a look at why the prosecution is having such a hard time making its case. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> some say it's a calling. some say they lost someone they loved. many say it's to save lives, as many and as often as possible. there's 100 reasons why someone becomes a doctor, but at m.d. anderson, it's because there's nothing-- and we mean nothing-- we won't do in making cancer history. lincoln financial is committed to helping you take charge of your future. >> 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: for hillary clinton today, a recommendation-- and a rebuke-- from the federal bureau of investigation. they came after a year-long investigation into her use of a private e-mail server, when she was the nation's top diplomat. >> no charges are appropriate in this case. >> woodruff: with those seven words, f.b.i. director james comey all but lifted the legal threat to the democrats' presidential nominee-to-be. he said, in essence: investigators found no wanton wrongdoing to make criminal charges stick. >> although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. >> woodruff: but comey also spoke in blistering terms about clinton's use of a private e- mail server as secretary of state. >> although we did not find clear evidence that secretary clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. >> woodruff: clinton has acknowledged it was a mistake to use a private e-mail system, but she's asserted that classified material was never handled improperly. >> i did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. there is no classified material. >> woodruff: today, however, the f.b.i. found that 110 e-mails contained information that was classified when it was sent or received. and, the f-b-i also found it is "possible that hostile actors" got access to the secretary's account. >> any reasonable person in secretary clinton's position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. >> woodruff: the announcement came after the f.b.i. interviewed clinton for three- and-a-half hours on saturday. the candidate was speaking in washington as comey made his report. she did not address it there, or later, in charlotte, north carolina. instead, her campaign issued a statement, saying: republican reaction to comey's announcement was swift and strongly negative. the g.o.p's presumptive presidential nominee donald trump took to twitter, saying: and house speaker paul ryan said in a statement: the white house said it would have no official response to the f.b.i. findings. they now go to the justice department, where attorney general loretta lynch said last week she'll follow prosecutors' recommendations. that followed a furor over her impromptu meeting with former president bill clinton. the f.b.i. also found the state department was generally lax about handling classified material. a department spokesman responded that: "we take it very, very seriously." we'll take a closer look at the f.b.i. findings, after the news summary. all of this unfolded on the same day that president obama campaigned with hillary clinton for the first time this year. the one-time rivals flew together on air force one, and appeared at a rally in charlotte, north carolina. the president said clinton is ready for the oval office. >> i can tell you this: hillary clinton has been tested, she has seen up close what's involved in making those decisions, she has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than hillary clinton, ever. >> woodruff: republican donald trump also campaigns in north carolina tonight. iraqi search teams recovered more bodies in baghdad today, and the death toll from sunday's bombing soared to 175. distraught family members held funeral processions in the iraqi capital. they carried caskets past charred buildings as word came that the country's interior minister has resigned. meanwhile, officials in istanbul, turkey jailed 17 more suspects in last week's airport bombings that killed 45. an el al flight from new york to tel aviv made it safely to israel today, after a bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax. the flight was escorted across europe by french, swiss and bulgarian warplanes. in tel aviv, family members anxiously waited for relatives who'd been on board-- and were unaware of the drama until landing. >> i heard that the plane was accompanied by a fighter plane, from switzerland or from what, but i did not see it. just as well that i didn't see it, it wouldn't have helped my situation. >> woodruff: el al-- israel's national carrier-- is considered one of the world's most secure airlines. there's fresh economic fallout from britain's decision to leave the european union. the british pound tumbled today to a new 31-year low against the dollar, while business confidence dropped sharply. and, major real estate funds moved to stop a run on their assets. the bank of england reacted with moves to help banks free up more money for lending. in france, the government invoked special constitutional powers to push a labor reform bill closer to enactment. the measure would make it easier to hire and fire workers, and it has angered labor unions. thousands of union members marched through paris in protest today, and opposition lawmakers walked out as the prime minister defended the bill in the national assembly. >> ( translated ): i decided after much deliberation, to commit the responsibility of the government to the vote, in its new reading. the government is proudly transparent, and proudly courageous, because we are acting in the interests of the french people. >> woodruff: the labor bill still has to get through the french senate, and through the national assembly, a final time. on wall street: stocks fell as concerns about britain's economy grew and oil prices slumped. the dow jones industrial average lost 108 points to close at 17,840. the nasdaq fell 39 points, and the s&p 500 slipped 14. nasa's "juno" spacecraft is now safely in orbit around jupiter. the solar-powered probe completed the final leg of its five-year journey last night. on the ground, in pasadena, california the flight team burst into cheers as "juno" beamed back signals confirming its