TRUMP FILES - The Truth Behind Trump's Career

It's all smoke and mirrors.  'Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain.'

"Trump's ‘rollercoaster' of a career marked by self-interest" PBS NewsHour 9/8/2016

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SUMMARY:  Donald Trump has tried to sell himself as a successful businessman who can boost American prosperity.  But specifics about his dealings and debt may tell a different story.  William Brangham learns more from Marc Fisher of The Washington Post and Tim O'Brien of Bloomberg to get a glimpse into Donald Trump as an entrepreneur.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  To understand Trump's vast and varied business dealings, we're joined now by two men who've spent a good deal of time looking into those businesses, as well as talking with Trump at length about his career.

Marc Fisher is a senior editor at The Washington Post and co-author of the book “Trump Revealed:  An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money and Power.”  And Tim O'Brien is executive editor of Bloomberg View.  His book is called “Trump Nation:  The Art of Being the Donald.”

Gentlemen, thank you both very much for being her.

Marc Fisher, I would like to start with you.

The Trump campaign is predicated in large part on the idea that Trump is a magnificent businessman who can bring America back to prosperity.  And you have done a long analysis of what his business career is like.  Is that a fair characterization of him?  Does he deserve that title?

MARC FISHER, The Washington Post:  Well, he's certainly had a good deal of success.  He's also had some terrible failures.

His business career has been a roller coaster.  He's been at great heights.  He dominated Atlantic City's casino gambling business for a time, but then he overextended himself there and actually ended up cannibalizing his own business and ended up with six corporate bankruptcies there.

Similarly, around the world, he's had a number of successes, but he's really changed his whole business model in recent years, so that he's taking on less debt, less risk, because that had not been going well for him.  And so he has really retreated and found a new avenue in recent years, where he essentially rents out his name and uses his name to allow others to take the risk, foreign investors and others.

So they take the risk on projects and he merely rents out his name and gets a guaranteed income stream from that.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Tim O'Brien, I would put this same question to thank.  And I should say, for the record, you are one of the few journalists in the world who have actually seen some of Trump's tax returns, but because of a court order of a suit brought that Trump brought against you for libel, you are not allowed to talk about them in too much detail.

But tell us what you can about them and whether or not they shed any light on whether he deserves this reputation for having a tremendous business acumen.

TIM O'BRIEN, Bloomberg:  Well, I do think that the tax returns are important.  I don't think he will release them.

I think the reason he won't release them is because I think they would go towards offering substantiation around a bunch of things that Trump has made central to his political campaign, his track record as a business person, how charitable he is as a philanthropist, his operations overseas, and the kinds of business and financial conflicts that would potentially come to bear on him should he end up in the Oval Office.

And I do think it does come back to yet another referendum on his business career.  And I think what's important to remember about him is that the Donald Trump of the '80s and the '90s was essentially a creature of debt.  And the last time he really operated a large business that involved, you know, complex financial and managerial decisions was when he was running the Atlantic City casinos, which he essentially ended up running into the ground.

He put those through four separate corporate bankruptcies.  And, as we all know, he almost went personally bankrupt in the early 1990s.  And the Trump who emerged from that is essentially now a human shingle, as Marc said.  He oversees a licensing operation where he puts his name on everything from mattresses and men's underwear to vodka and buildings.

And then he's got a golf course development operation, and then essentially a self-promotion publicity machine that made itself the most visible during “The Apprentice” years.

POETRY - Scotland's Bard aka Scotland’s Makar

"Scotland's national poet writes for those who've been asked 'where are you from?'" PBS NewsHour 9/8/2016

Love her Scottish accent.

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SUMMARY:  Jackie Kay is Scotland's first black national poet.  Adopted as a child, much of her poetry and prose speaks to her own experience of not feeling entirely welcome in her own country.  “I wrote the poems that I wanted to read and I wrote about the experiences that I wanted to find,” she says.  Jeffrey Brown reports.

JACKIE KAY, Scottish Poet & Novelist:  “And this is my country, says the fisherwoman from Jura.  Mine, too, says the child from Canna and Iona.  Mine, too, says the Brain family.  And mine, says the man from the Polish deli.”

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Jackie Kay wrote her poem “Threshold” for the Scottish Parliament and a special guest, Queen Elizabeth.

JACKIE KAY:  Let's blether some more about doors, revolving doors and sliding doors.

JEFFREY BROWN:  In the wake to of the recent Brexit vote to leave the European Union, it was a plea to keep doors and the country open to the outside world.  As Scotland's new national poet, Kay made it personal.

JACKIE KAY:  Scotland's changing faces — look at me!

I like the idea of trying to change the face of Scotland.  But, traditionally, when somebody thinks of somebody Scottish, they see a white man with red hair in a kilt and a — and they don't see me.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Jackie is the adopted daughter of John and Helen Kay.  Her birth mother Scottish.  Her father was then a Nigerian student studying in Scotland.

