Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20170817

More on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by 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. Sreenivasan 13 dead, scores more hurt, two arrests grim results of todays attack in barcelona, where a speeding vehicle vaulted a sidewalk and drove down its victims. It follows similar attacks across europe, and last weekend, in charlottesville, virginia. For more, we turn to max gayler, reporting for reuters in barcelona, and lorenzo vidino, who leads the program on extremism at George Washington university. Spain hasnt been the site of this attacks. Weve seen a lot of focus on london and france. Yeah, the last time spain was hit was in 2004 when we had the ma madrid bombings. Since europe has been i. S. I. S. Ing linked, spain has not been touched by radicalization and attacks as some of the northern and Central European countries have. Sreenivasan why is that . For a number of reasons but mostly mobilization in europe for i. S. I. S. Has been a Second Generation phenomenon. The southern countries like spain and italy do not have a lot of Second Generation muslims, persons born and raised in those countries. So im not saying spain has not been touched by radicalization. We have problems. If you look at the spanish enclaves in moroccan territory where apparently at least one of the attackers came from, those areas had a lot of problems, but mainland spain has not been hit with the same intensity in terms of numbers of people radicalized and in terms of foreign fighters, lets say france, u. K. , germany and belgium. Sreenivasan how good are the Security Systems in place in spain with the individuals behind this . Were they on the radar . Since 2004, spain has increased its counterterrorism capabilities. This is a country that has been hit by another form of terrorism, the bosque National Terrorism for a long time. So it has experience dealing with terrorism. Obviously as with other Law Enforcement in the United States as well, they cant intercept or monitor everything. They have disrupted quite a few plots over the last few years, hundreds have been arrested, this, again, in a country that has not seen the levels of radicalization as other European Countries. In barcelona as well, a plot was thwarted last year, pretty sophisticated one. Having said that, its the experience of everybody from europe to the United States that something always falls through the cracks. I think well see in the next few hours whether the individuals who carried out the attack were known to Law Enforcement as is often the case, had not known what happened, and i think thats something well pull out to sea. Sreenivasan this area is popular with tourists. But the method of attack, using a car, a van, anything, its almost unstoppable. It is. I think youve seen a lot of European Countries have put barriers in pedestrian areas. To be honest, im a bit surprised the city of barcelona has not done that in an area that is hugely popular with tourists. I think barcelona is one of the top three destinations of tourists and las ramblas especially, any time day or night is flooded with tourists. I think thats something that will have to be discussed in the aftermath of the attack. But obviously you cant block city centers, you cant close down places like arenas, an attack in manchester or any kind of social life. So, obviously, as any country and i think weve seen that in the states as well, certain precautions have been taken, but you cannot stop life, you cannot militarize. Sreenivasan what about the coordination between interpol, other European Countries, are they sharing information fast enough between countries to say you might have a threat here, here are three or four people who just crossed our border into yours . It is much better compared to a few years back. It is not perfect. Interposition does a good job. A lot of limitations in what can be done. I think you still have political dissidents, even some cases within individual countries, in some cases that may apply to spain, im not saying thats the case now, but political tensions between catalunya and the spanish government. And thats counterintelligence and information sharing. Information sharing is problematic. Sreenivasan lorenzo vidino, George Washington university, thank you so much. Thank you. Sreenivasan in a series of tweets, President Trump condemned the attack and offered help to the people of spain and raised a claim that the u. S. Army used bullets dipped in pigs blood to quell muslim rebels in the philippines years ago. The story has been widely debunked. Wall street plunged on news of the barcelona attack and worries about President Trumps agenda. Dow lost 274 points. Nasdaq fell 123 points and the top u. S. Diplomat insisted today that a potential u. S. Military response to north korea is still on the table. That, after the president s chief strategist, steve bannon, had said there is no military solution to the problem. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson responded, after he and defense secretary jim mattis met with their Japanese Counterparts in washington. A threat of proportions that none of us like to contemplate, has to be backed by Strong Military consequences if north korea chooses wrongly. And i think that is the message that the president has wanted to send to the leadership of north korea. Sreenivasan meanwhile, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, general joseph dunford, said it would be unimaginable to let north korea have nuclear tipped ballistic missiles. In hong kong, three young activists were sent to prison for leading prodemocracy protests in 2014. A Court Sentenced joshua wong, nathan law and alex chow to up to eight months. They helped start the socalled Umbrella Movement against chinese curbs on elections. The three appeared outside the court before the