arrival. >> it's amazing. i mean the more you know about the mission you know just how tricky this was and have it be flawless, i mean i can't really put it into words. you imagine what it might feel like, but to actually have it to know we can all go to bed tonight and not worry about what is going to happen tomorrow, is pretty awesome. >> woodruff: beginning in august, the probe is due to begin its mission of mapping jupiter, over a period of 20 months. and, former congressman, federal judge and white house counsel abner mikva died monday, of bladder cancer. the illinois democrat spent ten years in the house, before serving on a federal appeals court, and then, at the clinton white house. he received the presidential medal of freedom in 2014, and in a statement today, president obama called him a mentor and friend. abner mikva was 90 years old. still to come on the newshour: how the f.b.i.'s recommendation of no criminal charges against hillary clinton could influence the election, inside the simmering conflict in ukraine's separatist regions, questions of justice denied in the freddie gray trial, and much more. >> woodruff: now, back to today's announcement from the f.b.i, and the bureau's year- long probe into hillary clinton's email practices as secretary of state. first, we'll delve into the f.b.i's findings, with carrie johnson, justice correspondent for npr. carrie johnson, welcome back to the "newshour". first of all, you told us today that what the f.b.i. director did, how he said this today was unusual. what did you mean by that? >> judy, maybe even unprecedented. nobody i've talked with who's worked with the justice department or the f.b.i. over the last 25 years can remember an incident in which an f.b.i. director held a news conference to announce his recommendation about an ongoing criminal matter. that is what happened today. moreover, f.b.i. director jim comey entered into an unusual amount of detail about the nature of the investigation and all the steps the f.b.i. has taken, painstaking steps, thousands of hours to have f.b.i. agents' time, a puzzle the f.b.i. director likened to getting a jigsaw puzzle that's completed, dumping it on the ground and putting all the pieces back together again. that's what jim comey says the f.b.i.'s task is in investigating hillary clinton's email server. i have to i was going to say. >> go ahead. >> woodruff: no, finish your thought. >> sure. in fact, he said it wasn't just email server, judy. apparently, she used different servers over time and multiple different blackberrys, so this was a complicated investigation, more than we knew. >> woodruff: in the end, director comey said they did not feel there was support information, there was no determination that criminal charges should be made. i think people are having a hard time squaring that. >> woodruff: yes, including some republicans, as you mentioned in your newscast. so what the f.b.i. director said was they looked at three different things in the course of this investigation, and ultimately concluded that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a criminal case based on the facts that the f.b.i. had at hand. what they were looking at was, a, whether hillary clinton's email server had been hacked by any foreign governments or criminals. b, whether there was any willful or intentional activity with respect to mishandling classified information and, c, whether there was gross negligence in the handling of government secrets. what the f.b.i. concluded after reviewing tens of thousands of pages of documents, interviewing hillary clinton on saturday for three and a half hours in a room, many of her closest aides, was they could find no clear evidence of intent to mishandle government information and government secrets, no direct evidence whatsoever that anybody engaged in obstruction of justice or lied to investigators and, certainly, the f.b.i. director said no evidence of spying or disloyalty to the u.s. government, and because they look back at a series of plea deals and indictments over the last many years, they couldn't find a case quite like this one. jim comey said the facts were just not there to go forward with an intentional criminal case against hillary clinton or against anybody else in her inner circle. >> woodruff: all right, carrie johnson, we thank you. we know it's now up to the department of justice to decide what to do to make that announcement. that comes next. carrie johnson, we thank you. >> absolutely. thank you. >> woodruff: now, the political fallout from today's f.b.i. announcement. we start with sean spicer, chief strategist and communications director for the republican national committee. i spoke to him a short time ago. sean spicer, welcome. so the f.b.i. director -- excuse me -- the f.b.i. director said that, despite the finding by his investigators that e-mails were handled in an extremely careless way, that they would not recommend a criminal prosecution. what's your reaction? >> well, today was an indictment on hillary clinton's judgment more than anything, and an indictment on, frankly, her fitness to be president. the 15-minute press conference was started with 14 minutes of the director laying out her recklessness, her mishandling of stuff, the culture created at the state department, i don't see how the conclusion matches the first 14 minutes. the director made a very clear case there were excessive classified e-mails she handled. over 100 at top secret level, she was reckless with her handling of email, and for someone who wants to be president and oversee our national security, whether or not there was a criminal indictment was sort of beside the point. the fact of the matter is the f.b.i. recognized her handling of classified information, her handling of national security was, indeed, reckless and not up to someone who should be president. >> woodruff: well, as you know, he said that, in order to bring a criminal charge, there had to be finding that secretary clinton or the people around her were intentional in the way they violated whatever rules there were at the state department. are you saying that was an erroneous finding on his part? >> well, obviously, i think there