tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ love me tender >> we can like many, but we can love only a precious few, because it is for those precious few that you have to be willing to do so very much. you don't have to do it alone. lincoln financial helps you provide for and protect your financial future because this is what you do for people you love. lincoln financial-- you're in charge. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: four more states are having their say today in the presidential race of 2016. frontrunners in both parties hope to pad their delegate leads, while rivals hope to hang on, or maybe, gain a little ground. michigan is the day's main attraction, and we'll hear from a reporter on the scene, after the news summary. >> ifill: in the day's other news, an american tourist was killed and a dozen israelis wounded in a fresh wave of palestinian attacks. the tourist died in the port city of jaffa, where an assailant stabbed seven people, before being killed by police. another palestinian shot and wounded several people in jerusalem. he, too, was killed, along with two others involved in stabbing incidents. we'll take a closer look at the israeli-palestinian divide, later in the program. >> woodruff: iran's hard-line revolutionary guard has test-fired another round of ballistic missiles, challenging the united nations and the united states. iranian state tv today showed a medium-range missile being launched overnight. it said several others were fired in recent days. u.s. officials said that could violate a u.n. prohibition. >> there's at least one specific united nations security council resolution that could apply here, and the truth is, we're still reviewing the iranian launch to assess whether it is necessary for this matter to be raised before the united nations security council. >> woodruff: the u.n. resolution warns against launching anything that can carry a nuclear warhead. in addition, the u.s. imposed sanctions earlier this year, after iran launched a long-range missile last fall. >> ifill: south korea today imposed new penalties on north korea for recent nuclear and missile tests. the sanctions ban financial dealings with 40 individuals and 30 organizations with suspected links to the north's weapons program. in seoul, a top official also announced new rules designed to cut off traffic by sea. >> ( translated ): we will strengthen sanctions on shipping related to north korea. we will entirely ban foreign vessels stopped in a north korean port within 180 days and continue the measures prohibiting the vessels of third countries from sailing the sea route between south and north korea. >> ifill: in a related development, south korea's spy agency accused north korea of hacking the cell phones of dozens of top south korean officials. >> woodruff: in somalia, the islamist group al-shabab confirms the u.s. bombed one of its camps on saturday, but disputes claims that the strike killed 150 fighters. american officials say the coordinated drone and manned aircraft attacks hit a training site 120 miles north of mogadishu. the pentagon says it was aimed at preventing a large-scale attack by the militants. >> ifill: the european union moved closer today to a deal to reverse the exodus of migrants from turkey. in return, the turks would get well over $6.5 billion in aid, among other things. jonathan rugman of independent television news reports from greece, where growing numbers of migrants are stranded. >> reporter: there are now around 14,000 people living like this in idomeni, and yet the greek authorities are predicting even more will now rush to join them before any deal sealed with turkey at the end of next week seals them out of europe as well. over 700 migrants came ashore on greek islands this morning alone. these arrived on lesbos with many more on the way, adding to the 37,000 already in greece. so it's no wonder turkey's offer to take them all back comes with strings attached. chiefly, that one syrian should be granted asylum in europe for every syrian returned across this water. >> i want to make it clear, we are demanding burden sharing for syrian refugees. >> reporter: then there are the unwritten demands. at least one person was killed today by rockets fired into turkey from syria possibly by so called islamic state. turkey expects not just sympathy, but support, above all in battling kurdish militancy along this border. human rights groups will bridle at that. >> where are you from? >> afghanistan. >> reporter: and they're already bridling at the prospect of people like these afghans we encountered in lesbos yesterday being forcibly returned, because their legal rights to shelter are so few on the turkish side. arrangement that would involve the blanket return of anyone from one country to another, without spelling out the refugee protection safeguards under international law. >> reporter: these migrants apparently set to become part of the biggest expulsion of people since greece and turkey were at war. >> ifill: more than one million people have flooded into the e.u. since early last year, mainly by way of turkey. >> woodruff: several major corporate sponsors cut or suspended ties today with tennis star maria sharapova. the five-time grand slam winner admitted monday that she tested positive for a newly-banned drug at the australian open. the drug, meladonium, can improve endurance. sharapova says she's used it for 10 years for various problems. >> ifill: and, wall street gave ground, after china announced its exports fell in february, by the most in more than six years. