The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; May 15, 2006

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Thank you. President Bush will call tonight for sending National Guard troops to the border with Mexico. A spokesman confirmed today, it's the centerpiece of a prime-time address to the nation. The guard would be used to support the border patrol. We'll have the speech live at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, and more on the story now with Mark Shields and David Brooks right after this news summary. Violence in Iraq killed at least 19 Iraqis today. At least 30 others were killed around Baghdad on Sunday. It was also a deadly weekend for U.S. troops, with seven killed. Two of them died Sunday when insurgents shot down their Apache helicopter just south of Baghdad. The U.S. military said it killed 40 insurgents in weekend raids in that same area. The main Sunni clerical group in Iraq said at least 25 were civilians. The prosecution rested its case today in the trial of Saddam Hussein. With that, he was officially charged with crimes against humanity.

We have a report narrated by Alex Thompson of Independent Television News. Seven months into the trial and the moment of truth, Chief Judge Abdur Akman formally charges Saddam Hussein with multiple counts of torture and mass murder. How do you plead guilty or innocent? I cannot reply so briefly to accusations in this trial. And forget about all the witnesses. The public will listen to all your statements. And now I am expected just to say yes or no. This statement cannot influence me or disturb one hair on my head. Guilty or not guilty. You can say no if you want, will take it as not guilty. If you've just given a long charge list, you can't summarise this by guilty or not guilty.

You are now with force Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq. You were, now you're the accused. That's your opinion. I am president of Iraq according to the will of the Iraqi people and I am still president up to this moment. In the end, there are the testy-looking Judge Rachman entered a not guilty plea. Saddam and seven co-defendants are charged with the deaths of 148 Shiites in 1982. The trial resumes tomorrow as the defense presents its case. The US moved a day to restore full diplomatic relations with Libya. The two countries have not had formal ties since 1980. The government of Muammar Gaddafi was held responsible for the bombing of Panamfly 103 in 1998, but in 2003, Gaddafi agreed to give up attempts to build nuclear weapons. The African Union warned rebel holdouts in Sudan today to sign a peace pact for Darfur, but the AU also gave them another two weeks to act.

Sudan and the largest rebel group have signed the agreement. We'll have more on Sudan from Margaret Warner later in the program tonight. The rain kept falling today across New England, parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine had already gotten more than a foot of rain. That fed major rivers and touched off the worst flooding there since 1936. NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michaels narrates our report. Across the region, four days of torrential rain have forced hundreds from their homes, rushed out roads and caused traffic gridlock north of Boston. The suburbs there are among the hardest hit. Residents in Saugas had to be rescued by the fire department today after water reached their doorways. I've never seen this before in my life. This reservoir is crusted and it's still coming down. In downtown Peabody, Humvees plowed through flooded streets and sandbags were piled in doorways.

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney toured the area on Sunday. He, along with the governors of New Hampshire and Maine, declared states of emergency. Today, the Merrimack River was almost nine feet over flood stage at Manchester, New Hampshire and still rising. The National Guard took up positions to keep people away. And in southern Maine, scores of families near the mouse and river also fled their homes. In York County, roads were closed and a bridge was in danger of collapsing. Schools throughout the area have been closed. The National Weather Service predicted the rain would continue at least until tomorrow. There was also a word today that flooding spilled of millions of gallons of sewage into the Merrimack River in Massachusetts. Today was the deadline to sign up for the new Medicare drug program. Members who wait to enroll after today are slated to pay higher premiums, but Democrats and some Republicans talked of waiving the financial penalty, while have more on this

story later in the program. A third member of the Duke University La Crosse team was indicted today in a rape case, team co-captain David Evans faces charges of first-degree rape and kidnapping in Durham, North Carolina. He proclaimed his innocence today. Two other players were indicted on the same charges last month, and exotic dancer as a lead she was raped and beaten at a team party in March. On Wall Street today, blue chip stocks rallied a bid after oil prices fell 3 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average gained more than 47 points to close well over 11,428. But the Nasdaq fell five points on weaknesses in technology stocks. It closed at 2238. Former U.S. poet laureate Stanley Kunitz died Sunday at his home in New York City. His work span more than 70 years, and included a Pulitzer Prize for poetry and a National Book Award.

He was named poet laureate at the age of 95 at his death. Stanley Kunitz was 100 years old. And that's it for the new summer tonight, now the president's immigration speech. Margaret Warner from Sudan, the Medicare drugs deadline arrives and so have the iPod people. The president addresses the nation denied on immigration reform, NewsHour correspondent Kwame Holman begins our preview. Reports that the president plans to dispatch thousands of National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border brought out varied opinions this weekend. That's not the role of our military. That's not the role of our National Guard. We have to understand, we have stretched these men and women so thin, so thin because of the bad mistakes done by the civilians and the military here that I wonder how they're going to be able to do it.

