attentions to cities like it if we want to replicate that across the country. >> woodruff: and, the last crossing of the lusitania. a new book chronicles the passenger ship's final voyage through the perilous waters of world war one. >> there is so much fantastic archival material that it seemed to offer an opportunity for me to put on my alfred hitchcock hat and really make it a kind of exercise in nonfiction suspense >> ifill: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> at lincoln financial, we believe you're in charge. you're the chief life officer, and this is your annual shareholder's meeting. you're overseeing presentations on research and development, and welcoming new members of the team. you're in charge of it all. lincoln financial is committed to helping you take charge of your future. life, income, retirement, group benefits and advice. lincoln financial. you're in charge. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> 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 federal reserve board opened the door today to raising interest rates, after years of record lows. the central bank's latest statement dropped the word "patient" in describing its attitude toward the economy. but it also said the job market has to improve, and inflation has to move closer to 2%, before any rate hike. fed chair janet yellen: >> today's modification of our guidance should not be interpreted to mean that we have decided on the timing of that increase. in other words, just because we removed the word patient from the statement doesn't mean we're going to be impatient. >> ifill: on wall street, the fed's statement signaled an interest rate hike may not be imminent after all. the dow jones industrial average gained 227 points to get back above 18,000. the nasdaq rose 45, and the s&p 500 added 25. >> woodruff: terror rocked tunisia today, as gunmen killed at least 20 people, most of them western european tourists. it happened at the national bordo museum in tunis. in addition to the dead, some 50 people were wounded. security forces stormed the museum about two hours after the assault, and rescued a number of hostages. officials said two gunmen were also killed, but two or three others escaped. >> ifill: u.s. officials now acknowledge a predator drone likely was shot down over syria yesterday. the reuters news service reported that development today. last night, syrian state tv broadcast what it said was wreckage of the drone. the syrian military said air defenses in a western region brought down the unmanned craft. >> woodruff: in serbia, for the first time, police have arrested suspects accused of taking part in the 1995 massacre in srebrenica. eight men are accused of killing more than 1,000 bosnian muslims. bosnian serb leaders have already been arrested and tried. but serbia's deputy war crimes prosecutor said the arrests of the actual executioners marks a milestone. >> ( translated ): i cannot talk about the suspects, but the victims of srebrenica have not been forgotten. the perpetrators have not been forgotten as well. several other people throughout the region are potential perpetrators of this crime and therefore i believe this story is not over yet. >> woodruff: in all, some 8,000 muslims were killed at srebrenica, in europe's worst atrocity since world war two. >> ifill: police in japan are investigating death threats made against u.s. ambassador caroline kennedy and the american consul general on okinawa. u.s. officials say the threats came in a series of phone calls to the u.s. embassy in tokyo. kennedy has been ambassador since late 2013. >> woodruff: some 10,000 anti- austerity protesters rallied today in frankfurt, germany. they came to target the european central bank as it opened its lavish new headquarters. >> ( translated ): i think that the european central bank is a big symbol for monetary policy in europe, and for the power politics of capitalism here. and it is simply very important that lots of people from lots of different countries come together and fight against these politics. >> woodruff: the demonstrations began peacefully enough, but trouble broke out when some in the crowd set fire to police vehicles and started throwing stones. police detained 350 people. >> ifill: back in this country, a major protestant denomination, the presbyterian church u.s.a., has given final approval to recognizing gay marriage. a majority of the church's local leadership bodies voted to expand the definition of marriage to include "a commitment between two people." the change takes effect on june 21. >> woodruff: the 2016 republican presidential field has a potential new entrant: donald trump. the businessman and star of tv's "the apprentice" announced today he's formally creating a committee to explore running. trump also expressed interest in running in 2012, but ultimately decided against it. >> ifill: and, for the second year in a row, the government set a record in 2014 for withholding information. the associated press reports the obama administration censored or denied access to more files than ever, under the freedom of information act. in addition, the backlog of unanswered requests under the law grew 55%. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: tensions and questions after netanyahu claims victory in the israeli election. the political snare that has stalled a bill to stop sex trafficking in the u.s. why scientists are questioning the use of biopsies to find and treat breast cancer. how the twin cities attract the younger generation with jobs and reasonable cost of living. and, exploring the mysteries behind the lusitania's final voyage. >> ifill: israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu beat back a center-left challenge last night, scoring an unexpectedly strong reelection victory that threw future prospects for israeli-palestinian peace talks into doubt. special correspondent martin seemungal is in israel and reports on the mixed reaction to the news in the region and beyond. >> reporter: after his surprising, clear-cut victory, netanyahu took time for an afternoon prayer at judaism's holiest site, the western wall, in jerusalem. >> ( translated ): i will do