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 110 points to close at 16,964. the nasdaq fell 59 points, and the s&p 500 slipped 22. still to come on the newshour: how michigan's election affects the future of the presidential race. a renewed effort for peace in israel. the launch of the new s.a.t. test. a journalist's take on what motivats americans to jihad, and much more. >> ifill: and now to politics. four states are holding contests today: both parties in mississippi and michigan, plus republican races in idaho and hawaii. on the campaign trail, republican john kasich was in michigan, drumming up support for today's primaries, while others, like ted cruz, turned their attention to states voting next week. >> you know the whole country is watching michigan now. (applause). the whole country is. and what they're wondering: is a guy who has labored in obscurity rising in this state? and can a positive message of hope, of opportunity, of confidence, of innovation youthfulness-- can somebody with that message finally overcome the bad mood that we seem to have been in? >> to all of you who are voting today in states across the country, who will be voting in a week, to all of the men and women here in north carolina, who may be thinking of supporting other candidates. i ask you come join us we welcome you with open arms. if you don't want to see donald trump as the nominee, and if you don't want to see hillary clinton as the president, which is the inevitable result of donald trump being the nominee, come join us. let us stand together. >> ifill: the top prize for both parties tonight: michigan. for some g.o.p. candidates there, the fight for first is almost as meaningful as the fight for second place. and for more on that, we're joined by kathy gray, political reporter for the detroit free press. cathy, thank you for joining us. in a nutshell, why is michigan so important to these candidates? >> well, it propels them into the next states, ohio, florida, the big state on october 15. and all of them are hoping that they get some big numbers here so they have some momentum going into those states. >> ifill: we have seen the trump steamroller going through a lot of the early primary state. how is it going? how is it rolling through gish man? >> high has been here twice. he had big, big rallies in michigan, and alm the polls show him in the lead. but some of the polls in more recent days have had the race tightening up a little bit. john kasich seems to be rising a little bit, ted cruz is in second place. marco rubio seals to be kind of dropping off the-- dropping off the plate slait. >> ifill: some of the early exit polls which are coming out tonight suggest that voters in michigan are just as-- are less angry than voters in, say, mississippi, and that they are more mainstream, perhaps. how does that translate? or does that translate? does that match up with what you've been seeing? >> well, there is some anger out there, too. there are a lot of people who are either unemployed or under-employed. there's a lot of wage stagnation there, so the message that donald trump is sending has kind of resonated with people here in mac mish began. but there are wide swaths of moderate voters, moderate republican voters and independents in the state as well, and those are the folks who john kasich is hoping to attract, and he's been here almost nonstop for the past week. >> ifill: let's talk about ohio governor john kasich, who is trying to make a dent in the rust belt somewhere. did he benefit at all from that really raucous debate last week where everybody was throwing mud and he was trying to rise above? >> i think he did. a lot of people that i have talked to, i have been at several of kasich's event here's in michigan, have said they appreciated a person who is a little less blustery, a little less fiery. and he seemed to be kind of the grown-up on the stage, and people in michigan who were tuning in very much so to the debate in detroit i think appreciated that sphwhrf one of >> ifill: one of the things we have seen in other states as well, a lot of early voters, people who cast their vote some time in the past came out for trump, but in the end, the turn was toward other candidates, even though not enough to overtake the front-runner. how has early voting been in michigan? >> it's been huge. i just talked with the secretary of state's office late this afternoon, and the absentee ballots are up by-- it's going close to 200,000 more than in 2012. early voting, we had a poll last week, shows that the early voting is benefiting both donald trump and hillary clinton to a very large degree. so the voter turnout on today is going to be key for the rest of the candidates. >> ifill: you mentioned hillary clinton, it allows me to move to the democrats. there's been a lot of discussion about the situation in flint, the poisoned, lead-taunted water in flint, michigan, and, of course, there was a democratic debate there recently. how has that issue resonated, either on the democratic side or on the republican side? >> it's really resonated on democratic side. hillary clinton was the first one in to call-- talk about it. she talked about it at first at a debate way back in january. she came to-- she came to flint in early february. she's been pounding on it relentlessly for the past couple of months. bernie sanders has also been to flint. he came and did a town hall meeting in flint. and it is really resinating. it's kind of a narrative of how inner cities-- inner urban cities have been kind of left behind by republican policies, so they're definitely playing big on that. flint also has a very large african american population, so both of the candidates have been trying to attract those voters as well. >> ifill: let me try two numbers on you. this is on the republican side. delegate-- adding up the delegates at stake. 