sentencing and rallied supporters with a show of defiance. Even nathan, alex and i will be the ones who may be sent to prison immediately for half to one year. But what we believe is People United will never be defeated. Our courage and determination to fight for free elections and democracy will continue in this longterm battle. Sreenivasan the activists originally received much lighter sentences, but the court overturned those and imposed harsher penalties. New warnings today about the refugee crisis in south sudan. The u. N. Says one Million People have fled to uganda, with 1,800 more arriving every day to escape civil war. Video from the charity worldvision shows the largest refugee camp in the world, and Officials Say uganda is struggling to meet their needs. And, back in this country, drug maker mylan will pay 465 million to settle federal allegations of pricegouging for the epipen. The device can stop allergic reactions in emergencies. The Justice Department says mylan overbilled medicaid by more than a billion dollars, over a decade. Still to come on the newshour we talk to leaders of two cities about the controversy of removing Confederate Monuments. What white house strategist Steve Bannons recent statments reveal about the trump agenda. Making sense of the Retail Industrys transformation. Sreenivasan now, to the fallout from charlottesville, and the spotlight it cast on Confederate Monuments. The president spoke out in their defense today, even as the campaign to clear them from public spaces intensified. Statues of confederate leaders, in baltimore, removed in the night. A monument to confederate soldiers, in durham, north carolina, torn down by protesters monday. Virginia Governor Terry mcauliffe joined in, on cbs this morning. Its time for these monuments to come down, its time for us to move together after what happened in charlottesville. Sreenivasan on twitter, President Trump lamented the loss of Confederate Monuments. Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. He said. And he went on robert e lee, Stonewall Jackson whos next, washington, jefferson . So foolish but in durham, protesters hundreds of people turned out today to show support for the people arrested in monday nights incident. And elsewhere the reality is that it never should have been there and you sreenivasan protesters rallied in tampa, florida, after the local government said residents will have to raise money on their own to remove a Confederate Monument there. The cries for action echoed in congress, with House Minority leader nancy pelosi saying in a statement the confederate statues in the halls of congress have always been reprehensible. A spokesman for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said its up to each state to decide whose statues will represent it in the capitol. Back in charlottesville, hundreds gathered for a vigil last night at the university of virginia. Plans for the march were spread by word of mouth. The crowd walked the same route the White Supremacists had taken. Was a tragedy and were here to take back the lawn for this student generation, all the previous, all the future generations of students who walked the lawn. Equality, justice and freedom. Sreenivasan but governor mcauliffe suggested President Trump should stay away from charlottesville. If the president wants to i do not want the president to come here to continue on with the speeches hes given for the last couple of days. Sreenivasan the president , in turn, denied equating white nationalists with counter protesters, and he tweeted that the news media totally misrepresent what i say about hate, bigotry etc. He also dismissed republican senator Lindsey Graham of south carolina, as publicity seeking after graham accused him of stoking tensions. But republican senator bob corker of tennessee went further today. He charged the president has not demonstrated the stability and competence needed for the white house. Sreenivasan President Trump decided to abandon a planned council of advisers on infrastructure. We turn to a closer look as challenges cities faced while trying to deal not only with controversial statutes but backlash that can bring protesters into the streets. We spoke to two people who deal directly with these issues. Jim gray is mayor of lexington, kentucky, tonight the city council is debate hough to handle their Confederate Monuments. We spoke to the mayor before the council meet beg gan and lieutenant ryan lee is the executive officer of the Police Bureau Rapid Response team of portland, oregan where violent protests erupted earlier this summer. Welcome to you both. Jim gray, this is something your city may be facing tune. Its not exactly the same parallel but there are Confederate Monuments youve wanted to move and relocate and theres some tension about that. Thats right, hari, and for more than a year now we have examined this issue, and on saturday with the regrettable and tragic events in charlottes, i made the decision to accelerate the putting before the city council a resolution to relocate these monuments, and thats because it was the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do. The monuments today stand on really what amounts to sacred ground, ground where slaves were once auctioned, were sold into slavery, men, women and children were sold into slavery. So this is the right thing to do to remove and to relocate these statutes in a place where the full context and the full story of the tragedy of the civil war could be shared and shared and taught. Sreenivasan mayor gray, staying with you for a second, how is your Police Department preparing for the possibility that people who want to tear the statue down want to make lexington another example . Our Police Department is disciplined and prepared, but let me tell you about the legal requirements. The law in kentucky requires that these statutes, any movement of