those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> at bae systems, our pride and dedication show in everything we do; from electronics systems to intelligence analysis and cyber- operations; from combat vehicles and weapons to the maintenance and modernization of ships, aircraft, and critical infrastructure. knowing our work makes a difference inspires us everyday. that's bae systems. that's inspired work. >> i've 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 they're 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 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: in eastern afghanistan, at least 89 people died in a suicide car bombing today. scores more were wounded. the powerful blast rocked a crowded market in paktika province, near the pakistani border. more than 20 shops and dozens of nearby vehicles were destroyed. no one claimed responsibility. the taliban put out a statement denying any involvement. >> ifill: the parliament in iraq has finally taken the first step toward forming a unity government, in the face of a sunni insurgency. lawmakers today chose a sunni moderate, salim al-jubouri, to be the new speaker. it's unclear whether sunnis, shiites and kurds can reach a larger deal on naming a new president and prime minister. >> woodruff: secretary of state john kerry returned to washington for consultations today, claiming "tangible progress" on curtailing iran's nuclear program. but, he also acknowledged iran and six world powers remain far apart on reaching a long-term agreement by a july 20th deadline. >> we had extensive conversations, in which we moved on certain things. however, there are also very real gaps on other key issues. what we are trying to do is to find the way for iran to have an exclusively peaceful nuclear program, while giving the world all the assurances required to know that iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon. >> woodruff: iran's foreign minister suggested his country is open to extending the talks for another six months. >> ifill: a fast-moving typhoon hit the northeastern philippines today, forcing 300,000 people to evacuate. the storm made landfall with sustained winds of 80 miles an hour and a storm surge of 10 feet. local officials warned thousands of homes may have been damaged or destroyed. another typhoon, haiyan, ravaged the philippines last november, killing at least 6,300 people. >> woodruff: in russia, moscow's morning rush hour turned deadly when a subway train derailed, killing 21 people. more than 130 others were injured as three cars ran off their tracks in a tunnel. investigators initially blamed a power surge, but later said that was not the case. several officials ruled out terrorism as the cause. >> ifill: a bill to shore up the federal highway fund won approval in the house of representatives today. it would cost $10.8 billion, and keep the fund solvent through next may, while lawmakers work on a longer-term fix. a similar bill is pending in the senate. a federal appeals court has ruled again that the university of texas may continue considering race in undergraduate admissions. a white student who was denied admission, abigail fisher, had sued over the practice. last year, the u.s. supreme court ordered the appeals court to take another look at the case, which led to today's ruling. fisher said she'll appeal again. >> woodruff: a big merger is in the works in the world of big tobacco. reynolds american today announced a deal to buy lorillard for $25 billion. they'd create the second largest tobacco company in the u.s., behind altria. the deal is subject to approval by federal regulators. >> ifill: wall street failed to make much headway today. the dow jones industrial average gained five points to close at 1,760. but the nasdaq fell 24 points to close at 4,416. and, the s-&-p was down nearly four points to close at 1,973. >> woodruff: the ebola outbreak in western africa has now killed more than 600 people. the world health organization reported the new toll today. it said 68 people died in the last week alone in sierra leone, liberia and guinea. health workers also confirmed 85 new cases in that same period. >> ifill: more americans have alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia than ever, 5.4 million. but boston university researchers reported today, the overall incidence of dementia in the population has actually dropped 44% in the last 30 years. they credit better education and health care. >> woodruff: pulitzer-prize winning historian and author james macgregor burns died today at his home in williamstown, massachusetts. he was active in liberal democratic politics and wrote biographies of then-senator john f. kennedy and franklin roosevelt. his second volume on roosevelt won the pulitzer for history. james macgregor burns was 95 years old. still to come on the newshour: what the federal reserve bank says about the state of the u.s. economy; plus, could brooklyn hipsters help save the middle class? the challenges to brokering a cease-fire with hamas; efforts to bring new technology to neo-natal care in vietnam; and, the story of a burglary that uncovered f.b.i. surveillance efforts. >> ifill: it's a tricky time to be in charge of the nation's central bank. the federal reserve is winding down an unprecedented and