everything i can to care for the security and welfare of all israelis. >> reporter: the man now set to serve a record fourth term as prime minister sought to strike an inclusive tone, after what had been a divisive race. according to "jerusalem post" reporter gill hoffman, netanyahu ran: >> a panicking campaign. he tried to make israelis feel that they are in trouble, and that they need him. >> reporter: initial exit polls showed they needed both netanyahu and his top challenger, isaac herzog. they were in a dead-heat. but through the night, as the actual counting began, netanyahu's likud bloc racked up more seats. "too close to call" became a rout, leaving israelis deeply divided. >> i can say is all of my facebook is full of pretty sad-- pretty sad comments; they can't >> well, i voted for the likud so i went to bed quite happy but i woke, i was partying when i saw the results. >> reporter: netanyahu is almost >> reporter: the main challenger, isaac herzog, of the center-left "zionist union" party, said today he will sit in opposition and not join a government of national unity. >> ( translated ): i would like to make it clear to the israeli people, the challenges are the same challenges, the problems are the same problems, nothing has changed. >> reporter: among palestinians the same words-- nothing has changed-- but with far different meaning. >> there is no difference ( translated ): settlements buildings and expansions, they will do what's good for them and not for us. >> reporter: the palestinians would like to see east jerusalem as the capital of a palestinian state, but in the last day of the campaign, benjamin netanyahu made it clear there will be no palestinian state if he is reelected. that insistence led to grim predictions: palestinian legislator mustafa barghouti: >> israel must be treated as the apartheid system was treated in south africa at one point in time. >> reporter: and this, from analyst mohammed darawshe a palestinian citizen of israel: >> if they go on a collision track, it probably means thousands and thousands of more palestinian casualties in the streets. and they're going to continue their struggle to have a state. >> reporter: still, gill hoffman thinks netanyahu does have room for maneuver, even now. >> if the situation arises that would enable there to be movement forward on the palestinian front, netanyahu will move forward. >> reporter: the u.s. response to netanyahu's victory election has been cool so far. state department spokeswoman jen psaki said today his words over the last days had not gone unnoticed. >> based on the prime minister's comments, the united states is in a position going forward where we will be evaluating our approach with regard to how best to achieve a two-state solution. >> reporter: last year, the president himself told an interviewer: '[t]he window is closing for a peace deal that both... can accept... what we know is that it gets harder by the day. what we also know is that israel has become more isolated internationally. and for now at least, the election results have left the fractious relations between mr. obama and netanyahu, no closer to warming. >> ifill: and martin joins me now from tel aviv. we spoke about this time yesterday, there were early exit polls that suggested that netanyahu might pull this out but not by this much of a margin. so what is the mood today among his supporters and the people who wanted to defeat him? >> well a very mixed mood. a real reflection of the division in this country. on the one hand you have likud supporters euphoric a great deal of relief. because you have to remember that going into the election the days before all the polls were saying that i will coup was not going to do-- likud was to the going to do that well. it was going to poll at least two to three seats behind isaac herzog's center left coalition. and as a result, there was a great deal of fear among likud supporters that they actually weren't going to make it. so when that final result came out this morning they were-- they were stunned. they were extremely u nor-- euphoric that this had happened. on the other hand you have the zionist coalition the center, center left people who were to use the words that we heard on the street today shocked devastated. they thought they had a real shot at it this time because of perception that netanyahu's popularity was dropping was plummeting and that, in fact most israelis wanted to see that changed. >> and when you talk about coalitions, that is part of the conversation that is still under way at this point. how much or has it even begun the coalition building that has to happen for this government to start working again? >> well, there is a lot of conversations going on but nothing has really started practically. where we're at right now is netanyahu has said that he will form a coalition or try to put one together in the next two to three weeks. the way it works is all the party leaders get together. they recommend somebody to the president who will be the person they would like to see to be prime minister. now we know that isaac herzog said he's not going to serve in a netanyahu unity government. he says reserve in opposition so it looks like if netanyahu is going to put this coalition together which everyone expects it's going to be the jewish home party on the right. also some of the religious parties. and of course morei the former minister in netanyahu's party who left two years ago formed his own party got ten seats and is now the fourth largest party or fifth largest party in the polls. so he has asked for the justice ministry many people saw him as a kingmaker, if it was going to be a close race. now that it's clear netanyahu is going to be the one forming the government. everyone expressed that morei will be the finance minister in a netanyahu government. >> martin seemungel for us tonight in tel aviv, thank you very much. >> ifill: for more on what netanyahu remaining in power means for israel, prospects for a palestinian state, and the american-israeli relationship, i'm joined by former israeli ambassador to the united states itamar rabinovich. shibley telhami, the anwar sadat professor of peace and