these statutes first be put before whats called the kentucky military heritage commission. So within the law today, we are operating within that law. Our police are prepared. We are a peaceful city. We are a city thats a giving and compassionate city, but were also disciplined and prepared. Sreenivasan lieutenant ryan lee, your city faced some very difficult protests. How did you get through them . Its important for us when were approaching these situations to understand that there is an exercise a lawful exercise of First Amendment rights and while i may personally find the content of somebodys speech personally reprehensible, my role as a Police Officer is to facility at the time that lawful and peaceful expression of somebodys First Amendment rights, to try and help navigate for those people who wish to express recallly their free speech to give them a platform for it while at the same time weighing out the governmental interests to keep the peace, maintain law and order and meet the expectations of the police force. Its not an easy, one solution fits all. We reached out to a variety of organizers from all sides of the political spectrum, trying to get them to selfplace, and developing plans in place to keep public order if necessary. Sreenivasan mayor gray, is that what your Police Department is doing . Tell me about your strategy. Sure, well, our police chief has reached out to charlottesville, to those responsible in charlottesville to try to gain Lessons Learned there. Our Police Department is often set up as one of the finest in the country, an example in the country for its discipline, for its preparedness, dealing with crises, dealing with demands routinely. So were prepared. Were reaching out to state and federal and local jurisdictions who may provide help and theyre doing a commendable job of preparing. But as the lieutenant said, this country one of its founding principles is the right to free speech. But when it extends into hatred and violent exregs, thats when we need to be prepared and we are. Sreenivasan mayor gray, where is the threshold . One of the most striking images of charlottesville were the Police Standing back and people fighting right in front of those officers. Get involved when x or y happens . Thats the responsibility of our police chief. The command unit of our police. The lieutenant knows those protocols well. We expect to deal with these issues, should they emerge, we expect and will deal with them responsibly but effectively and in a disciplined way. Sreenivasan lieutenant, looking back at what happened in charlottesville, not asking you to arm chair quarterback, but if this happened in your city, what are the guidelines . What are the strategies . I know there are cas case by cae decisions the officers make but there seem to be different approaches the officers take to cordon off people into different spaces so they wont clash as easily, maybe use bicycles. What do you do. We try to cordon people off as appropriate. We can put in place time and Space Management restrictions. We have to allow for alternative forms of expression. The ability to set opposing groups apart, whether through fencing, through physically locating officers between them, thats an option, its a possibility. What is legally possible from state to state and city to city changes, so some of the things that may be both legally acceptable here in the city of portland and socially acceptable with the expectations of the public may vary from place to place. So the options on the table for charlottesville may not be the same for us. People see it as a dichotomy. They look and see what they think are homogenous groups. This represents one side, this another. But over the years, weve learned there are a variety of likeminded clusters that form out a plot point for a spectrum of opinion. Its recognizing those people in those groups that plot as wanting to carry out a lawful expression of their First Amendment rights, trying to communicate and coordinate with them and trying to get them to outgroup or excise those that really are seeking a violent confrontation. So if the police can address the conduct there and keep it safe for all parties to express free speech. Sreenivasan lieutenant lee, is it more complicated when groups of protesters are attacking each other versus one specific group you know thats out there . It makes the equation more complicated but, ultimately, when were dealing with these violent protests, these violent confrontations, were really looking at conduct, not content. It does change the equation that sometimes well have events where the animosity is focused towards the police and now we have to be concerned with sort of a third party in multiple different groups who are really, again, when were talking about the conduct, there are those people in those groups who are seeking violence and, unfortunately, there are times that violence can be directed towards somebody of an opposing political view or simply directed toward the police. It makes it a more complex equation to work through but ultimately were dealing with conduct. Sreenivasan lieutenant lee of portland, oregan and mayor jim gray of lexington, kentucky, thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you. Sreenivasan now to a man often at the center of controversy in the trump white house, whose outsized influence is often discussed, yet he is rarely heard from. Our john yang is here to help fill in the picture. Yang thanks, hari. Earlier today i spoke with a journalist who got an unexpected phone call from stephen bannon, President Trumps embattled chief strategist robert kuttner, who is the co founder and coeditor of the american prospect. Hes also a professor of social policy at brandeis university. We were also joined by joshua green, a Senior National correspondent for bloomberg businessweek, and author of the bestselling book devils bargain