And today, as their work resumed on an immigration reform bill, senators were anxious to know what new ideas the president would offer. I understand the president tonight may make some announcement with regard to the use of National Guard on a temporary basis to fill in the gaps and provide additional boots on the ground so that we can get to that level of security faster. And I believe that we should use all of our national assets to provide border security. Will he tell the American people how this proposal will work without jeopardizing the critical role the National Guard plays in keeping our communities and nation safe? It first was reported late Friday that the president wanted to send as many as 10,000 National Guard troops to the southwest. About 300 Guard troops already are deployed along the four state 3,000 mile long border. Yesterday, Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, telephone president Bush, reportedly to express his concern about the border between the two countries becoming militarized. Meanwhile, California's Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Friday such

a plan would be unfair to the National Guard. The federal government should put up the money to create the kind of a protection that the federal government is responsible to provide. Not to use our National Guard soldiers that are coming back from Iraq. New Mexico's Democratic governor, Bill Richardson, called it a political move. My worry is that this is basically a political PR move so that the White House can appease conservative Republicans that want a repressive immigration bill. According to the White House, National Guard troops would not apprehend illegal immigrants at the border, but instead offer technical and logistical support on an interim basis to an overwhelmed force of border patrol agents. The president plans to follow up his speech tonight with a visit to the border town of Yuma, Arizona. And the shields and Brooks indicated columnist Mark Shields, New York Times columnist David Brooks.

What suspense now remains about this speech? Oh, I guess relatively little suspense. The president doesn't exactly roll out a lot of brave new ideas and speeches. We pretty much know what's going to be in there. He's like, I have sticks to his ideas. Listen, this thing is obviously a political thing. I'm not sure anybody I know who is an expert in immigration, national guard people. I really have the solution of the problem. You can't really police the border at the border. You've either got to arrest people at the workplace and also give people who are want to be here who we need a channel. So this is as Governor Richardson said. This is a way to get Republicans back on board and to demonstrate the president's commitment to sport or security. But then the second thing he's going to do is actually more substantive, which is to sort of lay his arms around the Senate compromise sponsored by Bill Martinez and Chuck Hale. And say that is an approach that makes sense. And the Senate was on the verge of approving that compromise. They're now sort of on the verge though that's being pulled apart by left and right and getting that through actually is substantive. Yeah. How do you read it?

I read it very similarly the way David did. It's a, the timing is, is events of forcedness upon the president. This is not of his choosing. I mean, this is an issue. Yes, he's been identified with throughout his entire career as Governor of Texas beginning. But it's, it's not an issue that cuts well for him or for his party. Democrats have a major advantage right now for Republicans on the issue of immigration. The president. No, why is that, do you think? I think, I think in part Jim, it's reflection of the relative strength of the two parties right now, but I think it's also a reflection of the House Bill. And you've got a third, about a third of Americans, excuse me, endorse the House proposal, which would make felons of the election here. That bill has already been passed by the House and it was waiting out there to be reconciled with the Senate version whenever it comes. That's exactly right. Well, that's, that's, but it's the felon, the felon thing that is the, is the red flag. Well, it's, it does, it's a problem for Republicans because what Republicans have encountered, encountering is a lack of intensity, lack of enthusiasm about the election in November.

And that is the no place that that is more dangerous to them than their core constituency who are conservatives who very frankly are upset. If you, if you talk to the Senate, yeah, there's no border, there's no border security. There hasn't been, but it's five years now coming up on, it's 9-11. It's the first time the president has really addressed the issue of border security. Why is, what, what, tell us the, explain the politics among conservatives about this. Where, where are the divisions, where are the divisions, and why is it so intense? Right, if you're a Republican senator, you look at public opinion, especially among conservative side, it's split. What you get when you do focus groups is for the first half hour people scream. They scream because they're enraged, because it's out of control. They want somebody to put the border in control. But then you get past that 30 minutes of rage, then you start talking recently, what are we going to do about the 11 million who are here, how are we going to have the workers we need? Here, there are the 11 million who are here illegally, what do we do about that? Right, and these children are legal citizens. And so once you get past the rage, you can get into a reasonable conversation with most Americans, but Republican senators are afraid of the rage, because, you know, they read

the polls and they know their support for earned citizenship. They know their support for some sort of guesswork or program, but when your calls are run in 20 and 40 to one against, you have trouble with the abstraction of the polls. All you know is you have a torrent of rage at the other end of the line. I was with some Republicans this week, and somebody was saying it's 20 to one against us. 21 against this compromise, and then other senators said, I wish I had the one. All I'm getting is negativity. And the opposition from conservatives is about the guest worker program, because they see that as a code word for amnesty, correct? And they just say it's amnesty. They think it's just going to let people in. So they're, I don't side with them, but on substantive grounds, they do have some credibility based by the fact we've tried before, and we've never enforced it. Under Ronald Reagan. I mean, in 1986, Jim, the other thing is that the fault line is between the House and the Senate Republicans, and the House Republicans see themselves as the keepers of the conservative flame.