15% is one member number, 50% it the other. explain how that's going to play out. >> well, on the republican side we have 59 delegates at stake. you have to get at least 15% of the vote to get that. so there's a very real possibility that one of the republicans won't meet that threshold. on the democratic side you have to get-- it's a-- not a winner take all. it's proportional. there are 130 delegates at stake, another 17 super delegates. so 130 are divided up proportionately. and we expect that both clinton and sanders will get some delegates out of michigan. >> ifill: okay, thank you, long night ahead. >> thank you. >> woodruff: we return to the israeli-palestinian conflict, and tonight begin a series of occasional conversations we're calling "the long divide" vice president joe biden was in israel today, not far from the scene of one stabbing attack, where he began two days of meetings with israeli and palestinian leaders mired in a deep and violent impasse. biden is also the latest top american official trying to repair relations between the obama white house and prime minister benjamin netanyahu. we launch this series now with new york times foreign affairs columnist, thomas friedman. tom friedman, welcome back to the program. >> great to be with you. >> woodruff: you wrote a program flatley saying the peace process is dead, why do you believe that? because it's dead. it's actually been dead for a while, i just called it by its real name. un, it's clear to me, judy, that both sides have conspired-- this was like "murder on the orient express." there were so many stab wound in this body hard to tell exactly which one was the fatal blow. you now have near approaching 500,000 jewish settlers in the west bank, and depending on where you define the border. remember it took 50,000 israeli soldiers and police to remove peacefully 8,000 settlers from gaza. so imagine if you're talking about, you know, 400,000 to 500,000. on the palestinian side, you've had some really bad developments. in the last israeli-palestinian war, hamas fired a rocket that landed basically on the outskirts of israel's only international airport, basically, or major international airport. and the u.s. f.a.a. ordered for one day all american flights canceled. that was a message to all israelis. imagine if the palestinians had the west bank and could close their only airport. and also, the palestinian president, he released-- he fired basically, the one palestinian prime minister who said, "we need to build our institutions, and if we do what the ziinists did and build our state institutionally, getting a state will be eye formality." he got fired. >> woodruff: you're saying there are people trying to do the right thing but they're not being listened to? what's the problem? >> there are a lot of people trying to do the wrong thing, and they've been really empowered lately. my criticism of netanyahu is not that israel should get out of the west bank tomorrow. i get it. it's a dangerous neighborhood. you know, i've always felt to understand israel, to write about israel, you have to keep three thrawts in your head at the same time and their intention. one is israel is an amazing place, they built an amazing soept in its short history. second, israel does some bad stuff in the west bank. and third, israel lives in a really dangerous neighborhood. you have to keep all three of those in your head at the same time. my critique of netanyahu is this-- why would you make a bad situation worse by putting jews in the middle of the palestinian areas in the west bank, densely populated palestinian areas, if there were to be a deal, that would have to be seeded to a palestinian state? and where is the israeli creativity? boy, we see israeli creativity in cyber, in technology, all of these things. when was the last time you read a story about netanyahu where you said, "wow. now, that's really interesting. there's a really creative idea." on the palestinian side, you have a fractured palestinian society-- one in gaza, one in the west bank. so nobody coactually say yes for the palestinians anymore in a unified way. >> woodruff: in the meantime you have american politicians, prominent, runging for president, praising benjamin netanyahu, saying president obama has made all the wrong moved when it comes to israel. is the u.s. a player or not? there's a story today in the "wall street journal" saying that the white house is trying to come up with a u.n. resolution maybe or some other gesture to get the peace process moving again. >> that story is a bit of an evergreen. maybe it's true now. "we're going to tell them. we're tired of this, we're going to--" and then it never happens. because a democrat comes like like clinton saying i wish you wouldn't do that. that's going to affect jewish voters. what's going not campaign, that's a gravity-free zone. has nothing to do with the reality of the middle east. it is people looking for votes and funding. it has nothing to do with the region. >> woodruff: much of the problem here, tom, is due to the fact that the rest middle east is virtually on fire, overshadowing the palestinians and the israelis? >> there's no question. if you're sitting in israel today, israel has a real strategic dilemma. has nonstate actors dressed as civilians, armed with rockets, nested among civilians on four borders. i think we're at a stage today where a lot of artificial states, states whose borders are primarily straight lines, actually blowing up all over the world under the pressure of globalization, technology, climate-- it's different things in different places. these states, judy, they're like caravan homes in a trailer park. they're built on slabs of cement with no basement and no found acheses. and these big global forces today, they're like a tornado going through a trailer park. and a lot of them happen to be around israel. >> woodruff: if solutions are out there, and the people who have tried to float them just get knocked down, where is an answer going to come from? you're saying it waits for the next president. does it wait even longer? and where does it? >> netanyahu and abbas can almost see each other from their offices. the idea that they need john keri or any american secretary of state to come over-- if they had the will, they would have the way. it's got to start with them. i think the most constructive thing president obama could do would be to say, "we tried. it's over. there's going to be a one-state solution." that's what