March 9, 2015 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT

dot com. New rules will help consumers fight mistakes on their credit reports. A look at the changes underway. Good evening. I'm Gwen Eiffel and I'm Judy Woodruff. Also I had this Monday. President Obama this weekend laid out a sweeping civil rights vision 50 years after the historic March in Selma. But once the crowds clear what challenges still remain. My dad grew up in the 40s and he grew up in a segregated Selma public school system. I grew up in the 80s. I grew up in a integrated public school system. And now 35 years later it's resegravated began. And if it's Monday it's Amy Walter and the Amalika Henderson on the week ahead in politics. Plus musicians in the African nation of Mali raised their voices to call for peace as extremists threatened of vibrant musical

culture. When people talked about Africa crying, no, I was talked about my problem singing my problem with, you know, a lot of hope because that's Africa. Those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's PBS NewsHour. Major funding for the PBS NewsHour has been provided by... Moving our economy for 160 years, BNSF, the engine that connects us. IBEW, the power professionals in your neighborhood. Lincoln Financial committed to helping you take charge of your life and become your own chief life officer. And

by BAE systems inspired work. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, helping people build measurably better lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions. 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. The fight between Republicans and President Obama over Iran's nuclear program escalated today. 47 GOP senators issued an open letter to Iran's leaders. In it, they said, quote, we will consider any agreement not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei. They added that means it could be modified or revoked at any time. But the president

dismissed the threat. I think it's somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran. It's an unusual coalition. I think what we're going to focus on right now is actually seeing whether we can get a deal or not. And once we do, then we'll, if we do, then we'll be able to make the case to the American people. Republicans and some Democrats are demanding that Congress vote on any nuclear deal with Iran. But since it would not be a treaty, the White House is not obliged to submit it for congressional approval. The president slapped new sanctions on Venezuela today. The targets are seven top security officials accused of corruption and human rights violations in a crackdown on dissent. Venezuela's socialist government has long been at odds with Washington last week, it ordered an 80% cut in the number of U.S. diplomats there.

The governments of Chad and Niger have sent troops into northeastern Nigeria to fight Boko Haram militants. Locals said today that hundreds of soldiers and vehicles began crossing the border on Saturday. The war with Boko Haram has spilled over into Nigeria's neighbors in recent months. The University of Oklahoma today closed the fraternity chapter linked to a racist video. It showed members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon using racial slurs and singing about lynching and bowing never to admit black students. Today University President David Borden called the behavior disgraceful. They will not be tolerated. That is why that house is immediately closed. That is why those children will have to have their belongings out of their house. But midnight tomorrow, and as they pack their bags, I hope they think one and a half about what they get. Borden said the University is looking into a range of other punishments for the students,

including expulsion. There were new protests in Madison, Wisconsin, today, over the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager. Some 2,000 students, including classmates of 19-year-old Tony Robinson, marched to the state Capitol. They demonstrated inside the rotunda, chanting, Black Lives Matter. Police say an officer followed Robinson to his apartment Friday after reports of a battery. They say the officer was struck in the head and then fired. The Supreme Court has ordered a lower court to reconsider a case on contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The University of Notre Dame objected to the requirement on religious grounds, but lost. Today, the Supreme Court cited its own decision in favor of corporations with similar objections. Wisconsin is now the 25th so-called right-to-work state. Republican Governor Scott Walker signed a new policy into law today. The statute bars requiring private sector workers to pay union dues. Four years ago, the state effectively ended collective bargaining for public

sector employees. Wall Street shook off its worries today over a potential interest rate hike. The Dow Jones industrial average gained almost 140 points to close back near 18,000. The Nasdaq rose 15 points and the S&P 500 added eight. And a Swiss-made plane set off today on the first attempt to fly around the world powered solely by the sun. Jonathan Ruggman of Independent Television News filed his report. On the ground, it's barely faster than a bicycle, but it has the wingspan of a jumbo jet and it's planning to fly 22,000 miles around the globe without a drop of fuel. Solar impulse lumbled up towards the source of its own power this morning, its carbon fiber structure embedded with over 17,000 solar cells. There's room for only one pilot. These two will take turns from airports along the