I mean, they've passed repeal of the state tax. They've passed the tough immigration bill that they've met the challenge in their own judgment, and the Senate has acted on none of these things. And so that the Roy Blunt, the House Republican Whip, is on record saying there will be no amnesty. I mean, if they come over here with a provision, with earned citizenship, or whatever, it's not going to be. Which is the guest worker program, which is not, I mean, if they're at all kinds of little things, you can do to it, which is a basic issue, that's exactly right. And, but David made a very telling point early, and that is, unless you have something in the workplace. Unless there's some penalty and punishment for the employer who employs these people, who, quite frankly, are the most docile, malleable, and intimidated of all workers imaginable. So the National Guard thing is just a blatant attempt to say to conserve, well, when I'm going to do something about enforcement at the border, just look at that. And if I'll do that, then you've got to go with me on the desk. At the bottom of the line, Marshall Whitman said, there are these Republicans on the base who are streaming across the border away from the Republican Party, and Bush needs

a guard to protect them and keep them in the party. The governor's objections on national guard grounds, is that going to go, is that going to mean anything? Because they're coming, somebody, Bill Richards, obviously, is a Democrat who's got Democratic acts. I know this is more impressive. Yeah. Janet Napolitano has asked for this, I believe, the governor of Arizona, and Rick Perry, I think, is probably in a tough race, so he'll, he's not, he's a government of Texas. But I think, I think Arnold Schwarzenegger is saying, hey, look, this is a federal plan. This should not be the States. The National Guard, when you signed up for the National Guard, it was two weeks, you know, in the summer, a weekend, every month, and you were expected floods, tornadoes, and events. I mean, now, this has become, you know, a military, a military career for many, and they don't get the same benefits that military people do. They can't equip them. That's right. And they can't, they can't, they can't purchase in the commissary, they don't get the same kind of medical treatment that families don't. Finally, David, the president's been, he's been president for over five years now. That's the first time he's done an Oval Office address to the nation on a domestic issue.

Why is immigration, why does immigration rate that right now? Because the, if you look at the number of people who think it's a major problem or the biggest problem, it's just surging, and his whole base is built around this issue. They're just totally polarized. And you said that two weeks ago, you said this could be the defining issue of the 2006 Congressional Act. I think that some Republicans who are scared stiff, it's the gay marriage of 2006. Gay marriage of 2006. It could be the social issues. I see. I'll catch you. Okay. Thank you both very much. Still to come on the news hour tonight, Margaret Warner from Sudan, the Medicare drugs deadline and the iPod culture. It wraps up a week of reporting in Sudan and Darfur with this report on Sudan's booming economy. Deep in the heart of Sudan, the Chinese are riding to work.

At the cartoon oil refinery on the outskirts of the Sudanese capital, Chinese know-how and labor are helping Africa's largest country realize its economic potential. All the stationary equipment, Chinese, and they are brought here in pieces and was built here in this refinery. Mohammad Atif Akmed is the deputy general manager of the cartoon refinery. It began operating in the year 2000. And when phase two, now being built by a Chinese construction company and its workers is up and running next month, the facility will be refining 100,000 barrels of sewage. Sudanese crude into petroleum products each day. The Chinese comprise one-third of the workforce here, while two-thirds are Sudanese. Akmed concedes the collaboration posed some difficulties at first. But China is getting far more out of this business deal than just free English lessons

for its staff here. The refinery is just one small part in an overall investment that has given China a 40 percent stake in Sudan's oil industry. A third to a half of Sudan's half-million barrel-a-day crude oil output ends up in China, helping to meet that country's voracious thirst for energy. They have double benefits, actually. The first one is that they have an investment in Sudan, which is a good investment. And the second is they have some oil which you can take to China. The signs of China's investment are everywhere here, from the flags flying at the refinery to the Chinese-owned gas stations in cartoon where Sudanese motorists now fill up. To the busy Panda restaurant that gives visiting businessmen a taste from home. And the Chinese aren't alone in rushing to capitalize on Sudan's seven-year-old oil boom.

One of cartoon's classic colonial hotels, or Winston Churchill once stayed, is now owned by a Malaysian company, and welcomes visiting executives from that country's state-owned oil giant, Petronas. The Gulf states and the Indians are investing heavily, too. Though his Sudan's neighbor, Libya, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Khadafi, is said to be bankrolling this daringly designed 15-story hotel. Alongside these new buildings are dusty streets and legions of struggling Sudanese businesses. But a few small-scale entrepreneurs are now riding the coattails of the oil boom. What was the difference between your business before that pipeline started operating an after? Taric Ibrahim is one of many British and American-educated Sudanese who have brought their know-how back home.