is one thing the investigation i think was thorough. i don't have a problem with that. i don't understand the conclusion, to be honest with you, on two fronts. number one, the definition is gross negligence. i think that by what the director laid out meets the legal definition of that. she clearly, whether intentionally or not, broke the law. the law was broken, the rules weren't followed. the law doesn't say "unless you meant to break it." the law is the law, and if you break it, you face a penalty. thousands of people have been prosecuted for mishandling classified information, and there is no question she did that. but number two, just when it goes to the intent, the entire reason she set up these private servers, and make sure we all get that that's something that sort of came out today, it wasn't just one server, its multiple, he talked about how it was susceptible to foreign hacking, but the fact is she set the server up in the first place to avoid detection, to avoid being monitored and transparency. so this wasn't the use of a gmail or private yahoo account. she specifically set this server up to evade detection and monitoring. that goes to intent, as far as i'm concerned. >> woodruff: what is an appropriate punishment, in your view? >> well, i'm not a lawyer, i'm not the department of justice, but i think not saying that you can lay out a case of 14 minutes of how it was wrong and then say it shouldn't be prosecuted, i don't understand how you square that circle, right. he laid out 14 minutes of ways she personally mishandled classified information and then said the culture at the state department was reckless under her leadership. so i don't understand how you come to the conclusion that you don't seek prosecution. i hope that the department of justice actually overrules this. >> woodruff: your party's nominee for president-to-be donald trump is saying that the system is rigged. he looked at what happened, said the system is rigged. do you agree with him and, if so, who's rigging it? >> well, i think there's no question when you look at the countless people who have been prosecuted including general petraeus, you have to say, how do you come to this conclusion and not say that there should be a prosecution? i actually believe that the director left more questions than he answered, and i think that's where i think, after a week where the attorney general loretta lynch has a private secret meeting with former president bill clinton, then secretary clinton gets a special meet fog one else in america would get on the saturday of a holiday weekend at f.b.i. headquarters and tuesday they come out with the announcement. tuesday afternoon they go to north carolina to have a unity rally with the president of the united states on air force one, i think today created more questions than it answered. >> woodruff: sean spicer with the republican national committee, thank you very much. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: and now >> woodruff: and now, a different view. joining us live from capitol hill is u.s. representative xavier becerra of california-- he is one of the top-ranking democrats in congress. representative becerra, thank you for being here. even without a recommendation to prosecute, these were it from damning findings, weren't they? >> judy, thanks for having me. as we've known and as the secretary of her said, we need to do things differently, all of us, whether the state department or our own home, we've learned we need to evolve because technology is moving so quickly that you can't have the old password you used to have on your email account because you know it's not sufficient enough to clear you and clearly if you're going to be passing along information that's classified, sensitive matters at state department, you have to be more careful. yeah, i think it's clear and the secretary admitted that we need to be sure we're doing everything possible to protect americans and the information we generate. >> woodruff: how do you explain, though, congressman, secretary clinton's repeated statements that no classified information was sent or received when the f.b.i. found that it was? >> and, judy, i think we're all interested in learning a little bit more about what director comey was saying because it could be the difference between what you are communicating at a particular moment, which doesn't receive a classified designation or a top-secret designation, and afterwards may, or, in the opinion of someone who would have seen that email, say, at the f.b.i. or at c.i.a., they may have said, oh, this particular communication should have been classified. there has been a dispute that's run for years between state department and some of our intelligence agencies about what really should be classified. we got to the point we were overclassifying information, and, so, it's a matter overbalance, i think, but we'll find out a little bit more once we have the information that director comey was referring to. >> woodruff: we just heard sean spicer a spokesman at the republican national committee saying whatever was done in a criminal manner, what happened with regard to these e-mails showed, in his word, or demonstrated, in his words, an indictment of her fitness to be president. >> well, let's step back for a moment, as mr. spicer himself said, he is not an attorney. he's a partisan. clearly, his words were very partisan, and that's why we've not put partisans in charge of the investigation. we put the professionals, the investigators at the f.b.i. in charge of this because we don't need partisans to start talking about these things and making decisions. we want people who are dispassionate, who are nonpartisan, who will look at this information objectively, and those who are professionals and do this for a living, for the safety of our country, have come to the conclusion that the information does not warrant any action against a secretary. so i take the word of someone who's at the f.b.i. and is a professional versus the claims of a partisan. >> woodruff: well, even democrats, though, congressman, say that the decision by the secretary to use a private email server was, in their words, with the