SUMMARY: High school valedictorians are the best in their class academically. But a new report finds that the top graduates of Boston’s public high schools are encountering great obstacles to attaining educational and economic milestones. John Yang talks to the Boston Globe's Malcolm Gay, one of the story's reporters, about how former stars are struggling and why success takes more than scholarship money.
SUMMARY: An epic nor'easter, a full moon high tide and a rising sea all conspired to swallow up Boston with an icy cold winter flood. What has been a somewhat rare event is believed in the coming years to become much more common due to the effects of climate change. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports on how Boston is preparing and whether it will be sufficient.
SUMMARY: In our NewsHour Shares moment of the day, Boston's inner city often sees a spike in violence during the summer, when many students are out of school and on the streets. But as special correspondent Tina Martin from PBS station WGBH reports, one mother is trying to change that leading young people into nature.
SUMMARY: In Boston public schools, 3, 4 and 5-year-olds are getting their first introduction to math. Before they walk through the kindergarten door, the “Building Blocks” curriculum is designed to encourage very young children to think and talk about math concepts throughout the days, by providing lessons through innovative games. Special correspondent Cat Wise reports.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Students in Boston are heading back to the classroom this week, where the school district's youngest learners are taking on math in a whole new way.
Special correspondent Cat Wise reports for our weekly education segment, Making the Grade.
WOMAN: Ready, go.
CHILDREN: One, two, three, four, five.
CAT WISE, Special correspondent: The scene may look like indoor recess, but these preschool students are jumping joyfully for a lesson in mathematics.
WOMAN: Who's getting warmed up now?
CAT WISE: Even the teachers in this Boston public elementary are warming up to the idea of math instruction for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds.
WOMAN: Beautiful.
CAT WISE: Sara Gardner teaches pre-kindergarten at Edward Everett School.
SARA GARDNER, Teacher, Edward Everett School: The curriculum activities, they're fun. They're fun. And as a teacher, you really get to dig deeply into the development of math and math ideas in young kids.
CAT WISE: Boston schools have adopted a curriculum called Building Blocks, which encourages kids to think about and discuss math concepts throughout the day.
Linda Ruiz Davenport directs math programs for Boston Public Schools.
LINDA RUIZ DAVENPORT, Mathematics Director, Boston Public Schools: Getting young children involved in mathematics at an early age helps foster their curiosity about mathematics, particularly mathematics in their environment.
There's a moment in almost every movie when people in the audience who really know the line of work depicted on screen cry out in frustration and say: “Oh, come on!” “Absurd.” “Never happens.”
Over the decades, Hollywood screenwriters have taken liberties with every imaginable profession and craft, from doctors to lawyers to spies to police detectives. Rocky Balboa survives punches that would decapitate an ordinary boxer. The car chases in 'The Bourne Identity' defy physics. John McClane, the hard-boiled cop in the 'Die Hard' series, displays a supernatural ability to evade bullets.
Journalism movies have had their share of utterly improbable moments. In the 1994 film “The Paper,” the city editor of a New York City tabloid gets into a fist fight with his female boss as he tries to stop the presses. (Not a great career move.) More recently, the first season of HBO's television series 'The Newsroom' showed a producer landing a series of astounding scoops in the first hours after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon. The reporter's information came from miraculously well-placed sources – a sister who worked at Halliburton and a close friend who happened to be a junior BP executive attending all the key crisis meetings.
All of this makes “Spotlight,” the film based on the Boston Globe's investigation of the Catholic Church, a remarkable achievement. The movie, which has been nominated for six Academy Awards including best picture, vividly captures the mix of frustration, drudgery and excitement that goes into every great investigative story. Where liberties were taken, and there were a few, they are in line with the realities of the news business.
One of the most credible aspects of the movie is the cluelessness with which the reporters begin their quest. As is often the case, the Globe's group of reporters, known as the “Spotlight” Team, have no idea of the size and scope of what they're trying to examine. At first, they stumble around, lacking the most basic information about how the church bureaucracy worked.
The notion of pedophile priests was not new. Newspapers from Dallas to Portland had done deeply reported stories on individual cases. Boston itself had just witnessed the criminal trial of a particularly notorious priest, Father John J. Geoghan. Initially, senior editors at the Globe are not even persuaded there was a story worth chasing.
As the film briefly acknowledges, the Globe was behind the Boston Phoenix, a respected alternative weekly, in covering the subject for local readers. Kristen Lombardi, a reporter for the Phoenix, had already written a series of stories implicating Cardinal Bernard Law, the leader of Boston's archdiocese, in allowing Geoghan to remain in daily contact with children for three decades.
