>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. lincoln financial is committed to helping you take charge of your future. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the well-being of humanity around the world byro building resilience and inclusive economies.on more at rockefellerfoundation.orgn. >> 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 pbu station from viewers like you.at thank you. >> woodruff: delta airlines canceled more than 400 flights today, after a global crash of its computer systems. hours later, the carrier resumed limited service. but the glitch also delayed more than a thousand flights, andd left passengers stranded. some complained they'd been given little information. >> when i got here, i waited.i i got here for the 8:37 flight and then it kept going, you know, delayed, delaying it and then, they never announced that it was cancelled. so i had to call the customer service and they told me it was cancelled, so they gave med, another flight, but now i got a flight tomorrow. so, it was the fact that they didn't let me know what wasow going on. >> woodruff: the trouble was caused by a power outage inr atlanta, but the airline and georgia power disagreed over who was to blame. just last month, southwestth airlines was hit by an equipment failure that canceled 2,000ce flights. >> ifill: in southwestern pakistan: a suicide bombinge killed at least 67 people today, and wounded scores more. it happened at a hospital in the city of quetta.et jonathan rugman of independent television news, reports. >> reporter: ambulances usually arrive at hospitals in a hurry. in quetta this morning, they were leaving, ferrying the injured away from an attack on the hospital itself. smoke filled the corridors. it quickly became clear timing was deliberate. first, men on a motor bike had shot dead a senior lawyer on his way to court.y then the group waited for his fellow lawyers to gather here before blowing them up. the so-called double tap, as cynical as cruel. >> after air bar association president was targeted, we all came to the hospital.ho we were leaving the hospitalta after his autopsy and the media were interviewing lawyers when the blast took place. for many minutes, there was darkness all around us, and then we heard gunshots. >> reporter: lawyers complained to visiting armymy chiefs that, while they haven't been allowed to drive their cars into the hospital, a suicide bomber had managed to get through. while the hospital's directorl' told the press that just one guard armed was in charge of security, which might seem all the more scandalous, given that these pictures from january show the same hospital, this time receiving survivors from another deadly suicide bombing on another medical facility in the town. so, once again, pakistanis are crying out for security, putting pressure on their prime minister sharif and army chief who visited the hospital this evening. for god sake, don't back off,ff the survivor told the prime minister, it's a handful of people we have to fight with all our might. don't lose courage. >> ifill: both the islamic state group and a breakaway taliban faction claimed responsibility for the attack. >> woodruff: japan's emperor akihito signaled today he'd like to step down. his position is symbolic, and ha has no political power, but his abdication would require a constitutional change. he spoke in a rare, ten-minute address-- pre-recorded and broadcast nationally. >> ( translated ): i am already more than 80 years old, and fortunately i am now in good n health. however, when i consider that my fitness level is graduallyfi declining, i am worried that it may become difficult for me to carry out my duties with my whole being as the symbol of the state, as i have done until now. >> woodruff: over the years, akihito has had heart surgery and been treated for prostatea cancer. he is the 125th emperor in a dynastic line that goes back more than 2,700 years. >> ifill: parts of eastern mexico are reeling after the remnants of hurricane earl touched off deadly mudslides over the weekend, killing 40ll people. surging rainwater uprooted buildings and tore through concrete walls on saturday. soldiers and first responderss worked sunday to clear debris caked in mud.d >> woodruff: wal-mart is moving to muscle up in online sales, buying online retailer jet.com. the deal announced today includes $3 billion in cash and $300 million in stock. wal-mart is looking to strengthen its web presence and capitalize on a growing group of customers who want to buy in bulk online. >> ifill: on wall street today: the dow jones industrial average lost 14 points to close at 18,529.29 the nasdaq fell about eight points, and the s&p 500 slipped two. >> woodruff: and, russia fired back today, after its entire paralympic team was banned from next month's games for athletese with physical disabilities. the russian organizing committee said the ban for alleged doping amounts to a human rights abused the same doping scandal barred more than 100 russian athletes from the current olympics in rip de janeiro. the paralympics will also be in rio. still to come on the newshour: donald trump's plan that he says will revitalize the economy, u.s. olympians shattering records and taking home gold, a city caring for refugees' unseen needs, and much more. >> ifill: the two major candidates for president jostled for position in the last week, stepping into and out of political corners, and attempting to paint the other as unfit and unstable. today, donald trump stuck to policy, while hillary clinton