would shock the system, not "here's our plan." then they start making it about us. they say, "it's about you, we wish you well. sorry it didn't work out." what happens otherwise is netanyahu will always say, "keri's coming. there's a plan." or abbas will say, "don't worry, the americans--" no, no, nobody's coming. it's over. it's yours. you own it. now, you live with it. and that's the beginning of wizz bomb. >> woodruff: but can any american president really do that, given the political pressure in this country? >> obama has sort of been doing it for the last year. >> woodruff: he hasn't made that declaration. >> he's basically told keri, i don't want you measing around there anymore. it's very hard, but actually, it would be-- you know, friends friends don't let friends drive drunk, and we have been letting a lot of people drive drunk. >> woodruff: tom friedman othat note, we thank you. >> a pleasure, thank you. >> ifill: on saturday, high school students preparing for college took a brand new s.a.t. test- with the first major changes in more than a decade. the scores will be part of many college applications, but not all. april brown reports for our latest tuesday evening "making the grade" series. it's part of public media's american graduate project. >> so we're going to do quadraddics today-- we're going to start quadraddics anyway. >> for decades students have set aside extra time preparing fair precollege ritual. >> it is 2 ab, minus. >> reporter: take the the a.c.t. or s.a.t. tests, or both. carson has been studying with tutor patrick boch for the new s.a.t., the first major changes to the test since 2005. >> we took a pretest in the s.a.t. class, which was based off the old one. i did pretty wol that, so i-- then i thought about how i'm taking the new one, and i'm like, "i'm going to do terrible now." >> reporter: there are many changes to the new version, including focus on materials students are likely to find in college and careers. some test prep professionals believe it now looks more like the a.c.t., which more students have taken in recent years, than the s.a.t. anybody who has taken the old s.a.t. might remember the arcane vocabulary that even the the test creators admit, engendered, prodigious, vexation-- those words are gone as is the penalty for guessing. the top score on the test is again, 1600. the essay is now optional. the tests' designers say the overhaul is meant to keep the s.a.t. relevant. >> the old test was working, but this is a better test. >> reporter: james montoya is a senior vice president at the college board, which oversees the s.a.t.s. >> we focus on those skills that are most important, and evidence-based reading and writing is a great example. if we look at mathematics, one of the things that we look at, the importance of algebraic equations. >> reporter: montoya says the test is also more closely aligned to what students are learning in school. carson getligger is take the s.a.t. because the colleges she's applying to require it, but since 1970s, a growing number of colleges and universities have made their admissions test optional. bates college air, liberal art school in maine, went test optional in 1984. and wake forest became one of the major universities to do so in 2008. last year, george washington university in washington, d.c. became one of the largest institution in addition the country not requiring s.a.t. or a.c.t. scores during the application process. george washington vice provost laurie coaler says test optional was part of a plan to help improve diversity because studies have revealed first-generation gj-goesers, as well as minority and female students are more likely to apply if they don't have to provide standard ietdz test scores. >> we did see an increase in our applications, but what was striking was the number of first-generation students, of under-represented multicultural students who submitted applications, nearly 1100 more in each of those populations. >> reporter: but before the decision was made, coaler says, g.w. looked at research from bats and consulted officials at wake forest why standardized test results may not be the best predictor of college success. they found looking at high school work holistically, and a student's grade point average are better indicators. >> if you earned cs in high school, and even if you test really well, you're probably gog have the work habits that are going to earn you cs in college. >> the changes to the s.a.t. are largely cosmetic. they make it a little bit more consumer friendly, but they don't deal with any of the fundamentally flawed characteristics of the test. >> reporter: robert schaeffer of the national center for fair and open testing says there are now more than 850 colleges and universities nationwide on the test-optional bandwagon. >> it remains a weak predictor of how well a student will do in college. it's biased in many ways, and it's susceptible to high-priced coaching. >> there's no middle term this time. >> reporter: the coaching he refers to can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars an hour. carson getlinger found her tutor through her school. it's something her mother is thankful for. >> i'm trying to prepare my kids for their future, and unfortunately, they have to take this test in order for them to be successful, so, yeah, i'm going to give them every tool i can. we were fortunate that the school actually offered the program and made it affordable for us because it can get quite expensive. >> the s.a.t. is changing. in march 2016, which s.a.t. do you want to practice for? >> reporter: in anticipation of the new s.a.t., the college board partnered can con academy, a non-profit educationals service to provide free test prep. the founder said it's a lay to level the playing field for those who may not be able to foorld the extra help. >> the software will immediately know where you are strong and where youa weak and can do weak-point training. the number one thing is