“Spotlight” opens with the arrival of Marty Baron, a veteran journalist who took over at the Globe after a stint as editor of the Miami Herald. As investigative reporters know well, Florida is a reporters' paradise, lousy with graft, corruption and colorful characters. The state's public records laws are decisively tilted toward openness. When a Globe columnist covering the Geoghan trial wrote that “the truth may never be known,” Baron sat down with the head of the “Spotlight” team, Walter “Robby” Robinson, and asked him to take a fresh look at the issue.
The editor suggested filing a lawsuit to force release of records the Catholic Church had submitted under court seal. Such suits were unheard of in Massachusetts. Liev Schreiber, the actor who portrays Baron, captures the true life editor's white-hot focus and intensity, so much so that long-time colleagues were taken aback by the resemblance.
The movie accurately depicts the team's key early breakthrough. The reporters figured out that priests who had “acted out” with children were often listed in the diocese's phone book as 'on leave.' They obtained years of directories and pored through thousands of entries to create a database, using the then-remarkable new technology known as a computer spreadsheet. With artful editing and a stirring score, director Tom McCarthy made this excruciatingly boring work an inspiring event, which in a way it was.
Another turning point came when Sacha Pfeiffer, the Globe reporter played by Rachel McAdams, knocks on the door of a priest who off-handedly acknowledges that he has abused children. (He asserts, bizarrely, that his conduct was not improper because he was not sexually aroused.) The reporter is clearly flustered and unprepared for this admission and she rushes through the interview before a woman at the house can slam the door. The practice of “door stopping” is routine for investigative journalists; nearly all such encounters end in failure. But the few attempts that succeed deliver an adrenalin kick unlike anything in reporting.
Fascinatingly, one of the more compelling scenes about journalism in the movie was invented by Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, the screenwriters who worked closely with the reporters and editors involved the story.
It comes late in the film, after the “Spotlight” team has figured out that scores of Boston-area priests had abused children. Eric MacLeish, a lawyer for the victims, angrily tells Robinson that he sent the Globe a list of 20 priests “and you buried it.” Soon after, the reporters come across a story that ran deep inside the Globe's metro section when Robinson was in charge of local coverage.
The writers came across the buried story when they interviewed MacLeish as part of their research for the film. They seized on it as the perfect way to illustrate the Globe's earlier failures to investigate an important local institution. The conversation between MacLeish and Robinson is fictional. But the sentiments portrayed in the movie are real. “It happened on my watch and I'll go to confession on it,” the Robinson told Entertainment Weekly. “Like any journalist who's been around this long, I've made my share of mistakes.”
In investigative reporting, of course, nearly all great stories are screamingly obvious in retrospect. The reporting and documents the Globe obtained through its lawsuit proved that Church leaders had knowingly shuffled around pedophile priests from parish to parish. Geoghan turned out to be a piece of a much, much larger story, one that has rippled across the United States and the world over the past 15 years. Baron has pointed out that the movie is not a stenographic record of how the investigation unfolded. But it gets the big things right, providing a compelling picture of how great reporters break big stories.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including a death sentence for Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, an Amtrak funding and safety debate after the deadly derailment, the Senate fight over the possible Asia trade deal and questions for Jeb Bush on shifting support for the Iraq war.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): So, I want to ask you first, though, both about the Boston verdict, sentencing verdict.
Mark, you’re from Boston. This is the death sentence, unanimous death sentence.
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: It is, Judy.
And the one just outstanding image I have is that of Bill and Denise Richard, the parents of little Martin, the little angel 8-year-old who was blown up in front of their eyes while their daughter, Jane, lost her leg, and their request to give life without parole. Otherwise, they said, the death sentence, we will relive this. Every appeal that is made, we will relive the worst day of our life.
It is an aspect that — and a perspective, I think, that appealed to me, given my feelings on the death penalty. But as pointed out by the prosecution, he put — he put the bomb four feet away from a row of children. It was a horrific, horrific, inhuman act. So, you know, my heart goes out to the Richard family and to everybody else who was touched and remains pained.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But the jury went in the other direction.
DAVID BROOKS, York Times columnist: Yes. And some of the other families wanted this outcome. I think there was division among them.
I’m — personally, I am skeptical of the death penalty in cases where we don’t know, we’re not certain. There have been so many wrongful convictions, and so I’m not a fan of the death penalty. Nonetheless, I thought what Loretta Lynch, the new attorney general, said today was that this was truly the most horrendous crime imaginable, and for the most horrendous crime, the ultimate penalty is fitting.