JACKIE KAY:  I was an illegitimate child.  And being picked to be a national poet is probably a pretty legitimate thing.

(LAUGHTER)

JEFFREY BROWN:  I will say.

She grew up in Glasgow in a loving home, but very unaware of her difference in the outside society.  She told her story in a bestselling memoir, “Red Dust Road.”

JACKIE KAY:  There weren't many positive stories about adoption.  And when I was growing up, we just saw negative stories about adoption.  Every story that you heard was horrendous.  And I wanted to try and tell a positive story about adoption.

So, I felt a bit like one of my favorite writers, Toni Morrison.  She said she wrote the story she wanted to read.  And I did that, too.  I wrote the poems I wanted to read and I wrote about the experiences I wanted to find.

EDUCATION - Adding Up Pre-Schooling

"Counting the benefits of teaching math to 3-year-olds" PBS NewsHour 9/6/2016

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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.

COUNTER TERRORISM - The Technology

"Can the high-tech hunt for terrorists stop lone wolf attacks?" PBS NewsHour 9/6/2016

NOVA - 15 Years of Terror

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SUMMARY:  Take a look at the room 9/11 built: The operations center at the National Counterterrorism Center aggregates data in hopes that analysts will be able to predict the next terrorist attack.  With the advent of “social media intelligence,” answers are everywhere, but the challenge is piecing them together.  Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports.

MILES O'BRIEN (NewsHour):  This is the room 9/11 built, the operations center at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) just outside Washington, D.C.

NICK RASMUSSEN, National Counterterrorism Center:  On a 24/7 basis, we have officers here working in shifts who are consuming, reading, analyzing, and assessing every bit of available information that there is to try to figure out what terrorist threats are aimed at the United States.

MILES O'BRIEN:  Nick Rasmussen is the director here.  The agency itself, and this room in particular, were created to encourage the myriad of intelligence, military and law enforcement organizations involved in national security to share classified information.

This is where they try to connect the dots.

NICK RASMUSSEN:  So, there are probably officers at NCTC from 17 or 18 different government organizations all across the government.  Basically, every three- or four-letter agency that you could probably name, we probably have somebody here at NCTC serving from that organization on a one- or two- or three-year assignment.

MILES O'BRIEN:  The nature of the work here has changed dramatically in recent years.

MAN:  These folks can get radicalized by one group and the baton can be passed to another group.

WOMAN:  The FBI had this man on its radar as early as 2013.

MILES O'BRIEN:  More lone wolves, fewer face-to-face meetings and phone calls, the Internet as a source of inspiration and planning.

MAN:  Self-radicalization doesn't have to take many months or many years.

NICK RASMUSSEN:  Increasingly, what connecting the dots means to me is dealing with the huge, huge volume of publicly available or open source or unclassified information that's out there that may have terrorism relevance.

And the work we're doing now with our partners in the intelligence community often doesn't involve really, really sensitive intelligence.  It involves looking at Twitter or looking at some other social media platform and trying to figure out who that individual behind that screen name, behind that handle might actually be and whether that person poses a threat to the United States.

"Why it’s so hard to fight extremist propaganda online" PBS NewsHour 9/7/2016

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SUMMARY:  How do you deter people from being seduced by messages of extremism on social media?  Science correspondent Miles O’Brien looks at some of the strategies, including videos that provide a counter-narrative to the Islamic State and a computer program that uses digital signatures to track the movement of images on the internet.

NEWSHOUR BOOKSHELF - "Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching"

"An author's aspirations in the time of Obama and Trayvon" PBS NewsHour 9/5/2016

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SUMMARY:  In "Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching," Mychal Denzel Smith discusses what it's like growing up as a young black man in an era that saw the election of the first black president in America, as well as the killing of Trayvon Martin.  Smith sits down with Jeffrey Brown to discuss his new book.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  “I started this book with the question, how did you learn to be a black man?”

That line comes from the new book titled “Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching:  A Young Black Man's Education.”

Author Mychal Denzel Smith is a contributing writer for “The Nation” and other publications.  This is his first book.

And welcome to you.

MYCHAL DENZEL SMITH, Author, “Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching”:  Thank you for having me.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Let's start with that question, how did you learn to be a black man?  Why was that the question?  Why was that still the question today?

MYCHAL DENZEL SMITH:  Well, so the book has its Genesis after George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin February 26, 2012.

After that event, we were having a conversation about the lives of black men in America, and particularly young black men and the experience of walking through a world that's still — where racism persists, and the judgment on the basis of stereotype has this effect where one's life could be taken.

And we were having a conversation about the talk that black parents would give to young black men about how to survive in this country, how to comport oneself with authorities.

JEFFREY BROWN:  How to behave.

MYCHAL DENZEL SMITH:  How to behave.

And what it did was, it was flattening the experience of what it is to be a young black man in America, and to say that that's the only thing that we have to concern ourselves with.  Like, it's a big deal to — continually to exist in a country that upholds racist ideas and racist structures, but the interior of black men's lives are a thing that we don't really talk too much about, right, the nuances of our experience.

