wildfire. The blaze erupted yesterday in the foothills of the san jacinto mountains, 90 miles east of los angeles. Overnight, it ballooned to more than 15 square miles and burned out of control today. So far, at least 15 buildings have burned, and some 1,500 residents have been ordered to leave their homes. In the midwest, the problem is water, in the form of flash floods. Up to ten inches of rain hit parts of arkansas, kansas, missouri and tennessee early today. Water surged into homes and offices and poured through streets. Emergency workers rescued at least one baby, but two people were killed. It was the latest in a series of storms across the midwest that began sunday. Thousands of egyptians took part in rival rallies in cairo today, marking the end of the holy month of ramadan. Opponents of ousted president Mohammed Morsi held a Prayer Service in tahrir square. Elsewhere, morsis supporters held their own gathering, highlighted by a surprise appearance from his wife. She had not been seen since the military forced her husband out, july 3. Rebels in syria marked the end of ramadan with an attempted direct attack on president bashar assad. Two groups claimed they fired rockets and mortar rounds that struck his motorcade in damascus. In turn, state television aired video of assad, unharmed, at a Prayer Service. His information minister portrayed the claims as the rebels wishful thinking. translated regarding what was said on the saudi channel, alarabiyah, i confirm to you that, of course, the news is completely untrue. This news just shows the false hopes of some media outlets, and the governments who are behind them. Holman opposition groups nonetheless said todays attack rattled the regime. 30 people died today in pakistan, when a suicide bomber attacked a policemans funeral in the western city of quetta. It left burned vehicles from the explosive coupled with ball bearings. Emergency workers rushed to help the wounded. Hundreds were at the funeral inside a police compound. 21 of the dead were policemen, including five senior officers. A military judge at fort hood, texas refused to let defense lawyers take over today from army major nidal hasan. Hes accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 nearly four years ago. Hasan is acting as his own attorney, but his standby lawyers say hes trying to get himself executed. Today, the judge agreed to let hasan continue defending himself, and ordered the lawyers to continue advising him. On wall street today, stocks rose a bit after a threeday skid. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained 27 points to close at 15,498. The nasdaq rose 15 points to close at 3,669. Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to gwen. Ifill now, the living legacy of one womans d. N. A. Margaret warner has the story. Warner in 1951, a poor African American woman in maryland became an early and unwitting donor to medical science. Henrietta lacks died at age 31 of Cervical Cancer at Johns Hopkins hospital in baltimore. Then doctors discovered tumor cells theyd removed from her body earlier continued to thrive in the lab. A medical first. Before long, her cells, dubbed hela cells, were being used for research around the world, contributing to major advances in everything from cancer treatments to vaccines. But Henrietta Lacks never gave permission for that research, nor had her family, until now. In an agreement announced yesterday with the National Institutes of health, which grants the family a limited say over some of the research. Dr. Francis collins is the director of the n. I. H. And spearheaded the talks with the family. Dr. Collins, welcome back. Its nice to be here. Warner Henrietta Lacks cells as we know are the most widely used in the world today. Her family never had a say in this. Why did the nsa seek its buyin now . What happened this year is different. Hela cells, yes, have been used in almost every laboratory, including my own. Now what weve had happen is read out the complete d. N. A. Instruction book, the genome of hela cells, laying out all kinds of details about why those cells grow so rapidly, but also revealing something about henriettas original d. N. A. Instruction book, which,sh, has implications for the family, and her blood relatives raised concerns, rightly so, that this information being freely available on the internet might be placing them at risk for people learning things about their medical risks for the future, that they would like to keep private. Warner so this agreement you negotiated with the family, what does it grant them . What does it give them . Well, over three long meetings in the evening in baltimore with the family and i give them a huge amount of credit for rallying together and dealing with some pretty complicated scientific facts ultimately, they are very much in favor of Research Going forward. They are wonderfully positive about the legacy of henrietta for all of the things its done for medicine. They dont that want to stop but they did want to have some say over who had acstoas this d. N. A. Information because of its implications for them. So we set up a plan where any researcher who would like to have that complete d. N. A. Information can put in a rather quick and brief application explaining what they want to do, agreeing that they will not pass the data on to other people, that they will report as to what they have found, and that they wont try to contact the family members directly. If that is actually considered appropriate and two of the lacks family members will sit on the group that reviews those applications, then the data is made available. Warner two quick qegz qez. The researchers can publish the data publish the results. Absolutely. Warner and the family will still receive no financial benefit here. They will not. And they are basically not asking for that. They did think it was fair to have a seat at table when it is their medical circumstances that might also be involved here, and we thought they were right about that. Warner now, explain a little more what makes Henrietta Lacks cells so special . Is it that they can live indefinitely in the lab . Is that unique . They are immortal. And there are other cell lines, but this was the first one, derived in 1951, after many failed efforts to get human cells to grow in a petri dish, these cells, hela cells, grew and grew and grew and got sent to laboratories all over the world. My own lab works on these cells as well. Warner but if you take sequencing the genome, genetic research, arent there living people now who are having their genome sequenced, why couldnt you just use their why couldnt researchers use their d. N. A. . Hela cells, because theyre cancer cells, have been used also to learn a lot about cancer, but a cancer cell has a lot of things driving it to grow when its not supposed to. And to be able to interpret all those decades of experiments on hela cells, it really hopes ton what the d. N. A. Sequence was. Warner so her cells still remain unique even for this fairly new field . They do, indeed, and all the people who will be working on these cells Going Forward are going to benefit by knowing a bit more than weve known before about whats driving these cells to keep growing and growing and growing. Turns out, these cells have a copy of the human papaloma virus inserted in the most vulnerable place you could imagine, on chromosome 8, activating a p