I have some sympathy. And this is not a case where we really have too much doubt about who did it. We know this guy did it. It killed those children, and then killed the cop a couple of days later. And so if there’s ever going to be a death penalty, I guess I think this is the case. Whether he will actually ever get executed, I’m a little dubious. I don’t [think] he ever will. A lot of the federal cases, they rarely actually execute the people, because the appeals take so long. But I guess it’s fitting in this case.
SUMMARY: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three. The federal jury chose to sentence the 21-year-old to death by lethal injection over life in prison without possibility of release. Judy Woodruff talks to Emily Rooney of WGBH to learn more about the reactions from victims and their families.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The Boston Marathon bomber was sentenced to death today; 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted by a federal jury last month of the April 2013 bombings that killed three bystanders near the finish line of the annual race.
Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, later killed a policemen during a manhunt. The elder Tsarnaev died in a gun battle with police. The jury chose death over the only other option, life in prison without possibility of release.
After the penalty was announced, the U.S. attorney who led the prosecution and a bombing victim spoke.
CARMEN ORTIZ, U.S. Attorney, District of Massachusetts: Today, the jury has spoken, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will pay with his life for his crimes. Make no mistake. The defendant claimed to be acting on behalf of all Muslims. This wasn’t a religious crime and it certainly doesn’t reflect true Muslim beliefs. It was a political crime designed to intimidate and to coerce the United States.
KAREN BRASSARD, Boston Bombing Survivor: Today feels different only because it’s — it is more complete, I guess, is how I’m going to say it. I know that there is still a long road ahead. There’s going to be many, many, many more dates ahead, but right now it feels like we can take a breath.
SUMMARY: At the Baltimore School for the Arts, students are admitted solely on their artistic potential; notable alumni of the pre-professional high school includes Jada Pinkett Smith and designer Christian Siriano. We meet some of the educators and current students who bring passion and dedication to every school day.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now to a school training the next generation of great artists.
At the Baltimore School for the Arts, a pre-professional high school, students are admitted solely on their artistic potential without a review of any academic grades. Still, the school’s students have some of the highest tests scores in the state of Maryland. Notable alumni include actor Jada Pinkett Smith and fashion designer Christian Siriano.
We followed the students before the recent protests and unrest in the city and found their combination of dedication and focus, inspiring. Take a look.
MATEEN MILAN, Student: My family isn’t in the arts. I’m the only person who really does, like, classical music. I’m the only person who like takes lessons and goes to a school like this. My name is Mateen Milan. I’m in the 12th grade and I go to Baltimore School for the Arts.
MAURICE MOUZON, Student: It all started out when I was just on my own doing street dance. My friends went and told my teacher that I was dancing. I showed her and she told me that I should try out for Baltimore School for the Arts. My name is Maurice Mouzon. I’m a 12th grader at Baltimore School for the Arts.
CHRIS FORD, Director, Baltimore School for the Arts: Kids enter by audition. We don’t look at their academics at all, which is an interesting piece. And they follow a pre-professional arts program, as well as a college prep academic program.
My name is Chris Ford, and I’m the director of the Baltimore School for the Arts.
SUMMARY: In the second week of the Boston Marathon bombing trial, jurors heard emotional testimony from a victim who lost both legs and the FBI presented stitched-together surveillance video tracing the suspect’s path to and from the bombing. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Emily Rooney of WGBH about a note scrawled by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev while he was hiding from authorities in a boat.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): This was an eventful week in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is charged with the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013. He’s facing 30 federal charges, 17 of which carry the death penalty.
Hari Sreenivasan in our New York studios has an update.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): The week started off with testimony from victims and their families. It also included revelations for the first time of a full message that a wounded Tsarnaev scrawled on a bullet-riddled boat just before he was caught by a manhunt. And the trial showed off new surveillance video from the day of the attacks on Boylston Street.
Emily Rooney of WGBH-Boston has been covering the trial, joins me again tonight.
Is started out with some emotional testimony this week. Who did you hear from?
EMILY ROONEY, WGBH News: We did, Hari.
The person we heard from that really stuck out in everybody’s mind was a young woman named Jessica Kensky. She came into court wearing a skirt. You could see two stumps coming out from underneath the skirt. It’s the first time that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev recognized anybody. He’s been completely disengaged, doesn’t look to the witness box, which is only about eight feet to his right.
