BOOK - Called for Life

"Missionary recounts Ebola fight as both doctor and patient" PBS NewsHour 8/10/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Dr. Kent Brantly contracted Ebola while treating patients during last year's epidemic in West Africa.  He was airlifted from Liberia back to the U.S. and received an experimental drug and other treatment at Emory University Hospital.  Brantly joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss his experience, faith and new book, "Called for Life.”

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Next, the medical doctor who was airlifted from Liberia to the U.S. one year ago this month after he contracted Ebola while treating patients in West Africa.

Kent Brantly and a medical missionary colleague, Nancy Writebol, who was also infected, were treated with the experimental drug ZMapp at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.  Both eventually recovered.

Now Dr. Brantly and his wife, Amber, have written a book about the experience.  He recently sat down with Hari Sreenivasan in our New York studio.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  So, it’s almost exactly a year ago, after you quarantined yourself.  You have got all the symptoms.  You have got the vomiting, the diarrhea, the bloodshot eyes, things that you have been seeing in patients and treating.  And, for the most part, those patients have been dying.  What’s going through your head?

DR. KENT BRANTLY, Author, “Called for Life”:  Before I received my diagnosis, the main symptoms I had were fever, fatigue, body aches and diarrhea.

When the diarrhea started, that was more mounting evidence that this really is probably Ebola.  But I held on to that hope that it was something else until we had the definitive test result.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  You were the first human to get ZMapp.  Before that, I think it’s been a dozen, maybe 18 monkeys had got it.  What went through your mind in making that decision to say either yourself or your colleague at the time Nancy should take this?

DR. KENT BRANTLY:  Nancy and I actually talked on the phone.  I remember she called me and said, after we had the kind of informed consent discussion with the doctor that was in charge of our care, she said, “Kent, what are you going to do?  Because I’ll probably do whatever you do.”

And I said, “I think I would be willing to receive it.”

But it was — you know, I thought, otherwise, I’m probably going to otherwise, and this may or may not help, but at least I could be a guinea pig and let the world know whether there is any benefit to it or not.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Once you get this special air ambulance that is arranged, the State Department, lots of people working to try to make this happen, it’s a bit cloak and dagger.  You’re literally taken to the airport at night.  There’s — before this, there are countries that don’t even want you flying over their airspace.

DR. KENT BRANTLY:  It did seem like something from a movie.

PERVERSION OF ISLAM - Slavery and Rape (Updated)

"SLAVERY AND RAPE BECOME RELIGION FOR ISIS" by Rukmini Callmachi (New York Times News Service), San Diego Union-Tribune 8/14/2019

NOTE:  This is from the online print version of the newspaper, therefore no article link.

In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin.  Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Koran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.

He bound her hands and gagged her.  Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her.

When it was over, he knelt to pray again, book-ending the rape with acts of religious devotion.  “I kept telling him it hurts — please stop,” said the girl.  “He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever.  He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God,” she said in an interview alongside her family in a refugee camp here, to which she escaped after 11 months of captivity.

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution.  Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.

The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them.

A total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held, according to community leaders.  To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the Islamic State-run Islamic courts.  And the practice has become an established recruiting tool to lure men from deeply conservative Muslim societies, where casual sex is taboo and dating is forbidden.

A growing body of internal policy memos and theological discussions has established guidelines for slavery, including a lengthy how-to manual issued by the Islamic State Research and Fatwa Department just last month.  Repeatedly, the Islamic State leadership has emphasized a narrow and selective reading of the Koran and other religious rulings to not only justify violence, but also to elevate and celebrate each sexual assault as spiritually beneficial, even virtuous.

“Every time that he came to rape me, he would pray,” said F, a 15-year-old girl who was captured on the shoulder of Mount Sinjar one year ago and was sold to an Iraqi fighter in his 20s.  Like some others interviewed by The New York Times, she wanted to be identified only by her first initial because of the shame associated with rape.

“He kept telling me this is ibadah,” she said, using a term from Islamic scripture meaning worship.

“He said that raping me is his prayer to God.  I said to him, ‘What you’re doing to me is wrong, and it will not bring you closer to God.’  And he said, ‘No, it’s allowed.  It’s halal,’ ” said the teenager, who escaped in April with the help of smugglers after being enslaved for nearly nine months.

Calculated conquest

The Islamic State’s formal introduction of systematic sexual slavery dates to Aug. 3, 2014, when its fighters invaded the villages on the southern flank of Mount Sinjar, a craggy massif of dun-colored rock in northern Iraq.

Its valleys and ravines are home to the Yazidis, a tiny religious minority who represent less than 1.5 percent of Iraq’s estimated population of 34 million.

The offensive on the mountain came just two months after the fall of Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq.  At first, it appeared that the subsequent advance on the mountain was just another attempt to extend the territory controlled by Islamic State fighters.

Almost immediately, there were signs that their aim this time was different.

Survivors say that men and women were separated within the first hour of their capture.  In village after village, the men and older boys were driven or marched to nearby fields, where they were forced to lie down in the dirt and sprayed with automatic weapons fire.

The women, girls and children, however, were hauled off in open-bed trucks.

“The offensive on the mountain was as much a sexual conquest as it was for territorial gain,” said Matthew Barber, a University of Chicago expert on the Yazidi minority.  He was in Dohuk, near Mount Sinjar, when the onslaught began last summer and helped create a foundation that provides psychological support for the escapees, who number more than 2,000, according to community activists.

Tried to escape

Fifteen-year-old F says her family of nine was trying to escape, speeding up mountain switchbacks, when their aging Opel overheated.  She, her mother, and her sisters — 14, 7, and 4 years old — were helplessly standing by their stalled car when a convoy of heavily armed Islamic State fighters encircled them.  “Right away, the fighters separated the men from the women,” she said.  She, her mother and sisters were first taken in trucks to the nearest town on Mount Sinjar.  “There, they separated me from my mom.  The young, unmarried girls were forced to get into buses.”

F’s account is echoed by a dozen other female victims interviewed for this article.  They described a similar set of circumstances even though they were kidnapped on different days and in locations miles apart.

F says she was driven to Mosul, about six hours away, where they herded them into the Galaxy Wedding Hall.  And in addition to Mosul, women were herded into elementary schools and municipal buildings in the Iraqi towns of Tal Afar, Solah, Ba’aj and Sinjar City.

They would be held in confinement, some for days, some for months.  Then, inevitably, they were sent in smaller groups to Syria or to other locations inside Iraq, where they were bought and sold for sex.

“It was 100 percent preplanned,” said Khider Domle, a Yazidi community activist who maintains a detailed database of the victims.  “I spoke by telephone to the first family who arrived at the Directory of Youth in Mosul, and the hall was already prepared for them.  They had mattresses, plates and utensils, food and water for hundreds of people.”

Detailed reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reach the same conclusion about the organized nature of the sex trade.

The girls described how three Islamic State fighters walked in, holding a register.  They told the girls to stand.  Each one was instructed to state her first, middle and last name, her age, her hometown, whether she was married, and if she had children.

For two months, F was held inside the Galaxy hall.  “They laughed and jeered at us, saying ‘You are our sabaya.’  I didn’t know what that word meant,” she said.  Later on, the local Islamic State leader explained it meant slave.

Religious tradition

In much the same way as specific Bible passages were used centuries later to support the slave trade in the United States, the Islamic State cites specific verses or stories in the Koran or else in the Sunna, the traditions based on the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, to justify their human trafficking, experts say.