potentially risky bond buying strategy designed to set the economy back on course. but every sign that the nation's prospects have finally turned the corner are offset by mitigating economic numbers. that was the backdrop for the fed chair's semi-annual trip to capitol hill today. >> although the economy continues to improve, the recovery is not yet complete. >> ifill: after just five months on the job, federal reserve chairwoman janet yellen was measured in her semi-annual assessment. >> important progress has been made in restoring the economy to health and in strengthening the financial system. yet too many americans remain unemployed, inflation remains below our longer-run objective, and not all of the necessary financial reform initiatives have been completed. >> ifill: yellen told a senate hearing the fed remains on course to end a stimulus program of monthly bond purchases in october. but, she gave no indication of when the central bank might begin raising a key short-term interest rate. it's been near zero since december of 2008. >> we have in the past seen sort of false dawns, periods in which we thought our growth would speed, pick up and the labor market would improve more quickly. and later events have proven those hopes to be, unfortunately, over-optimistic. we need to be careful to make sure that the economy is on a solid trajectory before we consider raising interest rates. >> ifill: underscoring that point, the economy has been sending mixed signals lately. the national association for business economics now estimates growth will be just 1.6% for 2014, down sharply from earlier estimates. on the other hand, unemployment dropped to 6.1% last month, beating expectations. yellen played down any fears of a surge in inflation today. and she said fed leaders are watching for any bubbles in real estate or stock and bond prices. but she said, so far, prices remain "in line with historic norms." yellen is scheduled to testify to a house committee tomorrow. >> ifill: we get a closer read on janet yellen's remarks and the broader economic climate with from diane swonk, senior managing director and chief economist for mesirow financial, a diversified financial services firm based in chicago and greg ip, u.s. economics editor of the economist. >> what did you read into janet yellen's overall comments today? >> she is somewhat optimistic about how the economy is making progress but not the time is right to start raising interest rates. she pointed out the unemployment rate is still too high at around 6%, they prefer it to be 5% and ininflation is still too -- inflation is still too low. they would like it to be 2%. it seems as most of them still would like to keep interest rates near zero. that said, things are getting better quickly enough that they can retire their more complicated program of stimulating the economy by buying bonds. that quantitative easing will be over by october. >> did you hear, diane, in her statement,. >> appealing to financial markets and trying to plain explain to them what she's doing. i think that's important, she puts a human face on unemployment. she talks to the people who were unemployed, people in her family, and collateral damage of long term unemployment and the economy has a long way to go to heal enough to reengage particularly what she calls the prime age-earners those 35 to 44 year olds, to reengage in the labor force. those are really important things to her that she brings to this the reality that most americans feel and that is the reality, the economy has improved since the worst days of the greatly recession, but too many are left behind. it's improved a lot for a small number of people but not enough for a large number of people. >> greg, she worried a little bit about wage growth, first quarter weakness, a lot of people have talked about that and also concerns about inflation which never go away. >> sure. i think one of the things that she and her staff are puzzling over is the economy looked very weak in the first quarter, it actually contracted. in june it looked well. we had the best growth rate in a long while and we saw job vacancies go up. what could explain? well, it might be the productivity of our workers isn't what it used to be. it might be that unemployment, a lot of people who have lost their jobs have gone forever, they have retired, gone on disability benefits. if this is true, one thing she has to be careful about is that the economy has less slack in it than she thought, inflation could be a problem before she expected. the reason she brought up wages is she thinks, if there really is a problem with economy running out of workers we ought to see wages being bid up and that is just not happening. between those conflicting signals for now she is siding with the weaker wage growth and saying that is the reason not to raise rates now. >> would it be fair to expect that interest rates at some point would be able to begin to rise again diane. >> strong enough economy for interest rates to rise again. she also brought it up in i another context. lower productivity rates, mean lower interest rates for longer and that's something she stressed there is when the fed does begin raising interest rates if we don't see a real pickup in productivity growth which we really need out there the fed