Walking through racism is important, but how are we dealing with talking about patriarchy and misogyny and homophobia and class race elitism and mental illness?  We're not including these things in the narrative around young black men.

MIDDLE EAST - The Interviewer

"What Israelis and Palestinians really think about the conflict" PBS NewsHour 9/5/2016

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SUMMARY:  Corey Gil-Shuster covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a new way.  He asks the world what it wants to know from and about Israelis and Palestinians, goes to the streets of Israel and the West Bank to get the answers and posts the unedited responses on YouTube.  NewsHour contributor Justin Kenny recently followed along with Gil-Shuster to produce this report.

JOHN YANG (NewsHour):  We look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of Canadian-Israeli Corey Gil-Shuster.  He runs The Ask Project.

Gil-Shuster solicits questions from the Web and then hits the streets of Israel and the West Bank to ask serious and at times provocative questions.  He posts the answers, unedited, on YouTube.

“PBS NewsHour” contributor Justin Kenny recently followed Gil-Shuster and produced this report.

COREY GIL-SHUSTER, The Ask Project:  If you were driving on the highway and there was a Palestinian on the side of the highway that seemed to need help, would you stop and help?

CHEN SHIRAK, Israeli from Tel Aviv:  If I'm by myself in the car, I won't stop to anyone.  It doesn't matter if it's a man, a woman, in the middle of the road.  If I am with someone, like my husband, and we see something, maybe we will stop.

COREY GIL-SHUSTER:  My name is Corey Gil-Shuster.  I run The Ask an Israeli, Ask a Palestinian Project.

If you were driving on the highway and you saw an Israeli on the side of the road that needed help, would you stop?

SAMI HABASH, Palestinian from Ramallah:  Why not?  Some day, he will help me.  But if I saw — if I see that he is shooting, I will shoot back.

COREY GIL-SHUSTER:  The project is about finding out what Israelis and Palestinians really believe and think about the conflict.

People from all around the world send me questions through e-mail.  I choose the questions, and then I go out to the streets of Israel and Palestine to ask random Israelis and Palestinians to answer the questions themselves.  I don't edit any content out of it.

DURA, Palestinian:  Most, the majority, they want two states, an Israeli state and a Palestinian state.

RISHON LEZION, Israeli:  They are very primitive.  And they cannot build a country like we did.

WOMAN (through translator):  For sure, the Israelis will be destroyed because Palestine is not their right.

COREY GIL-SHUSTER:  Destroyed as in killed?

WOMAN (through translator):  They should be killed, yes.

COREY GIL-SHUSTER:  What are you willing to compromise for peace?

DROR, Israeli:  Everything.  My pants.

COREY GIL-SHUSTER:  The question is, don't you think Israel is committing suicide by holding onto the West Bank?

NOGA TARNOPOLSKY, Israeli from Jerusalem:  I think that's a really bad question.

COREY GIL-SHUSTER:  OK, why?

NOGA TARNOPOLSKY:  Because it's a leading question.

COREY GIL-SHUSTER:  A lot of the questions I get are what I call gotcha questions.  They're a little bit over the top, or exaggerated, or have a very overly simplistic way of looking at the conflict.

And I ask them exactly that way, or try to as much as possible, because I think it's interesting for Israelis or Palestinians to hear what people from outside think.  And I want them to answer in an honest way.

ECONOMICS - State of the Unions

"Can unions adapt to today's economic challenges?" PBS NewsHour 9/5/2016

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SUMMARY:  Union membership has been on the decline in the U.S.  for decades, and is currently half of what it was in the 1980s.  How are unions adapting in an era of stagnant wages and a growing “sharing economy”? Hari Sreenivasan talks with Harley Shaiken of the University of California, Berkeley and Mary Kay Henry, president of SEIU.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  For more now on the state of labor, we're going to by Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, and Harley Shaiken, a professor and labor expert at the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Shaiken, let me start with you.

When we think of the labor movement, we certainly think that it's smaller than it used to be, but what are the challenges that the movement is facing today?

HARLEY SHAIKEN, University of California, Berkeley:  Well, there are many challenges that are out there right now, but it's a particularly critical and urgent time for the labor movement and I think for the United States more generally.

Over the last three decades, labor has declined from representing one out of every five members to one out of every 10 today.  But recent polls from Bloomberg and others indicate that over half of people polled would like to join a union.

How does that square with 11 percent being in unions?  And, here, I think we're looking at tough employer opposition, laws that don't facilitate a free choice, and some broader changes in the economy.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Well, Mary Kay Henry, how do you square that gap, if people are interested still in being part of a union, but the reality is that they're not?

MARY KAY HENRY, President, SEIU:  Twenty million people have got more money in their pockets just in the last four years because 200 fast food workers had the guts to make a decision to strike and possibly lose their job, threaten their whole family's stability, and make a demand that people laughed at four years ago, $15 in a union, and now it's a standard against which people are organizing saying, hey, why do I have to wait so long to get to $15?