potential for classified information to get out there, was a serious laps in judgment. >> and i think the secretary would say to you that she made a mistake, she would do it differently today. so far, there is no evidence that shows that the e-mails were hacked and that any information was lost to anyone in particular. but, judy, i think everyone agrees the reason the f.b.i. is looking into this is because it's a serious matter. by the way, this should be a reminder to all of us, you better be updating your paz words, you better be making sure your own systems you use to communicate electronically are secure because technology is running way faster than most people believe and those who are trying to do us harm are trying to keep up, and, so, it's up to us to do the best we can and certainly the department of state, they certainly should be doing the best job possible as well. >> woodruff: very quickly, do you now believe this matter is closed? >> certainly, it should run the time that's necessary, and i'll leave that to the professionals, those who are the investigators to tell us when it's ultimately dope. clearly by the f.b.i. saying they find know of basis to take any action, i think we're coming close, but we have to hear from the department of justice and their career prosecutors. but my sense is that, if the evidence isn't there to move forward with any action, that the prosecutors will say, we probably need to bring this to a close. >> woodruff: representative xavier becerra, thank you very much. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: tonight we begin a weeklong series from eastern europe that we're calling "fault lines". on friday, nato will announce the largest military buildup in europe since the cold war. tensions between the west and russia have reached the highest level since the fall of the soviet union. this week we will examine the causes of that tension. tonight we begin with europe's only active front line in eastern ukraine. for two years, fighters for the self-proclaimed "donetsk people's republic"-- with the backing of russia-- have fought the ukrainian government to gain autonomy. the west, including the u.s., is backing ukraine's government. 10,000 people have died. with the help of the pulitzer center on crisis reporting, special correspondent nick schifrin and producer zach fannin traveled to donetsk, and discovered that what is supposed to be a cease fire, is anything but. >> reporter: on the front line in eastern ukraine, the war is fought in trenches. at the end of each trench, small outposts are manned by men who call themselves rebels. they fight to separate from ukraine and join russia. >> ( translated ): it's intense all the time. all the time. >> reporter: ivan, who declined to give his last name, grew up in a nearby village. their enemies-- fellow ukrainians fighting to stay united-- are only 1,000 feet away. >> ( translated ): i can see their positions over there. >> reporter: there's supposed to be a ceasefire. but the fighting starts every night. [gunfire] >> reporter: on average one fighter for the self-declared donetsk people's republic dies every day. [gunfire] this war is like going back 100 years. this is a trench war, and you can hear some of the explosions in the distance, and not very far away from us. these guys have been fighting here since january, and they say the front line hasn't moved at all. what motivates you to be here? >> ( translated ): my home is five kilometers from here. how could i not fight if the war is so close? >> i decided to be useful here >> reporter: andrew, who also refused to give his last name, is former soviet special forces. he says he came here to train a ragtag army. were you sent here by russia? [gunfire] >> reporter: their base used to be a local school. they resist ukraine's alliance with europe. they align with russia. and as the war persists, their desire to separate grows. >> ( translated ): once an army targets its own people, they become the enemy. >> reporter: so you have to separate now? >> reporter: the front is 280 miles long. to get to the village of spartak, we needed an armed escort. on this front line, anya-- who also declined to give her last name-- leads what she calls an infantry brigade. the professional russian soldiers here-- whom u.s. officials say number in the thousands-- are invisible. so as we walk down this road what is the risk here? >> ( translated ): total risk. we're now walking in their sniper's scopes. here, everything is within their snipers' reach. [gunfire] >> reporter: that's incoming! we've been here just a few minutes when we heard the incoming bullets above our heads, so we've taken cover or at least staying low right now. and we're beginning to hear rebel soldiers beginning to fire back. [gunfire] [gunfire] >> reporter: like many of these fighters, anya's not a trained soldier. she was a successful chain store owner. but she's become a true believer in a pro-russian and anti- european future. >> ( translated ): the entire ukraine is fighting with us following nato orders. they are nothing on their own. you are writing that i'm a blond separatist who will come and start killing your children. yes, i'll do just that. >> reporter: are you willing to die for this cause? >> ( translated ): yes, of course, i'm ready to die for my home. i will not let a single fascist into my home. i will fight them as long as my heart beats. >> reporter: when she and this city use "fascist," it's inspired by the soviet union's role in the war against fascist, nazi germany. in may, a downtown parade celebrated the soviet union's world war ii victory. today the children of world war ii veterans say this war is against the same enemy. training for that war starts young. teenage girls spend saturday afternoons with russian kalashnikovs. the average russian soldier needs more than ten seconds to do this. 15-year-old katerina needs nine seconds. >> ( translated ): since i was little i preferred playing football with boys to playing with dolls. >> reporter: next up, soviet haz mat suits. their teacher, sergey fomchenko, is a former soviet soldier and police officer. >> ( translated ): why, when we look toward russia, do