won'ting raising -- won'ting raising rates as quickly as we want it to. the fed will be very cautious before they raise rates. they would love to be able to do it because the economy is too strong. when they do raise them though they are going to go very gradually and very cautious. because they don't know where we are in that spectrum that greg noted between stagnant wage growth, stagnant productivity growth. she brought up the secular stagnation argument, that larry summers has brought up. ironic that larry summers, once considered as chair of the federal reserve was within the federal reserve as well. >> she talked about false donees. explain what she meant by that. >> this has been a disappointing recovery, gwen. at the start of each year we will often get a burst of strong growth and then it peters out. what you've heard from her is the experience of those disappointments. it's important for the fed not to react to a few months of good news. it might fade away. what one way the fed will pursue is take a risk to move too late, rather than too early. if they move too early the risk is they will force the economy back into recession and they don't have any tools to get us back out. if they move too late they might have an inflation problem but they know how to deal with inflation. >> diane does the fed have a different role than it did prerecession? >> it does have a different role. one of the reasons it was created, that said the gis on financial stability is very monitor because it is now very much a part of the fed's job in overseeing the overall financial markets, the financial stability board that the fed is on. the fed is in a different place than it once was, well over $4 trillion before they're done with this current asset purchase program, i agree 100% with greg, they are more willing to err on the side of the economy a little bit of heat is a lot easier to deal with than a frigid cold. after the winter we had here in chicago that is absolutely the case. >> diane swonk of mesirow financial and greg ip. >> wooduff: gwen just gave us a good overview of the how the overall u.s. economy is faring. let's take a look at a much smaller sector of it. it involves those ever- increasing number of small businesses, shops and start-ups around the country that are a bit hipper, more skilled, locally based and creative in their approaches. but as popular as they may be, are they generating more jobs? and well-paying ones? our economics correspondent, paul solman, explores those questions and others, part of his reporting on "making sense" of financial news. >> brooklyn new york. back water burrow to capital of cool and supposedly new rate breed of jobs. signified in part single source chocolate bars sprinkled with chocolate bars from the coast of maine and grandma lala's secret recipe. all natural, all hand made. helping house this corner of the new so-called artisan economy, the old pfizer factory in brooklyn's williamsburg. located by the new pharma giant, a business incubator, house to dozens of startups. viagra was once concocted. and combucha, a different kind of pick me up. e based pro-bubiotic drinks. down the hall, david corel, people's pops. corelle being,31, majored. made it not mainstream media. >> i was a researcher for diane sawyer. >> why did you leave? >> covering the news, you new what was coming. >> the crash of '08 he means. luckily for corelle, he and two friends had been tinkering with an artisanal alternative. crafted her animal rescue to a collar business with a message. >> if you see a dog walking down the street and you see the dog with a leash, found by, then you know it was adopted. i still work a second job but everyone here is making a living. >> now these days startups expect a decent incubator to sport a ping pong table. i learned how far my game has fallen by sparring the command who helps buy and transform the pfizer plant. >> we have over 60 artisanals, we are talking about a lot of college educated people who have fought through this problem and made a financial decision to take care of their own future by building a business that they are passionate about. >> what's the problem with their future? >> the basic problem is the decline of what was the traditional middle class jobs the hollowing out of the middle of the economy and trying to find upward mobility for the typical american. >> and it's not just blue collar jobs says larry calfs. >> the bottom half of college graduates have been just as effective as the top half noncollege graduats. they were the middle management jobs, sales jobs, a lot of those were exactly what new information technology is very good at replacing. >> but the artisan economy offers other options. not just in small scale production. but also in services. so if we had bed bugs, this would get rid of them. >> this would kill all the stages of bed bugs. >> meet my artisanal exterminators. proprietors of green planet pest control. both collegegrads, none ever envisioned a career in extermination. >> when i finished my undergraduate, basically i didn't have a plan what i wanted to do. >> todd mcnamara was a business major. tried his hand at selling stocks. >> i didn't like watching numbers bouncing around, calling clients and pretending like i liked them. >> instead, the would be biologist