Or, in Birmingham, Alabama, the city council raises wages.  The Alabama state legislature overrides it.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  In Scandinavian countries, they have almost set a wage floor, even without having a minimum wage, because about 80 percent of the people, say, in Denmark are already unionized.  Right?  The private sector says, to be competitive, I have to raise my wages up.

Is the inverse happening in the United States?  With such a small unionized population, it seems the private sector doesn't see unions as much of a threat or an incentive to try to pull their wages up by themselves.

MARY KAY HENRY:  Right.

And the absence of government, working people, and employers sharing a vision for what everybody deserves in the country, we have the grossest inequality that our generation has ever seen in this country.

And fast food workers are asking themselves, hey, if McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King can provide $20 in Denmark, where 80 percent of the people have a union, why can't they do the same thing in the United States of America?

Answer, GREED.  Company profits are more important than people, and politicians are paid (so-called campaign donations) to keep it that way.

POLITICS - What Trump Really IS

#NeverTrump

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 9/2/2016

"Shields and Brooks on immigration and whether Clinton should lay low" PBS NewsHour 9/2/2016

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SUMMARY:  This week, Donald Trump took a surprise trip to Mexico before his landmark immigration speech.  But are his views too radical for the electorate?  Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is hitting a fundraising stride, though her email scandal remains in the headlines.  Hari Sreenivasan speaks with syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks for analysis of the week in politics.

REPUBLICAN TABLOID - Clinton Emails, Again and Again, Forever

"We now know what Clinton told the FBI — but should we?" PBS NewsHour 9/2/2016

COMMENT:  In my 22yr carrier in the U.S. Navy (now retired), I was cleared for Secret, and trained on classifications.  In the military, it is somewhat easier to decide.  BUT note, the person responsible for actually assigning the ORIGINAL classification to ANY COMMUNICATION (voice, document, email, etc) is the ORIGINATOR of the communication.  There is no magic filter-in-the-sky to place classifications.

There are rules for classifying material, but they are very big, complex, and can change from day-to-day.  What is classified Secret today MAY NOT have been classified yesterday.

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SUMMARY:  On Friday, the FBI released two key documents from its investigation into the private email server Hillary Clinton used as secretary of state.  One file contains the FBI's notes from its interviews with Clinton; the other summarizes the agency's findings.  Hari Sreenivasan speaks with NPR's Carrie Johnson about what new information these materials reveal and why their publication is controversial.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Today, the FBI released two key documents about its investigation into the private email server Hillary Clinton used when she was secretary of state.

One contains the agency's notes from Clinton's FBI interview, and the other is a 47-page summary of the FBI's findings.

NPR's Carrie Johnson is covering the story and joins me now.

So, what's new about the documents that were released today?

CARRIE JOHNSON, NPR:  There are several new details, including really a sense of what Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators in that three-and-a-half-hour interview at FBI headquarters on July 2.

Hari, she said she used this personal server as a matter of convenience.  She never had a concern that she or anybody close to her was mishandling classified information, and that she actually doesn't recall attending a security briefing or any kind of training about open records lawsuits or open records laws, which is interesting, because these materials only came out after a host of FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests from news organizations and calls from Republicans in Congress.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  And there was — one of the emails — or at least one of the quotes that we have is about a drone program.  I think we can put that up.

It says, “Clinton stated” — this is the FBI saying:  “Clinton stated deliberation over a future drone strike didn't give her cause for concern regarding classification.”

Is this willful oversight, ignorance?  Was she too busy?  What were the reasons that they gave?

CARRIE JOHNSON:  Recall, Hari, that the FBI director, James Comey, has said that Hillary Clinton and closest aides were extremely careless with government secrets, but he didn't find enough evidence to prosecute anyone for wrongdoing.

That said, these new documents today include more information about what was going through her own email server, a lot of documents, a lot of emails about the drone program, one of the government's most secret tools in the national security space, to allow officials at the CIA and the Pentagon to engage in extrajudicial killing of terrorists or would-be terrorists overseas.

And what Hillary Clinton was asked about by the FBI were a number of emails about targeted killings about to happen, disputes between different government agencies about who should be targeted for those kinds of drone strikes and other things.

What Hillary Clinton said in response to FBI questions was mainly, listen, I relied on career State Department officials to make determinations about what should be classified and what shouldn't.

She also said that these programs were the subject of multiple debates in media, in newspapers, on television and the like.  And, often, her aides were passing around articles from newspapers about drone strikes.  So, she thought it was OK to write about that.