A graduate of Howard University, he came back in the mid-1990s with a notion from his student base in Washington, D.C. I was fascinated by kinkos. I thought to make the same idea over here. And after I made the first one surprisingly, I wasn't expecting that business to develop and to advance and to boom like what I'm experiencing these days. Today his copy shop has two branches, serving oil and construction companies, NGOs and universities, and he's planning to open several more. There's so much traffic now in cartoon, he says. The customers find it hard to get to his stores, so he plans to take the stores to them. And who are the people driving all those cars? Some of them now work for him. When I started, I mean, salaries was, you know, wasn't like, no, I mean nowadays, and nowadays I pay much, much more in salary than it used to be. And now some of my employees now start buying cars and have a better life. I mean, they didn't use to have that kind of opportunity, even myself, when I came up

with the idea and have the chance to own a car. It's wonderful, this oil fixes everything. At the top of Sudan's economic ladder, you can find Osama Daud, Abdullah Tief. The chairman of the Dahl group, Sudan's largest private employer, he's built a conglomerate on heavy machinery, motor cars, agricultural products, real estate, and coke. Though the US slapped economic sanctions on Sudan more than 15 years ago, charging cartoon with supporting terrorism, food and drug products are exempt. So the real thing now rolls off the Dahl group's spotless production lines. Dahl group expects to sell 30 million cases of soft drinks in Sudan this year. Double what it sold just four years ago. Well, there's a major boom, actually in every aspect of business we do, there is a major boom.

You see it everywhere. I mean, this road here did not exist, we had a very bad road here, and now we have a very nice road, three lanes, you know, next life, a lot easier. So you see it everywhere. I mean, Khartouma has seen a tremendous change. But US sanctions still pose a problem for Osama Daud, Abdullah Tief. He's not allowed to communicate with Koch's corporate headquarters back in the states, or use the company's marketing materials in Sudan. He holds the caterpillar equipment concession, but can only sell what he can buy in Europe, despite the growing demand for construction equipment here. And US sanctions have imposed such a chokehold on international dollar transactions. But by the end of this year, he's vowed to convert all of his operations out of dollars and into euros. I think the sanctions, US sanctions, have only heard the friends of the US. It's not heard the targets that they were aimed at.

It actually really just heard people like ourselves who have no problem with the US, who have been working very happily with this American companies for many, many years. And really, it has just heard people like us. I mean, people stop buying caterpillar, they buy Volvo, they don't stop buying. So it's obvious who will lost out. Kinko's inspired Tarik Ibrahim also chafes under sanctions. He can't buy American copying and printing equipment from the US. But he wants it so badly he travels to Dubai to get the latest state-of-the-art machines. He says his customers know the difference between a US printer and a Chinese one. Frankly, I mean, if I have American products and services, I have customer good customers. If I, you know, up like for Chinese product, believe me, I can't compete in the market.

People, they have the sense of quality. They know where the good stuff are. If you say American or British, they respect it. And you know what, they don't negotiate more, they don't negotiate at all regarding the prices. You hear admiration for the US and its products all over, cartoon. Coupled with hopes that US economic sanctions may be lifted. Now that the military-led government has signed a peace agreement over Darfur, Sudan's newfound oil wealth helped fuel its military operations in Darfur. And thanks to China's veto power on the UN Security Council, helped it to resist international pressure to settle the conflict before now. The top US diplomat here says if the Darfur peace deal actually bears fruit, the Sudanese may see an end to sanctions. But it won't happen overnight. Well, I think we have largely a fact-based foreign policy. And I think when the facts change, our actions will change too.

If sanctions are lifted, he says US investors will find Sudan's new economy appealing. But they'll also see considerable risk. Well, if you're here in cartoon, it looks like a large construction site. It's one of the fastest growing economies in the world. But most places in the country, people are very, very poor. Poor, and then any of your viewers can imagine. And so I would say that when you're running a country like that, you really do run the risks of being a failed state. The elements of that potential failure include a huge disparity between downtown cartoon or hundreds of new villas are under construction for the capital's business elite. And a place like Nialla, the major city in South Darfur. The poverty in Sudan's periphery has fueled conflicts not only in Darfur, but to the South and East as well.