route, flying at a top speed of just 87 miles an hour. Crossing the Atlantic and Pacific will require five or six days of solo flying. So though it's intended to show advances in clean technology, this plane also reveals that technology's limits. And there was an electrical fault at the start. When everything was ready, we had to re-open the cockpit and re-open the instrument panel to check a connector, giving a false alarm. So everybody was just hoping the airplane would go. Now the adventure has started. You're watching live pictures of what will be the first landing. Tonight the plane completed its first leg, flying in the dark thanks to its four batteries. The journey of just a few hundred miles from Abu Dhabi to Oman took 13 hours. After a pilot's swap, it flies on to India and then China, with the round trip expected to take five months.

Among the stops the plane, solar impulse plans to make along the way are Hawaii, Phoenix, Arizona, and New York. Still to come on the news hour, a major overhaul in credit reporting. What Salma says about the challenges ahead. Politics Monday with Amy Walter and the Amalika Henderson, music under attack from extremists in Mali, plus a new report on the struggles of women and girls around the world. It's the biggest change for consumers and their credit ratings in more than a decade. The three largest credit rating companies, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian have agreed to change the way they review errors, a process that until now has frequently hurt consumer ratings. Under an agreement with New York State, the agencies will use specially trained employees to review information disputed by a customer. They will also be required to wait 180 days before posting unpaid medical debt to a report, to allow insurance payments

and conflicts to be resolved. The companies collect and provide information on more than 200 million Americans, and roughly 52% of all debt on credit reports is from medical expenses. The Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman, negotiated the settlement, and he joins me now, Mr. Attorney General. Thank you for being with us. This report basically says that it's going to reform the entire industry, so that makes it sounds like it's riddled with problems now. Is that the case? Well, we started an investigation because we received, in my office, and other offices of the same experience, many, many complaints from customers that there were mistakes on their credit reports, submitted documentation proving that the bad information should come off the report, but couldn't get anything done. So what we discovered was that the industry, and this agreement really does transform the way the industry operates, the

industry was just relying on the raw data it got from what are called data furnishers, who are the lenders. So they were relying on, if I took out a mortgage and I took out a car loan and I took out a credit card, and the lenders, the creditors said I didn't pay, essentially the credit reporting agencies were taking them at their word, and if a customer would send in documents showing that wasn't true, they just were passing them on to the creditors, and if the creditors came back to the reporting agency and said, we still think, you know, we were right, they weren't doing an independent investigation. So we've now changed the way they deal with this process, and it's going to make the data better because they're taking responsibility for making sure they have accurate information, and they're going to, they've committed to doing their own independent review of every customer complaint, regardless of what the lender, the data furnisher says. They've also agreed to assemble and fund a special team of people with expertise for complex issues, like identity theft or mixed files, which is what happens when two people with similar names get their files mixed up, and a consumer sees on their credit report, utility bills for a house they never

lived in. So they're changing the way they deal with customer complaints, but really it's broader than that because it changes their whole relationship to the creditors who provide the raw material for credit reporting. They're taking responsibility for monitoring it, for checking to see if there's some folks providing them information who constantly are having problems. This is going to not just help consumers correct bad reports. This is going to improve the quality of the data in credit reporting, and as you mentioned, medical is a huge issue so that they also have changed the way they deal with that. If I could just ask you, you say that they're going to change the way they do things. This means they're going to hire a lot more people. What exactly are they going to be doing differently, and specifically when it comes to medical data? Well, they have the settlement agreement that closes our investigation is a very long complicated document. It has timelines. They have a whole series of very specific requirements that they have to fulfill, and we will be continuing to work with them over a three-year period to make sure it's fully implemented. But yes, they are going to have to hire people.