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has not been seen in public since he was arraigned on 30 federal charges in July 2013, when he still bore signs of the bloody standoff with police that led to his capture and the death of his older brother, Tamerlan.
On Thursday, he showed up in court for the first time.
The courtroom was packed as people strained to be the first to get a look at Tsarnaev. Fourteen victims of the attacks sat together on one side of the galley. Members of the media and general public occupied another 60 seats on benches.
Tsarnaev, 21, gave a small, seemingly nervous, smile to his lawyers upon entering the courtroom. He had a scruffy beard and a mopped head of wavy, uncombed hair. He wore a black sweater and open-necked collared shirt.
U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. asked him four questions, inquiring whether he had elected to be absent in prior status conferences and whether his lawyers had kept him apprised of the proceedings.
"Yes sir," Tsarnaev said.
O'Toole also asked if he's been satisfied with his legal representation.
"Very much," Tsarnaev said. When O'Toole asked if he would like a private meeting with him to discuss his representation, Tsarnaev declined.
Security was tight during the final pre-trial hearing before Tsarnaev's trial, which is set to begin on Jan. 5.
Tsarnaev is charged in a 30-count indictment that alleges he conspired with his late older brother, Tamerlan, to build and detonate two pressure-cooker bombs that left three dead and more than 260 injured near the crowded finish line of last year's Boston Marathon. He's also charged in the murder of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology security officer who died during the manhunt. Tsarnaev, who has pleaded not guilty, faces the possibility of the death penalty if he is convicted.
The beefed up police presence included a line of police vehicles at front of the courthouse entrance. In back, a Boston Police boat with blue lights flashing kept watch in Boston Harbor. Both sides had visible support from Boston Police Special Operations, who patrolled on foot with dogs.
Thursday's hearing is the last chance to ask the judge for new ground rules for the trial. Tsarnaev's lawyers recently filed a new motion seeking, for the second time, to have the trial relocated out of Boston, where they fear their client will not be treated fairly.
O'Toole rejected Tsarnaev's first request in September to move the trial, ruling that Tsarnaev's lawyers had failed to show that extensive pretrial media coverage of the bombings had prejudiced the jury pool to the point that an impartial jury could not be chosen in Boston.
Tsarnaev's lawyers previously said the trial should be moved to Washington, D.C.
O'Toole also rejected a defense request that prosecutors turn over evidence about his older brother's possible participation in a 2011 triple killing in suburban Waltham.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys were expected to discuss the jury selection process with the judge during Thursday's hearing. Both sides have submitted questions they want the judge to ask potential jurors, who will be selected from a pool of at least 1,200 people.
The trial is expected to last several months. Seating a jury alone could take several weeks to a month.
When last seen, Tsarnaev still had visible injuries from a shootout with police several days after the April 15, 2013, bombings. His left arm was in a cast and his face was swollen. He appeared to have a jaw injury.
Three friends of Tsarnaev were convicted this year of hampering the investigation by removing evidence from his dorm room or lying to the FBI.
Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev were convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for removing a backpack containing fireworks and other potential evidence while authorities were still looking for the suspected bombers. Another friend, Robel Phillipos, was convicted of lying to federal agents about being in the room. All three are awaiting sentencing.
The former staff of Thomas M. Menino answered the call to serve him one last time on Sunday, as an honor guard to accompany the city’s longest-serving mayor as he lay in state in Faneuil Hall, while city residents by the thousands filed through the historic hall to say their personal goodbyes.
Staff members representing the two-decade Menino administration — from former low-level aides to one-time department heads and Cabinet chiefs — took half-hour or one-hour shifts, sitting stoically at the foot of the casket to ensure that the body would never be alone.
“It was without a doubt one of the most amazing hours of my life,” said former city councilor Michael Ross, after his stint in the honor guard. “You felt like you were in the presence of something — in the glow of something profound, and all the while feeling the cold coming off the people as they came into the room.
“I just felt I really had no business being there and yet the mayor even in his death was reaching out to people that he had a connection to. I was just truly honored to be part of that.”
Ross, a former Menino aide who ran for the mayor’s office last year, took a shift as honor guard with four other former staffers who were later elected to the Boston City Council: Sal LaMattina, Bill Linehan, Timothy McCarthy, and Michelle Wu.
Menino, who did not run for reelection in 2013, died last Thursday at age 71 after a battle with cancer.
Thousands of the mayor’s former constituents stood in line in cold rain that turned to sleet and then wind-whipped snow Sunday morning for the chance to pay their respects to the “urban mechanic” who reigned in Boston City Hall for 20 years.