Scholars of Islamic theology disagree, however, on the proper interpretation of these verses, and on the divisive question of whether Islam actually sanctions slavery.

“In the milieu in which the Koran arose, there was a widespread practice of men having sexual relationships with unfree women,” said Kecia Ali, an associate professor of religion at Boston University and the author of a book on slavery in early Islam.  “It wasn’t a particular religious institution.  It was just how people did things.”

Cole Bunzel, a scholar of Islamic theology at Princeton University, disagrees, pointing to the numerous references to the phrase “Those your right hand possesses” in the Koran, which for centuries has been interpreted to mean female slaves.  He also points to the corpus of Islamic jurisprudence, which continues into the modern era and which he says includes highly detailed rules for the treatment of slaves.

“There is a great deal of scripture that sanctions slavery,” said Bunzel, the author of a research paper published by the Brookings Institution on the ideology of the Islamic State.  “You can argue that it is no longer relevant and has fallen into abeyance.  ISIS would argue that these institutions need to be revived, because that is what the Prophet and his companions did.”

One 34-year-old Yazidi woman, who was bought and repeatedly raped by a Saudi fighter in the Syrian city of Shadadi, described how she fared better than the second slave in the household — a 12-year-old girl who was raped for days on end despite heavy bleeding.

“He destroyed her body.  She was badly infected.  The fighter kept coming and asking me, ‘Why does she smell so bad?’  And I said, she has an infection on the inside, you need to take care of her,” the woman said.

Unmoved, he ignored the girl’s agony, continuing the ritual of praying before and after raping the child.

“I said to him, ‘She’s just a little girl,’” the older woman recalled.  “And he answered:  ‘No.  She’s not a little girl.  She’s a slave.  And she knows exactly how to have sex.’ ”  “And having sex with her pleases God,” he said.

"How Islamic State systematically turns girls into sex slaves" PBS NewsHour 8/13/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The Islamic State militants have imposed a brutal, ritualistic sex slave trade on thousands of women and girls who belong to the Yazidi sect, a persecuted religious minority.  Rukmini Callimachi of The New York Times joins Judy Woodruff from Northern Iraq to discuss her reporting on the human toll of the Islamic State’s rule.

HUMOR TIMES - Faux News

"Almighty Swaps Son of God for New One:  Jon Stewart" by John Glynn, Humor Times 8/9/2015

God taps Jon Stewart to replace ‘disappointing’ original

He’s been regarded by millions as a superhuman being, a deity, a comedic god — but after more than 16 years working as “The Daily Show” anchor, Jon Stewart has left the building.

Stewart wasn’t the most pious of hosts, and he didn’t always speak highly of God – “I don’t know what the f*ck that guy is smoking, but I don’t want any,” he once told Rolling Stone.

However, at the Immortal Mortals ceremony on Friday night, which saw Stewart inducted into The Comedy Hall of Fame, the man himself (a.k.a. God) displayed no feelings of animosity whatsoever.  Delivering a deferential speech in praise of the presenter, God took to the podium and stole the show:

Jon Stewart, also known as Soupy, Lefty, Poochy and Ball Busting Bastard by all the people at Fox, is an artist in every sense of the word.  Who better to give a speech on Jon than me, his creator?  The diminutive demon was born on November 28, 1962, in New York City.  His full name is Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, and it’s easy to see why he decided to distance himself from such a hideous surname.  Jon told the world that the reason for his name change was a deeply personal matter, not a professional one.  He attributed the name change to a strained relationship with his father, but don’t be fooled, people, he was simply embarrassed by its “Jewishness,” for lack of a better term.

After some heckles from the crowd, much to God’s dismay, the divine one shouted, “Hey, I’m allowed make Jew jokes.  Jesus, tough crowd.”

The Almighty continued:

Anyway, back to Jon Stewart.  At Lawrence High School in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, this modern day legend wasn’t exactly a chick magnet.  Yes, he was a band member, but he played the French horn, for God’s sake, sorry, for my sake.  His lack of musical prowess and lack of romantic encounters — zero, to be precise – hung over him like a dark, sexually frustrated cloud.  He went on to attend the College of William and Mary in Virginia.  While studying, Jon took on a slew of random, part-time jobs – dog groomer, puppeteer, horse whisperer, and clairvoyant, to name just four.

However, in 1986, in Jon’s mind, anyway, his luck seemed to change when he was offered a stand-up gig.  Thanks to his one man show, Blood, Sweat, and Drunken Jeers, it wasn’t long before Jon found himself living the ultimate dream — appearing on basic cable.

After some forced, truly uncomfortable laughter, God continued:

He headlined MTV’s first talk show, The Jon Stewart Show, and it remained on air just long enough to bomb faster than Robin Thicke’s credibility.  Jon then went back to MTV hosting yet another shit-show that, surprise, surprise, failed.  He seemed to be the human representation of erectile dysfunction — a complete flop.

After turning his glass of Beverly Hills 9OH2O water into a glass of 1982 Chateau Mouton — a transformation met by a chorus of ooooohs and aaaahhhhs, God continued:

Oh, now I have your attention.  And you thought the water into wine parable was horseshit.  Similar to a fine wine, people, Jon simply gets better with age.  Yes, his 20’s were full of forgettable moments, but Jesus, my actual son, stayed in Nazareth up until he was 32, doing absolutely nothing remarkable, and some of you simpletons regard him as the greatest man to ever walk the world.  To me, honestly, Jesus was — and still is — a disappointment.  Any crazy claims that he spent his 20’s backpacking around India or visiting friends in England are just that — crazy claims.  Yes, he performed a few magic tricks, but nothing Penn & Teller can’t do.

A perplexed looking audience watched on as God wrapped up:

Jesus was dead by the age of 33, having achieved very little, no qualifications, no wife, no children, twelve male friends … well, better make that eleven, can’t forget Judas, the bastard.

By the age of 33, on the other hand, Jon Stewart was hosting a talk show for the BBC, he was hanging around with Dave Chappelle, Eddie Izzard, and Christopher Hitchens.  In 1997, Jon was chosen as the host and interviewer for George Carlin’s 10th HBO special, 40 years of Comedy.

Like my son, Jon was crucified early on in his career, albeit less gruesomely.  But Stewart came back stronger, we saw a new and improved Jon, a sharper Jon, a more clinical Jon, and, most of all, a funnier Jon.  He deserves more than his place in the Comedy Hall of Fame.

So now, I, God, your master, wish to state that, from this very moment, Jon Stewart is to be known as the official son of God.  Jesus, if you’re listening, pack your bags and cut your hair, time to find yourself new digs and an actual job.

"Next GOP Debate to Follow ‘Hunger Games / Dating Naked’ Format" by Michael Egan, Humor Times 8/8/2015

Naked presidential hopefuls will hunt each other down, survivor wins nomination, according to new GOP debate rules.

Fox News announced today that it was launching a new ‘Hunger Games’ reality show in which all 17 GOP presidential hopefuls would be released naked into the wilds with instructions to hunt one another down “to the death.”

The lone survivor of this radical new GOP debate format will be the party’s nominee for president in 2016.

Fox’s president and de facto Republican Party Chairman, Roger Ailes, said at a news conference that candidates would be flown out to Yora Goosa Isa Kookt, a tiny atoll in the South Pacific with nothing but palm trees, a small spring and a flock of rare Nene geese, for whom it is named.

Donald Trump would not be allowed to use his own helicopter, but all candidates could bring a single weapon of their own choice.  Ted Cruz, for example, was bringing an AR-15 wrapped in bacon, while Lindsey Graham would be armed with “an industrial-strength blender containing a cell phone.”