they call it a crime? in general, the whole of eastern ukraine aligns with russia. i would like us to be part of russia. >> reporter: upstairs, he shows me where a rocket struck this school. ukraine and russia have agreed donetsk should eventually reintegrate into ukraine. but everyone we spoke to rejected that. would you ever be able to go back to ukraine? >> ( translated ): a lot of blood was spilled. many people died. graduates of this school and other schools are now in the army. for what? to go back to ukraine? i think it won't happen. >> reporter: so the training continues. they know their a.k.s by heart. when they're not training, they're proselytizing. the donetsk military is short on recruits. so the girls hand out recruiting flyers to fighting age males- anyone between 18 and 55. katerina also rejects returning to ukraine, because of what this war has forced her to see. >> ( translated ): there was a shell in my apartment block everything was blown up. when someone you know gets injured or killed, it's very hard to keep going. that unwillingness to reunite means donetsk-- with the help of russia-- is becoming more and more autonomous. downtown, city workers whose salaries are paid by russia, look after public gardens. in supermarkets, the shelves are stocked with russian products. the only currency accepted, is russian rubles. residents try and lead normal lives. in the main square, with the vladimir lenin statue, families rent toy cars by the hour. in the opera house built under stalin, a matinee showing of giuseppe verdi's "masked ball." the audience was about two- thirds full, at three dollars a ticket. and across the street, at the chicago nightclub, an italian band invited by the local government delivers distraction and ideology. >> reporter: but this city is an orphan. the donetsk people's republic was birthed with the help of russian soldiers. today it's not claimed by russia, and it's isolated from ukraine. there are no working banks, and no way to pick up pensions. the best salary in town is a soldier's-- $225 per month. vadim bazey and alexandr goryakin are both 17. >> right now, there's no prospects here. >> the best option in terms of opportunities is to go abroad, for example to america or england. >> reporter: but that's impossible because they're physically stuck. they can't get ukrainian passports. and their donetsk i.d.s allow access only to russia. for those without the means to leave the front lines, life is even more difficult. valentina nikolayevna sleeps in her cellar because she's scared of shelling. she hasn't had running water or electricity in two years. has it been worth it? >> ( translated ): during the second world war it took us-- the soviet union-- four years to cross half of europe. here, it's been two years and we're in the same spot. >> reporter: can you just describe how difficult life has gotten? >> ( translated ): i would have never believed it if two years ago you'd have told me i was going to live in a basement. very hard. >> reporter: nearby, this is all that's left of the donetsk airport. it was built only four years ago. down the street, this neighborhood is full of homes partially or completely damaged. but this is where we found zakharova vladimirovna and her three-year-old grandson peter. they've spent nearly the entire war on these streets. they invited me in their home. her husband zakharoff pavlovich grew up in this house. a ukrainian rocket landed in their backyard. >> ( translated ): there were so many rockets! we just heard the noise of one above us. >> reporter: this collection of bricks used to be their bomb shelter. they stay because they fear looters. they both agree they've suffered, but don't necessarily agree on the solution. >> ( translated ): good people from around here were killed. they were good guys. what did they die for? >> ( translated ): we have always known this part of ukraine was very different from the rest. but we didn't know that they hated us so much. we want to have autonomy here. >> reporter: that desire to separate means they will keep fighting. but they can't overpower their enemy. so the front lines will remain frozen in place, with little chance of a thaw. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin in donetsk. >> woodruff: tune in tomorrow, as nick schifrin continues his reporting from the other side as ukraine fights not only the war in its east, but deep corruption from within. now the latest on the freddie gray case and the trials surrounding his death. six officers were charged after gray broke his neck and died while in a police van in baltimore april 2015. his death led to riots and civil unrest in baltimore. but prosecutors have not secured any convictions in the trial of those police officers yet. jeffrey brown has our look. >> brown: the first prosecution of an officer ended in a hung jury. the two that followed-- both heard and decided by a judge-- resulted in acquittals. now lieutenant brian rice has elected to have judge barry williams decide his fate, rather than a jury, in a trial that begins this week. in the meantime, state's attorney marilyn mosby and prosecutors face wide and critical scrutiny. we look at these cases and beyond with debbie hines, a former baltimore prosecutor and now a practicing trial attorney, and lawrence brown, a professor of public health at morgan state university. he wrote a recent op-ed in "the new york times" titled "more injustice in baltimore." welcome to both of you. i want to start with you, debbie hines. why has it been so hard for prosecutors to get a conviction? >> well, you know, despite what everybody thinks, these cases have always been an uphill battle. they've not been the slam dunk that the public may think. >> brown: from the start, you mean? >> from the very start. there are circumstantial murder cases and they are extremely difficult because what we mean when we say circumstantial is there's no eyewitness. the only people who really know what happen is the victim who is deceased and the police officers who are tried. so i try to compare this case not just this case but the other infamous case of casey anthony where everyone thought in america that she had