not to pull an all-nighter the nightbefore the exam. >> reporter: tutor patrick boch and others have pointed out the new s.a.t. comes at a time when the test has been losing market share to the a.c.t. >> they can say test changes are motivateed by closer alignment with state standards or more rigorous analytics to the test, but it's purely a money thing, right. if you're losing students every single year, you have to mick that up. >> reporter: nevertheless, on saturday, tens of thousands of high school students around the country woke up early to take the new s.a.t. >> honestly, i came in not knowing it was a new test. >> he is a senior and took the test in fairfax county, virginia. have you taken the s.a.t. before? >> i took it three weeks ago. >> reporter: what was different on this new s.a.t. versus the old one you took? the other version had 10 sections and it felt like you were in classes for, like, hours, and whatnot, and this one only had four, which was, like, a major relief. >> reporter: this junior also took it. do you feel you were prepared for this? >> i do. i did a lot of studying and just recalling stuff from freshman year, sophomore year. >> reporter: and we caught up with cairson getligger after she finished. >> i'm relieved. it felt like pretty much any other standardized test, other than the fact that this is basically our future. >> reporter: carson is also taking the a.c.t. next month and planning to take the new s.a.t. again in may. for the pbs newshour, i'm april brown, in fairfax county, virginia. >> woodruff: with all the noise on the campaign trail this year about what's wrong with america, it caught our eye when journalist james fallows and his wife deborah filed a report on places that seem to be getting things right, even across partisan divides. to find out more, i caught up with them in greenville, south carolina. this story is part of our collaboration with "the atlantic." for the past three years, husband and wife journalists james and deborah fallows have been exploring parts of america sometimes referred to as" flyover country" places often ignored by the east and west coast news media. but instead of just flying over, the fallows have been landing- over and over again. >> when we touched down in some of these small communities, you'd think, how can all this be going on here, and we never knew about any of it. >> the country is full of people doing things. which you wouldn't necessarily assume from the tone of political discourse or news coverage. >> woodruff: in a search for places that have grappled with challenges-- economic or political-- the fallows have made extended visits to about 25 cities for the project, including greenville, south carolina; burlington, vermont; allentown, pennsylvania; duluth, minnesota; sioux falls, south dakota; redlands, california and so many more. you found that there were a number of things that these cities have in common that make things work. >> you see across the country, there's a surprising amount of the good bones of downtown that are still left that people are trying to use. you see very crucially the fact that national politics, which are so divisive and so poisonous now, just don't come into the local discourse. >> woodruff: why is having a downtown important? >> it's, to a surprising degree, just the identity of this is a place where there's a "there" there, depends on having a downtown with restaurants and with not just a shopping mall. it was amazing to see how many parts of the country are attracting really ambitious, really well-educated, really first-rate people who think that the best arena for their ambitions and their whole life prospect is someplace where they can do work of the very first tier, but also have some effect on the local community. the falls are a nice way to link the past and the present. >> woodruff: a prime example: greenville, south carolina. once known for the textile industry, its mills lined the reedy river in the heart of the city. now, the mills are long gone or re-purposed, but the river remains at the heart of the community, lined by hotels and restaurants as it flows through a stunning urban park that's a magnet for tourists and locals alike. the evolution was no accident: >> we reinvented the downtown just as we reinvented the local economy. >> woodruff: knox white, mayor of greenville for more than 20 years, and a chief architect of the city's redevelopment, says city fathers set out decades ago to plan for the future. >> in the 1970s, when textiles were still very viable, the leadership in greenville very intentionally decided that we needed to diversify. they brought in, recruited companies like general electric, and today is a major presence here and that put us in a really good stead, because later the textile industry would collapse. >> i think they're very self- conscious about what they're doing in greenville. and also aware that these things aren't going to be decreed from on high. >> it's just in part of our dna of how we operate. >> woodruff: remaking greenville took government and business working together, says nancy whitworth, greenville's director of economic development. >> the public/private partnership of working together, the city and the county. you see that every day in sort of how we approach dealing with companies that we try to bring into greenville. >> woodruff: an active local government pushing incentives like tax breaks and favorable zoning have made so-called public-private partnerships possible. both in developing the downtown, and in luring major manufacturers to the area, like bmw and michelin. these companies provide tens of thousands of jobs, and bring an international influence to this small, southern city. >> it is definitely conservative, by and large. >> woodruff: danielle vinson teaches political science at nearby furman university. >> we have pockets of democrats, in the city limits particularly. but everywhere else is very republican. and so our senators are