Ailes added:  “Cruz believes that if he doesn’t get his opponents with the rifle, the nitrates and cholesterol in the bacon should do the trick.  And Lindsey has a frightening sneer.”

Among other weapons, GOP front runner Donald Trump would bring only his own monstrous ego, using it to drain all the oxygen out of the air.  However, Ailes said, the likely highlight of the first day would be “killing the pig,” i.e., the bloated billionaire, who is scheduled to be hunted down by the rest in a “tasteful reenactment” of the famous episode in Lord of the Flies.

Megyn Kelly would “gleefully but professionally” provide the commentary for this part of the debate.  After Piggy’s death, organizers say, the pack will roast him over a celebratory bonfire and then deal with one another.  The Donald Trump Roast will go down in history.

Ailes went on to note that Rick Santorum was bringing a huge Bible to thump everyone with.  Mike Huckabee, going one better, had decided to “rely on the Word of Almighty God alone.”

It was expected that along with Trump, both would make an early exit.

The only weapon explicitly banned, Ailes said, was Chris Christie’s stomach, which the New Jersey governor would be required to keep covered at all times.

“Like the Medusa’s head, its too disgusting and horrible,” Ailes said, adding that Christie’s big fat mouth would keep him competitive, “just as it has until now.”

“And I really hope,” Ailes shuddered, “that Christie doesn’t also fetch along any of his birth-control methods.  Just thinking about him having sex is nauseating, and I deal with Rupert Murdoch on a regular basis.”

Among the other candidates, Ailes noted, Rand Paul was bringing the entire US tax code and a box of matches.  Rick Perry had developed something called the “Oops,” a secret weapon allowing him to “disappear” other candidates by failing to remember their names one out of three times.

In response to a reporter’s question, Ailes said that he was confident Carly Fiorina would be able to compete on equal terms with her male rivals.  He pointed out that she is equipped “with a set of balls far larger than any of them,” and that she intends to use her testicular superiority to beat them into submission, “just like she did the so-called men at Hewlett Packard.”

Dr Ben Carson’s Hunger Games GOP debate strategy was to bore everyone to death.  “He’s bringing a podium,” said Ailes, “and will simply keep talking until the rest commit suicide.”

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 8/7/2015

"Shields and Brooks on GOP debate standouts, Schumer’s Iran deal rejection" PBS NewsHour 8/7/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the first Republican presidential debate, whether Vice President Joe Biden is considering a 2016 run and Sen. Chuck Schumer’s announcement that he won’t support the Iran nuclear deal.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  He’s (Trump) not a real candidate?

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times:  No.  He doesn’t have an ideology.  He doesn’t have a belief system.

He has himself.  And they went after him, the three excellent moderators.  And he defended himself and I think he did fine.  Probably 70 percent of Republicans disapprove of him.  A lot of the things he said were astonishingly inappropriate, that he wouldn’t support the Republican Party nominee.  That’s kind of a big one.  He likes single-payer health system.  That’s the first Republican that sort of likes that.

He is outside of all the categories, but he is a lord of self-esteem.  And his main message is society is filled with losers, and they happen to be running it, and society has some winners who are being ignored.  And if you’re a winner like me, we got to get rid of those losers.

And that’s an ideology that is not a political ideology.  It is a narcissistic ideology.  But I suspect the 20 percent who like him will continue to like him and like him even more.  And so he will be hanging around there.

Among the real candidates, I thought Rubio did quite well.  Carly Fiorina in the underdebate card did quite well.  And John Kasich did quite well.  And so I think those three helped themselves and they actually are viable candidates and make us rethink the race.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  How do you size it up, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist:  I don’t know where to agree and where — no.

(LAUGHTER)

MARK SHIELDS:  I agree.  Donald Trump fills up the hall.  There were 24 million people who watched.  That’s more people than had ever watched a cable event, other than a sports event.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Huge numbers.

MARK SHIELDS:  And this was a sports event.  (IMHO, a boxing event)

Donald Trump indicated right at the outset he is going to run as Donald Trump.  And I thought it was an indication of the magic he has established, the chemistry he has with Republican voters, that the only person on the stage, candidate who would even take a shot at him was Rand Paul.

All the others ducked him, John Kasich included, Jeb Bush included, when given opportunities.  Who went after him?  The three FOX moderators, who were tough.  They really did.  And I really think he made a serious mistake by going, retaliating, attacking Megyn Kelly.  First of all…

JUDY WOODRUFF:  When she asked him about his comments about women.

MARK SHIELDS:  Asked him about women, his misogynist comments.

First of all, FOX News is the validator, it’s the gatekeeper for Republican, particularly conservative voters.  And you don’t go after — it is not like you’re attacking Chuck Todd or Judy Woodruff or some of the liberal elite establishment.  You’re attacking the mother church when you go after FOX.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Well, let’s make a distinction here, please.  I’m not part of the liberal media.

MARK SHIELDS:  No, but I’m talking about by the definition of conservative America, where FOX really is the gatekeeper — I think you would agree, the gatekeeper and the validator.

And when he went after her, I think he made a serious mistake.  I thought, as far as the others were concerned…

JUDY WOODRUFF:  You don’t think he helped himself?

MARK SHIELDS:  I think he hurt himself.  I really do.

He’s a combination quite unlike anything I have ever seen before.  I agree partially with David that it is sort of egotism and cynicism.  Everybody is transactional.  You believe nothing.  Why do you give money to Democrats?  You give money to Democrats because you are going to give them a call and they’re going to do what you want.

Everything.  There’s no ideal.  John Kennedy said he was an idealist without illusions.  Donald Trump is a cynic without illusions.  Nothing is on the level.  You go into bankruptcy four times.  You screw the investors.  Hey, that’s the way it’s done now.

I just — I thought he came across really, by having taken on FOX News, and particularly Chris Wallace and Bret Baier, and particularly Megyn Kelly, I think he made a mistake.

SPORTS - Katie Ledecky

"How Katie Ledecky is dominating distance swimming" PBS NewsHour 8/7/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Swimmer Katie Ledecky has been blowing by the competition and setting records at the world championships in Russia.  She’s currently on pace to sweep the 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 meter freestyles at a single world championship.  To find out more about Ledecky’s incredible feats, Hari Sreenivasan speaks to sports commentator and former Olympic gold medalist Summer Sanders.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Just to try to put this in perspective, if Katie Ledecky wins tomorrow, she will have completed an unprecedented sweep of the 200, the 400, the 800 and 1,500 meter freestyles at a single world championship.

She also set world records this week.  And assuming all goes well, she will have raced 6,200 meters in seven days when you include heats and relays.  Since winning the gold medal at the 2012 Olympics, she has set 13 of the fastest racing times in history.

Summer Sanders is a former Olympic gold medal swimmer herself, as well as a sports commentator and reporter who’s been watching all of this.  She joins me now from Salt Lake City.

You know, there’s a lot of people who don’t follow swimming who are starting to wake up to this story.  Why is this so spectacular?

SUMMER SANDERS, Olympic Gold Medal Winner, Swimming (1992):  Well, I think it goes back in history.

I think most people remember Janet Evans, the queen of distance swimming.  She held most of these world records up until Katie broke them. And so we haven’t seen this dominance from the American swimmers in the sport of distance swimming.  Honestly, most kids, if they have the distance gene, prefer to push themselves to the 400 and 200, because it’s so difficult to train for the 800 and 1,500.