development at the university of maryland and author of the book "the world through arab eyes." and robert satloff, executive director of the washington institute for near east policy. and back to the rabinovich, i want to get your sense your reaction to what happened yesterday and why? >> what happened was that despite talk about socioeconomic issues happening among the young middle class the dom national issue remains security israelis are worried. they look at iran they look at gaza they look at hezbollah in lebanon they look at the collapsing states around us and mr. netanyahu did a much better job than mr. herzog in portraying himself as the leader who can look after the security of the state and of the individual citizens in the state. he did also outflank the right wing party. if you look at the breakup of the vote, there was not so much a shift from the left to the right but a shift inside the right wing camp. and so they were successful in-- mr. bennett and mr. lieberman and-- his own likud party. and of course he's a con sum at complaining. -- er and did a very good job in coming up from a low position to the victory of last night. >> ifill: bob satloff did he just outcampaign his opposition? and what does that mean if he did? >> well, prime minister netanyahu is an extraordinary politician this is not the first time that israelis went to bed thinking someone else won and waking up and bebe was the winner. he knows how to pull the strings especially among the center right and the right. this time his main target were not undecideds. his main target were people further to the right than he is, to pull them into his likud party. he did it in the last couple of days. actually both main camps panicked. he panicked with his last minute declaration about no palestinian state. and the center left panicked by essentially dropping the running mate of their number one candidate that she would not be the candidate for prime minister. his gambit worked better. and he got more votes for his old party to make him not just able to put together a coalition but dwarfing all other parties. >> ifill: let me ask shibley telhami about that. whether that was designed he not only talked about there would be no two-state solution if he were re-elected, but he also tweeted that there were a lot of arabs going to the polls. and they tried to stir his base up. was that by design? >> well, whether it was by design or not it clarely whether he really panicked or not he used it for sure. no question that he used the numbers to his advantage. when there was a report just on thursday and friday that he is behind on the polls that he could actually you know that even the israeli public started saying it's not inevitable that bebe is going to be prime minister. he used that. whether he believed it or not, he used it very effectively. i must say i don't think it was about issues not even security issues. i think clearly his focus on security was deliberate to take away from associations. i think this was about identity politics. he went for communal identity for issues that are important to core identities of his constituents. he played on them. he wanted to raise the level of participation in the elections. 80% of the settlers participated in their elections. so he clearly used the arab issue you know what "the new york times" called racist rants to scare people of the empowered arab-israeli citizens who were voting. clearly on the palestinian issue he went again with an identity question on jerusalem. so i think it was really mobilizing the right. he did that. he did successfully but at very high cost because it's going to cost him in governing and in foreign policy. >> ifill: ambassador rabinovich s that true is that who the israeli voters are spending time getting inside netanyahu head but also getting inside the heads of the voters and what they actually require. >> -- this is divided between right and left secular and orthodox jew and arab russian immigrants and so forth and so forth. and one of the most important things that an israeli politician or party needs to do in order to win an election is to find the the common denominator in order to-- the voters. so that is one issue. identity issues is an important-- is an important component. and the persona of the candidate the left center left was able to win earlier election campaigns when he put a strong personality with a strong security credentials be itities ago rabin or ehud barak or the ariel sharon after his conversion. let us remember that as recently as 2009 ehud olmert won an election with a platform of continuing sharon's withdrawal from the gaza strip in the west bank. that was not so far ago. so the personality of the candidate is very important. >> ifill: yes, thank you i didn't mean to interrupt. but i did want to ask all three of you this question which is what does this mean now for the future, if there is a future of palestinian-israeli peace talks. and of the u.s. relationship with a leader who now we have some strain with what do you think? >> this is a very basic question about what sort of prime minister netanyahu what like to be. he could be a prime minister of a narrow coalition. he could be a prime minister of a slightly wider coalition. he could even be broader. he can define his future. in terms of the palestinians i think we should pars his words carefully. what he said was and what his advisors are now saying is there is certainly no palestinian state now. can circumstances change? can there be a renewal of diplomacy? can there be security cooperation that really gets engaged? it's certainly possible. >> ifill: did you see that? >> look he wouldn't be the first politician that changed his mind after promising during the election if he were to change course. but there is nothing in his history that would indicate he is kanl of doing that. he had a chance last time. he didn't have to go with the right wing coalition. he had a center left partner he could have gone with. he could have gone with a wider coalition. there is no trust at all in this administration or among palestinians. after his statement that he made now no matter what kind of coalition he goes with, he's