LOOKING BACK - Tornado in Joplin, Missouri, May 2011

"Tornado-stricken Joplin now thrives, but emotional scars linger" PBS NewsHour 9/2/2016

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SUMMARY:  The tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011 was one of the most destructive in U.S. history.  Five years later, the city seems to be thriving -- possibly even better off than it was before.  One key to its success?  Getting residents to stay, says Jane Cage, chair of the Citizens Advisory Recovery Team.  But the emotional trauma from that day still lingers.  Hari Sreenivasan reports.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Storms, hurricanes and natural disasters clearly test the fortitude of any area, as we're seeing this weekend with Hermine, and just recently with the rains and flooding in Louisiana.

We tend to focus on the immediate aftermath and relief, but the devastation can last for years.

We have the story of how one city leveled by a tornado has spent years rebuilding, and in some ways is better and stronger for the future.

The tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011 was one of the most destructive ever in U.S. history; 161 people were killed, 1,000 were injured, and more than 7,000 homes were damaged.

When the “NewsHour” visited four months later, people were still literally picking up the pieces of their lives.

JANE CAGE, Chair, Citizens Advisory Recovery Team:  It is certainly clean, compared with what it used to be.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Jane Cage, a businesswoman who chaired the Citizens Advisory Council to rebuild Joplin, told us back then she was worried people wouldn't come back to the destroyed areas.

JANE CAGE:  In the beginning, I think everyone said, I want to rebuild my house.  And now I think people are faced with the reality that what they wanted, their neighborhood and their friends may not be in that same spot.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Five years later, Cage took us on a tour of the same neighborhood.

JANE CAGE:  I think this is, in some ways, one of the best recovered neighborhoods.  They're nicer houses and larger houses overall.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  She says one of the main things that Joplin got right in the aftermath was encouraging residents to stay.

JANE CAGE:  We concentrated on keeping our population in Joplin, because we saw what happened in other cities that experienced disasters.  And I think one of the first things that we did to make that happen was, our school superintendent made the promise that we would start school on time.

NEWSHOUR SHARES - Federal Research Vessel Tiglax

"Aboard a boat that ferries scientists to Alaskan wildlife" PBS NewsHour 9/2/2016

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SUMMARY:  Every summer, the federal research vessel Tiglax travels along the chain of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, ferrying scientists to remote locations to study wildlife.  The Aleutian archipelago is 1600 miles in length and constitutes an ecosystem of stunning diversity.  Tiglax's captain talks about life aboard the boat, the animals he's seen, the passion of his passengers and why he's ‘hopeful.'

ON THE EDGE - Venezuela's Food Crisis

"A growing, catastrophic food crisis sows unrest in Venezuela" PBS NewsHour 9/1/2016

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SUMMARY:  In Venezuela, hundreds of thousands came out in protest against President Nicolas Maduro, whose approval ratings have reached record lows.  The cause for discontent:  Food is now incredibly scarce and far too expensive to buy, and the hunger is leading to and caused by growing corruption.  Nathan Halverson of Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting reports from Caracas.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  In Caracas, today, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans turned out to protest against President Nicolas Maduro's government and called for an end to his rule.

The country has been plagued by a deepening economic crisis, corruption, crime, all of which have contributed to a worsening food shortage.

Nathan Halverson of Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting recently visited Caracas,.

NATHAN HALVERSON, Center for Investigative Reporting:  Well before sunrise, hungry Venezuelans are waiting outside grocery stores praying for food trucks to arrive.  By mid-morning, with streets crowded with anxious faces, there is little hope.

WOMAN (through translator):  There is only butter and oil.  We need them to send us more food.

QUESTION (through translator):  When did you get here?

WOMAN (through translator):  At 4:00 a.m.

MAN (through translator):  I got here at 8:00 p.m. last night.

As Venezuelans watch their country crumble and their desperation and hunger spill into the streets, their anger with President Nicolas Maduro and his party has become explosive.

WOMAN (through translator):  This is what's happening in Venezuela.  We're starving.  We're struggling, thanks to this government.  It's the Maduro diet.

NATHAN HALVERSON:  Police now guard grocery stores across the country, holding back the hungry and volatile mobs.

MAN (through translator):  Why are you taking me out of line? I was here early.  I also need food.

NATHAN HALVERSON:  Some 90 percent of Venezuelans now report that food has become too expensive to buy.  Hungry mobs are increasingly rioting and looting bakeries and food trucks.  This has forced everyday people to try and calm desperate crowds, like this grocery store manager.

BRIEF BUT SPECTACULAR - Lemony Snicket

"How Lemony Snicket channels his bewilderment into words" PBS NewsHour 9/1/2016

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SUMMARY:  You may not have heard of Daniel Handler, but you've probably heard of his pen name: Lemony Snicket.  Handler, author of the children's book series “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” says much of children's literature is about “enforced morality,” but he focuses on the bewildering nature of childhood.  Handler gives his Brief but Spectacular take on putting his bewilderment into words.