But the fact that Katie is doing it and she’s dominating time and time and time again — and she just sort of has this inner personality.  I describe it as like she’s a sprinter personality on the inside, but a distance on the outside.  I love her fist pump when she wins and her enthusiasm that she is showing.  She’s making distance swimming cool.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  She are incredibly different events.  Training for a 200 meter, a sprint-type event, vs. essentially a mile in the pool, and she actually did both races in one day earlier this week.

SUMMER SANDERS:  Ya, she had the semifinals of the 200 freestyle right after she, like, shattered her own record in the 1,500 freestyle.

AT THE MOVIES - Failing Diversity

"Why do most movies still fail to reflect U.S. diversity?" PBS NewsHour 8/7/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In a survey of the 100 top grossing films between 2007 and 2014, 30 percent of all speaking or named characters were women; less than 30 percent of such roles went to actors who were not white.  Jeffrey Brown talks to Dylan Marron, blogger for "Every Spoken Word," and Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post about the widespread lack of diversity in Hollywood.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Special effects, action and suspense, big production films in recent years have provided plenty of what audiences have come to expect, including, according to various studies, a widespread lack of diversity.

The latest research comes from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.  The survey of the annual 100 top grossing films between 2007 and 2014 found that just 30 percent of all speaking or named characters were women, while 73 percent of such roles went to whites.

As to the filmmakers, only about 2 percent of the movies were directed by women.  The Web site Every Single Word has made a mission of highlighting the lack of diversity in movies by compiling every line spoken by a person of color in any major film.  This video, from the 2014 movie “Maleficent,” lasted just 18 seconds.

This creator of Every Single Word, Dylan Marron, joins us now.  He’s also an actor and writer.  Also with us, Washington Post movie critic Ann Hornaday.

Well, Dylan Marron, you have been documenting this for a long time.  How does this new study sharpen the picture?  What jumps out at you?

DYLAN MARRON, Every Single Word:  I think a lot jumps out.

One of the biggest things that jumped out for me is the correlation between black directors and putting black characters in their movie.  And that speaks a lot to this conversation we have of we need more creators.  The creators are already out there, but what we need do is we need to take those creators and we need to project their stories onto a bigger screen and they need to be distributed to a larger audience.

And that way, there will be more accurate reflections of the populations that they’re serving.

JEFFREY BROWN:  You’re an actor yourself, so you have seen this play out?

DYLAN MARRON:  I have seen this firsthand.

Yes, I have seen it in meetings with agents.  I have seen it in casting calls.  And I have just seen it in general reception.

JEFFREY BROWN:  So, Ann Hornaday, we have talked about this before.  For both women and African-Americans, actors and directors, there have been some very successful and critically acclaimed films, especially in recent years.  Do we see these as exceptions?  What do you see when you look out there?

ANN HORNADAY, Film Critic, The Washington Post:  Well, absolutely.

You know, the last couple of years have really seen a flowering, and we have seen this wonderful renaissance in African-American filmmaking, from the likes of Dee Rees and Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler, and Gina Prince-Bythewood, of course, who has been around for a while, but has just been doing wonderful work.

So there’s been a lot to celebrate.  And then this year, a number of the top 10 movies this year are female-centric, from things like “Fifty Shades of Grey” and “Cinderella” to “Spy” and “Trainwreck,” also did very well this summer.

And there are smaller movies that are featuring women, like “Ricki and the Flash” is coming out this weekend and “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.”  Things like this, studies like this, we get these statistics as sort of a steady drumbeat, and it’s just a reminder that we should remember not to fall over ourselves with gratitude for crumbs, when the bigger picture, as you point out, is a lot more sobering.

MEDIA - One Last Zinger, Jon Stewart

"How funny man Jon Stewart became a serious influence" PBS NewsHour 8/6/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Called the nation's "satirist in chief," Jon Stewart’s comedic rants and skewering of the daily news have had far-reaching influence on media and politics.  Now he's leaving "The Daily Show" after 16 years.  Jeffrey Brown looks back at Stewart’s impact.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  One last zinger, one last laugh, one last bow.  Jon Stewart takes his leave of “The Daily Show” tonight.

Jeffrey Brown has our look.

JON STEWART, Host, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart:  Whose team are we on in the Middle East?

(LAUGHTER)

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Jon Stewart has been called the nation’s satirist in chief, and recently he went at it, once again, with the commander in chief.

JON STEWART:  We’re fighting with Iraqis to defeat ISIS, along with Iran, but, in Yemen, we’re fighting Iran with Iraqis and Saudis.

(LAUGHTER)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  That’s not quite right, but that’s OK.

(LAUGHTER)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  But, look…

JON STEWART:  Whose team are…

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  Look, here’s…

JON STEWART:  Who are we bombing?

JEFFREY BROWN:  It was President Obama’s seventh appearance on Stewart’s “Daily Show,” and his last.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  I’m issuing a new executive order that Jon Stewart cannot leave the show.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

JEFFREY BROWN:  But Stewart is leaving, after 16 years of a kind of faux newscast that took daily events and gave them a comedic, often pointed twist.

POLITICS - Voting Rights Act

"50 years on, does the Voting Rights Act offer adequate protection?" PBS NewsHour 8/6/2015

IMHO:  This is just a Republican conservative attempt to suppress minorities that tend to vote liberal.  It's a power grab.  For decades there has been NO PROF of widespread voter fraud.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Fifty years ago, the Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory practices used to stop Americans from casting a ballot.  President Obama marked the occasion with civil rights leaders, cautioning that those rights are still at risk.  Gwen Ifill talks to Imani Clark, a student at Prairie View A&M University, voting rights scholar Kareem Crayton and Zoltan Hajnal of University of California, San Diego.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Fifty years ago today, the landmark Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.  Mr. Johnson called the right to vote — quote — “the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice.”

President Obama marked the occasion today by hosting civil rights leaders, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Congressman John Lewis, at the White House.  Half-a-century later, he said, voting rights are still at risk.  He singled out a 2013 Supreme Court decision that allows 15 previously monitored states to change their election laws without federal approval.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  In practice, we have still got problems.  On the ground, there are still too many ways in which people are discouraged from voting.  Some of the protections that had been enshrined in the Voting Rights Act itself have been weakened as a consequence of court decisions.

GWEN IFILL:  For more on the significance of today’s anniversary, we are joined by Kareem Crayton, a voting rights scholar and consultant, Zoltan Hajnal, professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego.  He’s co-author of a recent report on voter participation.  And Imani Clark, she is a student at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college in Waller County, Texas.  She is a plaintiff in a challenge to a Texas voter I.D. law overturned by a federal appeals court only yesterday.

Zoltan Hajnal, I want to talk to you a little bit about the findings in your report; 50 years later, how do you quantify the effect of the Voting Rights Act?

ZOLTAN HAJNAL, University of California, San Diego:  Well, it’s quantifiable in all sorts of different ways, but two of the main ones are in terms of voter registration.

When the act was passed in 1965, in several states, blacks, only about 15 percent or less of blacks were registered to vote.  Very shortly after the act was passed, those registration rates went through the roof.  And blacks are now roughly on par with whites in terms of registration in the South.

The other measure is minority representation in office.  Again, when the act was passed, only a handful of blacks were in office in the South or across the country.  After the act was instituted as well, the number of African-American and Latino and Asian-American elected officials grew year by year, to the point where blacks now have about 10,000 elected positions across the nation, Latinos have about 6,000, and Asian-Americans about — so there’s been tremendous progress.  And all this is in large part to the Voting Rights Act.