not going to change his mind quickly. and nobody is going to trust to test him to see whether he possibly could change his mind. i don't see any possible realistic opening for renewing negotiations on the basis of two-state solution any time soon. >> ifill: ambassador, do you see any realistic opening? >> possibly yes. i would do if i were netanyahu's friend or advisor, i would have said to him don't look at your past, look at your future, you are 65 years old. it's your fourth term. maybe your last term. you have survived in politics. now is-- now is your time and you have the power to make a difference. take bold decisions. you went to washington to give what you called the-- speech. be-- in the bold decisions that you will be making in the next few weeks and mondays. >> ifill: i guess that is what we will be watching for ambassador rabinovich rob satloff shibley telhami thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> pleasure. >> woodruff: now to a large, but often hidden issue in america, and why solving it is getting caught up in congressional gridlock. more than 100,000 american children and teens are currently estimated to be victims of sex trafficking. in the past month, senators from both parties had come together on a bill to combat the problem and help victims. it was to be a shining example of bi-partisanship, but has now hit a major political wall. >> democrats owe these victims, not lobbyists, help-- help the senate is now so close to passing. >> it's insane to keep going forward on these votes that everyone knows are going to turn out the same way. >> woodruff: party leaders dug in this morning, as the senate standoff over the human trafficking bill entered its second week. the measure initially had wide bipartisan backing: it creates a fund for u.s. victims of trafficking, who are often forced into prostitution and it toughens fines and penalties for so-called "johns" who buy services. but the dispute is centered on a provision banning any funds from paying for a victim's abortion. democrats acknowledged today they originally missed that provision-- that an aide did not flag it. but minority whip dick durbin and others charge republicans deliberately made the wording obscure. >> and there was a representation made to several senators that this-- there was nothing else in the bill to be concerned about other than a few listed issues, and this was not included. >> woodruff: in turn, republicans, like deb fischer of nebraska, deny ill intent, and >> to have the other side come out and say they didn't read the bill, they were caught off- guard, you know, come on. those are excuses, i believe for trying to stop the work of the united states senate. >> woodruff: for now, the dispute has stopped any work on confirming loretta lynch to be attorney general. majority leader mitch mcconnell insists that won't happen until the trafficking bill is voted on. >> woodruff: for more on the bill before congress and the issue of human and sex trafficking, we are joined by bradley myles, c.e.o. of polaris, a non profit that works to combat slavery and human trafficking. and, holly austin smith, a former victim herself, who now advocates for victims of sex trafficking. she is also the author of "walking prey: how america's youth are vulnerable to sex slavery." and welcome you both. holly austin smith let me start with you. you were a victim at the age of 14. tell us briefly what happened to you? >> sure i was a young teen victim. i was 14. i was confused angry depressed like many young teenagers i was struggling with the transition between middle school and high school. and i met a man at my local shopping mall who turned out to be a pimp. he convinced me to run away from home with ideas of being a model or a music artist but within hours of running away from home i learned the truth. that he was a pimp and he forced me into prostitution in atlantic city new jersey. >> woodruff: bradley myles her story is just so tough to hear. and i think many americans hear about this. this doesn't really happen in this country. it's kind of an invisible crime. how wide spread is it? >> oy think that most people really do believe this is happening overseas but there is a disbelief that it's happening here. and for us we know that this is happening to hundreds of thousands of people, like you mentioned 100,000 u.s. citizen youth. we operate the national hotline for the country called the national human trafficking resource center. we're on the hotline every day. last year we learned about over 5,000 cases of trafficking. and two-thirds of those were cases of sex trafficking. so it's truck stops it's in hotels it's in elicit massage parlors it's in residential brothels it's in street prostitution. it's all these places. and people i think see it as prostitution but they don't realize that it might be children involved. they don't realize it might be people involved who are there by force, violence or coercion and they don't see the deeper control that is there. >> woodruff: an holly smith, who are the victims? they come from all walks of life all parts of the country? >> a victim can be any age any gender any class. traffickers have the ability to reach out to victims in any community especially with social media today. but certainly those who are most at risk are those kids who are lacking in resources. or adults who are lacking in resources. >> woodruff: and bradley myles tell us we did talk about it in the settup that people just heard but what in essence would this bill or these bills do for these victims? >> well, one of the primary focuses is providing more services for survivors. there's this traffic victim fund that was going to be put together with proceeds from different criminal prosecutions that would go to survivor services. there's way that survivors could get more restitution and compensation. there's more official recognition for survivors. there's even a potential of the reauthorization of the full apparatus of runnaway and home ltses youth programs in the united states to prevent trafficking because homeless youth are some the most vulnerable youth pimps are targeting. so there are all these to look at survivor