FACING HISTORY - Georgetown University

"Georgetown University tries to make amends for profiting from slavery" PBS NewsHour 9/1/2016

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SUMMARY:  Georgetown University is taking an unprecedented step to respond to and apologize for its ties to slavery.  The university will give special preference to applicants who are descendants of Georgetown's slaves, plans to rename a building in honor of one of the slaves and will create an institute to study slavery.  For greater context, Hari Sreenivasan speaks with the MIT's Craig Steven Wilder.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  In recent years, a number of prestigious colleges and universities have had to acknowledge their past ties and history to slavery in the U.S.

Today, Georgetown University became the latest to say it will apologize for its past and take new steps.  More than 200 years ago, the original Georgetown College operated plantations in Maryland that worked with slave labor.  Then, in 1838, facing deep debt, a pair of priests who each served as president of Georgetown sold 272 people to help pay the bills.  The slaves were sent to plantations in Louisiana.

To help atone for its past, the university announced it would give a special preference in admissions to applicants who are descendants of Georgetown's slaves.  It's also renaming a building in honor of one of the slaves, erecting a public memorial, and creating an institute to study slavery and its legacy.

University president John DeGioia spoke at a news conference today.

JOHN DEGIOIA, President, Georgetown University:  So many were surprised, even shocked, by the revelation of Jesuit slave-holding and the benefit we received from the 1830 sale.

As a community and as individuals, we cannot do our best work if we refuse to take ownership of such a critical part of our history.  We must acknowledge it.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  For a closer look at this, I'm joined from New York by Craig Steven Wilder.  He's a professor of American history at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and author of “Ebony and Ivy:  Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities.”

Mr.  Wilder, put this in context for us.  How crucial was this transaction of people to keep Georgetown alive?

CRAIG STEVEN WILDER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:  You know, in 1838, Georgetown sold — the president of Georgetown helped negotiate the sale of about 272 people to Louisiana.

And from what we understand, about 15 to 20 percent of the money, the proceeds, actually was used to pay down Georgetown's debts.  And so I think it's actually quite crucial to the continued survival of the university.

This is about the time that the university imposed tuition for the first time.  And so it was helping to meet a number of financial needs.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  What about your thoughts on the university's actions today?

CRAIG STEVEN WILDER:  I thought that the report was thorough and quite thoughtful, but the real meaning of the report — I'm cautiously optimistic — I think the real meaning of the report will get revealed over the next several years and decades, as we see Georgetown implement these promises.

And it will depend upon how fully those get institutionalized on the campus, and so that we can actually see them really get achieved.

THE IDEA FACTORY - Student Inventors

"Helping student inventors turn big ideas into the next big thing" PBS NewsHour 8/31/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  It's back-to-school season, but these students have taken their brainstorming outside the classroom to solve pressing, real-life problems.  Visit a competition where teams of student inventors pitch their entrepreneurial ideas to guests posing as investors, who vote on the best startup ideas.  Special correspondent Cat Wise reports from Portland, Oregon.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  As students head back to college this year, some will be doing more than just the usual course work.

Special correspondent Cat Wise has a story about a group of student inventors trying to make their mark, part of our weekly series covering the Leading Edge of science and technology.

CAT WISE, Special correspondent:  Music, wine, and ideas were flowing at an event in Portland, Oregon, that brought together college students from around the country who have all been hard at work, between classes and tests, inventing the next big thing.

While the atmosphere was festive, there was some serious business going on.  Fourteen teams pitched their inventions to invited guests, who were playing the role of venture investors for the evening, with venture bucks to invest in the ballot boxes of their favorite start-ups.

MAN:  Back the team that you think is going to change the world.

CAT WISE:  There were plenty of cool ideas to choose from, like a low-cost water contamination detection system from an all-women team of engineers at Santa Clara University, and a device to help babies with respiratory distress syndrome in low-resource hospitals developed by students at Western Michigan University.

And there was even a group from a local high school trying to tackle another common problem in many parts of the world, lack of electricity to charge cell phones.

WILLIAM WU, West Salem High School:  We made a thermo-electric generator that can be used in open fire to generate electricity while cooking.  The metal rod right here will go directly into the pot they're using for cooking, and the heat will go from the rod into the thermal electric generators that will generate electricity from the heat.

CAT WISE:  Many of the products on display are still in the early stages of development, and some build on ideas that are already out in the marketplace.

But a few of the teams have created things never invented before.  Katherine Jin is part of the Kinnos team from Columbia University.  She and her two co-founders, who are also her classmates, were inspired when they saw a need for better disinfection methods during the Ebola crisis in Africa.

KEVIN TYAN, Co-founder, Kinnos:  One of the current problems with the way people decontaminate today is that the disinfectants are clear and transparent, so you can't see where you're spraying.  They bounce off waterproof surfaces, just like rain off an umbrella.

CAT WISE:  After some late nights and a lot of trial and error, they developed Highlight, a powder that adds temporary color to bleach and enhances adhesion to surfaces.

DESTINATION ICELAND - Tourism Booming, But...