GWEN IFILL:  Imani Clark, you were at the White House today when the President, the attorney general, other people, John Lewis, were speaking about the 50-year anniversary.  And I want you to tell us your story.  You wanted to vote.  You had voted before.

IMANI CLARK, Student, Prairie View A&M University:  Yes.

GWEN IFILL:  But then the law changed.  Tell me what happened.

IMANI CLARK:  Well, my freshman year attending Prairie View, I was able to vote during the city election with my student I.D. card.  And then soon after that, you know, this law was going into effect that was preventing students like me.  And it also was targeting minorities, and it just prevented most of us from voting without a Texas I.D. license or a concealed handgun license.

HEALTH - Legionnaires Outbreak

"What caused the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in NYC?" PBS NewsHour 8/6/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  New York is facing the largest outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in its history; eight people have died from the respiratory illness since early July, and nearly 100 cases have been reported.  Hari Sreenivasan learns more from Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  The disease is often characterized as a severe form of pneumonia.  And it appears that water cooling towers have been a breeding ground for the bacteria that causes it.  Legionnaires is rarely the focus of much public attention, but there were more 4,500 cases in the U.S. in 2013.

Let’s get some further information about the disease itself, the outbreak and the risks to people.

Dr. Anne Schuchat is the director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.  She joins me now from Atlanta.

So tell me, first of all, what does this do to the body?

DR. ANNE SCHUCHAT, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:  Legionnaire’s disease is a form of pneumonia.  It can cause fever, cough, difficulty breathing and other complications.

It’s one of the more severe pneumonias.  And we think between 5 percent and 30 percent of people who develop Legionnaires’ disease can have fatal infections.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  And how widespread is it?  That 4,500 number is probably not something people are familiar with.

DR. ANNE SCHUCHAT:  Well, actually, we think there is under-reporting.

So, based on some studies that we have done, we think there are probably between 8,000 and 18,000 cases of Legionnaires’ disease each year in the United States.  Many of them don’t get diagnosed specifically.  They’re just treated as pneumonia, and even those that do get diagnosed may or may not get reported to the public health authorities.

PARENTAL LEAVE - At Netflix

"Why Netflix just offered the most generous parental leave policy in the country" PBS NewsHour 8/5/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Netflix has announced that it will be offering employees unlimited paid parental leave of up to a year after one gives birth to or adopts a child.  Netflix joins other tech companies that offer generous family leave packages, in stark contrast to what most American workers receive from employers.  Hari Sreenivasan learns more from Sarah Jane Glynn of the Center for American Progress.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Netflix employees will be able to determine their schedules for up to a year after having a baby.  A few other tech giants have also set a new standard in recent years.  Google provides more than four months of paid leave for biological mothers.  Apple offers a similar amount.

But for most new parents, it’s a very different story.  Just 12 percent of private sector employees in this country have access to paid family leave through their job.

Some context now on the Netflix policy and whether others will follow suit at all.

Sarah Jane Glynn studies these issues and advocates for greater leave as the director for women’s economic policy at the Center for American Progress.

So, how big of a deal is this Netflix announcement?

SARAH JANE GLYNN, Center for American Progress:  Well, it’s a huge deal, in that this is the most generous policy that I’m aware of any American company offering for new parents that work for them.

But you’re right to note that only 12 percent of workers currently have these types of voluntary policies through their employers, so while this is a tremendous boon for people who are lucky enough to work for Netflix, the majority of the work force is not going to be impacted by it.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Netflix is already in a specific category. It’s an enormous company. It’s in the tech sector, where it’s actually pretty competitive to try and recruit people. But what’s the ripple effect likely to be on an auto manufacturer or an iron plant somewhere else in the country?

SARAH JANE GLYNN:  Well, I think there’s a couple of really interesting things to keep in mind here.

One is, as you noted, tech companies are known for offering these very generous leave policies.  And part of the reason why they do that is because they have recognized this is a really effective way to recruit talent and to retain that talent.

SOUTH AFRICA - Migrant Fear

"Living in fear after attacks on migrants in South Africa" PBS NewsHour 8/5/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In South Africa this year there has been a wave of xenophobic attacks against migrants coming from other parts of Africa.  Special correspondent Martin Seemungal looks at roots of the violence and the fear that these foreigners face.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  We turn now to South Africa, where a wave of violence against migrants earlier this year left many victims frightened and the government struggling for a solution to the resurgence of xenophobia, the fear of people from other countries.

NewsHour special correspondent Martin Seemungal has our report from Durban, South Africa.

A warning:  Some of the images in this story may be disturbing.

MARTIN SEEMUNGAL (NewsHour):  Six dead, hundreds injured, 5,000 migrants forced to seek refuge in hastily organized camps, all due to a wave of anti-foreigner violence in South Africa.

Police have watched over this refugee camp for immigrants for two months, guarding people who came here for safety, being told now it is time to return home.

Anicet Bigirimana is from Burundi.  He says the attack on his family was sudden and extremely violent.

ANICET BIGIRIMANA, Migrant:  The first time they came, they put — they took my son.  They put him — a tire in the petrol.  They almost burned him.  But today — there’s another neighbor who grip (grabbed) him from their hands.  That’s how they started.

MARTIN SEEMUNGAL:  This Somali immigrant running for his life from a group of South Africans also survived, this attack, one of many in April, part of a wave of xenophobic attacks against other Africans living and working here.

According to official statistics, there are just over two million immigrants in South Africa, and somewhere between 500,000 and one million are undocumented.  The worst violence was in the Durban area.  Parts of downtown became battle zones, as migrants fought back.

It appeared to be part of a systematic campaign against people from African countries, in particular Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Congo, and Malawi, but there is no clear indication who was responsible for organizing the attacks.

Chris Van Den Berg is a city councilman for a district in Durban that includes a number of villages in the surrounding hills.

CHRIS VAN DEN BERG, City Councillor, Durban:  There was a group about 80-odd plus, people with bangers and bush knives, telling people very clearly that they could not be here Sunday morning, that they were going to be — they were either going to be killed or attacked.

HOMICIDE IN AMERICA - The Surge in Cities

"After declining for decades, homicides surge in cities across the country" PBS NewsHour 8/4/2015

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  The first half of this year has been a more violent and tragic one in many cities, leading police, community leaders, families and friends of victims to ask, what’s happening?

Across the country, scenes like these are playing out, at an escalating pace.  The Major Cities Police Chiefs Association reports homicides have spiked this year after hitting 50-year lows in 2013.  Members of the group voiced alarm at a Washington meeting on Monday.

J. THOMAS MANGER, President, Major Cities Chiefs Association:  What we focused on was the fact that we’re going to shooting scenes now where you have got more and more victims being shot, you have got more spent rounds being collected as evidence, and we’re finding more and more high-capacity magazines involved in these shootings.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  The association reports homicides are up an average of 19 percent in 35 big cities.  Chicago has the dubious distinction of leading the list, with 252 killings, up 20 percent.  But Saint Louis and Milwaukee have seen increases of 64 to 88 percent.  The city of Baltimore had 45 homicides in July alone, the most since 1972.

That followed the death of Freddie Gray in police custody last April, and the resulting riots.  Yesterday, Baltimore leaders announced federal agencies will embed special agents with city detectives.

Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings:

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), Maryland:  The only people who are getting — making — doing pretty good now are the morticians.  They’re the only ones.  And I say that we are a city that is better than that.  And so to all of our — all those folks who think that you have got to — you get your power from carrying a gun and shooting somebody and hurting somebody, I’m begging you, put your guns down.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Meanwhile, police chiefs say they are still trying to fully understand what’s behind the surge in killings.