Even in cartoon, most people aren't sharing in the city's economic boom. Every weekend for 30 years, Shab Saeed has fried and sold freshly caught fish on the banks of the Niall River. He says he's happy to see cartoon developing, but most of his customers aren't feeling a change in their own lives. This has made no difference to my customers. They have limited income, and most of them are government employees who have low incomes. Cartoon's population is also exploded with people who have no incomes. As many Sudanese abandon the countryside and head to the capital under the mistaken impression that its streets are paved with gold. Sudan's agricultural economy considered the bread basket of Africa before the discovery of oil is struggling. Drought and antiquated farming methods have prompted many to abandon the fields altogether. And some here fault the government for not using Sudan's new oil revenues to modernize

other sectors like agriculture. This responsibility of the government does not have a clear strategy and a clear policy. Abda El-Madi is a former Deputy Finance Minister whose political party withdrew from the government in 2003 in a dispute over the regime's handling of the Darfur crisis. She says if the dramatic economic disparities and the political unrest they're creating aren't addressed soon, even investors from Asia could get cold feet. In spite of the oil bomb, in spite of the economic bomb, if the unrest becomes more widespread, the political instability will be so high that even the investors who did not think that it was relevant to them and were coming into the main urban areas will be affected and will stop coming in and will stop investing. On the international stage, the government of Sudan insists it's turned over a new leaf, saying it no longer supports terrorists like Osama bin Laden has settled two violent civil

wars and now promises to be a responsible global citizen. It is being pressured to live up to that promise not only by the international community but by some of the same Sudanese who are helping to create today's economic boom. At night, these hip-young people gravitate to places like Ozone, a stylish new pastry and coffee shop in the center of cartoon. You can literally see the changing face of Sudan at the tables here. You can also hear complaints about the government's capricious management of the economy with growing favoritism and corruption that make it hard for entrepreneurs who don't have the right connections. I'll say I'll give it two more years, maybe three. If it's still going bad and the political climate is the same, I might go back to you, to be honest. Hashem Ibrahim is a software specialist who was educated in Britain and returned to Sudan hoping to contribute to the country's regeneration.

To be honest, brutally honest, I'd like to change the way people are treated in Sudan. People, there's enough money in this country now for everybody to be having a good job, have a good living and that's not happening. And the war is over now in the South, in the South, hopefully it's going to be over soon. So we want to see something, I mean, peace, all this, we'll sign this, we'll sign that. Where is it? Where is it? I can't see anything with myself. Ozone is owned by the one entrepreneur in Sudan with the economic muscle to create a new reality here. For his company, his investors, and his employees, many of whom are Sudanese expatriates who have come home. Dow Group owner Osama Dowood Abdellateef says the relationship between business and government here has to change. I think the government has to govern, should not be involved in any activities which have not nothing to do with actually governing.

I think there should restrict themselves to things like maybe education, health, and security, that type of thing. I don't think the government has a role long-term to play in the economy directly. This is Kentucky. If he has his way, the government will play no role in running his latest project, the construction of Al-Sunut, or the forest, a city within a city in the center of cartoon. This construction site will eventually be filled with leaming skyscrapers, luxury apartments, a golf course, and new homes overlooking the Nile. It is an enormous gamble that rests on Sudan's oil boom, setting the country on the path to a much broader economic and political rebirth. Now Ray Suarez updates the Medicare Drug Program story.

The Bush administration made one last push today to persuade seniors to sign up for Medicare's drug benefit before a financial penalty kicks in. This afternoon, the first lady and top health officials paid a visit to Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., where workers counseled seniors about the program called Medicare Part D. Afterward, health and human services secretary Mike Levitt explained how to enroll before the midnight deadline. There are just three easy steps, get your drugs together, then find your Medicare card, and then call 1-800-Medicare, and there will be people there who will help you choose a plan in less than 30 minutes. You can choose a plan. Now today is the final day. Weight times might be a little longer than they have been in previous days, but if you'll stay on the phone, we're going to make sure that we get everyone who attempts to sign up enrolled. For the 37 million people now have the benefit of prescription drug coverage in our country. To take a closer look at where the drug plan stands and what we can anticipate as it moves

forward, I'm joined by Dan Mendelsohn, President of Avelier Health, a policy research firm that works for government, industry, and nonprofit groups, for the record Mr. Mendelsohn sits on the board of directors for Coventry Health Care, an insurance provider for the Medicare Drug Plan, and Ron Pollock, Executive Director of Families USA, a health care advocacy group. Dan Mendelsohn, let me start with you, looking overall at the initiation of the program, the sign-up period, as we approach the deadline. How has it been working so far? Well, there are about 43 million Medicare beneficiaries, and according to our research about 16 million actually needed to go out and do a Secretary-Levitt suggested, figure out which plan to go into and sign up, and the peers at about 10 million have, and about 6 million happen. So is that a good result? Bad result? How do you see? I guess that depends on how you look. It's about a third of the people have not signed up about two-thirds have. And I think one other thing that has been notable is that Congress created this marketplace

and the plans came, and they offered very robust offerings of benefits. There are about 3,000 plans nationally being offered by about 90 different companies, so there certainly are a lot of choices. On Pollock, how do you see it? Well, I'm very disappointed with how this program is going. I'm particularly concerned about low-income seniors. When this program was started, the president, the speaker of the House, all said, at a minimum, this program was really going to be helpful for low-income seniors. And what we found is quite different. Where the seniors who are eligible for special subsidies, three out of four of those seniors are not getting those subsidies today. So that's terribly disappointing. But for various reasons, only three out of four. It's a variety of reasons. I'll give you a few. One is that these seniors have to go through two different certification systems, whereas all other seniors only go through one.