republican, our-- all of our congressional delegation up there is republican. >> woodruff: vinson says the government's partnership with business may seem inconsistent with republican philosophy, but it's a way to make things work. >> when you start talking about ideology, it's good in theory, and you can argue about it at the national level. but when you get to the local city and county level, you've got tangible issues that have to be addressed. >> woodruff: there's no question greenville's economy is booming. half a dozen cranes dot the skyline as new hotels, condos and office buildings multiply. but some are asking if the benefits have reached all of greenville's residents, about fifteen percent of whom are poor. how fast is gentrification happening here? >> it's happening very rapidly, even in my neighborhood. >> woodruff: chandra dillard is a democratic state representative from greenville. >> i've received letters at my home saying ¡do you want to sell.' there is pressure against the neighborhood. >> woodruff: so how is the community dealing with that? >> well i think you must be intentional, judy. must be intentional about making sure that people are trained, they're ready, that there is policy to protect people who currently live in these neighborhoods so that they'll be able to stay there. >> woodruff: how would you describe today the racial relationships in this community, in the context of the history of this part of the state? >> i think there is racial harmony in our city. again, i believe the challenge now is economic disparity that separates us, and not the races. >> woodruff: the congregation at greenville's redemption church would seem to confirm that. 60% of its 20,000 members are african american, the rest mainly white. most of the whites are republicans. most of the blacks, democrats. on politics they disagree fiercely. but each sunday they worship as one. the reverend ron carpenter is their pastor. >> in our world we call it a culture of honor, there is such a culture of disrespect that prevails in society. i think through media, through government, through politics, that i tell people that no matter if you disagree with this person's politics, whether or not you agree with their position, honor the person. >> it's easier when there's somebody you're going to be that person as somebody who has good parts and bad parts, and you disagree on some things, and you'll try to contain those, where you can come to kind of practical solutions. >> woodruff: one such solution addresses the education gap that keeps many african americans from sharing in the wealth of high tech jobs in and around greenville. at the whittenberg elementary school of engineering, you heard that right, "elementary school" -- these kids get a head start on math and science. >> these were the tiniest little engineers from pre-k through grade 5. and they were starting off in technology and engineering infused into their baby curriculum. >> woodruff: and the south carolina governor's school for the arts and humanities, a public boarding school, gives high school students from across the state an opportunity to pursue excellence. still, much work remains to spread the new opportunities and benefits among all of greenville's residents. and much of that work falls to the church. >> what i do is i usually try to bring businesses, and bring our government officials to the table and say i can't take care of all of them, but i can help with this childcare issue if we can get the greenville transit system operating in this community, too. >> woodruff: in greenville and in so many other cities the fallows visited, they found pockets of genuine optimism in a nation that often seems filled with fear and loathing. >> they have a shared story about the way that the city government works to bring in some international corporations, works with local start-ups, works with the diversity of the community there, works with religious organizations. and having some collective sense that it matters to us to make this city attractive, make it inclusive, make it growing, make it strong. >> woodruff: did you see anything that could be transplanted to washington? >> in contrast to the apparent hopelessness of the national perspective, there is some attempt to grapple with these things locally. i guess we came across almost nothing you could directly say, okay, the greenville city council works this way, why doesn't the u.s. senate work this way too. in the meantime, people in greenville and fresno and dayton and duluth and allentown and central oregon and all the rest, can learn from what each other's doing, and get greater strength from that sense of network. >> woodruff: and so james and deborah fallows continue their journey, in the belief that these places and others like them, are the real story of america today, even more than what's going on in washington. >> ifill: we'll be back to talk with journalist peter bergen about his new book, "the united states of jihad." but first, take this moment to hear from your local pbs station. it's a chance to offer your support, which helps keep programs like ours on the air. >> ifill: for those stations still with us, a dance company steeped in tradition is taking bold steps, and exploring different avenues, under a new leader. jeffrey brown has our encore look at the alvin ailey american dance theater. ♪ ♪ >> brown: "revelations," a dance set to gospel songs and spirituals: over five decades it's become an american classic. and still the showpiece of the renowned alvin ailey american dance theater. it's opened the eyes and minds of many, including in the 1980s, a teenager living in one of miami's poorest neighborhoods. >> i saw myself. i saw possibility. >> brown: years later, robert battle heads the company that helped change his own life. how did you see your task when you took over the company? >> wow, that's-- just to survive! >> brown: first, survive. >> first survive. >> brown: battle is just the third leader