killed her 2-year-old toddler, but that was a circumstantial case, and it's really hard to pull them together. >> brown: lawrence brown, do you buy that as a reason for the no convictions in this case, or do you see something more going on? >> well, i think that's certainly a part of it, but what's really also a factor is i don't believe that the prosecution has ever shown exactly when the murder of freddie gray had taken place. i don't think they've shown the exact time of the jury, who caused it, what was -- what is it that caused his vertebrae to crack in three separate places and his voice box to be crushed? so without showing that, all the officers can say, well, i wasn't involved in this part, or that part, and no one is held accountable. >> brown: so staying with you, are you saying it's a weak prosecution strategy? do you think that state attorney marlimarilyn mosby overstated wt she had as evidence? >> when she went out on may 1, 2015 to reassure baltimore and let teampeople know she was going to secret justice for freddie gray, that had a really powerful effect because it wasn't just what she said, it was the way she said it. so to see now the way that the efforts are going, it's a real disappointment, i think, to many. it's not just the police brutality that i think a lot of people are looking at, it's also a way that the prosecution and seemingly the entire criminal justice system is failing people who live in those disinvested red-line black communities who are more exposed to police brutal brutality. >> brown: debbie hines and others from the beginning raised questions of more systemic involving the police and young what can men in plamplet do you see some people thought, for example, that the judge might be giving the extra benefit of the doubt to the police? >> i think the judge, and i have all respect for judge williams, but i think that he doesn't like the prosecution's case. what he is saying, though, is not that they have a weak case, he is saying as to going to what lawrence said that he understands what the prosecution is saying as to how freddie gray died and what was the fourth -- at what was the fourth stop of the van when he was injured at that moment in time, but he also sees the defense's position, which is that it was a freak accident, it just happened, it was nothing criminal, and in a criminal case where a judge says, i see what the pro prosecn is saying, i see what the defense is saying, you can't have those things equal because then the state doesn't meet its burden of proof. >> brown: so, lawrence brown, you're in baltimore, what is the mood there? is there a gathering sense that there just may not be any convictions in this case that got so much attention and roused the community so much? >> well, i think there is the sense that people are really disappointed at this point in the efforts of the prosecution team. again, the passion with which she came out with marilyn mosby on may 1, which is only four days after the uprising itself on april 27th, which was the day that trea freddie gray was g laid to rest, you know, it really did set up a situation where we thought it was a moment of catharsis, a moment of jubilation, and now that sort of sense of catharsis and jubilation is rapidly fading away with the hung jury, two not-guilty verdicts, and what looks like a possibility that none of the officers will be held accountable, and i think that's something that's very frustrating for many residents here in the city, and i feel we're really a city on edge right now, and i don't know that we're really doing anything to really address that. >> brown: debbie hines, if you look at this case and others beyond freddie gray, some have said just by bringing them to trial, right, it raises enough public scrutiny to perhaps bring some changes, certainly in police processes, do you see that? >> i definitely see that. i've always said i think the cases should always have been brought. i think there was always enough there in terms of probable cause to bring the cases and even judge williams, although there may have been the acquittals and the hung jury, he did not dismiss the case, even today that is what lieutenant rice warnghtsd was a -- wanted was a disballistic missile of the charges and he did not dismiss the charges. but out of the cases i see a greater thing happening and by that i mean the police department in baltimore has already instituted changes as a result of this case. they're going to require body cameras. they're going to require that the police officers must sign off when they get the general orders. they can't say, oh, i wasn't at work that day, i didn't have the general order, and the most important thing in terms of with respect to the freddie gray case, the chief of police is saying if someone like freddie gray or any other prisoner in baltimore city requests a medic, the baltimore police must take the prisoner to the hospital. >> brown: whether there are convictions or not. >> exactly. >> brown: debbie hines, lawrence brown, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: next, how much emphasis should we put on reading and other subjects in the earliest years of school and pre-school? some say that crucial development through playtime is getting lost in the shuffle for the very youngest students. special correspondent cat wise has the story for our weekly series on education, "making the grade." >> let's go liam, yeah, let's go karen. >> reporter: at ages three, four, and five most children want to play pretend. >> this is our babies. >> reporter: but in today's world of high-stakes academic testing, some preschool teachers feel pressure to put away the baby dolls and pick up the school books. >> i've been teaching for 25 years, and i've seen a big change. so you're pretending to be the sister? and you're pretending to go on a walk? >> reporter: geralyn bywater mclaughlin teaches pre- kindergarten at mission hill-- a public school in boston. >> i'm the momma. >> so you're the momma? >> reporter: she and other educators have started a campaign they call defending the early years. >> the goal of defending the early years is to really help rally early childhood educators to