They are going to have to train people, and take more responsibility than they have in the past. For the data that goes into their own credit reports, on the issue of medical debt, which is a huge burden, and it doesn't really reflect credit worthiness. As a question about their use of that, that bothered us a lot when we were investigating, because it's unexpected, it's huge. It often involves long fights with someone's insurance company that even if it's resolved in the consumer's favor, it shows up as a bad medical debt. So they've agreed to wait 180 days before they even put bad medical debt on a credit report to give people a chance to work things out with their insurance company, and they've agreed that if the dispute extends beyond then, as soon as the insurance company pays the debt, it's eliminated. It's not treated as a bad debt. And this is a huge problem for consumers all over the United States. You're off, I said, this was the result of more than a year of working with these credit companies. You also said they work cooperatively. If that's the case, why did it take so long? Well, we started the investigation and found the stuff that was very troubling. There are

a lot of errors. I mean, the FTC has estimated that 10 million Americans have errors that are significant enough to affect the cost of borrowing. So we were finding the cause of the errors and the way they manage their data. And to their credit, pretty not too far into the investigation, they said, well, look, maybe we should try and negotiate some reforms to fix the way we do things going forward. And we kept raising issues, and they kept responding. So they were cooperative in that sense. They really did enter into an agreement that creates the biggest overhaul of this industry in many, many years. And we were working with our colleagues in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who are also focused on this area. And I think people are going to see a lot of changes. Credit reports are going to be easier to get. They're going to be hyperlinks on their sites. You can get a free credit report more easily. And if you have a complaint sent in and it is resolved in your favor, you'll be able to get another credit report for free just to check and make sure they did it the right way. So you're going to see consumers getting their complaints resolved, getting bad data off their reports. This is going to provide a huge relief to some of the

200 million Americans who are on credit reports when they're buying homes, when they're buying cars, when they're trying to get a credit card, or trying to get a job. So this is a huge breakthrough in this area. You just answered the question I was going to ask, which is, what are consumers going to see that's different? And you just described that. But finally, let me just quickly ask you, what about people who have generally good credit? Are they going to see anything different? Well, sometimes people who generally have good credit get bad information put into their credit reports. Unfortunately, a very small portion of Americans actually go online and get, which you can get at annualcreditreport.com, get a free credit report and check. I've been very surprised that we've discovered some people who are very, very well off financially actually had bad credit reports because there was mistakenly some bad information in there because the data furnishers who are the lenders, their data really wasn't being checked by the credit reporting agencies. And even when there were peated complaints about one data furniture, the agencies weren't looking at them and

taking corrective action. So now they're required to do so. We think it's going to make a very big difference in the system, but we'll be monitoring it. We'll be working with them to implement it and we'll be working with our colleagues in Washington to make sure that it gets done the right way. Eric Schneiderman, Attorney General for the State of New York. We thank you for talking with us. Thank you. Yesterday, Mark, the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the Voting Rights March across Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, that was an epic turning point in the civil rights and voting rights movements. The entire 54 mile march from Selma to Montgomery is being reenacted beginning today, but this weekend was all about Selma, then and now. Terry Sewell spent the weekend pinching herself. She shared a stage with the president. Good afternoon, America. Welcome to my hometown of Selma. And she visited her old haunts.

It's my home church, Brown Chapel. And while I think the world comes in just for a weekend just for one day to walk across the bridge, but the people of this city are amazing people. Once Selma high schools first black valedictorian, and now a member of Congress by way of Princeton and Oxford, Sewell represents the modern day divide in her iconic hometown. I'm second generation, Selma, my dad grew up in the 40s and he grew up in a segregated Selma public school system. I grew up in the 80s. I grew up in an integrated public school system. And now 35 years later, it's resegregated again. The visitors flock to Selma from around the nation and the world for a weekend of celebration. Two presidents, nearly a hundred members of Congress, and more than 100,000 people crowded into this small Alabama city over two days.