"Tourism in Iceland is booming — but that may not be all good news" PBS NewsHour 8/30/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  As war, terrorism and uncertainty pervade the globe, travelers are flocking to Iceland -- regarded as one of the safest nations on the planet.  Fishing used to be the country's most profitable industry, but in recent years, tourism has claimed the top spot.  Still, the buzz and the economic benefits it delivers are accompanied by challenges.  Malcolm Brabant reports Iceland's tourism 'growing pains.'

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The tourist season in Europe is winding down, and at least one nation hopes it will stay that way.

Iceland was one of this year's “It” destinations for vacationers, but people there are learning the downside of that boom.  More tourist money can also mean more problems.

Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant has our story.

MALCOLM BRABANT (NewsHour):  With its volcanic underbelly and unspoiled prehistoric landscape, Iceland has suddenly become one of the hottest destinations.

OLOF YRR ATLADOTTIR, Director General, Icelandic Tourist Board:  My name is Olof Yrr Atladottir.  And I'm the director general of the Icelandic Tourist Board.

For me, Iceland is the possibility of enjoying solitude in spectacular wide-open spaces.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  Iceland is certainly spectacular.  The Gullfoss Waterfall, part of the so-called Golden Circle of attractions not far from the capital, is said by some to rival Niagara Falls.

And it's not surrounded by high-rise hotels.  But can you get solitude?  That's debatable.  Iceland is a location for “Game of Thrones.”  And fans of the hit series are partly responsible for the island's new popularity, so much so, that it's difficult to grab a shot of pure nature without getting photo-bombed by people taking selfies.

MARK HEASMAN, CEO, Ormiston Families London:  My name is Mark Heasman.  I run a children's charity in London.  It's a delightful country.  So far, we have been in Reykjavik.  But we're now just about to go out on a three-week expedition around the interior, so we can't wait to get away from the people.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  We met Heasman in the Thingvellir National Park, another destination on the Golden Circle route.  It's a World Heritage Site and place of great national importance to Icelanders as a legendary meeting point throughout the centuries.

MARK HEASMAN:  This particular point seems really crowded, actually, for somewhere that's so special and so unique.  It's actually a bit disappointing to see it full of tourists.  But then people need to see it, I guess.

WAR ON ISIS - Mass Graves Discovered

"Mass graves of ISIS victims discovered across Iraq and Syria" PBS NewsHour 8/30/2016

ISIS, the disciples of Satin.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Documenting atrocities committed by the Islamic State can seem impossible.  A new report from the Associated Press, however, catalogs 72 mass graves around Syria and Iraq -- including one site that held 1,700 bodies.  Gwen Ifill speaks with the AP's Lori Hinnant about the locations of these burial sites, what happened to the victims entombed within them and whether anyone is being held responsible.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Cataloging the atrocities committed by the so-called Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq is a difficult, sometimes impossible task.

A new report from the Associated Press attempts to document the mass graves holding some of the group's victims.  The AP found 72 mass grave sites around Syria and Iraq.  One of the sites held as many as 1,700 bodies.

For more, we are joined by Associated Press reporter Lori Hinnant, one of the authors of the investigation.

Lori, thank you for joining us.

Seventy-two mass grave sites, how were you and your colleagues able to find them and document them?

LORI HINNANT, Associated Press:  Well, we used a variety of sources.

We first went to Iraqi Kurdistan, where there are at least 35 mass graves on Sinjar Mountain alone, most of them holding the bodies of minority Yazidi.

We also talked to the Kurdish regional government, who told us of at least two others, one outside Mosul at a prison, where 600 to 800 inmates were killed, and another in a deep natural geological pit.

Then we asked the government in Baghdad what they knew to try and triangulate some of the other information.  We also went into archives of news reports when sites were discovered.  For Syria, we can't go in.  So, we had to speak to activists, locals, some fighters who are fighting against Islamic State, and people who are trying to document human rights abuses.

GWEN IFILL:  Do mass graves also — always mean mass killings?  That is to say, did all of the people — or the bodies that you found in these graves all come from single episodes, single assaults?

LORI HINNANT:  Not necessarily, although, largely, they did.  And even for some of them, it's not clear who is even in them.  The graves have not been excavated and they are untouched.

Others are in territory that no one has seen.  The pit outside Mosul and another one in Syria, for example, we know from Islamic State's own propaganda that they have buried hundreds, if not more, bodies in them.  And they just tossed them in really without a thought.  We have no idea why the people were killed exactly or when.

So, in those cases, yes, the victims are killed at different times.  In Sinjar, they were all killed at the same time.

IRELAND - The Apple Wars

"European Union: Apple owes Ireland nearly $15 billion in back taxes" PBS NewsHour 8/30/2016

This is also a Greed File.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  After uncovering an illegal deal, the European Union ruled that Apple pay over $14.5 billion in back taxes to Ireland.  The EU's antitrust regulator found that the country and the tech giant had made an agreement that allowed Apple to pay less than 1 percent in corporate tax for over a decade.  Apple plans to appeal the decision.  Hari Sreenivasan speaks with EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  The European Commission ruled today that Ireland must collect $14.5 billion in back taxes from Apple.  The announcement fueled new tensions between the U.S. and Europe over the role of multinational corporations, how they are taxed, and whether it should be considered a subsidy.