and businessman are content to turning couches into killing fields. did they need college with that? >> i couldn't have done that without graduating college. >> killing the bugs is the easy part. the day-to-day operation. >> i actually think a very strong liberal arts education is going to be more valuable in the future. how well you deal with unstructured problems and how you deal with new situations that's really key. >> kerry mills got so creative with her career she created a new profession. after studying business at arizona state and returning home to new york, she felt a religious calling to work with older people in nursing homes. but was bummed by what she saw. >> there's no enthusiasm. there's no encouragement to go live your life. still be who you are. >> so mills enthusiastically transformed herself in what she called a dementia coach training both staff and private clients on how to care for people like 93-year-old grace caffrey, who had outside her related disability. caffrey's devoted niece, mary lou casey, visits nearly every day. >> what are the challenges now? >> i think the biggest issue is when you have to touch her. shower, toileting, anything in there, those are the problems there. somebody reacts when you touch them. it is actually a defense mechanism. where can i get her a little bit more space so she can be independent? >> kerrie mills had so many tips that i very much wish i had when i cared for my parents. the job possibilities in an aging and therefore fraying population. >> there's a ton of jobs out there that you just have to go figure it out. you have to kind of craft it in your community. >> but can the average college grad carve out his and her career? >> i think every human being for the most part has that capability. >> the key is having a foundational set of skills some of them interpersonal, some of them anna analytical and findint turns you on. >> but college graduates don't follow your bliss, don't do what you love because that's impractical. >> there's different levels of do what you love. you don't want to just do something because it looks like today there's a safe job in it. there's something you wake up every morning and feel passionate about and that doesn't guarantee there will be a market for it. but it's in many cases it gives you a good shot. >> and speaking of good shot, one last example of artisanship. >> yes, it's just delicious. >> laur zack silverman and alex rhine, work for the same firm, bonded over their childhood love of frozen slushies. >> we joked, why isn't there a good frozen slushie we could bring to the office. >> ryan developed flavors, citrus, ginger, tea. when he got laid off in 2009, calvin slushie was born. started in a food truck. >> they would spike the slushies. >> your eureka was adult slushies, wait aosecond, that would be alcohol. >> exactly. >> calvin has since quit the law firm. joining ryan full time. they are passionate about what they do. >> i'm happy what i'm doing day in and day out. >> building a company that will hopefully be worth more and more in the future. >> more importantly for this story will artisanal businesses create enough jobs to rebuild america's middle class? we note that at its peak the pfizer plant employed some 2500 people. its artisan replacement just 1,000 jobs so far. on the other hand, the space is still only 40% leased. if it hits its full occupancy there just might be 2500 people working here once again. >> why should young people today >> wooduff: why should young people today want a liberal arts education? read more of paul's interview with the man who coined the term "artisan economy." that's on making sen$e. >> ifill: hopes of a potential stop to the violence gripping the middle east were dashed today as aerial bombardment from both sides continued. 194 palestinians have died during the eight days of violence. the first israeli casualty came today. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner reports on why hamas rejected an egyptian proposed cease-fire. >> warner: israel resumed air strikes on gaza this afternoon after a lull of six hours. it's cabinet had originally accepted, and honored, an egyptian cease-fire proposal. but hamas kept firing rockets, some again intercepted by israel's iron dome system. with that, prime minister benjamin netanyahu warned the counter-offensive would resume with greater force. >> if hamas rejects the egyptian proposal and the rocket fire from gaza does not cease and that appears to be the case now, we are prepared to continue and intensify our operation to protect our people and for this we expect full support from the responsible members of the international community. >> warner: palestinian president mahmoud abbas, whose fatah faction controls the west bank urged hamas to accept the truce. in april, the two factions formed a unity government, but hamas runs gaza. but a spokesman for the militant group said it rejected the cease-fire because hamas had not been consulted. >> ( translated ): the idea of declaring cease-fire before meeting the terms of the resistance is unacceptable. we will not stop fighting before reaching an agreement that includes all the terms of the palestinian resistance. >> warner: those terms include releasing palestinian prisoners from israeli jails and reopening