Wu, a sitting councilor who started out as a policy fellow in the Menino administration, said she was deeply grateful to participate in the honor guard. She said she watched the citizens filing through the room and imagined that each of them had some story about Menino, some special recollection that had brought them out to pay their respects in the brutal wintry weather.
“I saw a Boy Scout troop; I saw people in City Year uniforms,” Wu said, referring to the program helping at-risk students. “I saw folks come to sing a song as their last tribute to the mayor and give a salute. . . . There were parents bringing their very young kids to say goodbye. And seniors and people from all different age groups and backgrounds.
“It represented everything he had given his life to,” she said.
Former Menino chiefs of staff took hourlong shifts in the honor guard Sunday morning, including Alyce Lee, Jim Rooney, Merita Hopkins, Judith Kurland, and David Passafaro, according to service organizers. They were on duty when Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the former US senator from Massachusetts, arrived to pay his respects. Kerry lingered for long greetings with the former chiefs of staff.
Former Boston police commissioner Paul Evans took a shift with three others who served as police commissioner under Menino: Al Goslin; William Evans; and Edward Davis, who was commissioner during perhaps the greatest crisis of Menino’s long mayoral tenure, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
“I watched the people,” said Paul Evans, who was commissioner for nearly a decade, until 2003. “There were people holding ‘gracias’ signs from the Hispanic community. There were Asians, Vietnamese. It was the whole city coming together. It was everybody. He was a mayor for the entire city and that crowd [on Sunday] reflected the city.
“I just thought of how many lives he touched,” Evans said, recalling his hour on the honor guard. “And how many lives he made better. And I think that was reflected in the makeup of the crowd. It was touching. It was hard not to feel proud of what this man accomplished and all the good he did for the city.”
Evans said that seeing so many familiar faces from the administration reminded him of the “sense of purpose and teamwork that Tom Menino brought to us, the way we worked together.”
Former Menino press secretary Carole Brennan took her shift on the honor guard Sunday afternoon, enjoying a time of quiet reflection about her one-time boss.
“It’s such an incredibly special honor to be able to support my friend one more time,” she said.
Members of Menino’s Office of Neighborhood Services were scheduled to handle the overnight shift Sunday night, which was intended to be a symbolic nod to the office’s after-hours work responding to emergencies and the needs of Boston neighborhoods.
SUMMARY: Alexander Calder was one of the modern masters of art -- breaking the mold on sculpture in the 20th century. Nearly 40 years after his death, Calder's work continues to captivate. WGBH's Arts Editor Jared Bowen sat down recently with the Chief Curator of the Peabody Essex Museum near Boston to discuss Calder and his creations.
LYNDA ROSCOE HARTIGAN, Curator Peabody Essex Museum: The notion that you could stand in front of something and wait to see if it moves, how it moves, just automatically slows you down. It means that you have to take a lot of time to look carefully.
JARED BOWEN, WGBH: By working in movement, Calder near single-handedly changed the definition of sculpture—rejecting tradition and those carved masses for which his own prominent family of sculptors was known.
LYNDA ROSCOE HARTIGAN: Calder is one of these people who was in the right place at the right time.
SUMMARY: Bill de Blasio, Mike Duggan and Marty Walsh won mayoral elections in New York, Detroit and Boston, for their pragmatic campaign approaches. Gwen Ifill talks to Brookings Institution' Bruce Katz and Atlantic Cities' Emily Badger about how these new mayors will tackle economic and unemployment challenges in their cities.
BRUCE KATZ, "The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy": Well, cities are the engines of our economy, with their suburban areas. They're the centers of trade and investment, and they're really on the front lines of this demographic change, environmental change.
They can't duck. They can't be absent. You can't shut them down. They're close to the ground. They're close to these challenges. So we're seeing a level of pragmatism play out yesterday, but also what we're also seeing in cities in metros, they're the vanguard of policy innovation and this corporate-civic-public partnership that is really powering places forward.
There's a lot that cities can teach Washington, frankly, about how to keep your eyes on the main challenges we have in this country.
SUMMARY: Just six months after bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon ravaged Beantown, a World Series win gave the city something to celebrate. The Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6 of the MLB championship Wednesday. Jeffrey Brown talks to Leigh Montville of SportsonEarth.com on the team's turnaround from worst to first.
SUMMARY: The case against James "Whitey" Bulger drew to a close as both defense and prosecution gave their final statements. Margaret Warner talks to Kevin Cullen, who has been following the trial for the Boston Globe and was in the courtroom for the more than three-hour summation by the prosecution of all of the evidence against Bulger.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): And finally tonight: murder, drug deals, gangsters, and a decades-long crime spree. It's all on display at the trial of a reputed Boston mob boss.