stuck it to donald trump. >> these reforms will offer biggest tax revolution since the reagan tax reform. >> ifill: trump chose the traditional campaign setting of the detroit economic club to deliver the sober outline of his economic ideas, starting with taxes. >> i am proposing an across-the- board income tax reduction, especially for middle-incomee- americans. this will lead to millions of new and really good-paying jobs. the rich will pay their fair share, but no one will pay so much that it destroys jobs, or undermines our ability as a nation to compete. >> ifill: but throughout his scripted remarks, trump was regularly interrupted-- at least a dozen times-- by hecklers. >> thank you. i will say, the bernie sanders people had far more energy and spirit. >> ifill: trump's tax plan envisions three income tax brackets of 33%, 25% and 12%.e his original plan, last fall, topped out at 25% for the wealthiest earners. trump also argued for cutting the top corporate tax rate to 15%-- less than half what it is now. the republican nominee also called for a freeze on new n government regulation. >> it is time to remove the anchor dragging us down. d and that's what it's doing, it's dragging us down. upon taking office, i will issue a temporary moratorium on newy agency regulations.io >> ifill: trump said the specifics of his plan will be spelled out on his website at some point. but he used today's remarks to attack hillary clinton's h approach to economic policy, saying, "it punishes you forni working and doing business in the united states". >> it's clear trump is scrambling to do damage control. >> ifill: clinton, who campaigned in florida today-- including a brewery tour in st. petersburg--was quick to dismiss trump's economic plan. >> he wants to basically justly repackage trickle-downkl economics. now you know that old saying "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." >> ifill: the candidates sparred as trump tumbled in the polls after a series of political missteps last week. on friday, he finally endorsed house speaker paul ryan and others he had initially declined to support. meanwhile, a new face-- little- known g.o.p. operative evan e mccmullin-- said he is hoping to capitalize on republican unease by launching his own independeni bid for president. are the polls real? will the reset take? for more on the state of thisat topsy turvy political year, weli turn to politics monday-- that's amy walter of the cook politicat report and tamara keith of npr. welcome back, ladies. tam remarks tell me about this trump speech today, was this the reset, the pivot we keep talking about? >> or was the last one? hillary clinton just said this,h there is only one trump.ru there are different flavors of donald trump -- teleprompter speech, policy speech donald trump which we got today, there is rally donald trump where he says stuff and gets the crowd going, and there is twitterwi donald trump at various hours of the day. about once every month we get one of these teleprompter speeches. in some way, this was a reset. his tax plan you mentioned in the piece, it was on his web site until about 24 hours ago, now there's a new tax plan which alliance with a tax plan -- abines with the tax plan to have the republicans and there were more things in this speech that moved him closer to the republican mainstream. >> that's key. he's done well among white working class voters but not well with white-collar voters.la this was a message directly related to them.re it was interesting to seeg hillary clinton talk about repackaging reaganomics. for those who are undecided,n they like the reaganomics message or scaling back on regulation message. the economy is one of the 14 different areas the "wall street journal" poll asked who do you think does a better job of, question, donald trump was onlyl ahead on four of those, one is the economy. this isth a place where the t hillary clinton camp should spend more time on the economy and less time beating up the republicans. >> ifill: we'll hear more as the week goes on apparently every day. let's talk about lastev week's forced or unforced errors, the errors, the series of errors. is that what led us to today to the teleprompter speech? >> it certainly would seem like he needed a reset. he need to have a clean break from last week's sort of rolling errors. but even yesterday, he was tweeting fact checks about the baby, the baby being a baby -- and then he made a joke and itt was interpreted as kick ago baby out of the rally when maybe the baby had already left. and yesterday he was tweetingw about this, so today's speech, the challenges are getting -- the challenge is we're getting closer to the general election and in today's speech he said i will have more specifics and details on my web site, tune in, in a couple of weeks. we've heard that before. i wait for policy, but maybe this race isn't really about policy. >> ifill: that's part of the question. but, on the other hand, let's measure for giggles by conventional measuret.l hillary clinton is hammering him with anti-trump ads, not a peep in the conventional sense coming from donald trump.d >> he still has yet to show us he's going to run a traditional campaign. he's gotten this far. he doesn't have a traditional anything. this is what we have been going back and forth about for this entire campaign is he's either going to show us he's upended all the rules of the poll theth ticks, that you don't need fancy consultants, ads, polls or any of it, just your personality and the message and the environment alone can