"What caused the dramatic tipping point in deadly shootings?" PBS NewsHour 8/4/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Why has there been a dramatic spike in homicides this year?  Judy Woodruff speaks to Col. Sam Dotson, chief of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, and Edward Flynn, chief of the Milwaukee Police Department, two cities that have seen a substantial rise in murders, about the wide availability of guns, scrutiny of the criminal justice system, an increase in heroin use and systemic poverty.

HUNGARY - New 'Iron Curtain'

"Why Hungary is building a new ‘Iron Curtain’" PBS NewsHour 8/4/2015

Man's comment is an example of the consequences of NOT having religious freedom.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In Hungary, government leaders say they can't cope with the flood of migrants entering their country:  80,000 so far this year.  So the government is racing to complete a 110 mile-long fence -- what opponents are calling a “new Iron Curtain” -- along its border with Serbia.  Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

MALCOLM BRABANT (NewsHour):  This family is more than 3,000 miles away from home in Congo.  After months on the road, they have just slipped across the frontier from Serbia and have been stopped by the Hungarian police.

The adults don’t want to be filmed, for fear of jeopardizing their chances of reaching France another thousand miles away.  In this porous border region, the country lane is teeming with migrants on a relentless march to Northern Europe.

You’re in Hungary.

MAN:  No, you are in Hungary.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  You are in Hungary.

Where have you come from?

MAN:  I’m from Serbia.  OK.  Enough.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  Nearby, a member of a right-wing vigilante group which claims to protect a local village stands guard over a group of Pakistanis who also just entered Hungary.  Some fled for economic reasons, others because of persecution.

MAN:  I wanted to marry some girl.  The Muslim religion, we don’t have permission for it, so they kill her.  So they don’t — they want to kill me, and now I’m running.  Even my family want to kill me, my relatives, everybody, because we cross a religion.  So, this is me running from there.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  The migrants fear a repeat of violence they say was inflicted by police in Bulgaria.

MAN:  They hit us here and here, here.  And they take all money, SIM cards, mobile. Everything, they take from us.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  But the vigilante lets them go.  The authorities estimate as many as 2,000 people are crossing illegally into Hungary every day.  Although most have no intention of remaining in the country, their sheer numbers intimidate some on isolated farms.

DOCUMENTARY - Cartel Land

"New documentary offers close-up view of violent cartels" PBS NewsHour 8/4/2015

Excerpts

SUMMARY:  Cartel wars have been raging for years now in Mexico, with civilians getting caught in the crossfire.  To document the struggle against these cartels, Matthew Heineman embedded with two vigilante groups.  He joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss his new documentary, “Cartel Land.”

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  It’s the stuff of the nightly news, the violent drug wars in Mexico and along the U.S. border.  But the documentary “Cartel Land,” which won awards at the Sundance Film Festival for directing and cinematography, takes the viewer along on a sometimes wild and scary ride at ground level.

Filmmaker Matthew Heineman embedded himself with meth cooks, self-appointed lawmen and others.  We spoke recently at the AFI Docs Festival in Washington.

MATTHEW HEINEMAN, Director, “Cartel Land”:  For me, there’s been a lot of really wonderful documentaries, news stories, articles about the drug war, about policy, about this issue.  And I really wanted to put myself on the ground in the middle of it.

I wanted to get into places that people hadn’t seen before.  I’m not a war reporter.  I have never been in situations like this before.

JEFFREY BROWN:  You never have?

MATTHEW HEINEMAN:  Never.

JEFFREY BROWN:  That’s exactly the kind of situation Heineman found himself in.  He tells his story through the lens of two modern-day vigilante groups, Mexicans in the state of Michoacan led by the charismatic Dr. Jose Mireles, and a paramilitary group of Americans patrolling the U.S. border led by Tim Foley of Arizona.

MATTHEW HEINEMAN:  On some level, it’s a character-driven film about these two men.  They’re both 55 years old, one living in Arizona; one in Michoacan, Mexico.  But both believe that the government has failed them.

And they both have sort of taken up arms to fight for what they believe in.  Access and trust are everything, and developing that trust with my subjects was really important, obviously especially on the Mexico side.  You know, it was really frightening.

I mean, I — you really didn’t know if you were with the good guys or the bad guys.  And very quickly, I realized that this story was a lot more complicated, that the lines between good and evil were much more blurry.
-----
JEFFREY BROWN:  Near the end of film, one of the characters says; it’s never going to stop, period.

Is that what you came to think?

MATTHEW HEINEMAN:  I really do think this problem is cyclical.

And I do — you know, as long as there’s a demand for drugs in the States, there will be supply for drugs in Mexico and South America flowing northward.

ENVIRONMENT - Clean Power

"Will new clean power regulations stand up to challenges?" PBS NewsHour 8/3/2015

The opposition is again putting short-term money issues before long-term concerns for Earth's environment and our health.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  President Obama laid out new regulations that reset emissions standards for power plants and call for 28 percent of U.S. power to be generated from renewable energy.  States, industry groups and politicians pushed back, setting the stage for legal challenges.  Gwen Ifill gets views from Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The President has made his climate change plans a major part of his second-term, legacy-making agenda.  Today, he laid out new details about a key component of his strategy: regulating power plant emissions.

But within moments of his speech, opponents within some industries and in many states were resisting the stricter standards.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  Today, after working with states and cities and power companies, the EPA is setting the first ever nationwide standards to end the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from power plants.

(APPLAUSE)

GWEN IFILL:  With that, the president formally announced an even tougher clean power plan than expected.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:  So, the idea of setting standards and cutting carbon pollution is not new.  It’s not radical.  What is new is that starting today, Washington is starting to catch up with the vision of the rest of the country.

GWEN IFILL:  The rule, to be implemented by the EPA, means power plants must cut carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent by 2030.  That’s from 2005 levels.  Such a reduction would be up from a 30 percent cut in the original draft.  The revised rule also calls for generating 28 percent of U.S. power from renewable energy, up from 22 percent.

At the same time, it gives states extra time to begin reducing emissions.  Industry groups and a number of states pushed back today, saying the rule will cost jobs and cause spikes in energy prices.  And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, representing the coal state of Kentucky, promised to block the plan.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), Majority Leader:  It represents a triumph of blind ideology over sound policy and honest compassion.  And in Kentucky, these regulations will likely mean fewer jobs, shuttered power plants, higher electricity costs for families and businesses.  So, I’m not going to sit by while the White House takes aim at the lifeblood of our state’s economy.

HUMOR - For Cat Lovers

VIDEOS - Surfing With.....

TECHNOLOGY - Diverse Tech Workforce

"Cracking the code to a more diverse tech workforce" PBS NewsHour 8/2/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The giants of Silicon Valley -- Google, Twitter, Facebook -- report that just three to four percent of their workforce is black or Hispanic, and men outnumber women by more than two to one.  Now, tech companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to address the imbalance.  In New York, one camp is training such a new generation of software coders.  NewsHour Special Correspondent Karla Murthy reports.

KARLA MURTHY (NewsHour):  Remember the classic arcade game “Space Invaders?”  These high school kids are building their own version from scratch using “Python,” a computer language they’re learning at coding camp.

These boys are in the middle of a six-week summer program run by “All Star Code,” a non-profit group in New York City that prepares young men of color to work in the tech industry.