What could be more American than what happened in this place? The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word we. We the people. We shall overcome. Yes, we can. That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. But only a few steps away, it was easy to find the downside. The city is worn with crumbling houses, empty lots, shuttered storefronts. After an airport space closed in 1977, 10,000 residents fled. Most of those left are black and poor. The very people who were supposed to reap the benefits of the civil rights movement that came to define Selma. 50 years after protesters crossing the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge here changed the civil rights tide for a nation. Selma finds itself at a crossroads again, this time between success

and stagnation. Roger Congressman John Lewis, who as a young organizer, had his skull fractured during the 1965 Bloody Sunday March, returned again this year for what has become an annual pilgrimage. There's still work left to be done. Get out there and push and pull until we redeem the soul of America. The city and the violent events that propelled it into the nation's consciousness received fresh attention this year in the Oscar-nominated film Selma. But when the movie Selma came to the real Selma, producers had to reopen a shuttered theater just to find a place to show it. The challenges are on full display. The unemployment rate is nearly twice the national average. And the high school dropout rate is the highest in

the state. Frederick D. Reese has pastored Ebenezer missionary Baptist Church since 1965. One year after he wrote the letter inviting Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead a voting rights campaign in Selma. Now 85 was also Terry Sewell's high school principal. He's more gentle in his assessments of Selma's condition. Go around the South. You will find that the best of segregation discrimination still exists because it has not all been eradicated. I'm looking at now where we were and where we are. And so I can see great progress. Selma remains a deeply divided city. Membership in its country club is still 100 percent white.

I can be proud of Selma. But Dallas County Juvenile Court Judge Bob Armstrong says the city is emerging from its legacy of white guilt and black blame. We're working together. That would not even been in a remote possibility in 1965. Six months ago, Armstrong helped turn an abandoned school into a home for alternative programs for troubled young people. Hope Academy offers counseling, job training, and the chance to get back on track. So I'm excited about our computer lab. Armstrong basis is optimism on the numbers. A recent and dramatic drop, 72 percent in youth crimes and an even steeper decline in violent crime. We've got problems. We own them. But we're doing something about it in a positive progressive way. We're doing it together. We are not even close to being the same community. We were 15 years ago. Yet many descendants of the civil rights leaders who returned to the bridge this weekend still worry about the present and the future. Oh my God.

It's amazing. One of them is my cousin, Cheryl and Eiffel, who is president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The LDF defended the demonstrators 50 years ago and monitors progress now. A top concern, the latest spade of police involved shootings of unarmed black teenagers. Those changes have not changed everything. And we also are very keenly aware. Perhaps more in the last 18 months than we have been, maybe even in the 10 years before, how much further we have to go. Many of those who came to some of this weekend, including the mother of Ferguson's Michael Brown, have their own reasons for making the pilgrimage. And I came here to learn more about the history of African Americans used to go through and what they went through to get their freedom. No, I was around, you know, with, you know, voting to poll tax and all of that stuff. I've lived this. You got to vote. If all of these people on this bridge had voted, these would be different. I used to hear my father. He would even take us back when I was a young teenager to some

of the local places where the Ku Klux Klan would throw rocks at him. And he just wanted us to pass down through his legacy to honor the struggle of the people who came before us, before him. And he just wanted us to just know the struggle that they went through for the city of Selma, the struggle continues. And joining me now for more analysis of the president's big Selma speech and everything else going on in politics this week are Niamoleka Henderson of the Washington Post and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report. The president gave quite a speech this weekend in Selma and I wanted to walk us through a couple of parts which maybe people didn't notice because they had political impact. First was, and we've seen this weekend and other police involved shooting in Madison, Wisconsin. And we saw last week's Department of Justice's Ferguson Report. And the president spoke directly to why it is that racial talking about acknowledging racial tension, he says, it's not necessarily the same as playing the race card. Let's listen.

We don't need the Ferguson Report to know that's not true. We just need to open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to know that this nation's racial history still casts its long shadow upon us. We know the march is not yet over. We know the race is not yet won. So what is he asking for if he acknowledges the problem, then what, for the president he is asking? Yeah, I think that's the question. It's like the Martin Luther King question, where do we go from here? We have all of this evidence. I think what he is saying is that we have to acknowledge that racism is real. And there have been so many calls for this president. He's the first black president. And that way has faced a higher burden, I think, in terms of talking about racism. It had so many calls for him to have a national conversation about race. And I think in some ways this is probably the closest thing we'll get to it. In this speech, I think in many ways it's a companion piece to his race speech from 2008. It's also in keeping with Eric Holder's speech when he talked about a nation of cowards. I think Obama