steve bannon, donald trump, and the storming of the presidency. I began by asking kuttner about how his conversation with bannon came about. I got an email from someone at the white house who says that mr. Bannon would like me to come into the white house and meet with him. So i double checked the email address which looked legit and called the guy and he seemed legit, and i said, look, im on vacation, but this is kind of a fastmoving story, so i would be happy to speak with him by phone if he would like to. What had happened, he read a column i had written the day before basically making the point that because we have been so passive in taking on illegal chinese trade practices that beijing now has a huge amount of leverage over us where we want them to help us with north korea but the price for that is weve got to fold our hand in terms of taking a hard line with them on trade. So bannon read that and felt he had a soul mate and did not take the precaution of making clear whether we were on background or on the record and called me up and sounded as if we were soul mates and best friends, and it was like i was part of a private strategy session with stephen bannon, which was really quite bizarre. About two or three minutes in, i said to myself, oh, wow, he is not putting this off the record and im certainly not going to mention it if he doesnt. The ground rules are that when a Government Official calls you and doesnt say whether its off or on the record, the default setting is that its on the record. So 25 minutes later i have the astonishing interview which i recorded. Yang this is the first time you ever talked to him . Absolutely. He made it sound like hed been reading my stuff for years and thought it was great, the usual flattery stuff. Yang you have been talking to steven on and often since 2011. Does this ring true to you, joshua green . Absolutely, i had written an article about sarah palin and i get a phone call from a staffer out of the blue saying i represent a guy named steve bannon which is a filmmaker infatuated is sarah palin and said mr. Bannon read your article and would like to get together and talk with you. In this case it was at a movie screening for bannons film. I met him and hes an interesting, smart, charismatic guy who had a distinct brand of politics that i thought was interesting and worth writing about. So i got to know him and basically have been interviewing him ever since. Yang bob, you mentioned two bits. He talked about contradicting the president s strategy on north korea. He said until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 Million People in seoul dont die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, i dont know what youre talking about. Theres no military solution here. They got us. What was your reaction when you heard that . Well, i thought he was right on the merits, but the first thing i noticed was this is not exactly the administrations view, certainly not Donald Trumps view, so i said to myself, huh, hes being rather incautious and shows no need to defend his president and hes just speaking his mind and it certainly is not the president s view. Yang he also talked about ethnonationallism, he called them losers. Its a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much and we have to help question it more. These guys are a collection of clowns. That was completely disingenuous because he as much as anybody else in america is responsible for assembling this collection of clowns as a Political Force, and people like bannon and like trump, they say what they need to say, and if they contradict themselves today relative to what they said yesterday, well, thats how you do it, and if hes trying to ingratiate himself with somebody whos an editor of a liberal magazine, an american prospect, hes going to try to say what he needs to to try and persuade me hes not such a bad guy, but you have to take that with a ton of salt and i think its the usual dog whistle stuff where the altright is not going to think steve bannon has somehow had a deathbed conversion and now thinks theyre bad guys. Yang josh, what do you think was going on when help said those things . I think he was trying to express a credentialed journalist and somebody he admires. Bannon and i had similar conversations in the research for my book and i asked him because hes often charged with antisemitism and White Nationalism and i said if you dont believe it why are you in these causes. He called people who marched freaks and goober, clowns to bob, were individually ridiculous people, collectively they represented a Political Force that he thought he could script into his larger americafirst nationalism into trumpian politics and use them and essentially manipulate them as tools to carry out his political goals. Yang he ended the conversation with bob about saying he wanted to see you at the white house after labor day to continue discussion of china and trade. Do you think thats going to happen, bob . I think as long as donald trump is doubling down on the alliance with the far right, bannons job may be safe because he needs bannon to guide him through that strategy. So i am certainly not going to predict whether bannons job is safe, but i think the point is a lot of other people in the white house may be furious at bannon but theres only one person who counts and thats donald trump. I agree. If you listen to what donald trump had said in the wake of the charlottesville attack, it has been precisely the sort of thing that bannon says and believes, even though its something that is galling to republican elected officials, to ordinary americans, to many advisors within trumps own white house who are leaking to reporters their dismay and disgust but dont have the courage to come out and say it publicly or do what they ought to do and resign from their position at the white house, if they dont agree with what donald trump is saying. Yang joshua green, robert kuttner, you both have fascinating insights into this guy steve bannon. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Sreenivasan stay with us, coming up on the newshour why the u. S. Has one of the worst Maternal Mortality rates in the developed world. A brief but spectacular take on writing compelling stories. And a world war ii veteran returns a japanese soldiers flag 73 years later. But first, as more and more shopping is done online, what will become of the 16 million americans who work in the Retail Industry . Our economics correspondent, paul solman, takes a look. Its part of our series, making sense which airs thursdays on the newshour. This is a great, great, great basic black top. Reporter this summer Jennifer Richter opened her own clothing boutique, online. This is just the future of retail. The brick and mortar stores, theyre just going to keep trimming the fat and keep eliminating positions. Reporter richter speaks from experience. In january she was one of over 10,000 employees laid off from struggling Department Store chain macys. It just spiraled out of control with traffic down, people not coming in, online sales going up. It just happened really fast. Reporter richter worked at macys in manhattan as one of 14 Regional Directors for stylists. Every one of her colleagues was axed. Reporter so far as you know, 12 out of 14 still looking for work, half a year later . Yeah. And these, i was with macys for two years, and the other 12 are 10 years plus. Some of them had been with the company for 30 years. And when you get to the level we were at, its harder and harder. Its scary, it really is. Reporter unable to find work at another retailer, richter is going it alone. Really just using instagram, social media to really market myself, and instead of fighting online like i did for so many years, im just embracing it and joining them in doing what i feel theres a need in the market for. Reporter as youve surely heard by now, the growth of e commerce is wreaking havoc on traditional retail and its workforce. 5,300 store closings were announced in the first half of 2017, empty storefronts youve probably seen somewhere near you. More painful the 64,000 job cuts said to be in the works. Mark cohen runs the Retail Studies Program at columbia business school. The retail worker is in a world of hurt. Retailing employees, some 10 of the employed population of the United States. These are folks who are often tethered by way of employment to a shopping mall. Theres no pathway from a Part Time Job in a mall, in a Specialty Store or Department Store to some other form of employment thats local and available. Reporter official statistics show the Retail Sector shedding only 26,000 or so jobs in the past 12 months, but cohen says that may understate the case. I think its going to be difficult to pinpoint the Employment Status of the folks being laid off. Many of them are parttime employees, so they dont necessarily get captured in the employment numbers. Reporter Malcolm Skoop Hovis worked at oldtime retailer k mart. Kmarts got to compete with walmart, target, walgreens, with amazon doing deliveries now, too much competition for kmart. Reporter hovis was hired as a temp at this kmart outside washington months before it closed. Half the store is empty. Inventory is getting smaller. You can come in here and get little knick knacks. Reporter over 300 sears and kmart stores are scheduled to close this year. Sears holding company, which also owns kmart, has shed some 180,000 jobs in the last seven years. Mark cohen was once a sears executive. I spent seven years at sears, both here in the United States and in canada. They are hanging on by a fingernail, at best. The genre that was legacy retail, is for the most part, in terrible trouble. Reporter the main reason will not surprise you. One eighth of all retail sales were transacted online last year, up 16 over just the year before. More folks shopping on computers and phones; fewer driving to the malls, some of which have literally gone to seed. Theres another threat to retail jobs as well automation, as in Cashierless Convenience stores like those being tested in china. And closer to home. So toll the knell for jobs in retail . Not just yet. Since 2007, weve seen about 400,000 jobs created in the e commerce sector. Reporter Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist at the progressive policy institute, thinks online may spawn more jobs than it whacks. Weve had a small decline in brick and Mortar Retail. Weve had a large increase in e commerce jobs. A lot of them are jobs in Fulfillment Centers. Reporter mandel argues that much of the growth in warehouse employment is actually tied to online retail. Ive been able to track these jobs using Government Data down to the county level. You can see when a Fulfillment Center opens up in the county, you have a big jump in what the government classifies as warehouse jobs. Reporter on a recent morning in hot summer baltimore, thousands of jobseekers lined up outside an amazon Fulfillment Center for a oneday jobs fair held at a dozen sites across the country to recruit 50,000 workers to pick, pack, and ship orders. Reporter amazons lauren lynch. Here in baltimore, were looking to fill 1,200 roles. You know a few years ago we didnt have 70 Fulfillment Centers across the country. Now weve got more than 70 and we need associates to help us fill those orders. Reporter okay, maybe every retailer now calls its employe associates these days. But no matter what they do, more than 382,000 employees work for amazon worldwide and the numbers growing. In january, the company promised to create 100,000 more jobs in the u. S. Alone. I think amazons going to rule the world, soon. reporter single mom Candace Taylor got a job offer after almost a year of unemployment. Im a little older, and for me to have