17-year-old De Andre King lives in Queens.  He did well in his 10th grade computer class, so his high school counselor encouraged him to apply.

DE ANDRE KING, student:  I didn’t get in the first time.  I did the application again, and when I got the email that morning, I was excited.

KARLA MURTHY:  How has it been so far?

DE ANDRE KING:  It’s been excellent.  It’s kind of, like, I’m doing something every day that I enjoy.  It’s kind of, like, I’m already having my job.

KARLA MURTHY:  A job, even a career, is precisely King’s goal.

DE ANDRE KING:  If I already am well-versed in HTML, CSS, Java, Javascript, Python, then I can now build something and bring it to the table.  That gives me kinda the upper head over my- over, you know, other applicants.

KARLA MURTHY:  Philanthropist Christina Lewis Halpern launched All Star Code two years ago to address the tech industry’s lack of diversity.

She saw organizations dedicated to getting more girls interested in “STEM” — Science, Technology, and Math — but nothing comparable for boys of color.

CHRISTINA LEWIS HALPERN:  People kept on expecting me to come in and talking about girls.   I had to do so much explaining of making the case that boys of color are underrepresented as well.

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 7/31/2015

"Shields and Brooks on police body cameras, previewing first presidential debate" PBS NewsHour 7/31/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the indictment of a white police officer for killing a black motorist in Cincinnati, the upcoming first presidential debate among the GOP candidates, plus the ultimate anti-Washington candidate Donald Trump and the populist popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders.

U.S. NAVY - Ballistic Missile Subs

"How many ballistic missile submarines does the U.S. really need?" PBS NewsHour 7/31/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The Navy's formidable fleet of nuclear-armed submarines is approaching the end of its lifespan, and there’s growing debate over how many are needed and how to pay for them.  Jamie McIntyre, national security correspondent for Al Jazeera America on special assignment for the NewsHour, got a rare behind-the-scenes look at one of the most powerful weapons ever built.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  During the 1980s and ’90s, the U.S. Navy built a fleet of nuclear-armed submarines.  Their mission?  Deter an attack against the United States, and, if that failed, fight a nuclear war.

Those submarines are now approaching the end of their life spans.  The Navy plans to build replacements, but there’s growing debate over how many are needed and how to pay for them.

Veteran Pentagon reporter Jamie McIntyre, who is now national security correspondent for Al-Jazeera America, has been on special assignment for the “NewsHour.”  His report was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

MAN:  Man battle stations, missile.  Spin up all missiles.

MAN:  Sound the general alarm.

JAMIE MCINTYRE (NewsHour):  If America’s strategy of nuclear deterrence ever fails, the beginning of the end might look something like this.

The U.S. Navy’s ballistic missile submarines are all part of the Ohio class, named for the first submarine of the design, the USS Ohio.  They have only one mission:  to lurk silently, deep beneath the ocean, ready to rain nuclear devastation on virtually any target anywhere any time on orders of the president.

Submerged just off the coast of Hawaii, the 180-man crew of the USS Pennsylvania demonstrated for the PBS NewsHour an abridged version of what it practices every week the sub is at sea.  The submarine’s video screens display only unclassified data.

MAN:  We have a verified and correct launch order directing the launch of missiles 7, 3, and 5.

JAMIE MCINTYRE:  And the Navy reviewed our footage to ensure nothing was compromised.  What we saw was a mock doomsday scenario.

POLITICS - The Low-Road

"When high-minded politicos Buckley and Vidal took the low road" PBS NewsHour 7/31/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The new documentary "Best of Enemies" pinpoints a key moment in broadcasting: a series of debates during the 1968 political conventions between two intellectual giants.  William F. Buckley on the right and Gore Vidal on the left attracted a high national audience with intelligence and wit, as well as putdowns and insults. Filmmakers Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon join Jeffrey Brown.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now to political commentary still steeped in intellect, but far less civil than Shields and Brooks.

Jeffrey Brown has the story.

MAN:  To help us extract meaning from these conventions, two of America’s most eloquent commentators, William Buckley and Gore Vidal.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Hard to imagine now, a time before political pundits dominated cable and broadcast news programs.

The documentary “Best of Enemies” pinpoints a key moment of change, when two intellectual giants William F. Buckley on the right, Gore Vidal on the left, attracted a huge national audience with intelligence and wit, but also put-downs and insults.

Filmmakers Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon explored a series of debates the two held during the 1968 political conventions that, for a variety of reasons, would alter the future of political discourse on television.

We spoke recently at the AFI Docs Festival in Washington.

You set this up as both a personal and a kind of national epic.  Why do you think it rose to that level?

MORGAN NEVILLE, Director, “Best of Enemies”:  Gore Vidal and William Buckley represented the polar opposites of the left and the right at a time when America was kind of coming apart at the seams a little bit.  This is 1968.  There’s rioting in the streets.  And they’re representing those poles there on national TV.

But what I think what makes it such a dramatic story for us is that it was deeply personal.  It was under the veneer of politics, but I think they saw in the other person somebody who could detect their own insecurities and expose those to the world.

Gore Vidal and William Buckley debates YouTube

AMERICAN JOBS - Humans Need Not Apply

"Do labor-saving robots spell doom for American workers?" PBS NewsHour 7/30/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The onslaught of automation that's replacing human workers -- from golf caddies to bank tellers -- may be putting us on a path to humanitarian crisis, says Jerry Kaplan, author of "Humans Need Not Apply."  As technology grows and jobs become obsolete, income inequality and poverty could follow for millions of Americans. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  We have shown you before the rising role that automation and robots play in some parts of the work force.

Tonight, we have a more sobering and perhaps somewhat eerier picture of how those trends are gathering force more quickly than anticipated.

Economics correspondent Paul Solman looks at the promise and perils of the rise of the robot, part of our weekly series Making Sen$e, which airs every Thursday on the NewsHour.

PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour):  The 11th hole at Stanford University.  Chad Gray’s an OK golfer, but his caddy is really hard to beat.

CHAD GRAY, CaddyTrek:  It’s going to go wherever you want it go.  Follows you like a puppy dog.

PAUL SOLMAN:  Meet the robot CaddyTrek (video).

CHAD GRAY:  It has two ultrasound bars that send a signal back to the remote that’s on my back pocket here.

JERRY KAPLAN, Author, “Humans Need Not Apply”:  It’s an incredibly simple piece of technology.

PAUL SOLMAN:  But the implications for America’s caddies, and millions of other workers, are ominous, says computer scientist and serial entrepreneur Jerry Kaplan.  Kaplan has his own labor-saving schlepper, an R2-D2 designed to make local deliveries.

U.S. INFRASTRUCTURE - Road Patch

IMHO:  States and cities are paying for NOT having a year-by-year infrastructure maintenance schedule that was adhered to.  Repair was always put off to pay for other priorities, and now such repairs are much more expensive.

"States struggle with needed transportation fixes after years of cutbacks" PBS NewsHour 7/30/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Potholes, vulnerable bridges, a lack of sidewalks -- following years of cutbacks in federal transportation funding, states are feeling the pinch.  In Oregon, the NewsHour’s Cat Wise explores pressing infrastructure funding needs, like alternative forms of transportation, traffic reduction measures and preparing for a massive earthquake that many predict will hit in the state within 50 years.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  As we reported earlier, after much debate, Congress today passed a short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund.  But years of cutbacks in federal and local transportation funding are being felt in communities around the country.

The NewsHour’s Cat Wise takes a look at some of the key transportation issues facing Portland, Oregon, and the surrounding region.