drive voters to the polls. >> ifill: when we were sittingsi at the copvections and heard him say "i am your voice," i think ewe all agreed he settled on a message. we have not heard that since. >> well, i think to the voters that support him, that still is the message that he will be the person who stands up for us. his challenge is he hasn't broadened it beyond the same group of voters he was speaking to at the convention. this is the first time he married the traditional sort of chamber of commerce republican message on taxes and entitlements with the populist anti-nafta, anti-tried message he's been talk about on the trial trying to unify the party again, a chlg he continues to struggle with. until he figures that out, hillary clinton will continue to have a lead. >> ifill: also we've seen both candidates talking about mental stability as an issue, speaking about their opponent. >> hillary's campaign began several months ago talking about whether he's temperamentally fit to be president. at the convention, michael bloomberg said let's choose a "sane" candidate. that's a big"s moment. here's major figure at a convention talking about sanityn donald trump this week seems to have gone to the i know you are but what am i school, and now he's saying hillary clinton is temperamentally until. >> ifill: based onte her comment saying she short-circuited an answer. >> yes, this also spawned conspiracy theories about her health. >> ifill: let's talkhe about someone getting into the race. a gentleman by the name of evan mcmullin says he's going to represent all the reps who are not for trump. >> yes. >> ifill: who is he? a former c.i.a. operative, a former house staffer who is now retired from his position at the house. this is what we have been talking about at this table for so long.so we have a group of republicans who say they can't support trump but can't find somebody else to rally around. his challenge isou getting on te ballots in many states. the deadlines closed. >> ifill: david french, we talked about. >> ifill: the thought he could play well in utah or arizona that has a big mormon population. arizona, you have to have a lot of significant to get on the ballot and the deadline is the first week in september.e there is just one or two states he may have an impact on and if we're talking about arizona in utah in september and october,ct this race is a blowout. we might as well just sleep in on election day. >> ifill: which doesn't seem s at all to be the case. no one wants to quite go thata far. so the friday light late night program against the olympics paul ryan, kelly ayote and john mccain, does that help or hurt them? >> it looked like those endorsements came under duress.u he was reading and lookedo uncomfortable saying it. no, it doesn't help them. >> senator kelly ayote right now is looking at a tough race in a state that's now turning away from donald trump, i would be,ou you know what, thanks, but keep your endorsement. >> ifill: i think that's kind of what paul ryan said was, that's nice. >> that's nice, n but --ha >> ifill: you don't think it necessarily helps? >> no, they're inil a tough spo. all these people who are in down ballot are in a tough spot because they've already on some level associated themselves with the person at the top of the ticket and, at the same time, they are trying to distance themselves and democrats aren'ts going to let them get away with distancing themselves.di >> ifill: embrace for whatever may happen this week. tamera keith of npr, wallet wallet of the -- amy walter of the "cook political report,"th thank you both very much.h >> thank you. >> woodruff: for all of the concerns and problems leading into rio, the first days of the olympics generally went off well with memorable moments, and thee hope of a promising week to come for the u.s.a. after one weekend in rio, american swimmers are living up to golden expectations so far. s powerhouse swimmer katie ledecky grabbed her first gold medal of these games, sunday night, breaking her own world record in the 400-meter freestyle, with competitors almost five seconds in her wake. >> it's an amazing feeling, to sing the national anthem and sei the flags raised, i got to go up there with a teammate and we sang our hearts out. >> woodruff: veteran michael phelps-- who's now 31 years old- - collected his 19th gold, as part of the men's 4-by-100 relay team. also sunday: the u.s. women gymnastics team proved theirti dominance in qualifying for the all-around category, whichl- permits only two per country. favorite simone biles soared to the number one spot. teammate aly raisman will joinjo her in the finals, edging out 2012 gold medalist gabby douglas for the second u.s. slot. and today, fencer ibtihaj muhammad became the first american olympian to compete wearing a muslim hijab, or head scarf. she won her first round, before being defeated. meanwhile, uproars over dopingrs are still swirling over rio. russian swimmer yulia efimova faced boos before a preliminarym race on sunday. she had been banned aftersh failing drug tests, then reinstated. american lily king made clear her displeasure about efimova's presence in the pool. and, on saturday, australian swimmer mack horton accused his chinese rival sun yang of being a, "drug cheat"-- then beat himn in the 400 meter freestyle. chinese officials have demanded an apology. now for an on-the-ground perspective from rio, i spoke a short time ago to christinehr brennan, a sportswriter and columnist who's covering the games for "u.s.a. today." she's also a contributor for "abc