border crossings with egypt. in vienna, secretary of state john kerry urged arab states to bring their influence to bear. >> we urge all parties to support this cease-fire, and we support and we ask all the members of the arab community, as they did yesterday at the arab league meeting in cairo, to continue to press to try to get hamas to do the right thing here, which is cease the violence, engage in a legitimate negotiation, and protect the lives of people that they seem all too willing to put to risk. >> warner: meanwhile, thousands of israeli troops remain positioned near the gaza border. a food delivery man was killed by a mortar blast today, israel's first fatality since the fighting began. at a jerusalem news conference, foreign minister avigdor lieberman called for an outright takeover of gaza. >> ( translated ): the answer must be clear. we also must demand from the whole world. there is a need to lead, there is a need to end this operation when the israeli army is in control over the whole gaza strip. >> warner: mark perry is a writer and foreign policy analyst who's covered the israeli-palestinian conflict for over two decades. in 2005 he led an effort to introduce retired senior u.s. officials to hamas leaders, and has remained in touch with them ever since. i spoke with him today. >> thank you for joining us. can you explain why hamas, at least this morning, apparently, refused to accept this egyptian cease-fire proposal? >> they didn't get what they wanted. just an end to the fighting is not enough. >> instead of just be interested in the cease-fire at all? >> since 2004 and through two wars now they've wanted an end to the siege of gaza. and that shows international respect and respect of israel a concession that they really need to get their economy going, they need an opening to the rafah border crossing -- >> into egypt? >> into egypt. without these we are going to have this all over again. they want a final resolution of this problem and they want their people to be able to grow economically. warner: aren't they totally ice lathed? even the arab league has been behind this proposal? >> they are isolated but they have always been isolated. people say the people of gaza have turned against them. but the one thing that makes palestinian support, when they are attacked by israel. that is the common ground they have. we see that again. hamas's popularity in gaza has been growing the more israel bombs gaza. warner: do you think they gain, even though palestinians have been killed close to 200? >> there is also a limit. they captain take a pounding forever and -- they can't take a pounding forever and they know it. it is interesting how both sides hamas and israel and the international community, in unison, calculate whether hamas can stay can prevail in this kind of conflict. warner: the israelis protest that they deliberately put rocket launchers in places where people live and they essentially make their own civilians targets. what does hamas say to that at least privately? >> hamas privately and publicly says we're outgunned, we are outplanned. we have a right to protect ourselves, we put rockets in built up areas but that's been the case throughout all wars in human history. i don't think it's accurate at all that hamas uses people as human shields. all military installations are in urban areas. no one seems to care. warner: when does it become a point where hamas or islamic jihad actually ruj run out of rockets? >> oh sure but we're not anywhere near that point. two years ago, hamas was in deep trouble. they were about 24 hours away from running out of ammunition. warner: this was in 2012. >> in 2012. they didn't want israel to come the in on the ground, they were going to be in trouble on the ground. in this case, that is not true. i was talking three days ago and said how are you guys doing? he said we're fine and that has been hamas's message to the international community ever since in the three days since israel wants to come in they can come in let's do that but we have our principles. we're going to stick to them. the standard scenes of these con-- scene of these conflicts that we see here in the united states and in europe is that hamas is weakened by these attacks that it becomes increasingly isolated but that's never been the case. in fact over the last six years i would argue that the opposite is the case. that it's israel that's become isolated especially in europe. warner: does hamas take seriously the threat of an israeli ground invasion? >> very much so and i think they would and i think that they don't want it but they cannot be seen to be compromising with their principles. lift the siege in gaza. open the rafah crossing and release those palestinians who have been detained after israel pledged they would not be arrested. it is easy to me, israel will say fine we can have a cease-fire and build a relationship on the base of the seafs. without those principles being retained and upheld i think they are in for the long haul. warner: now you have a government in egypt that doesn't want to open these, that is hostile to hamas. what are the prospects that in fact egypt would even want to do that? >> well, you're right this government in egypt, the government of general sisi is hostile to hamas. but general sisi