Low-income seniors first have to go to the Social Security Office to demonstrate that they are poor, then they can sign up for a private plan. There's been, as you know, tremendous confusion with this program. And for low-income seniors, this is probably more complex for them. Many of them have a lesser education level. They don't have as much of an access to a computer. So a lot of this low-income seniors were afflicted even worse than seniors generally. But then there's yet another group. This is the poorest of the poor. These folks are so poor that they qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare. That's why there's sometimes called dual-elegibles. They're eligible for both programs. This group of folks used to get drug coverage through the Medicaid program. That ended on December 31, and they were automatically enrolled in a private plan. Several things happened to them when that occurred.

First, the coverage that they get, the drugs are much more restrictive than the drugs they used to get on the Medicaid. Secondly, their out-of-pocket costs are greater. And lastly, there was tremendous confusion during this transformation, and a lot of seniors, at least for some period of time, didn't get the drugs that they needed. Dan Middleton, why is it so hard to reach low-income seniors, both in the educational phase to tell them what's out there, and then the sign-up phase to get them in the door? It's just tremendously difficult to find them. Communicate with them. Many don't speak English. It's a population where there's a lot of transients, and it is very, very difficult to reach out to low-income seniors. I would say that many of the low-income seniors, though, are getting coverage that is much better than what they had before. Many didn't have coverage before, and there are certainly are millions of low-income seniors who have enrolled, and the dual-elegables, those who are, as Ron had indicated, both

Medicare and Medicaid eligible, are signed up, and should be receiving a benefit at this point. Low-income seniors and Katrina victims, I think, both don't have to worry about tonight's midnight deadline, right? That's right. Anyone who is eligible for subsidies, and that would be those who have low incomes, but are not eligible for Medicaid, will not pay any penalties, but it's the higher-income seniors that, as of tomorrow, will be paying significant penalties if they enroll late. Significant penalties, Ron? Or just ones that go up the longer you don't apply. Well, what the penalties are, 1% per month beyond May 15th, that you enroll. So the next enrollment period actually enrolls you for January 2007. So those folks automatically will have a 7% penalty, seven months from now to January 1.

So if you missed tonight's deadline, you're going to get slapped with a 7% search engine penalty. Yes, and what's critically important to understand is that penalty isn't a one-time penalty. That's going to stick with you for the rest of your life. Every year, when you enroll in the program and you pay the premium, you'll have to pay this search charge, this penalty. Now somebody who delays, say, two years, rather than seven months, they're going to experience a 24% penalty. So it can be rather significant. Senator Mennelson is their political pressure, mounting to find some wiggle room on those penalties, perhaps not levy them the first year. Sure, there is, and there's been a lot of discussion nationally, but it's expensive because the government will reap some very significant revenues from these penalties. And I think that when this gets discussed, politically, the members of Congress are going to have to decide whether they want to abate the penalty or whether they want to spend the money on something else, maybe even making the benefit more generous. So I think it's going to be very difficult to go back and reassess these penalties.

What happens for those companies that have waded into this marketplace, and some seniors mentioned that they were amazed by the number of choices they had, but didn't get the number of people signing up that they had expected? Are they going to be people dropping out of this program? Oh, I think so. A couple companies dropping out of the program? Oh, I believe so. You've got a few companies that really reap the largest market share, and then you have a whole bunch of companies that actually only had a small percentage of seniors sign up. I wouldn't be surprised if next year or the following year, those folks drop out, but I have another prediction, and that is, remember, the game right now for these insurance companies is market share. They want to get as high a percentage of seniors enrolled in their program. I believe that what's going to happen the following year and the year after that is that you're going to see a very different offering, because when you're trying to get market share, you offer the most attractive product.

But I think you're going to see premiums, deductibles, what you have to pay first dollar coverage, gaps in coverage, I believe will get worse. And so unfortunately, I think as this program goes down the road, I think that a program that is not generous to begin with is going to get worse. Well, you were involved in the rollout and watched it very closely. Is that a reasonable fear or expectation that companies are going to change the rules of the plan once they get underway? Well, we are relying on these private companies to offer benefits, and they will change them over time. They'll change the formalities, they'll change their approach to how they're doing things. But I think those changes are going to be measured. And in point of fact, the premiums that are being offered nationally are much lower than anybody expected them to be. And that's something that might actually bring premiums down in subsequent years to an extent. So I would expect to see some measure change, but I don't expect anything precipitous over the next couple of years.