The antitrust regulator for the EU said Ireland had given Apple a sweetheart tax deal for well over a decade, with special laws that effectively allowed Apple to pay less than 1 percent corporate tax.  The EU accused Apple of setting up two companies in Ireland with a head office that only exists on paper.  The profits from European stores all go to the Ireland head office and are essentially untaxed.

Apple said it would appeal the decision and denied the characterization.  In a statement, the company's chief executive, Tim Cook, said the European Commission is trying to — quote — “rewrite Apple's history in Europe, ignore Ireland's tax laws and upend the international tax system in the process.”  The company has more than $200 billion in cash.

I spoke with Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who announced the decision.

Ms.  Vestager, thanks for joining us.

First off, what gave Apple an edge in Ireland that was unfair in the eyes of the EU?

MARGRETHE VESTAGER, European Commission:  Well, we have a long longstanding prohibition of state aid, which means benefits, advantages to a selected company.

And that may come in any form, as a piece of land, a favorable loan, a grant or a tax benefit.  And, of course, any member state can have their own tax legislation.  We would never question that.  But the thing is that you cannot give a specific company a benefit or an advantage which is not open to other companies.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Is there evidence that this was specific to Apple and not to all the other companies that are doing business in Ireland?

MARGRETHE VESTAGER:  Yes, it is.

This arrangement is due to two things which are none of our concern, how Apple is organized and the Irish tax legislation.  But the thing that is specific is two tax rulings — are two tax rulings that are directed specifically to Apple.

And tax rulings are, by nature, specific because they are directed from the government or from the authorities to a specific company.  And this is only for them.  It is not for other companies.

FIGHTING EXTREMISM - The Path of Jesse Curtis Morton

"An extremist's path to academia — and fighting terrorism" PBS NewsHour 8/29/2016

NOTE:  I have made two changes from the original transcript to clarify which persona is talking.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Jesse Curtis Morton begins work as a counterterrorism researcher at George Washington University this fall.  But his path to the position was highly unconventional:  until 2012, Morton was Younus Abdullah Muhammad, a Muslim extremist who founded a radical Islamist website.  His decision to go undercover and assist in counterterrorism efforts while in prison changed his trajectory profoundly.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Across the country, students are heading back to school.  As on many campuses, today is also the first day of class at George Washington University.

This summer, a think tank at the school made one of the most unique hires in academia.

The “NewsHour” has a broadcast exclusive interview with a man who was once convicted of terrorism-related charges, and is now a researcher on campus.

I caught up with Jesse Curtis Morton recently.

This is Jesse Curtis Morton.  In 2010, he went by another name, Younus Abdullah Muhammad.

YOUNUS ABDULLA MUHAMMAD:  We will fight you and destroy you if we have to, but we prefer that you come home and pack it up.  Stop killing our innocent men, women and children overseas.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Born in the U.S., he grew up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but Morton became a Muslim extremist.  This was him on the streets of New York.

YOUNUS ABDULLA MUHAMMAD:  There will be no peace with Israel until Israel is in pieces.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Morton (aka Younus Abdulla Muhammad) also helped found Revolution Muslim, a Web site that the FBI says encouraged Muslims to support Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and other violent jihadi groups.

The Web site threatened violence against the creators of the Comedy Central show “South Park” for a 2010 cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed.  In 2012, Morton was sentenced to more than 11-and-a-half years in jail for using the Internet to threaten bodily harm.

But here we are four years later.  He's a free man with a decent-paying job at a George Washington University think tank in the nation's capital.  Morton is out of jail early because he cooperated with authorities in the U.S. and overseas.  He worked undercover to gather intelligence on those who still trusted the man they saw in those videos.

He helped train law enforcement to recognize people on the path he was on, and helped analyze the behavior of suspected terrorists with insights only someone like him could have.

You're on camera now.  Your face is going to be out there.  And you're going to be walking around a college campus, as someone who has been convicted of supporting al-Qaida.

JESSE CURTIS MORTON, George Washington University:  Yes.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  There's 10,000 sets of parents who might be a little concerned that someone with a target on their back might be walking around on the same campus as their students.

JESSE CURTIS MORTON:  Well, there has been an extensive security plan put in place by a very competent security team at G.W.  And we have assessed the risk with the law enforcement community, federal, local, and some state agencies.  And there is very, very, very little risk at this point.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Getting to this point, Morton says, has been a long road through radicalization and then de-radicalization.

JESSE CURTIS MORTON:  I came from a very tumultuous childhood, where there was very severe abuse.  And when I reached out to my society and tried to get assistance to stop that abuse, the school, my family, and the society around me didn't prevent it.  And so, at a very young age, I rejected American culture and the American way of life, so to say, and sought a new identity.