news." christine brennan, hello.e it's been quite a weekend for the united states in swimming. s tell us what it's been like at the swimming venue. >> i tell you, judy, it was really an electric evening and certainly for the united states last night with d.o.t. katie ledecky and the 400 free style world record performance breaking her on world record by almost two seconds and then within maybe 20, 30 minutes you had the relay, michael phelpsae coming back to the pool for the first time, 3 is years old, now, fifth olympic game, and he's in the second leg of the four-person relay and he stakes the u.s. out to a lead, and the two teammates just came in and won, beating the french. the crowd, you would have thought it was a u.s. crowd, in the sense that here we are in rio. but it was a majestic moment, in think, with the knowledge thatat the fans had that they were watching something special, watching michael phelps return, the greatest olympian of all time winning his 19th gold medal. usually the u.s. dominates in the swimming pool aged we'll see that in the next few days as well. >> woodruff: what puts katie ledecky so far ahead of the competition? >> she's speeding against herself. the 800 free style is hers. she will be farther ahead in that. people should get used to seeing that. she's one of these people who has a wonderful attitude about life, super smart, going to stanford, and has a great perspective, wonderful family that loves sports and also, for herself, just a sense that she just wants to better herself. it sounds like a cliche, but she just goes out there, follows her coach's orders, the model student, athlete, and puts it together and is absolutely atte the top of her game at the most important moment of her life. >> woodruff: michael phelps, now 31 years old, came into these games with 18 gold medals, just picked up another one last night. what is he looking to do in rio? >> he's got a lot more. he's just beginning. people say, more michael phelps? yes, the 100 butterfly, 200 butterfly, 200 individual medley and probably one more relay, so we're just beginning to see phelps. swimming is a young person's came. katie ledecky is 19 years old. a lot of teenagers in the pool. michael phelps 31. he had difficulties, rehab aftef a second d.u.i., he has acknowledged his problems, but the fact he could be so strong at 31 in those sports, he should long be retired in terms overage but he's still as dominant as ever. >> woodruff: then the doping allegations around the russiansl and others that's already causing a backlash among a number of the athletes, how is that affecting things there? >> i tell ya, it's been really interesting, and i think the metaphor for the entire conversation, judy, about russian doping, the diabolical russian doping machine and the fact they were allowed to compete in the olympics as opposed to being kicked out as i thought they should have been, the brewing for these athletes, that's the swimmers especiallysp coming from the swimming section. the swimmers know. they're disgusted by this. i know people say lance armstrong and mary ann jones cheated, but the big difference is for russia it was government-sponsored doping, the equivalent if a member ofer president obama's cabinet ran a 5-year doping plan in the united states involving the f.b.i., c.i.a., u.s. olympic committee, that's how diabolic the pungs plan was. >> woodruff: gymnastics, the first appearance of simone biles of the united states. she lived up to her billing in that qualifying yesterday.es >> she did. mary lou retin, gabby douglas,ologia corps bit and nadya rolled into one. we are seeing the cull my medication of a sport in one person. simone is that good. the u.s. was ten points ahead as a team in the qualifying yesterday, and the u.s. team will certainly win the gold medal barring incredible unforeseen occurrence tomorrow. so there's that, the team competition. then simone biles, the individual, expected to win the goal and then expected to go on to the individual apparatuses and actually keep winning. and simone biles, i believe at the time these olympic games are over, will be seen as the greatest u.s. gymnast ever. that's saying something.so there is a lot of competition for that title.. >> woodruff: after all the hype and negative stories about brazil and rio running up to the olympics, how do these first few days feel to you?ou >> i have to say these gamess have been a pleasant surprise. there are issues with transportation and buses not coming and things like a that, t it really feels like an olympicm to me. when i say that, everything about it, i think the opening ceremony was terrific on a budget, they did more with less, that are less budget with fewer dollars than beijing in 2008 with their grand gross ceremony or london in 2012, and i think they did a great job with a message, a conscience.on you've seen good will in many places, great upsets, you've seen athletes care sov -- so much about this. the games are moving on. we'll see how it goes the next two weeks.we but they seem to be going fine, when you consider the national football league had to cancel the national home game because of a problem on the field, and we see them moving ahead with all of the venues, so far, so good. it's a big sports upset but a nice thing to see as the games are started.t >> woodruff: thank you very much, we look forward to talking to you in the days to come. >> you get, judy. j thank you very much. >> ifill: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: efforts to make peace between high schoolers and