push back against this push down of academics into the early years. the standardized tests, the disappearance of play teachers are feeling it and were helping to bring voice to their frustrations and their concerns. >> this is my baby. >> reporter: bywater mclaughlin says education policies that tie government funding to academic performance-- like no child left behind and race to the top-- have put pressure on preschool and kindergarten teachers to prepare students to compete in higher grades. >> the teachers feel like they're over a barrel, they've got to drill the kids on these things to get the scores so the program doesn't lose funds. >> reporter: nancy carlsson- paige is a professor emerita at lesley university and author of "taking back childhood." >> there's been a snowball that's been rolling for 15 or 16 years. it's propelled by a belief that you will improve education and close the achievement gap if you have accountability, if you have more testing. >> reporter: carlsson-paige points to new expectations for children to read in kindergarten. what's the harm in getting a kindergartener to learn to read? i mean is there a harm? >> there is an absolute harm. it's harmful because you're forcing children to learn things that are out of step with where they are developmentally. and, you're doing it in a way that it contradicts how they learn. >> reporter: advocates of defending the early years say young children do best in schools that emphasize play and project-based learning-- like mission hill elementary, a pilot school. >> so the cabinet is for what? >> reporter: here, desks are replaced by project areas, where kindergarten teacher jada brown says young students can pursue interests at their own pace. >> our school is really focused on trying to make sure that kids are engaged in activities that they are choosing, that they're interested in. and that it's not the adults who are pushing particular things on them. >> we could use this for measurements. >> we could use that for measurements. >> reporter: on this day, kindergarteners built cabinets for a pretend kitchen, and learned some math while along the way. >> we're putting a math thing over there, because josie is trying to help me with my math. >> what kind of math? there's so much math that actually happens in building. how do you build a structure, how do you make sure that it's standing. it's all math. it's science, it's trying to figure out how do you make something that's stable. >> the fact of the matter is, play and learning are the same thing with children. >> josie, i need a few sticks for this. >> reporter: how do you respond to those that say, "but kids are coming to school to learn. they should be writing their a.b.c.s, and they can play at home." >> the home looks very different from school. there is a lot that's going on in that classroom, whether it's art or math. the materials that are in the classroom are a lot different from what you might see at home. >> reporter: ayla gavins is the principal of mission hill. >> for us, the skills are not taught in isolation, but they're taught embedded in some sort of meaningful work or exercise. i believe they learn more because they're motivated. >> what do you think, ayan? >> reporter: parent byllye toussiant's daughter attends preschool at mission hill. >> one of the things i wanted my own children to have. is this ability to not always need an adult pushing, pushing, pushing, and able to take control of their own learning. >> you go straight to your independent work. >> reporter: kindergarten looks and feels a lot different at harlem prep, a high-performing charter school in new york city. the focus is on school work over play. >> reporter: robert pondiscio a fellow at the fordham institute, who also teaches civics at harlem prep's high school, says play-based learning does benefit some children, but may not the best way to serve low-income students. >> if you are a low-income kid you don't have the enrichment opportunities that more fortunate kids get. and that really means that you show up for school on day one further behind. so if schools are not aggressively attacking that problem from day one, those kids will not only not catch up, they will fall further behind. >> reporter: pondiscio believes high expectations, like reading in kindergarten, have helped harlem prep students excel. >> nobody but nobody is going to sensibly argue that young children should not spend a lot of time on pre-k and kindergarten playing. i'm not suggesting that we should be turning anybody's pre- k or kindergarten into an academic hothouse. but i worry that i could become easily an intellectual death sentence for low-income. students like ours are simply not going to get that rich vocabulary, that linguistic proficiency that other kids bring to school from home. >> reporter: harlem prep takes pride in preparing children for college at a young age. 93% of the students in the democracy prep network go on to college, including some of the country's most elite schools. for her part, nancy carlsson paige says the best preparation for college start with age appropriate teaching. >> the faulty thinking is we'll prepare kids to be college and career ready by drilling them on letters and numbers when they're really little, and that will get them ready for success in school. but the truth is the complete opposite is what happens. ♪ >> reporter: both experts agree the final destination should be college. the issue is how to start the very young on that path. for the pbs newshour, i'm cat wise. >> woodruff: finally tonight, wizards young and old: harry potter is back. and so is jeffrey brown, with a look at the latest version of potter-mania, from his recent trip to the united kingdom. >> brown: at platform nine and three-quarters in london's king cross station, it's time again for fans to take the leap into the magical world of harry potter. the young wizard of eight films, and, of course, the books that have sold in the hundreds of millions. now, harry is back, quite a bit older and with children of his own, played by actor jamie parker. and for the first time, on- stage, in the new play told in two parts, "harry potter and the