support there are also provisions to crack down on traffickers more and the buyers of sex. and we fell like there is a strong package of bills that were really teed up there. >> woodruff: holly smith from your perfect-- perspective, why is it important to pass this? >> i think that it's important to pass legislation that's going to support victims pass legislation that's going to bolster community programs pass legislation that's going to bring training to law enforcement and education to our schools in order to education youth about tactics of sex traffickers. i think it's important to bring prevention into our communities. irdon't know if there's enough focus on prevention in this bill. but part of what would be focused on prevention is the runnaway and homeless youth reauthorization act. >> i want to ask you both about the language that's been holding this up, the abortion language in the bill. and bradley myles to you first, we know it says in so many words that government money could not be used to pay for an abortion for victims unless they were the victim of a rape in a coerced circumstances. without weighing in on the merits of abortion or not what difference could that make, do you believe for the young people we're talking about the young women who say we're pregnant? >> so for us we're a direct service provider for victims of trafficking. and we know when someone comes out of one of these situations they describe being in a situation of total control. they have been raped. they've been sexually assaulted. they've had so much of their life controlled. and so when we're providing services we want to create a spectrum that is as wide as possible and as empowering as possible and let them chart the course of their own services and not put limits on what is possible. and so sometimes there's a debate about would this cover this or would this cover that. and could you always define it as rape or not. and we didn't even want to get into that debate. we didn't want that to enter this dialogue because we knew that the entire senate there's so much passion around this bill from the republicans and the democrats. both sides are incredibly passioned about fighting trafficking, we just didn't want to have to go there to begin to asking those questions. >> woodruff: and finally holly smith, from what you know, and you studied this obviously for a long time and from your own personal experience. would this-- would covering abortion for the young people young women who are victims of this who may have gotten pregnant would this cover all circumstances with these young women became pregnant? >> are you asking if the bill would cover all circumstances? >> the language in the bill. >> i am not sure about the language in the bill. but i think that it needs to not be a part of the conversation. victims need to have total control over what options are available to them. because they're being taken out of a situation where they had no control. where they had no ability to decide what was available to them and what wasn't available to them. they weren't able to choose what they did and what they didn't do. for anyone who is really interested in whether or not these services are really valid or valuable to victims i encourage you to reach out to service providers who are working with victims on a regular basis. and i would especially encourage you to reach out to survivor-led service providers. >> woodruff: holly austin smith and bradley myles very tough subject thank you both. >> thank you for having me. >> thank you. >> ifill: more than 1.5 million women in the u.s. get a breast biopsy each year. but a new study raises doubts about their accuracy. hari sreenivasan explores the findings, and the implications for treatment. >> sreenivasan: the study found that when it comes to invasive cancers, pathologists' diagnosis were generally correct. but an expert panel said pathologists had more trouble making the right diagnosis in about 25% of all cases. that was primarily true when it involved a case of ductal carcinoma in situ, or d.c.i.s.-- cells that are abnormal, but not invasive. doctors also had trouble diagnosing in cases of atypia-- when abnormal non-cancerous cells are identified. doctor joann elmore of the university of washington school of medicine is the study's lead author. so dr. elmore, how big of a pop lations are we talking about when there are error rates of opinionly 20 or 25%? >> well i think you started correctly by saying that every year 1.6 million million biopsies are done in the u.s. of those biopsies some are interpreted as normal others as cancer. and it's these in between diagnoses that are the most problematic. it is very hard for us to give a diagnosis. there are probably 200,000 women each year that have a breast biopsy and get a report that says they're abnormallal cells. it's not normal and it's not invasive cancer it's somewhere in between. >> srennivasan: when you get a sentence like that out of your doctor's mouth i'm sure that's one of the last things you want to hear. but what is the consequence of that? does that mean that people are treated too aggressively or not treated aggressively enough? >> well let's start with your first comments which is very correct. when you hear that sentence especially a word like ductal carcinoma insitu, it can be very scary for women and their family. and even though it has the word carcinoma it's not the same thing as invasive cancer. so i guess first i would recommend that women stop tack a deep breath and realize that this is not a diagnosis of invasive breast cancer and they have time to pause and reflect and gather information. >> we found that with the diagnosis of dcis while four out of five agreed on a diagnosis this also meant one out of five disagreed. for the diagnosis of atypia we found that about 50% agreement. so this is similar to the agreement of flipping a coin guessing heads or tails. when women are diagnosed with dcis they are told that they're at increased risk of breast cancer. we can't identify which woman is going to go on to be diagnosed with breast cancer. and so understandably, a lot of women want to have what some would consider pretty