police, and the harmonies of neko case, k.d. lang, and laura veirs. but first, president obama has pledged to accept 10,000 syrian refugees by october, despite resistance playing out in many communities. refugees-- many of them rootless for years-- often arrive with significant medical problems and psychological trauma. special correspondent sarah varney brings us this report about how one city-- buffalo, new york-- is adapting. her story was produced in collaboration with our partner "kaiser health news." >> reporter: since murhaf, ghenwa, and their children moved here from syria. even mundane tasks like cooking and homework have become more complicated. >> they has ten airplanes. >> reporter: unaccustomed tote this new life, the family relies on help from hassan alishaqi, from a local resettlement agency called journey's end. refugee agencies help families like this one find housing and jobs, get medical care and health insurance and enroll in english classes and schools. they fled syria after civil war erupted there in 2011, unleashing an exodus of more than four million refugees. the destruction and violence came close to murhaf's family during one their last nights in the city of homs. >> some bullets came to my house and went through the window. i was afraid for the safety of my... the kids, they never sleep. it was very hard for them to sleep. >> reporter: after a year in cairo and exhaustive security checks, the family arrived in buffalo, a quiet city on the edge of lake erie. and like many new arrivals here, they're struggling with the w aftermath of their horrific journey as they attempt to build healthier lives in their new home. more than 90% of the refugees who resettle to new york live in upstate new york.te the city of buffalo has become a welcoming haven for many of them. but over the last 15 years, the countries and conflicts theyie come from have changed. and the health care needs of refugees are changing, too.re jericho road is a community health center in buffalo thatha has long treated refugees from some of the world's poorest countries, including myanmar, bhutan, sudan and somalia. the clinic is a crossroads of languages and customs. new refugees receive freeei medical assistance from the federal government for eightve months, then they can buy private insurance or enroll in medicaid. >> when you came, we found that your t.b. test was positive. so i think you are now taking medicine for that, right? >> reporter: the clinic's founder, dr. myron glick, oftenn treats refugees for tuberculosis, malaria and childhood malnutrition. but he says the more recent arrivals from iraq and syria, which are middle-income countries, typically don't suffer from diseases of poverty, but instead have been traumatized by war. a critical report by local leaders that examined the area'i safety net, found that health care providers urgently needed to improve "culturally appropriate mental health services." and more clinics need to follow jericho road's model of hiring refugees who can help new arrivals adjust. kowsar ali, a somali and arabici interpreter, says just figuring out how to explain a patient's symptoms and a doctor's diagnosis is a puzzle-- words and phrases with no english equivalent, medical terms like p.t.s.d. and depression that are unfamiliar. >> it's actually hard for them because there's nothing as depression. they say "okay, because that never existed in my country, there's nothing as depression." >> reporter: dr. glick says the initial relief refugees feel when they reach safety often o gives way to a new reality. >> all the horrible things thati happen to people along their journey to america, and yet really they come with hope. and a year, two years in, you see that hope dissipate. it's really challenging here in america to deal with the stresses that are thrust upon them without the support of their home community. >> reporter: that sense of isolation is easing for some. ali kadhum arrived in buffalo in 2008, just as the fledglingju iraqi community was taking root. back then, kadhum says there were just 25 families. f >> now it's almost 750 iraqi families. >> reporter: today, he says iraqis bump into each other around town. >> they feel they are not alone. they feel they are still livingy in iraq because people, there's restaurants, cook their food here. there is some people speak their language at least, and they can communicate. >> reporter: so many refugees have moved here that the population of erie county-- home to buffalo-- is growing for the first time since the 1960s. and they are reshaping a city that has struggled to find itsas way in the modern economy. old factories now house english language classes, at a small business incubator, women sellor iraqi macrame and rwandan scarves, and vendors claim to sell "the best dim sum in buffalo". refugee children pursue music in a program called buffalo string works, and are mentored by professional musicians. health systems here are adapting, too. a catholic church once filled with italian and irish congregates, recently re-openedl as a health clinic for newfo immigrants. and with so many arrivals from active war zones, the university at buffalo tapped dr. kim griswold to help lead the western new york center for survivors of torture.of >> some of the folks that we've seen have been horribly tortured physically, with scars to prove it-- amputations, other things that we've seen that are horrific-- cigarette burns, whipping. >> reporter: kareem khaleefah, who worked for the u.s. army in baghdad, was kidnapped by a shia militia, lined