is calling us to be not so cowardly and really face up to this nation's path and look at this Ferguson Report as well, which is also part of the story of race. And the attorney, the outgoing attorney general spoke and saw him at this weekend, too. Is this a burden or is it a responsibility for the first black president? I think it's been both. All right. It's through out. But I think the other important piece of all of this was that it was ultimately a very hopeful speech. This wasn't about, boy, things are so bad. And we need to understand that racism still touches our society and inequality still there as much as it was about. Look how great Americans, regular Americans have been at every step along the way. Someone was one of those moments, but it's not over. We saw that other ways to go. The inequality, though, is still really deeply embedded in our society. And it's race, but it's also very closely tied with education, access to education and income. I have to tell you, walking the streets of Selma, I was struck by the great divide between the hopefulness and the reality of what I actually saw there. But let's talk about

something the president put down. He had a hundred members of Congress sitting in front of him at this speech, at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And they have coming up before them an opportunity to renew the Voting Rights Act, which is not by any means a slam dunk. This is what the president had to say about that. The Voting Rights Act was one of the crowning achievements of our democracy. The result of Republican and Democratic efforts. President Reagan signed its renewal when he was in office. President George W. Bush signed its renewal when he was in office. It should be noted that President George W. Bush was sitting there, right next to Michelle Obama kind of actually stood in the plot it when the president made the appeal. But does that mean anything for the Republicans who were? And there were Republicans in that congressional delegation. Yeah, there were. But I think this is a different Republican party. And there have been some efforts. There was a bill in the house to restore some of the things that the Supreme Court stripped out. I think if you look at the composition of Congress now, not

likely that it's going to happen. And partly, we've talked about this before, partly it's the gerrymandered a way that the South looks right now, right? A lot of those Congress folks who are from the South are from districts that don't have a lot of black people in them. Part of the legacy of the Voting Rights Act was that black people are in certain districts. And they have, they have sent their representatives people like Terry Sewell to the Congress. But other folks, not necessarily in favor of it should be noted that Terry Sewell is the first African-American woman ever elected from Alabama. So not huge leaps and bounds. Yeah. But is this partisan? Really? Is it what's going to trip this up if it is tripped up? First of all, I'm curious about yourselves. I've been about that. Is it partisanship? There's a piece of it that's partisanship. And I think it's really driven by geography, which is the fact that we do now have segregation, self-segregation in some ways too, that we have congressional districts that are becoming more homogeneous, not just on race, but on political ideology. We have more counties now than ever that vote overwhelmingly for one party or the other. And so we sort of put on that, that same issue, that same

issue comes into the Voting Rights Act. The other thing is the success of the Voting Rights Act. It's almost a victim of its own success, right? You see a lot of Republicans out there and a lot of other folks, quite frankly, saying, well, gosh, why do we need a voting rights act? We have an African-American president, yet more African-Americans turn out in 2012 than white. That's a pretty much it. That's right. So maybe this is outdated. And the answer is, yes, the old one, if it's true that it was outdated, then we just need new protections. The problem is what Republicans come in and say is, Democrats are going to have to give something too. And what they're going to have to give is on an issue like voter fraud and voter ID. Amy, you mentioned earlier about the uplift in the President's speech. One of the things he did in that uplift was to make a kind of a subtle response to some of the criticisms, which had dogged him throughout his presidency, whether he was born here or whether he loved his America, we saw most recently. This is what he said, you may have missed it. Not stock photos or airbrushed history or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don't pine for

the past. We don't fear the future. We grab for it. Now, it should be said, that audience had been sitting there in a sunlight for a while and they were a little lethargic at times. And when he made that point about others who question Americanness, they knew what he was talking about. Yes, others maybe like Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and lots of others who have cast him as somehow different as the other. And that's what I thought was so remarkable about his speech and a lot of the conversation he's had about race and black people over these last couple of weeks post-fergests and post-treat. He really is trying to broaden the idea of who represents Americanness. And even as he talked about Selma, he won't Selma not to be African American history, but this American moment that served not just African Americans, but helped this country live up to this original idea that the founding