has to listen to his street and what we've seen over the 24 to 48 hours is the egyptian press and people are turning towards palestinians and support of hamas and sisi has to see this. you are not going to see demonstrations in downtown cairo in favor israel. you're going to see demonstrations in downtown carey for hamas. and sisi has to placate his country. >> when he wanted to give the egyptian plan more time to work before the united states stepped in, do you think this plan still has another chapter that it still has legs or is it dead? >> we don't know what the egyptian plan is. but i trust secretary kerry's intuitions on this. the plan has to be built on. we need to give it a chance to work. let's see if it works. maybe it can be added to. he has said he doesn't need to go to cairo. that this can be in the hand of the egyptians. they have done this before. they've mediated between the egyptians and israel and hamas very successfully. this is the beginning of a cease-fire not the end of it and maybe if we give it a couple more days something substantive can come out of it. i think kerry is right on this. mark kerry, thank you. >> ifill: that interview is part of a series of conversations about the israeli-hamas conflict. yesterday, margaret spoke to former u.s. envoy for israeli palestinian negotiations martin indyk. tomorrow she'll speak with israeli ambassador ron dermer. >> wooduff: next, bringing new technology to save infant lives in vietnam. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro reports from hanoi. this report aired on the pbs program religion and ethics news-weekly and is another in his series, "agents for change." >> reporter: it's not unusual to see two, three, even four newborns crammed into the same crib at this busy government hospital in hanoi. >> they're the luckier ones, born in good health >> reporter: for those with lungs infected or not fully developed because they were premature, the struggle, quite literally for air, is that much harder. sometimes they must share still, the prognosis for such fragile infants is far better today than it was about a decade ago, says the unit's supervising doctor ngoc diep pham. >> ( translated ): before 2000, the mortality rate in of the neonatal intensive care unit was 15%. last year it was less than 2%. >> reporter: anti-biotics and have helped as has staff training but a big reason she says is that in recent years they've been able to install reliable new equipment to help babies breathe called continuous positive airway pressure or cpap >> normally cpap machines from the united states would cost us a lot of money, $2500. >> not only do they have to rely on a lot of >> reporter: not only did they have to rely on imported equipment-bought or donated-but it also broke down 1.12% >> right outside the neonatal intensive care unit is sophisticated equipment that lies unused and discarded. it's imported, high tech and but unsuited. in which parts are not available. >> for the amount that it cost to buy one machine from america, we can buy two, maybe three cpap machines that are made here. >> the cheaper more usable machines are now made in vietnam, tailored to local conditions. unluke in the west hospitals here don't have oxygen piped in for example so these machines have a portable pump. >> this is an >> it is an aquarium pump. >> an aquarium pump? >> yes. this is the diaphragm, so the air in very, very clean. >> reporter: the filter is needed for dusty conditions, says nga trang. she and her husband started this company called mtts with a few engineer friends eleven years ago. their big break came with a partnership with the california based east meets west foundation, which invests in so called appropriate technology. spokeswoman allison zimmerman says this machine was a promising idea because it was home grown >> what needed to happen was an engineering company that was willing to work with hospitals, with doctors and nurses to identify what they needed, as opposed to developing a solution outside, whether it's in a western country or whether it's in a lab somewhere, it took a special type of company that's willing to create a medical device that is affordable and that doesn't require consumables and consumables are very expensive. >> reporter: the big consumable for cpap machines is tubing- discarded after each patient in the west. here they are disinfected and reused here for as long as a year-for savings in the thousands of dollars. that lower price point has brought the equipment into smaller rural hospitals like this one where dr. ngo minh chuong heads the neonatal unit dr. neo men, as tiny as 1.6 pounds. >> what would happen before you have this equipment here? would that baby not have survived? >> we would have to transfer to a higher level hospital in 100% of these cases. >> that meant a two thundershower road journey to hanoi. it was unaffordable for many people in this region who had to foot the bill and for an already overcrudded hanoi hospital if they got there at all. >> if the road is bumpy it can cause the baby to choke, or if the ambulance is in a traffic jam, it can lead to death. >> mortality has come down by two-thirds since 2009. life for doctors and patients is far better. 