Now there is what's sometimes called the hole in the donut, where your coverage runs out, you have to pay for all your own drugs, and then it kicks in again. Is there a predictable glide path? Is there a certain number of years that it's promised that that hole won't get bigger, that people won't be on the hook for more expenses? No, it effectively goes up every, the coverage gap grows every year because the break points are indexed so that every year that coverage gap is just going to grow and grow. Is that going to be a problem? Oh, I think it's a big problem already, and it's going to get worse with each passing year just so your viewers understand. After you spent $2,250 in drug expenditures, and you've gotten some help with that, all of a sudden you get no help whatsoever until you've made $5,100 in drug expenditures. There's a gap of $2,850. Mind you, you have to pay as a senior, 100% of the costs, and why you're doing that? You continue to pay the monthly premium, and very quickly run how long until the size of

that hole can change. Oh, it's going to change each year, and it's projected in seven years to go to $5,100 in Pollock, Dan Mendelssohn. Thank you both. Thank you. Finally tonight, a media unit look at the coming of the iPod. Every brown has our report. It's the invasion of the pod people, the iPod people, those folks passing you with the buds coming out of their ears. It's a phenomenon that's been growing since Apple's iPod, the most renowned of the so-called MP3 players, first hit the technological stage in 2001. At the recent winter Olympics, it seemed no hip snowboarder could be caught competing without one. Gold medalist Hannah Teeter listened to her boyfriend's band as she hit the slopes.

And many new car stereo's now come iPod ready. The smart way to drive your iPod is the promoter's boast. As the technology has improved, the choices have grown. Users can download personal music playlists, so-called podcasts of news and information, including the news hour. You can download audio versions of our reports and a growing number of options of audio on demand. And this is a spark cast for the week of May 12th. And now, video, ABC and NBC struck deals this winter with Apple to sell iPod users' episodes of some of their most popular programs. Current hits like Lost and Law and Order, as well as Dragnet and other vintage shows. So far more than 15 million videos have been purchased at $1.99 each and downloaded from the Apple iTunes online music store. But music remains the dominant force, with over 1 billion songs downloaded from iTunes to Apple devices, such as the iPod and its smaller offspring, the Nano and the Shuffle.

People love the iPod and love other MP3 players because it allows them to create their own music environment, their own song of their life. James Katz runs the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. Most people use them, of course, to listen to music. Like most aspects of human behavior, it doesn't exist in isolation. What's really important to a lot of people is how other people see them, whether they're how they see them consuming music or walking down the street. And therefore something like the iPod is considered part of a personal statement. You mean a personal statement as in who I am? Yes, who you are. For many scholars, the purification of society is just the latest chapter in a continuing story of technology and culture, think of the remote control, the VCR, the Sony Walkman and so much more, in which companies offer and people pursue ways to tailor, enjoy and control their environment.

But what does it mean if we're all walking around with earphones on? Does the technology give us new freedom and opportunity to experience and shape our world? Or does it put us into individual bubbles and key people from connecting? Making us, as some sociologists say, alone, together. Now I use it every single time I'm on the bus. As always, new technology raises new questions. As we heard when we sat in on a focus group, Professor Katz runs with Rutgers students. Instead of like making you friends or meeting new people, they're just sitting there alone listening to their music. I feel like in a way it isn't a way isolating you and you're not making newer friends like you should or meeting new people. Might want to have a quick response and then we'll hear from you. Listening to music is that extreme, like it doesn't build like a coincidence. I like hearing dead to the world, you're not blindfolded and you're not senseless. There's no question that the iPod is one of the great business technology success stories of the last decade, dominating 80% of the MP3 market.

Really fantastic. And Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs sang its praises at the high-profile winter Mac World Convention. I'm really pleased to announce today that last quarter, we sold 14 million archives. That is over a hundred every minute, 24 by seven throughout the whole quarter. Since its first release five years ago, Apple has sold more than 50 million devices. And of course, there's all the accessories. For example, this is a backpack which has a fabric sensor controller that allows you to control your iPod. If you've ever watched someone with their iPod in public space, they're constantly taking it out. They're scrolling with the wheel. They're playing with the earbuds. They fetishize this object. Christine Rosen, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is one observer who raises alarms amid the euphoria over the iPod and other gadgets.