aggressive treatment. women are having mastectomies and lumpectomy with radiation therapy. women are dcis are having about the same kind of treatments as women with early stage invasive cancer. >> the idea that this is pathologist interpreting what the slide shows them in this day and age i almost imagine that a computer programmer algorithm of some sort could at least give us a lead. but this seems almost like an interpretation. it is up to humans to interpret whether or not this cancer or that these cells are exhibiting a cancer. >> in this day and age, i think many are surprised that much of medicine is an art. what we have found with breast biopsy interpretation it's also a similar finding with radiologist interrupting mammograms w cardiologists listening to heart murmurs using their seth scope. and so this variability -- variability among physicians when we give a diagnosis has been voted in all specialties. so it's not unique to pathology. for hundreds of years we have been diagnosing cancer by getting the tissue putting it on a class slide looking at that time under a microscope. and deciding using our vision whether it is normal versus cancer. you would open in this day and age with modern technology, we would have other cools otherwise molecular markers or genetic tests, but currently our diagnosis is provided by the pathologist. >> did you ask about computers though and that is an interesting question. we now can take these slides and digitize them and put the image up on a screen. and so pathologists now can actually look at the images on a computer screen. it's not fda approved. but we can start having computers evaluate these images to see whether we can come up with computer-aided detection programs. they've developed this in many other areas of clinical medicine. so it's something we need to look into. >> dr. joanne elmore from the university of washington thanks so much. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: it might surprise you to hear that one of the hot destination cities, especially for young, so called, millennials, is the twin cities of minneapolis and saint paul. i travelled there recently, as part of our partnership with "the atlantic," to explore the findings in a recent article in the magazine, and to try to find out whether the so-called minneapolis miracle is really paying off for everyone. in many ways mill be-- mill enian-- millennials may be the biggest victims of the great recession. writer derek thompson has lived this reality in new york city one of the most expensive on earth. >> a blueberry -- >> i wanted to figure out why the american dream seemed to be splintering between cities that were upwardly mobile and cities that were affordable. >> for answers thompson turned to the latest national data on cities with the greatest opportunity to move up into the middle class and beyond. versus the cost-of-living. >> the cities that were the best for upward mobility were the wrses for affordability and the cities that were the most a affordable had bad upward mobility. one exception to the rule. >> minneapolis st. paul was clearly at the top. it was the richest city that was exceptional. >> the greater minneapolis st. paul metro area is made up of at least 13 countys and approximately three and a half million people. the latest u.s. census ranks it as having the fifth highest median household income in the country. >> among workers between 18 and 34 it's top ten when it comes to median income it's top ten when it comes to lowest poverty rate when it comes to highest share of college graduates. >> good statistics for a city that often goes unnoticed on both coasts. >> i have talked to my professional friends around the world and they ask me what are you doing in minneapolis. >> miles share is a business professor at the university of minnesota's carlson school of management. >> and i say there are 17 fortune 500 headquarters in town. and they go you can't be right. >> woodruff: the area is home to many world-class brands including cargill general mills and target. >> we have had this talented workforce that tends to stay here and move amongst companies rather than pick up and move across the country. >> woodruff: many believe the success the twin cities have seen is more than just an accident of location commerce and quality of life. >> there's always been kind of a collective sense of community in the state of minnesota and the twin cities. >> woodruff: st. paul mayor chris coleman knows the area's polit call history well. his father nick coleman was the state senate majority leader from 1973 to 1981. >> in the '70s it was an incredible spirit of what can we do differently to make sure that everyone is benefitting. and that the whole state is elevated as a result of our policies. >> woodruff: politicians on both sides. aisle passed progressive education tax sharing and housing laws. >> it was called the minnesota miracle at the time. it was very unique and it had tremendous benefits to the quality of life as a city. >> woodruff: former state legislator and law professor my ron orfield runs the institute on metropolitan opportunity at the-- opportunity at the university of minnesota. >> when we decided in 1971 that every community would share 40% of the growth of the business tax base. >> woodruff: minneapolis st. paul was one of a very few metro areas in the entire country to enact a fiscal disparities law. >> they take half the growth of business income taxes in the metro area and they spread it across the region. what this does is it allows the less rich communities in the minneapolis st. paul area to share in the commercial wealth of the entire city. >> how much does the city of st. paul right now depend on that formula to stay fiscally strong? >> it is a absolutely critical piece of the funding for the city of st. paul. two-thirds of our revenues go to police officers firefighters over safety, if we lost that revenue sharing it would be difficult to maintain those levels of public safety. >> woodruff: in addition, in the 19 70s the minnesota legislature was also one of the few in the country to focus on integration in public housing. >> for 15 years we have 70% of our low-income