10 month old bau n bao nam is as healthy as he is fidgety in his mother's arms- it's hard to imagine he weighed less than two pounds at birth. >> i was very anxious. >>like anyone else whose baby is not well, we very worried. at one point i thought i was going to break down. for the first week we couldn't see the baby at all. >> in addition to cpap, the joint enterprise, explained during training sessions during the partnership's medical director, dr. tran den chen. >> make sure there's as much skin exposed as possible. >> about 60% of all babies are born with jaundice which can lead to severe brain damage. it is now treated with ultimate vital violet light. it weighs only eight kilos. the vietnam made so-called fire fly n firefly weighs less than 20 pounds-and not only provides photo-therapy indoors but by the mother's bedside. >> it's great if you can keep them with the mother. the baby is not in the phototherapy machines. so it's designed small for that reason. you have lots of babies with a phototherapy over it then that increases risk of infection. by putting only one baby in, it decreases risk of infection. >> focuses on appropriate technology. in this hanoi lab engineers like matthew glide are tweaking the circuit boards of the infant warming device. >> we are just trying to interpret our ability a little bit so it's an extra circuitry to make it mobile protected particularly in environments where the electricity supply might not be so reliable or mite have spikes and dips. >> you want it to be able to withstand spikes in electric power? >> exactly, yes. >> besides working to improve their reliability the partners big goal is to make this enterprise financially sustainable. the devices are now being exported to neighboring countries in asia, with plans to expand to west africa and they hope, europe, which could significantly boost revenues. >> ifill: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under-told stories project at st. mary's university of minnesota. differently era of government surveillance. well before e-mail or edward snowden. jeffrey brown has our book conversation. brown: on march 8, 1971 a group of burglars entered a small office in media, pennsylvania. they found evidence of wide scale surveillance of u.s. citizens. it opened a window on the fbi that eventually led to the down fall of its leader j. edgar hoover. the perpetrators were never caught but their identities and story are now told by the book, the burglary. thoor betty medsger joins us. >> academics, tell us a little bit how did this happen? >> there was a sense in the antiwar movement that it was being infiltrated by spice, by informers. there was no evidence. william davidan the leader of the burglars, concluded that it probably was true and that it was so important if the scent was being officially suppressed that something needed to be done about it. >> davidan was a temple university religion professor. tell me a little bit more these people. >> a religion professional, john raines and his wife bonny raines. keith for sythe and became a lock picker for the occasion. took a correspondence course for lock-picking. >> picked a night of a legendary fight, mohammed ali and joe fraser. everybody was paying attention to that. >> still considered the fight of the centuries. >> yeah and they got away with it. got in and took the files. >> they did. they spent a few months casing. they were very careful what they were doing but at the same time there were obstacles they couldn't overcome such as a guard, 24 hours a day, at the courthouse door, looking at where they would enter and leave the building. >> and they found the surveillance campaign what later became known as the counterintelligence ram. they found reference to these files and you quote these words, enhance the paranoia that the fbi was trying to to make people feel there's an fbi agent behind every mailbox. >> there were many files that were important in the file room that they took out of the office that night in the dark. but that file that you just mentioned sent a lot of chills through people at the time. and for the first time, people in congress called for an investigation of the fbi. and also newspaper editorials. that was really quite striking because hoover was an idol, hoover was an icon. >> untouchable. >> untouchable truly untouchable. that's what drove davidon to think, he felt sure if political surveillance was going on and actually much worse was going on that there was no possible way that this would be found by government officials. that hoover was so immune to any kind of investigation. and that turned out to be true. brown: one of the amazing facts of the perpetrators as i said they never were caught. they agreed never to even meet again. what, they just lived, went back to living their lives? >> they went back to living their lives and for those that are middle aged, that meant continuing with their work as professors and raising their children. and for the ones who were younger it actually turned out to be more difficult because they had dropped out of school to work so strongly, to stop the war. it was more difficult and they had to rebuild their lives. brown: it seemed awfully fast right? all these changes that i mentioned, what happens to j. edgar and what happened to the reforms, watergate happened as well. >> in the background, all of those