CAT WISE (NewsHour):  Early one morning this week, as thousands of commuters drove overhead, Oregon bridge inspector Joel Boothe hoisted himself 100 feet up in the air and got to work.

Boothe was doing a routine inspection of one of the state’s busiest bridges, the Marquam Bridge built in 1966.  It carries about 90,000 vehicles a day on Interstate 5 over the Willamette River near downtown Portland.  Unlike some of the other bridges in Portland, it’s in fairly good shape, but it’s still got some issues.

JOEL BOOTHE, Bridge Inspector:  So, question, on both sides of the location of those general hanging locations, we have had problems.

CAT WISE:  Issues that are being closely monitored by the state’s chief bridge engineer, Bruce Johnson.

BRUCE JOHNSON, State Bridge Engineer, Oregon Department of Transportation:  They found some pack rust, so we have got some corrosion going on.  We’re losing some section in our steel.  The other issue, this bridge has had a lot of fatigue cracking.

And, of course, we have mitigated the cracks by doing repairs, but we’re concerned about the performance of our repairs and how the cracking is going.

CAT WISE:  Johnson says that maintaining bridge safety is a huge task for the state.

WAR ON ISIS - Syrian Airstrikes

"Rebel commander says Americans on the ground in Syria calling in airstrikes" PBS NewsHour 7/30/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Special correspondent Jane Ferguson introduces us to a Free Syrian Army commander who has received training by the U.S.  The injured rebel said he's eager to rejoin the fight after U.S. and Turkey intensify their efforts against the Islamic State.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  But, first, the Pentagon has denied reports that al-Qaida linked fighters have abducted several U.S.-trained Syrian rebels outside of Aleppo, Syria.  The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated that the men were taken by members of the al-Nusra Front.

In May, the U.S. military launched a program to train up to 5,000 so-called moderate rebels per year.  So far, they’re nowhere near that number.

Special correspondent Jane Ferguson caught up with one of the few fighters who has been trained by the U.S. in Southern Turkey.

JANE FERGUSON (NewsHour):  In the world outside Syria, Mohammed seems nervous.  He has good reason.  As a Free Syrian Army commander, he and his men are waiting to see if foreign intervention will change the direction of the war.  He says he has already been trained by Americans.

MOHAMMED, Free Syrian Army Commander (through interpreter):  In the beginning, they asked for our three names, our first name, our surname, and father’s name.  We gave our names and pictures.  There were about 100 of us.  They took us to the camp.  They trained us for 50 days in working with guns.  The training was very good.  They taught us how to use some of the weapons we weren’t familiar with, advanced weaponry, like rockets.

JANE FERGUSON:  Mohammed says he has seen and spoken with Americans inside Syria who were coordinating airstrikes.

MOHAMMED (through interpreter):  They were telling us, these are the lines which you shouldn’t cross, or the airstrikes will hit you.

JANE FERGUSON:  Now a new deal between Turkey and the U.S. could push the Islamic State away from Turkey’s border.  American airstrikes against ISIS will now be launched from Turkish soil, the idea being, if ISIS pulls back, fighters like Mohammed could then move in.

ANNIVERSARY - First Atomic Bomb's Downwinders

"New Mexicans claim cancer is living legacy of world’s first atomic bomb test" PBS NewsHour 7/28/2015

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SUMMARY:  This July marks the 70th anniversary of the first ever test of an atomic bomb in New Mexico.  But a group called the Downwinders -- local residents whose homes were downwind of the blast site -- aren't celebrating the milestone.  People here believe the radiation from the bomb has caused a spike in cancers in their communities. Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  This month marked the 70th anniversary of the first test of a nuclear bomb.  It was a milestone for science, and credited with leading to the end of World War II.

But one group isn’t celebrating.  They call themselves the Downwinders, because they lived downwind of the blast site.

Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports from South Central New Mexico.

KATHLEEN MCCLEERY (NewsHour):  The solemn reading of names at a candlelight vigil.  This one with traditional New Mexican luminaries, is in a baseball field in the village of Tularosa.  These are victims of a different kind of loss.

GLORIA HERRERA, Tularosa Resident:  There’s just — there’s too much cancer here.

WOMAN:  There’s so many tears.

KATHLEEN MCCLEERY:  Gloria Herrera knows about cancer, from her friends, her neighbors and her husband, Henry, who’s had three different kinds.  The Herreras blame the disease on a day etched in Henry’s memory.  He was 11 years old.

HENRY HERRERA, Tularosa Resident:  Boom, that thing exploded.  And I mean it was a big explosion.  It wasn’t like these regular ones we had been hearing.

KATHLEEN MCCLEERY:  In July 1945, scientists worked in secret on the world’s first atomic bomb in a part of New Mexico’s desert called Jornada del Muerto, or Journey of Death.

They hoisted a 19-kiloton device called the Gadget on top of a 100-foot tower.  At 5:29 in the morning on July 16, a tremendous flash came first, and then a mushroom cloud stretched seven-miles high.  It was the same size and power as the plutonium bomb that would be dropped 24 days later on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands.

July is the rainy season in New Mexico.  Hours after the blast, the skies opened up.  But no one told residents to evacuate, even as radioactive ash poured down on livestock, crops, water cisterns, and laundry hanging on lines.

"Tour the site of the world’s first atomic bomb explosion" PBS NewsHour

HISTORY - Retrospect, Normandy

"Teachers and students retrace the lives of those who died at Normandy" PBS NewsHour 7/27/2015

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SUMMARY:  To make the history of World War II more vivid and meaningful, teams of students and teachers are tracing the footsteps of those who served and died during the invasion of Normandy.  Participants in National History Day's Normandy:  Sacrifice for Freedom Albert H. Small Student & Teacher Institute spend months doing intensive research on a single "silent hero," before offering a personalized graveside eulogy.  The NewsHour's April Brown reports.

Editor’s Note:  The full name of the National History Day program is Normandy: Sacrifice for Freedom Albert H. Small Student & Teacher Institute.

APRIL BROWN (NewsHour):  It has been more than 70-years since Broadway Valentine Sims, Eugene Mlot, and Francisco Blas died during the invasion of Normandy, the turning point in the allied campaign to liberate Europe from Nazi Germany in World War II.

But their sacrifice and that of 13 other servicemen is being remembered and honored in graveside eulogies at the American cemetery perched above Omaha Beach in Northern France.

STUDENT:  Technician 5th Class Broadway Valentine Sims was born in 1916 in the remote town of Elizabethton, Tennessee.

STUDENT:  Eugene G. Mlot was an orderly worker, shipping clerk and electrician with four years of high school under his belt when he joined the Army Air Force in 1942.

STUDENT:  Francisco Blas embodied the characteristics of bravery, courage and unwavering loyalty as he faced segregation, uncertainty and even death itself.

APRIL BROWN:  This is an important part of National History Day’s Normandy Institute.

VANESSA TAYLOR, Normandy Institute Scholar:  I will never sacrifice of Henry and Louie made for their country and the sacrifice they made for me.

CATHY GORN, Executive Director, National History Day:  The program started because of a concern that today’s young people don’t really understand what sacrifice is all about, sacrifice and freedom and how those two fit together.

"Disconnected by war, family reunites through student history project" PBS NewsHour 7/29/2015

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SUMMARY:  Decades after losing touch, family members from two different continents were reunited at the American Cemetery in Normandy, France, to honor a World War II soldier who was killed in action just after the D-Day invasion.  The NewsHour’s April Brown reports on the educational program that brought them together.