of a company that was founded by alvin ailey in 1958 as a troupe celebrating african-american culture. and then led to even greater international heights by judith jamison, a renowned dancer in the company who was tapped by ailey to take over. five years ago, jamison picked battle to replace her. >> i think she thought that this was right for the company, that i would sort of push the boundaries of what people thought was possible. >> brown: in his prominent new role, battle has opened up about his own boundary-pushing, including in a new children's book: he barely knew his birth mother, was taken in by an uncle and aunt and raised by a cousin. he was severely bow-legged as a child and wore metal knee braces until he was six. bullied in his dangerous liberty city neighborhood, he turned to martial arts for confidence. and then, and forevermore, to the arts: music and then dance. >> i think young people see people in certain successful positions, and they think: 'i don't have the tools for that.' and what i'm saying is, you do have the tools for that. >> brown: what made you think you did? when you look back at that young child you were? >> i don't know. i always felt that i was guided. i always felt this sort of maybe, some people would call it this third eye. i always felt that the sense that i was looking down over myself within the context of the rest of the world. and so i had this sense that i was supposed to do something. i remember that early on, from growing up in church, watching the preacher preach. and something about that, and watching the rest of the congregation respond and be uplifted. i wanted to do something like that. in fact, i used to imitate the preacher. i put on my bathrobe at home. my great uncle would always tape the services. and i would learn the sermon. >> really? leading the congregation, but also the performative side to that as well clearly attracted you. >> yeah. and what's interesting, the flip side, i was painfully shy, i didn't like school because i didn't like being sort of an extrovert, but when i took on these sort of roles i could be bold. >> brown: i'm thinking of the child wearing the leg braces, right, to straighten your legs, and then dance. >> yes. >> brown: take the braces off and start going... >> yeah, yeah, it's not enough to walk, you have to run, leap even, you know. often when young people say to me, you know, i want to be a dancer, i want to be like that, i say, well, tart where you are, start exactly where you are, if you want to be a dancer consider yourself a dancer, and move from that space, your imagination costs you nothing, but can cost you everything if you don't use it. >> brown: fast forward: the problem is how to leap into the future while holding onto the past. battle is doing this by bringing new dances to the company from a varied group of choreographers, including recently at washington's kennedy center, ronald brown's "open door," a vibrant latin-jazz romp. ♪ and a very different dance choreographed by battle himself, titled "no longer silent," set to the music of erwin schulhoff, a german composer who was silenced and then killed by the nazis. >> sometimes i feel a little bit of guilt when i go to take my seat in the back of the theater to watch the audience consumer this work. >> brown: guilt? >> yeah, because i don't want to bring them down, you know. >> brown: are you also a little afraid of how they're going to accept it? >> yes. and i'm very sensitive to that. i see everything when i'm sitting in the back of the house. i can see if somebody's looking down at their phone, or somebody's tilting their head not in a way of interest, but in a way of saying, 'what's going on up there?' >> brown: you really sit back there and watch for this? >> i try not to. but i can't help it. >> brown: but this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, where you've got an audience, you've got a tradition, right? >> yes, definitely. definitely. and i have to make my own statement about how i see the world. i have to. in some ways i'd rather be silent. when i was a kid, i had a high speaking voice. and so every time i said anything people would laugh, the other students. "he talks like a girl," you know. so i didn't want to talk in front of people. i'm still that person. but what i know is it is necessary. that i'm here for a reason, to tell stories that celebrate our common humanity. >> brown: robert battle says his newest dance, the first he's choreographed since taking over the company, reflects part of his own story. he calls it "awakening." the alvin ailey american dance theater is now in the midst of a 20 city north american tour, through may. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: now, the newest addition to the newshour bookshelf: a look at americans inspired by radical jihadism. margaret warner has that. >> warner: terrorism expert peter bergen has spent two years studying hundreds of radicalized americans, seeking to understand what drives a minority of u.s. muslims to wage terror attacks against their fellow citizens. he also takes a hard look at how law enforcement has done in identifying and averting this danger. the result is his new book "united states of jihad," investigate america's homeground groan terrorists. it's being released along with an hbo documentary. peter bergen, welcome. so how big a threat is this, this homegrown terrorism? >> i think it's a persistent, low-level threat. we have been in the united states quite luck pep 45 americans have been killed by jawdy terrorists in the united states since 9/11. each one of those deaths, of course, is a tragedy, but it's not a national catastrophe, anything on the scale of 9/11. to some degree the threat has been managed but it will persist at a local lowe level for a long time. >> warner: was there one thing you found in your reporting that united all these cases, where you have an american muslim who decides that he wants to kill other americans? >> one of the