up with 20 otherh men and shot. >> the bullets come on the side of my body.. >> reporter: he fell to the ground and pretended to be dead until nightfall.ni even in buffalo's quieto' neighborhoods, those memories never fade, says kadhum, a mental health counselor at lake shore behavioral health. he says many older iraqis, like saja alnaqeeb and her husbandd mahmoud, once lived prosperous, vibrant lives. then in 2005, saja was tortured and the family fled. now she stays inside, tormentedn by her memories. >> ( translated ): my family,fa they sometimes they wake up, they find me screaming at night with these nightmares. >> reporter: the images she sees on the news are a constantns reminder of the continuing violence in iraq. she worries about her childrenab and grandchildren still in baghdad. >> ( translated ): my mind is about them.em every time they mention to me they are unsafe, they are getting threatened, they move their place from place to place just to make sure that they are- protect their kids and family. >> reporter: the recent spate of violent attacks worldwide have fueled anti-immigrant and anti- refugee sentiment. but experts on human migration say these events are rare, and, in fact, it's refugees who often face discrimination andcr violence. neil boothby is a professor at columbia university. >> there's going to be cultural issues, what happens if a girl wants to wear a scarf over her head, how is the community going to respond to that, what if people need to spend a lot of time in the mosques, how are we going to respond to that? so it's going to be an adjustment, i think, for eachor side. >> reporter: in buffalo, the focus now is to enroll more people in mental health counseling. at a lake shore clinic, patients, like kurd bllnd, struggle to reconcile religious, sectarian and ethnic violence that has persisted for decades. >> what happened to the kurdish in iraq, of course you're going to be upset and angry and anxious. >> reporter: bllnd, who grew up in a kurdish village in iraq, v was jailed and interrogated for three years in the 1980s. >> ( translated ): since the age of 12 years till now, i'm 67 1 years of age, i didn't see anything good in life. >> reporter: two years after hey arrived in buffalo, bllnd reluctantly agreed to seek help. >> they told me if you go there, somebody talk to you, maybe you forget past what happened to you. >> the key stresser i think is isolation. they come here, they don't speak the language, they really only know their immediate family. >> reporter: jessica marmion is a clinical social worker who teams up with interpreter afaf pickering. >> we have all kinds of people coming, we have lawyers, we have business people. we need sometimes to talk about your problems, especially coming from a country of war, you went through trauma, you went through death. we're not superhuman, we need to >> reporter: as new refugees arrive each day in buffalo-- known as the "city of good neighbors"-- health care leaders say they'll continue to listen,l to reach out, and help refugee families find new opportunities in a changing american city. for the pbs news hour and kaiser health news, i'm sarah varney in buffalo. >> woodruff: last september, a federal court in alabama ruled that the birmingham police department's disciplinary practices-- including the use of pepper spray for minor discipline problems-- is in violation of student rights and unconstitutional. attorney ebony howard of the southern poverty law center filed the class action suit, and returns to court next month when the police department's appeal is heard. as part of our year-long "race matters" conversations focusing on solutions, special correspondent charlayne hunter gault reports from birmingham about reducing tensions between african american high school students and the police. >> reporter: this video of a white south carolina policemanna roughly ejecting a black student from her classroom went viral and ignited a conversation aboua the proper role for police in schools. ebony howard, a lawyer with the southern poverty law center, has been involved in that conversation as a result of her successful suit against police medication students inmometer, alabama. ebony howard, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> reporter: to you tell us briefly about the case you won in birmingham last year? >> sure. the case is about police officers stationed in birmingham city high schools who are there to protect students, and they were using mace or pepper spray is what it's sometimes called against students for engaging in what amounts to normal adolescent behavior.ad >> ifill: like what? for example, one of our plaintiffs, key ebee, was leaving class and going to another class with a fellow classmate, and as she walked, a boy came up to her and decided to call her really foul names that i won't repeat. as he called her those names,, his friends who had come with him, they started to laugh, and the more they laughed, the more names he called her, and, so, she tried to walk away from him and, as she walked away, he and his friends followed her and continued to call her lots and lots of names. so eventually as she walked the entire length to have the school building, she started to cry and she became hysterical and, when she reached the end of the school building, a policepo officer walked up. you would think he would have taken care of her, but what he did is he told her to calm down or he was going to arrest her, and when she didn't stop crying, he put her in handcuffs. she continued to cry and he told her, calm down. when she didn't calm down fast enough, he sprayed her with mace. the other point that i forgot to mention was she was four months' pregnant at the time when he sprayed her with mace.ac she was arrested and taken to the local juvenile facility where she had to take off her pants and underwear and squat and cough as part of a strip search. so those were the kinds of things happening in birmingham city schools. >> reporter: now you argued the things that are happening to black students with examples like the ones you just gave are very different from what happens in white schools.in tell me just how different. >> right. so, for example, the birmingham city school system is 99% african-american. 