a company thats stable and to have something that can become a career, is exactly what i need. Reporter also, the above minimumwage pay and benefits, health insurance, retirement, are better than at the mall. They say theyre starting off at 13 an hour. Reporter damion brown makes 10 an hour at walmart. Eh, walmart, its okay, its not, i wouldnt say its the best. Youre not getting the pay, right . You might get the hours, you not going get the pay out thats great. Youre not going to get paid time off. Reporter and Michael Mandel says its right there in the data. On average, pay in Fulfillment Centers is about 30 higher than pay in brick and Mortar Retail in the same area. Not only that, retail jobs, they tend to be parttime, maybe not paying benefits. The Fulfillment Centers have a lot of fulltime jobs, have a lot of fulltime jobs that have benefits. They seem to be better jobs, as far as i can figure out. Reporter dangelo bryan, whos been packing shipments at the baltimore Fulfillment Center for a couple months now, even convinced his friends to apply. I got experience in just about a little bit of everything, and so far, id definitely say amazon is the best job that ive had so far. Reporter but lets not romanticize here the work is grueling. Were packing really, really fast because we have shipments nonstop. The first couple of weeks, it was like, i dont know how people do it. Being on your feet for ten hours a shift, 44 hours a week, sometimes 50. You know, after those first two weeks, its like, whew. Reporter now, warehouse work is dominated by men while the retail economy is losing jobs that are mostly held by women. And Fulfillment Center jobs simply may not be feasible for laidoff brickandmortar workers for a host of reasons, among them, says cohen. These are folks who need flexible scheduling and are not able to commute 50 or 100 miles to an amazon Fulfillment Center, thats open somewhere in the vicinity. Reporter but to mandel, the net effect is positive, especially given americas ever widening inequality gap. The rise of the Fulfillment Center jobs, is having the effect of reducing inequality. Because what youre doing is youre talking about raising the wages for people with a high school education, by 30 . Thats significant. Reporter as automation takes over store jobs, though, wont robots eventually displace the pickers and packers too . Amazon already uses robots to move goods around. Not to worry, says amazons lynch the company will simply keep growing and have to add jobs. Having robots in our Fulfillment Centers means that we can have more inventory, which means we need more associates to help us fulfill all that inventory, all those customer orders. Reporter but for how long will amazon and others rely on humans to pick and pack . And so we end with cartman, a robot built to pick and stow items in a warehouse. It recently won a robotics prize, sponsored by amazon. For the pbs newshour, this is economics correspondent paul solman. Sreenivasan next week paul will look at how retailers both on and offline are responding to shifting consumer habits. And on our website, the cofounder of eyeglass chain warby parker gives his take on the transformation of retail. Thats at pbs. Org newshour. Sreenivasan now, a troubling trend in womens health. Doctors and nurses have worked hard and successfully to reduce the u. S. Infant mortality rate in recent decades. Whats less known and less understood is the rise in Maternal Mortality mothers dying after pregnancy or from childbirth related causes. Renee montagne of npr and nina martin of propublica have teamed up for a series of reports on the subject. Their latest installments came out today. Judy woodruff recently spoke with them both. Woodruff renee montagne, nina martin, thank you very much for talking with us. Americans think we have the best health care, medical care in the world. How can it be, renee montagne, that we have this problem . There are a lot of reasons. There are underlying reasons most people would recognize lowincome women, women of color, women in rural settings have less access to the best possible medical care. But what were finding and what the numbers are showing is this could actually happen to just about anyone. I mean, were finding women who had who had what would have thought to have been the best of care. Right, and thats part of the problem is that a lot of doctors, a lot of nurses, a lot of hospitals think that Maternal Mortality is something that happens in other countries. Its a thing of the past in the u. S. So basically two issues have arisen. One is that theres just a lack of recognition, a lack of awareness about what lifethreatening complications look like. On the part of doctors, hospitals . All of the above, nurses as well, and patients a lot of times because patients are not necessarily educated. We dont want to worry the patients. So when an emergency does happen, the next thing that sort of kicks in is that hospitals and doctors and nurses often are not prepared for the emergency, so theres sort of a denial and delay. There has been a lot of focus on making sure babies are worn. Exactly. One of the things we came across in recent conversations, Bill Callahan of the c. D. C. Who spent his life studying this, had an article from 1950 that declared victory over Maternal Mortality. Women didnt die in childbirth in great numbers any more, they said. Basically, that was you know, that sophisticated journal was the beginning of an emphasis on saving babies. And, of course, babies do die in much greater numbers, they are more vulnerable, but basically everyone turned their sights to the wonderful ways you could save babies, new technology and focusing on neonatal units and the next 20 or so years became part of a good birthing center. Woodruff you both have done so much reporting on this. The series is running over many months. We have a clip now of