housing in the whitest part of su burba in the whitest neighborhoods. >> they did a good job to making sure ghettos weren't con guiling because concentrating all of the affordable housing in a couple areas,. >> while there is a shared prosperity for twin cities in every racial group probably up until the mid '80s. >> woodruff: but decades ago the region was less than five percent minority. today, it has grown to 20%. in addition to african-americans and hispanics, the area is now home to the largest somali and mong population outside of somalia and vietnam. >> starting in the late 1980s we allowed our civil rights laws to laps like much of the country did. >> woodruff: after a decade of a fair share housing policy in 1986 democrats who controlled the state house and governorship stepped back from it. >> our patterns of segregation are still half the national average they're still better but we're not what we once were. >> woodruff: what is it like to live in the minneapolis st. paul area. >> depends on who you are. what your race s what your economic level is what your educational level is. >> woodruff: sandra samuels is president & ceo of the north side achievement zone an educational nonprofit focused on ending multigenerational pov ert in north minneapolis. >> it's a tale of two cities it really is we have the highest racial unemployment gap in the entire country between people of color and white people in this state. >> woodruff: while minneapolis st. paul may be a top pick for millennialing the difference in opportunities between blacks and whites is one of the widest in the country. >> we have a 47% four-year high school graduation rate for african-american students. and statewide it's like 86% for white students. home ownership 76% for white families and 34% for african-americans. >> so my question is is the american dream really attainable here? >> in minneapolis, and the very poor pockets of segregation that are growing the american dream is falling further away than it has ever been before. >> woodruff: by 2040 the minority population is expected to grow to at least 40%. and local leaders say the racial disparity in education, opportunity and income must be addressed if fortune 500 companies are to continue to come and thrive. >> they're not here for our beach front property. they are here because we have historically had the most educated workforce. and when you look at who our workforce will be by 2040 they are not being educated in an equitable way. and so we won't have a workforce that our region needs. >> woodruff: in a popular eatery not far from city hall, we asked a group of millennial nursing students their opinion of the twin city metro area. >> even though it is majority white, there is something that you can find whether you are black white the cultures different sexual orientation everyone is welcome. >> i'm an immigrant from west africa. two years ago i was able to afford my own home. minnesota was able to incorporate my education from africa here so that i could pursue my dream. >> i love minneapolis. that's why i ca be candid around the places where we have got to come together and change this thing for people. >> we are far from perfect. we have some huge challenges in this community. but we have a base upon which to build. and i think it will allow us to deal with issues of racial disparities, for instance. >> woodruff: in fact many metro areas in the u.s. are dealing with the same challenges the twin cities are. growing racial inequities even as economies flourish. derek thompson believed that if solutions are to be found they won't come from washington. >> the future of public policy is going to come out of the state and the local level. and given the fact that minneapolis st. paul has an exceptional record not only on building income building wealth, but also sharing wealth and creating opportunities for upward mobility, we should pay more attention to cities like it if we want to replicate that formula across the country. >> ifill: 100 years ago this may, there was a fateful encounter in the irish sea. jeffrey brown has that story from our latest addition to the newshour bookshelf. >> brown: it was one of the worst maritime disasters in history. the sinking of the british passenger ship, "lusitania" by a german submarine, on may 7, 1915. nearly 1,200 people, including 123 americans, were killed. it's a story of legendary proportions, but also one with a number of mysteries at its core. and it's told in the new book, "dead wake." author erik larson, whose previous best-sellers include "the devil in the white city" joins me now. unlike some of these other of your pases works this one more well-known more well-- why did you want to come into it? >> at first i was a little put off by the fact that it was so well-known and so well trod. but what i realized as i started doing some exploratory research was that there was an opportunity here i felt to bring something to the party that hadn't necessarily been brought before. i saw it as cuz there is so much fantastic archiveality material that it seemed to offer an opportunity for me to put on my-- alfred hitchcock hat and really make it kind of an exercise in nonfiction suspense. >> suspense and mystery so that kind of detail, and that's what you really go through here. the detail you are talking about individual lives diaries. >> intercepted telegrams love letters from president wilson to his girlfriend. i mean there is so much material. it was a surplus of riches. >> brown: this is the kind of stuff that turns you on. >> yes, yes. i mean anything that-- anything that allows a story to advance at a fast clip. and there is so much great stuff. >> brown: the ship a wonder of its time right a marvel. >> yes. >> brown: also its nemesis the submarine a marvel in another way of its time. >> right. >> brown: so partly what grabbed me it is a story of technology, in a way. >> in part, it is. one of the things we have to-- i had to really discipline myself to do is to go back not go back in time obviously but to adopt the point-of-view of the era to appreciate how new the submarine was as a weapon. today it is very familiar to us, all the silent run