85% of the students are on free or reduced lunch. in contrast the jefferson county school district is much more integrated, has far more white students. in the past ten years, police officers who are in the jefferson county school district have used mace ten times. that's over ten years. in con trashings during a five-year -- in contrast, during a five-year period in birmingham city, almost 300 students were sprayed with mace.. >> reporter: what do you say to the critics who say a lot of the kids are violent, some are gang members and get into horrendous fights in these schools and need to be controlled by the police? >> there is no question that many of the students that are in school districts like the birmingham city school district have very big challenges to overcome with regard to social-economic status and poverty. but i would also say that a lot of this talk, a lot of this rhetoric is just propaganda. >> reporter: you're saying that most of what these young people who have been placed have been -- maced and others haveer been doing as normal adolescent behavior get punished but not in the same way. >> exactly. when a black boy engages in a certain behavior, there is a perception that is criminal.ti when a white boy in a different school district does the same thing, that is perceived as adolescent misconduct. that's an inequity that black and latino children have to live with in this country. >> reporter: the police, of course, defended the actions of the police saying these children deserved what they got and, yett the judge, in his ruling, affirmed your protest. >> right. you know, what i thought was the most striking about the findings of fact and conclusions of law that the judgish chewed was that -- that the judge issued was that he recognized these are adolescents, and that the police officer, at least the ones who are the defendants in this case, didn't quite understand that t whether, intentionally or unintentionally. the judge said that, regardlessg it is clear that chief a.c. roper, the chief of police for the birmingham police department at a minimum needs to provide officers stationed in thee birmingham city schools with training on school-based policing. >> reporter: with the chiefs -- are the chiefs and other leaders going to work on this problem? what's going on?'s >> the judge ordered we get with the defendants to meet and confer on developing a plan that would guide law enforcement training for school-based policing as well as policies and procedures on school-based policing for birmingham city schools. >> reporter: how is that going? >> we met and we agree on some things, but we're unable to reach a consensus on other things, and the chief of police told us that he intends to appeal and has gone through the process of appealing.pr we believe that the point of public education in america is not just to teach kids academics, but to teach them how to be citizens, how to be adults, and that involves learning how to manage conflict, learning how to work with each other, learning how to respect people and that, during that process, they will make mistakes. they may fight or talk back or do things we don't want them to do. the role of teachers and principals and police officers are to teach them how to interact with each other.th >> reporter: what is the solution? >> the first thing is if we'ree' going to have officers in our schools, they need to be trained and not be biased with regard to race or economic status for the students they are working with. and then the more fundamental and harder thing is that, when each of us looks at these kids, we need to see our own. we see someone who could be our daughter, our son, niece, nephew, cousin, our own babies, rather than seeing an other. and that's not happening. >> reporter: ebony howard,ar thank you. >> thank you so much. >> ifill: finally tonight, how i three became one. jeffrey brown talks to a new musical group getting muchl attention this summer. >> brown: the pre-performance huddle in which three singer-e songwriters with successful solo careers morph into one group. neko case, k.d. lang, and laura veirs become "case/lang/veirs". ♪ >> ♪ latin words across my heart symbols of infinitysy ♪ elements so pure atomic number. >> brown: the collaboration was the brainchild of lang, who wanted to form what she calls a... >> folk punk girl group. >> brown: the three women released an album earlier thisn summer. we spoke before a recent performance at the lincoln theater in washington d.c. >> i didn't know if it was going to work, but i thought it wouldl be interesting. and i love these artists as individual sources of great inspiration, so one day i just had the instinct to call them, to email them, and they wrote back in half an hour. >> brown: the canadian-born lang, now 54, is the senior member of the band and probably best known to the wider public, selling two million copies of her 1992 album, "ingenue". ♪ neko case, 45, has been a mainstay of indie rock and country music since the late '90s, both as a solo artist and with the band, the new pornographers. 