the husband of a woman, she was a neonatal nurse, so she worked in health care, but she ended up with either a lack of diagnosis, the wrong diagnosis, and this is a clip, as i guess shes going into surgery, but where her condition has severely deteriorated. Lets listen. So they took her to the operating room, and the neurosurgeon, after about four hours, when he came out, he said that shes still alive, shes basically on life support, but shes brain dead. So, at that point, we decided to withdraw. Woodruff so this was lauren bloomstein, nina, a nurse in new jersey. They thought everything was fine, she delivered the baby and things went terribly wrong. Lauren is the example of a person that everyone assumes does not die in childbirth or pregnancyrelated causes in the u. S. She had great health care, she was a nurse herself, her husband larry was a doctor, with her in the delivery room. He never left her except to take the baby to the nursery. She came in with a condition called preeclampsia, which is pregnancyinduced hypertension. She had not had it. She came in and her symptoms were not recognized from the moment she came to the hospital. Woodruff are there Lessons Learned, renee, by hospitals, by medical care providers around the country as a result of situations like this . There is something of a movement, in fact, among concerned medical professionals to actually address these problems, but the lessons in the individual situation often come from the mother dying, and then that hospital may rethink what its doing, doctors may learn a lesson. Reporter . Woodruff so its a lack of training . Is. A look of training, education and recognition in some cases, but its also a lack of having a set of protocols and standards in place for women where an emergency happens, a hemorrhage, for example, or in laurens case preeclampsia. Theres a specific set of things that doctors, hospitals and nurses should start to do immediately as soon as they recognize the symptoms, but often those standards arent even in place in very good hospitals until its too late or until the next time. Woodruff again, it seems stunning. Again, we think of the United States, renee, having the most advanced medical care in the world. How could it be that the medical team who are working with women giving birth arent prepared to deal with all these circumstances . Well, when you hear these stories, you actually ask that question every time. Theyre almost unbelievable. But the reality is hospitals have protocols, but theyre not necessarily well practiced, theyre not consistent, theyre not lists for people to follow. When you see one thing, that means the other. You dont think about it. Its deeply embedded in the American Medical System amongst obstetricians and obstetrical nurses. Smaller and rural hospitals are less likely to have these protocols in place. Theyre smaller, have less deliveries and are less likely toker a lifethreatening complication, so thats another problem. Woodruff we started talking about whether there were other factors, socioeconomic status, where women whether this was a planned pregnancy or not, whether the mom took care of herself during the pregnancy. Renee, race, age of the mother, are those not factors that what researchers will say is those are all factors and all there and to some extent theyre recognized, women who have highrisk pregnancies, and thats recognized, if youre obese or if you have hypertensive some kind of hypertensive disease to begin with, those things are watched. If youre in a good hospital, of course, the American Medical System is such that there are enough people not in good hospitals. So, yes, these are factors but researchers will say theyre not the reason women die. Women die from these conditions, these complications. There is a c. D. C. Foundation analysis that has it that 60 of all these deaths could be prevented. The underlying con the underlying conditions that women die from are not age, its not being obese or being africanamerican, although africanamerican women do die at two to three times the rate of white women, its heart disease, a heartrelated condition, hemorrhage, preeclampsia, an infection that is not diagnosed or treated well. These are things theyre dying of that they dont in all instances need to die of. Woodruff a wake up call in so many ways. Renee montagne, nina martin, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Sreenivasan now to another in our brief but spectacular series, where we ask people to describe their passions. Tonight, we hear from journalist and novelist calvin trillin. His book jackson, 1964 and other dispatches from fifty years of reporting on race in america, became available in paperback last month. I was sort of between projects a little while ago and i thought, this would be a Good Opportunity to recatalog my collection of civil war artifacts, but i dont have a collection of civil war artifacts, or any other collections. This is time to put that harpsichord kit together um, i dont have a harpsichord kit, uh, i dont have a golf game to polish, so, i suppose its just writing or sitting quietly in a dark room. For 15 years, i did a piece every three weeks for the new yorker that was about 3,000 words. The new yorker didnt require what newspaper people sometimes call the nut graph which is the paragraph that tells you why this story is important. The billboard paragraph in some of my stories would have to Say Something like, all over the country, disreputable people in small towns are killing each other Something Like that, i mean, i didnt have one of those. So i was only interested in whether it was an interesting story. I didnt know much about the new yorker when i was a kid, i had one cousin who took the new yorker, and she was considered rather strange. I definitely backed into journalism, i think most people of my era backed into journalism because they didnt want to