deep and all the sonar pinging and so forth. but at this time, by the way there was no sonar involving submarines in world war i. >> brown: it was out there blindly. >> it was out there blindly stumbling around, relying on charts. but the thing that i really had to discipline myself to appreciate at all times was how new the submarine was as a weapon of war. and how poorly understood it was not just by civilianss but by the people who commanded the submarines by the british navy by the german navy nobody really understood what a submarine was capable of. >> brown: so the other side is the people, right. so there is the large the woodrow wilson winston churchill the first lord. admirality. >> yeah. >> brown: but then the minicharacters, smaller significance. just as an example one that grabbed me is charles lawyer yet boston bookseller. >> right. >> brown: why him as a way in to tell your story? >> you know i wanted to have passengers we could sort of hold hands with through the entire voyage. and charles lauriet left one of the most detailed accounts of any of the passengers. when i say one of the accounts, i mean he left multiple traces of his story and the historic records from testimony, a book he wrote and an amazing filing with the mixed claims commission after the war. so there was a lot of rich detail. but also what i really liked about him was just the fact that in that era the golden age of books and book collecting, and so forth that a book collector could be famous and recognized on the street. and could travel first class on the classiest ocean liner on the sea for his annual buying trip to london. >> brown: i mentioned mystery. one of the great mysteries of course as you document the british-- well knew submarines were in the area they were tracking. >> not only did they know but they knew this submarine was very likely to be in that area because they knew exactly where it was headed. >> brown: but they didn't send out naval pat rule to guard the lose tanya. >> well nor did they tell captain turn the captain of the lose takenia, nor did they tell him-- lus tanya that any of this was known. they knew precisely the patrol zone that the submarine would be off liverpool which is where all the ships were headed they also knew they also knew that the big german broadcasting center was broadcasting the lusitania's coming and goings. >> brown: why didn't they tell them? why didn't they do more? was there in some sense the british wanting a ship to go down to lure the americans into the war? >> it is a complicated story. one historian who early on when he wrote a book about the spy agency supersecret spy entity in this book he considered this the reason lusitania was allowed to sail into the irish sea unprotected because it was a monumental cock-up t was a mistake. later in life as other evidence came forward, he changed his mind. i found it fascinating. there was this interview on file in the imperial war museum in london where he says that as much as he lovers the royal navy and calls himself a lover of the royal navy he had come to the conclusion that that point in his life that there was some kind of a conspiracy, there was something. but he couldn't-- he just didn't know what kind. >> brown: all right, the book is dead weight erik larson, thanks some of. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and now to our "newshour shares" of the day. something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you too. a record number of sea lion pups have washed up ashore in southern california this year, starving and abandoned. it's not clear why, but some scientists think warming waters and a shortage of fish is forcing their mothers to search longer for food. animal rescue teams are bringing the hungry pups to marine mammal centers, which are nearing capacity. david bard, coordinator of one such center in san pedro explains: >> we're doing everything we can to work with rescue agencies and bring in as many patients as we can. the fact of the matter is this year, because of the inordinate numbers, we're not going to be able to save every single animal on the beach. >> woodruff: so far this season more than a thousand sea lions have come ashore with more expected every day. again, the major developments of the day: the big election win for israeli prime minister netanyahu cast doubt on any israeli-palestinian peace talks. and the federal reserve opened the door to raising interest rates, but not anytime soon. that sent the dow industrials surging 230 points. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, why investors are backing high-tech devices designed for baby boomers. >> we felt both the desk-u treadmill separately. 35% of our customers are over the age of 45. >> this is crust one of the pitches being made a 1776, a washington d.c.-based incubator or start-up entrepreneurs come to share ideas. >> it looks like a young person's game. but two of aarps futurist jeffrey and sanjay are on patrol holding regular office hours to listen start-ups pitch how they might help older americans. >> older adults coming into the population and we have to design for them. >> that's tomorrow on >> ifill: that's tomorrow on the newshour. 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: i.b.e.w. the power professionals in your neighborhood. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the worlds most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> 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 newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. just because we removed the word patience from the statement doesn't mean we're going to be impatient. >> the federal reserve chair may have dropped the word patient, but janet yellin added something else that sent stocks soaring. results delivered. shares of fedex fall on a disappointing outlook. we'll take you behind the words and why they're not so bad after all. what's brewing? starbucks launches a campaign to get people talking about race relations, but does it come at a cost? all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, march 18th. >> good evening, everyone. and welcome. janet yellin took the stage and stocks took off. the fed