things, there was an impact. and one of the most important things is carl stern, and nbc reporter at the time covering the topic, noticed that one of the files had this word on top, cointelpro. that hoover wanted released to presidents of universities, but carl noticed that at the bottom, it said "send this with -- give it to friendly administrators and give it anonymously to unfriendly college administrators." it was about how to control student protesters. he thought this is a strange thing for fbi to be doing and also what is cointelpro? if it hadn't been for his persistence, would never have discovered in the end what was the most important findings from the media file. >> as you finished your book telling this history, and the survivors came forward, new revelations from edward snowden. do you end up feeling that what, things haven't changed so much? how did you see that? >> one of the things that i ended up feeling was that despite the oversight that was officially established as a result of the media burglary and then the congressional investigations that took place, that oversight really hasn't been functioning so well in recent years. and 40 years later, we're also learning information that seems to be pretty important for the public to know from another burglar, this one from inside an agency. brown: all right. the new book is the burglary. betty medsger, thank you so much. >> thank you. ifill: >> ifill: finally tonight, a master of capturing landscape and meditation in verse. charles wright was recently named the next poet laureate of the united states. in 2011, we traveled to his home for this profile, following the publication of his book, "outtakes." >> my name is charles wright, i live in charlottesville, virginia, i've lived here for 27 years now and i write poems. that's my reason for living. most much my poems -- most of my poems start with me sitting at my back window and looking out as the dust comes back down and what that sort of translates into my thinking at the moment. i used to think the power of words was inexhaustible. how we said the world was how it was. and how it would be. i used to imagine that words sway and word thunder would silence the silence and all that. that words were the word. that language could lead us inex inexplicably to grace as if it were geographical. i used to think these things when i was young. i still do. as one gets older, one tries to do more with less. i was much more loquacious when i was younger. the most recent things i have done have been quite brief. six-line poems. i once said if a guy can't say what he has to say in three lines, he better change his job. well, i haven't gotten that far yet. but i'm down to six lines. and they're hard. it's hard to get more into less. but it can be done. looking out the west facing window, how is it one comes to terms with life? one never does, i suppose, everything getting narrower, the children drunk and abusive, the sky breaking up but the clouds not moving. our lives are such common stories. fallen leaves on the wrong path. we wait it out, i guess, counting our sins and our have not donees and our moralityities for others. always others. the sunt changes -- is subject changes, the things i'm looking at, but the content, the landscape and the language of god, is unchanging unvarying and behind all of my poems even the ones that might not look like it. that's how poetry has always been for me. it's been a way of sustaining my questions about life, and moralityity anmortality and alls that are always there and knocking on the window. i think i'm going to take my time. life is too short for moralityity mortality. i'll take my time. tomorrow is not what i'm looking forward to. or the next day. my home isn't here. but i doubt that it's there, either. empty and full have the same glass. neither shows you the way. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. the new chairwoman of the federal reserve, janet yellen, said the economy is improving, but she told senators the fed is not ready to start raising interest rates. and hamas militants rejected a truce with israel and continued firing rockets. the israelis then resumed air strikes on gaza. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, for three years, illustrator benjamin dewey has delighted fans with his weekly installments of comics featuring scenes from 18th century victorian life. but he will soon end the off- beat "tragedy series." oregon public broadcasting spoke to dewey about retiring the popular drawings. watch that conversation, on our art-beat page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line, 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: ♪ ♪ 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... >> 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" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. >> split detigs when it comes to tech earnings, intel hits yahoo misses. >> tech team up, apple and ibm, mortal enemies in the copier 30 years ago develop services to develop apps and services with big blues enterprise with apple's moebility. and hanging on every word. what was written by the federal reserve and stocks stopped in their tracks. that and more on nig"nightly business report" on this busy, tuesday, july 15th. good evening everyone and