Judy Woodruff has our update in a conversation she recorded yesterday.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): The trial is on break for the holiday, but for several weeks, prosecutors have been making their case against James "Whitey" Bulger.
Testimony at times has portrayed him as a cold-blooded-killer-turned-FBI-informant, as well as a drug lord feared on the streets of South Boston in the '70s and '80s. Convicted murderers, drug dealers, bookies and former FBI authorities have all been called to the stand. So have sons, daughters, siblings, and girlfriends of those allegedly murdered by Bulger and the mob.
Kevin Cullen, a reporter and columnist for The Boston Globe, has been there for all of it. He's the co-author of a book about the Bulger.
MILES O'BRIEN (Newshour): We all watched the chaos of the Boston Marathon bombings with horror, but in Socorro, N.M., the raw emotion was mixed with scientific insight.
VAN ROMERO, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology: It's really almost schizophrenic, I think, from my standpoint is, part of my brain is going into analysis mode, what -- that white smoke, what does that mean? I started looking for broken windows. Where is the pattern of broken windows from the video that I saw?
Because that tells me where the pressure wave went and how big the pressure wave was. Is there a crater? So, all that analytical stuff is going through your brain.
MILES O'BRIEN: Van Romero is the vice president of research at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, which operates the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, the most active explosives testing facility in the U.S.
Name a terror bombing, Marine barracks in Beirut, Khobar Towers, Oklahoma City, the first attack on the World Trade Center, the London transit bombings. In each case, investigators have come here to test their notions of what happened to build a court case and find new ways to defend against future attacks.
SPENCER MICHELS (Newshour): Americans are used to being watched on closed-circuit TV. Cameras are ubiquitous, especially in large cities.
The video surveillance industry brings in $3.2 billion dollars a year, and it's expected to grow quickly, especially after the Boston Marathon bombings. At one business in San Francisco, 22 cameras continually watch employees and guests enter and leave the building and drive their cars into and out of the garage. It's all recorded for future use.
A guard monitors the cameras in real time, and one night recently, those cameras caught this scene; a woman employee going to her car on the street while a male watches her and starts to follow. As he circles back to her car, for some reason, he sees other vehicles approaching and he makes a quick exit.
Would the cameras have helped had there been a crime? Could their more obvious presence have prevented one? It's all part of today's debate over surveillance.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): And finally tonight, one victim's road to recovery after the Boston attacks. Roseann Sdoia was waiting for a friend to cross the finish line when the second bomb exploded just a few feet away. Her right leg was so badly damaged it had to be amputated above the knee. She will soon be fitted for a prosthetic leg and is currently being treated at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown.
Emily Rooney of WGBH Boston sat down with her this week for an interview about her experience and road to recovery. Here's an excerpt.
The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings told F.B.I. interrogators that he and his brother considered suicide attacks and striking on the Fourth of July as they plotted their deadly assault, according to two law enforcement officials.
But the suspect,Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, told investigators that he and his brother,Tamerlan, 26, who was killed in a shootout with the police, ultimately decided to use pressure-cooker bombs and other homemade explosive devices, the officials said.
The brothers finished building the bombs in Tamerlan’s apartment in Cambridge, Mass., faster than they had anticipated, and so decided to accelerate their attack to the Boston Marathon on April 15, Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts, according to the account that Dzhokhar provided to authorities. They picked the finish line of the marathon after driving around the Boston area looking for alternative sites, according to this account.
In addition, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told authorities that he and his brother viewed the Internet sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American cleric who moved to Yemen and was killed in September 2011 by an American drone strike. There is no indication that the brothers communicated with Mr. Awlaki.
Mr. Tsarnaev made his admission on April 21 — two days after he was captured while hiding in a boat in a nearby backyard — to specially trained F.B.I. agents who had been waiting outside his hospital room for him to regain consciousness.
After he woke up, they questioned him, invoking what is known as the public safety exception to the Miranda Rule, a procedure authorized by a 1984 Supreme Court decision which in certain circumstances allows interrogation after an arrest without notifying a prisoner of the right to remain silent.
The new details of what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told authorities emerged as the F.B.I. moved forward on Thursday with trying to determine how the brothers were radicalized and the role that Tamerlan’s wife, Katherine Russell, may have played in the plot or in helping the brothers evade the authorities after the attacks.