things that's striking is they're overwhelmingly americans. they're not foreigns are coming into this country to do terrorist attacks. they tend to be middle class, average income, similar to the average american. they tend to be as well educated as the average american. a third are married, a third are kid, army age 29-- these are not the young hot heads of popular imagination. if you look at the san bernardino case, they were married. they had a child. the guy was earning $70,000 a year. they were basically living the american dream, seats a big puzzle why would you them kill your fellow americans? and i can't say even after two and a half years' study they can answer that question. i try, but each case is individual. >> warner: so let's take a couple of more obscure cases. there was a young man named carlos bled so, african american, from a conservative christian upbringing, shoots and kills a u.s. soldier at a military recruiting base in little rock. it seems so unlikely. >> he was typical in the sense he comes from a prosperous family in memphis. he went to college. he cropped out. he adopt aid very fundamentalist form of islam. he decide to go to yemen, which is a hotbed of jawdism. he seemed to get radicalized there in prison, came back and killed an american soldier. he said in court to the judge that, you know, he was guilty. he was objecting to american foreign policy. now, is that an adequate excuse? , of course, not, because lots of people don't like american foreign policy. they don't kill people as a result. >> warner: zachary cheshire. he starts out as a kid. he wants to be a u.s. soldier. he ends up finally being arrested and convicted of trying to threaten the creators of "south park." but he seemed to follow a similar pattern, especially on the isolation. >> there is a sort of pattern where people adopt these fundamentalist views, and they kind of increasingly seek out like-minded people. they kind of withdraw from society. they often marry somebody who shares exactly their views, outside their previous social circle. they, you know, they basically are part a self reinforcing echo chamber of people who share their own views, and some may turn to violence. zachary cheshire was inciting violence in a very real way against the creators of "south park." he could have been a silicon valley kid. he was one of the first people to really use the internet for jihadist purposes -- >> warner: he became a big english-language jihadist blogger. >> if he hadn't had a somali girlfriend and got interested in islam, he could have had a very different life. >> sreenivasan: there are americans who are actively recruited. >> luckily, it's not very big now, but we have this lots of americans who have gone and become important members of al qaeda. think about anwar al-awlaki, a well-known community leader, a mosque leader, in northern virginia who went on to become a leader of al qaeda in yemen. there are several examples of people who have taken senior leadership positions in these groups who happen to be american. there was an american at the first meeting of al qaeda in 1988, taking notes, a guy from kansas city. there have been americans in these groups from the beginning. >> warner: how effective has u.s. intelligence and law enforcement been in containing this threat? >> we have not had any kind of major terrorist attack in the united states since 9/11. but people get through. major hassan in fort hood, the f.b.i. dropped the ball. the f.b.i., they can't keep cases against people open indefinitely. >> warner: just for what they say. >> just for what they say. and unless we have a machine that can read people's souls, we're not going to know when somebody who is an ultrafundamentallist, becomes a militant who will take the law into their own hands. >> warner: one of the little-known facts is f.b.i. and law enforcement and intelligence have concocted more terrorist plots in this country than all the outside organizations like al qaeda combined. >> yes. the f.b.i. has done 30 al qaeda and 30 other associated groups have done 10. fending on your perspective, you can say that's law enforcement overkill. >> warner: what's the evidence on these alleged perpetrators really committed terrorists or were on the path to go there. >> some of these cases look a little like entraptment, but the f.b.i. is careful to say, "are you really sure you want to go through with this?" and the perpetrator usually says yes. >> warner: peter bergen, author of "united states of jihad," thank you. >> thank you, margaret. >> woodruff: you can find more of our book conversations on our arts page, at pbs.org/newshour. also on the newshour online, for artist lisa friedrich, playing with fire is just a part of the artistic process. friedrich makes pyrotechnic art by laying gunpowder on paper and setting it aflame to create a unique pattern. we have video of how this fiery process works. and in our weekly jobs column, why loading your resume with "keywords" is a losing strategy for job seekers and employers. find out why in our "ask the headhunter" series. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. stay with us online, for the latest on tonight's elections. that's on our results page at pbs.org/newshour. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening for full analysis of tonight's results. for all of us 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. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org protecting pay outs. chevron increases dividends for the 28th straight year while other energy companies slash they're theirs. >> hunt from yields. where you can find income now without taking on a lot of risks. from first to worst. unhappy shareholders are fed up with unite's poor performance and they're pushing for a shake up. all that and more on "nightly business report" for tuesday, march 8th. >> good evening. welcome. the dow and the s&p 500 snap their five-day win streaks. more on that in a moment. we begin with