She calls ours the age of ego casting. You give certain kinds of signals to those around you in social space. The most important of which is you don't matter. What I'm doing is more important. I have the cell phone conversation. I have the earphones on. I'm focused on what I want to do, Ergo, none of you exist. Given such concerns, it's fascinating to see some new ways MP3 players are being used in many parts of society. At this Washington DC nightclub, Cafe St. X, iPod users gather once a month to share favorite songs at an iPod jukebox night. Individual choices blasting through the club and perhaps creating a new musical community. It's sort of recognizing the way people listen to music because you can sort of surround yourself with your music at all times. So we're going through kindergarten too. Schools too are experimenting with the devices using them more and more as a teaching tool. At Jamestown Elementary in Arlington, Virginia, we watch students armed with their iPods

gather material for a podcast, a kind of audio video report that can be digitally downloaded by others. With this project, students record their voices and edit their own stories to share with a broader audience. The school's technology coordinator is Camille Gagliolo. They love media, they live with media, so creating their own media is very exciting. You say go just before you hit the record, yeah. We're looking at the generation that lives with handheld technology in many ways. They're used to little handheld things that they can manipulate and create their own little environments with. And in your opinion, which animals are most at risk? At the other end of the educational spectrum, these George Washington University students were doing something similar using the iPod to create collaborative writing projects.

Any animal that's endangered or not is habitat loss, in my opinion. At the National Zoo, these freshmen interviewed an expert on cheetahs, then went back to the lab. Hello. This is David Suval reporting for Gorilla Radio to edit their own voice narrative with the interview sound bites. I think the first priority for anybody who's interested in conservation. Once the product was completed, anyone, Professor fellow students and beyond could access it online. Professor Heather Shell says the iPod technology has a democratizing impulse. It gives students a potential audience outside of the classroom and it gives them some accountability. And that's true whether or not anyone ever listens to the podcast. It's a fact that someone could listen. Businesses are now turning to the video iPod for employee pod training, allowing companies to cut down on expensive travel and meetings. For me, the biggest surprise is the way people use a technology that couldn't be more isolating to actually build human bridges.

To James Katz, all of this shows how people adapt to new technology and use it in unexpected ways. And that applies even with the most basic use of an iPod listening to music. Even though the technology potentially would enable somebody to build a capsule and never leave that capsule, what we find instead is that people get actively engaged in finding sources of music, finding out musicians and groups that they like, and looking for ways to make friends with and exchange ideas with people who share their outlook. But it's exactly that last phrase that troubles Christine Rosen, who worries that our technology bubbles may include only ourselves and people who share our outlook. Because of these ego casting technologies such as the iPod, the downside is that we're also able to filter out ideas we might not want to hear. I think what we do is we lose a bit of surprise in daily life. We don't have to hear or see things that we haven't already programmed into our iPods

or into our T-bose. And so in that sense, I think it can have a narrowing effect on what we encounter on a day-to-day basis. Back in Rutgers, we put the question to an up or down moment. Having iPods and MP3 players, how many think it's a good thing? That's pretty much everyone. For now, millions of consumers are seeing the benefits and voting with their pocketbooks. But pod people and their critics alike will keep their eyes open and ears plugged or not as the technology continues to evolve and society continues to respond. Again, the major developments of this day. President Bush was to call tonight for sending National Guard troops to the border with Mexico. The Guard would be used to support the border patrol. And the U.S. military announced seven more Americans killed in Iraq.

Please join us for live coverage of the President's address to the nation at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. We'll also see you online and again here tomorrow evening with reaction to an analysis up what the President had to say. For now, I'm Jim Lara. Thank you and goodnight. Major funding for the new hour with Jim Lara has been provided by the world's demand for energy will never stop, which is why a farmer is growing corn. And a farmer is growing soy, and why ADN is turning these crops into biofuels. The world's demand for energy will never stop, which is why ADN will never stop. We're only getting started, ADN, resourceful by nature. There's a company that builds more than a million vehicles a year in places called Indiana

and Kentucky, one that has 10 plants from the foothills of West Virginia to the Pacific coastline. What company is this Toyota, a company that along with its dealers and suppliers has helped create hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, a company proud to do its small part to add to the landscape of America. And by Pacific Life, CIT, and the Atlantic Philanthropies, and this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. To purchase video cassettes of the news hour with Jim Lehrer, call 1-866-678-News.

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On the news hour tonight, the news of this Monday, then the President's Oval Office addressed to the nation on immigration reform. I report from Margaret Warner on the oil boom in Sudan, a deadline day update of the Medicare drug program, and a media unit look at the new world of the iPod culture. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer has been provided by. At CIT, we provide the financing to keep healthcare strong and healthy. We help energy companies find new resources. We work with communications companies to make the world smaller and life bigger. We offer financial aid to make college possible for more students. At CIT, we help finance the future because that's the place to be. See it with CIT.

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