42-year-old laura veirs, known for mixing classic country and folk, has turned out a range ofr work from a children's record,dr to a film soundtrack, to her 2013 album "warp and weft," which included contributions from case and lang. the three made an important decision from the start: that they would write only original songs for this effort, and write them together as much as possible. >> i often start with lyrics and try to make sure that they're accessible, but slightly off. and laura uses a lot of alternate tunings as a guitar player. and she comes up with incredible melodies. ♪ you know, when you first hear them they seem familiar to youil and then you sing them or play them, and you realize they're on a completely different level. like something familiar is so completely brand new. and the different languages take you outside your comfort zone. >> how do you meld minds to come up with something that's cohesive and make a record that sounds like it's not like a variety show and it was a really hard project for us. >> brown: so how'd you do it? >> some of it just gritting our teeth, like what are we going tk write about today? i don't know, let's go take a walk. there's a fireworks stand. oh, there's a fireworks namede' delirium. that's a good song title, let'se go write a song. oh, we can't finish it, well, here's neko, she'd kind of comee in and write a bridge and finish it. she took that song, "delirium," and made it her own, and addednd her own lyrics and vocals. ♪ >> being the boss of your own career, you get used to having veto power and getting what you want, or as close to what youu want as you have mapped out. >> brown: you didn't get that in this case? >> not always. and it was a really excellent exercise.. >> it was a difficult process at times, like neko said. we're used to having our own t veto power as individual artists. and to hear somebody say, "no, i just don't like that bridge," is excruciating at times. >> we all sulked, we pouted. >> there was some sulking. >> brown: you're laughing as you say it now, right? >> right, but what that ended up doing, because we didn't have a language, we weren't friends, we didn't have a vernacular, a common vernacular between us. so we had to swiftly develop one. ♪ >> brown: they took turns as lead singers-- on "honey andho smoke" it was lang-- with the other two on backup.p. the collaboration has brought great reviews from critics and a summer-long tour around the u.s. you've all three had success. i assume tough times as well. being a working musician, has it been a good life? >> i say, yes. i feel every night like i can't believe this is my job. i get to do this. i love the solitary aspect of writing, because usually i write solitary, just by myself. but i love the teamwork aspectpe of the touring and the recording. >> i like the music. i don't like the business. i get very tired of the travel and moving, constantly moving. ♪ but the hour and a half that i'm making music, i'm one of the happiest people on earth.he >> around 2010, i kind of looke0 up and said, "i'm 40 years old. you know, i chose music.si i don't have a husband, i don't have any kids. like, i chose music." so i had to make a decision, like do i want to do something s else, or do i want to go from journeyman to master? ♪ and i realized, you know, i want to be a really good musician. so this particular opportunityic happening at that time was this beautiful kismet. ♪ >> brown: for now, at least, neko case, k.d. lang, and laura veirs say this is a one-off project-- one album and one tour. and they'll savor the collaborative moment of case/lang/veirs before returning to their solo careers. i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. ♪ ♪ >> ifill: online right now: get a preview of our upcoming profile of alexi pappas, as, greek-american long-distance runner competing at the rio games, who's also a poet. watch her read two of her poems about pushing herself to her limit. all that and more is on oural website: pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: tune in later tonight on "charlie rose." former acting c.i.a. director mike morrell talks about america's challenges overseas and his endorsement of hillary clinton. and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday we'll start a two- part series on living as an adult with autism. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. 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 ofed your future. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economicno performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world.d. more information at macfound.org i >> 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. nr thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org ♪ this is "nightly business re with tyler matheson and sue herrera. ♪ chaos and cancellations. a global computer failure halts all of delta's flights for hours, stranding tens of thousands of passengers worldwide. >> i am proposing an across the board income tax reduction, especially for middle income americans. >> taxes, trade and regulations. donald trump outlines a bold economic plan he says will jump start america's economic growth. rules of the road. a chinese company best known for a search engine is focused now on car engines taking on some of silicone valley's biggest players. those