go to law school or they were trying to write a novel and couldnt figure out how to do it. I knew i wasnt going to do anything that required manual dexterity or mathematics skills. Ive always said that mathematics was my worst subject, i was never able to persuade the teacher that many of my answers were meant ironically. I took a writing course in college that had those usual mottos, like, like show, dont tell all that sort of thing, and one of them was, individualize by specific detail. I thought that was the most useful one, particularly in attempts at humor. Humor is sort of indefensible if the if the woman in the second row doesnt laugh, it isnt funny. Thats one reason theres no way to sort of try to imagine your audience when youre writing, i think you could only satisfy yourself. My wife alice, who died in 2001, was the person i showed rough drafts to, i guess, i think the only person. Its true, what all writers want to hear when they show somebody something is, brilliant, dont change a word. Even if you know its sort of rough. When alice died, i was going over the galleys of a novel about parking in new york, a subject so silly that i think a subject so silly that i think i wouldve hesitated to submit the book to a publisher if she hadnt, somewhat to her surprise, liked it. When the novel was published, the dedication said, i wrote this for alice, actually, i wrote everything for alice. My name is calvin trillin, and this is my brief but spectacular take on my life and writing. You can watch more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs. Org newshour brief. Now to our newshour shares, something that caught our eye that may be of interest to you, too. A 93yearold world war ii veteran traveled more than 5,000 miles from his montana home this month to return a treasured keepsake to a grateful japanese family. The newshours Julia Griffin explains. Reporter warm temperatures and rainy skies greeted Marvin Strombo as he returned to japan this week for the first time in 73 years. During the war, strombo served as an elite sniper scouter with the second marine division. Alone on the japanese line during the 1944 invasion of saipan, he came across the body of a dead japanese soldier. I saw this soldier, japanese soldier laying there. And i knew he was an officer because he had a sword on. Reporter but strombo also noticed something else. A customary flag the solider carried, known as a yosegaki hinomaru, that bore 180 signatures of his family and village members. Strombo knew such flags were given to departing soldiers as a symbol of good luck and support. I finally realized if i didnt take it somebody else would have and it would be lost forever. So the only way i could do that as i reached out to take the flag i made a promise to him that some day i would try to return it. Reporter for decades, the soldiers identity remained unknown. Until five years ago, when strombo reached out to the obon society, a nonprofit that coordinates the return of battlefield souvenirs. The group identified the soldier as sadao yasue of higashishirakwa, japan. And on tuesday, strombo made good on his promise to return the ancestral heirloom, during an emotional ceremony with yasues surviving brother and two sisters. It was a very emotional moment really. I saw that the mora that, the older sister and i saw her holding that flag about broke my heart. Ive fulfilled a promise which im happy about. I could see that it made them quite happy. Thats the main thing. Reporter the poignant event, between onetime enemies and now friends, coincided with the japanese obon holiday, when families return to their hometowns to remember departed loved ones. For the pbs newshour, im Julia Griffin. Sreenivasan on the newshour online right now, a total Solar Eclipse will sweep across the entire continental United States on monday and anticipation couldnt be higher. If you plan to watch, wherever you are, we give you five things you need to remember. Also, today on marthas vineyard, Harvard Universitys Hutchins Center hosted a forum examining race and racism in the age of trump. Coming after events in charlottesville and the reactions to it, republican political commentator, Armstrong Williams challenged the president. When you see what happened in charlottesville and clearly someone with arming and guns and batons there, and you know the history of the ku klux klan and White Supremacy, its just common sense for any american that you would come together and you would condemn that in the harshest of terms and give no indication that whatever theyre doing has any righteousness to it, any moral turpitude to it, and for the president to have taken three days i speak as a human being, not as a conservative and not as a liberal. It was embarrassing, it was not leadership, and the president should give no energy, no Second Thought to the fact that these neo nazis, these White Supremacy have any place in american society, and what they represented, and what it represented for our history, whether youre african american, whether youre jewish, just plain common sense, the president needs to grow up and lead. Sreenivasan and thats the newshour for tonight. Im hari sreenivasan. 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 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. Captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org welcome to the program tonight we begin with our continued coverage with charlottesville, virginia win Nick Confessore and elle reeve. This was a the first protest movement to be online. People who could not have their views in public and they congregated on Message Boards and mostly anonymous. And the president came out in recent days and said it was a real view to have to be a national supremacist and he endorsed their views in some ways. Its the first time in history a president has actually done that for them and they were excited