cursed child", at the palace theater in london's west end. >> you've been amazing for years, at keeping harry potter secrets. so you didn't spoil the books for readers after you. >> brown: it's still in previews and all very hush-hush-- so no, we can't show you scenes. potter author j.k. rowling, who worked on this with an experienced theater team, is begging fans not to spoil the plot. >> so i'm asking you one more time to keep secrets and let audiences be surprised. >> brown: "timeout london" staff writer kate lloyd got a look, but wasn't giving much away. >> it felt like going to the greatest hit show of your favorite pop star. it just felt like everyone there had read the books, loved them and now i was reliving the experience with a bit of new stuff, but it was very much rooted in the old stories. >> brown: just a block away, we saw the harry potter phenomenon in action, at an exhibition of graphic art and original film props now at the "house of minalima" gallery. mira phoramina and her partner eduardo lima helped create the potter "look" for the films. her theory of potter's appeal? >> so everything you see story- wise and prop-wise, you as an audience can think, "oh, i'm going to get my letter", or "i'm going to read that newspaper." it's believable but not quite, when you look at the details. completely reinvented world, it's kind of the real world and shifted about 20%. >> brown: in many ways, perhaps, it's more a "re-imagining" than a "re-invention"-- something we found some 400 hundred miles to the north, at the source of all things "potter". the story of harry potter comes with its own legend, of course. and much of that begins here in edinburgh, scotland. so eric, you're an american student in edinburgh wearing a cape. >> it's a dream job really. >> brown: dream job, why? >> read all the books, seen all the movies, played all the video games, bought all the toys since i was a little kid. >> brown: 22-year-old eric geistfeld of eden prairie, minnesota is finishing his studies at the university of edinburgh, with a degree in physics-- "real magic" as he told me. but he may be an even bigger student of j.k. rowling and harry potter. we followed as he led a group along the city's "potter trail". it includes the famed greyfriars kirkyard, the cemetery where j.k. rowling gathered names for characters. h she would come here and have the brain story for her first harry potter novel within these very walls. >> brown: beyond that. hogwarts. >> brown: the hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. then there's the elephant house cafe where, as all potter-heads know, rowling, then a poor, single-mom, would sit for hours with one cup of coffee and write. standing over victoria street, which rowling turned into a kind of wizard mall in her books, our guide said the sense of place is a key to understanding the world of harry potter. >> j.k. rowling came here in the mid to late 1990s and just saw something in this street, felt a magic of her own and decided to base an entire location off of it in the books. the history of edinburgh has really bled into harry potter, its settings, its characters, and sort of a lot of the themes of harry potter as well. >> brown: back in london, where things can look plenty potter- esque as well, financial times journalist jenny lee told me the spell for her has always been in the storytelling. >> a really epic piece of storytelling, which is incredibly compelling and unlike anything i'd ever read before. >> brown: and, as a playwright herself, she's interested to see how it works in a new form. >> there is an excitement, not a hype but an excitement, around the fact that it is theater. that people can come to the theater in the same way that she got a new generation of kids reading, that we may get a new generation of kids coming to theater for the first time. >> brown: you think that could happen? >> absolutely, i think so. i think this is not going to be published as a novel, it's going to be published as a play text. if people can't make it to the theater, they might just have to read the play text. that could be a young person's first encounter with that medium, with the play text itself. and that excites me. >> brown: of course, eric geistfeld and no doubt millions of others want more than the text, but the first batch of tickets sold out almost immediately. >> "accio" tickets! "accio" is a summoning spell, so whenever you wave your wand and you yell "accio", it will fly to you. >> brown: accio tickets? they haven't come yet? >> they haven't come yet. i assume they're flying from london to here, so it might take a little while, but i hope they're on their way. >> brown: good luck! >> thank you. >> brown: from edinburgh and london, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. >> brown: tune in later tonight: our own hari sreenivasan sits in for charlie rose and discusses the changing ways we get our news with vox media's melissa bell. >> we can get distracted by facebook as a sole conversation topic. i think there's more of a theme with the overall internet and how we're presenting news to people in today's day and age. it is one of many access points where we can meet people. it's an opportunity in that there's a hungry audience waiting for us there, but we also need to remember that there's a lot of different places for us to reach audiences in this day and age. >> woodruff: that's tonight on charlie rose. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: lincoln financial is committed to helping you take charge of your 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 this is nightly business report with tyler mathson and sue herera. >> the rally stalls. stocks drop, crude crumble, yields hit record lows and investor attention turns to jobs and profit reports. no charges, the fbi recommends against charging hillary clinton in her handling of e-mails as secretary of state, but the controversy may not be ove farmers may be start tog plant the seeds of something really big. all that and more tonight on the nightly business report for tuesday, july 5th. good evening and welcome. it was nice while it lasted. but the rally that led to the bit spill over io