means laid out. And did he do it? What was remarkable? After every speech the president gives, somebody gets on Twitter or writes a commentary saying, this was terrible. Here are all the terrible reasons that he gave. You saw conservatives line up and say, this was one of the best speeches I've seen the president give. I've not seen anyone go out and come forward and say, boy, this president really made things worse or he was more divisive than ever. So that's what they wanted us to stand down. Okay, let's move on from that day to the day in which we're watching, waiting to see if Hillary Clinton stands up. And that's this question about her emails and her foundation. They seem to now becoming together, which is the question of whether she kept a private email account and then separately, whether she, while she was Secretary of State, perhaps, fudge the rules and accepting foreign funding for her foundation. And now these things are coming together and people are saying that she may talk about it finally this week. Is this really damaging these two things

together, completed? Here's the damaging thing. First, we know in Washington, nature, well, in Washington, everywhere else, nature apporeses vacuum, right? And the vacuum was being filled. She wasn't talking about it. All of her opponents were. There was no response. So that's that's part one. The second part was the Hillary Clinton of 2008 to right now was Hillary Clinton defined by the Secretary of State position. And she was going to be sort of above politics. She wasn't just going to be defined by her time in the Senate or her time during the campaign. But now what we have is Hillary Clinton that is being defined by politics while she was a Secretary of State. So if she's going to change that narrative, she's got to do it. Nobody else can do that for her. So yes, she's got this. I guess a press conference on the next couple of days. Everyone's waiting to hear what she said. We've seen over these last couple of days at every speech. Everyone's been waiting to see if she was finally going to address it. She hasn't built Clinton has said a couple of things about it. And so we'll see. I think the question

to this is Democrats begin to get nervous about these things. What do they like to do? Democrats are always nervous. Do they have a plan B? Martin O'Malley. I mean, really, there's no plan B. I mean, this is the whole problem for Democrats right now is they put all their eggs in the Hillary Clinton basket. And now they're looking at it and saying, well, what if that basket has a couple holes in it? And it's not even that this story alone is going to be the issue in the 2016 campaign. As I said, I think it's a bigger broader question about whether Hillary Clinton who's been part of Washington for 25 years can present herself in 2016 as somebody as an agent of change and something new. And whether there's always going to be another shoot. Exactly. That's the big, that's the big question. Okay, and the Emily Ganderton, Amy Walter waiting for those shoes to drop. Thank you. Thank you. Now, terror and renewal in West Africa, just days ago, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, raising fears, the militants insurgency in Nigeria could become

part of an international conflict. This weekend saw a burst of violence in another closely watched African country Mali. Yesterday, unknown attackers fired rockets at a U.N. base in Kidal in the far north, killing at least three. And Saturday, gunmen killed five people, including two foreigners at a restaurant in Bamako, the country's capital city that has been largely free of such attacks. And Islamist group claimed responsibility. Jeffrey Brown was just in Bamako and in the legendary city of Timbuktu. Here's the first of two reports, part of his series, Culture at Risk. It was 2 a.m. on an outdoor stage in Bamako, capital of the West African country of Mali. Not the tireless Fatumata diuara was spinning like a top, singing up a storm and imploring the crowd with calls for peace. Afterwards, she told me she felt compelled to speak

out. And if we want the best of Africa, the only the first thing to do is to know how to be in peace. Without a peace, nothing, we cannot start any kind of development, nothing is possible. Unity was the theme of this concert in a country so rich in its musical culture, but so troubled by conflict and division. And even as the performers played on this night, the focus was many miles to the north, to the storied city of Timbuktu that has suffered so greatly in recent years. In fact, the concert in Bamako is a mere echo of one of the most famous music festivals in the world, the festival in the desert held here in Timbuktu every year until war made it impossible. That three-day festival was long of gathering of international sounds and stars, bringing together African musicians and Western rock legends like Bono, who spoke in 2012 of the

importance of the festival. This part of West Africa is like the cradle of music. It's like the big bang of all the music that we love. But that same year, the music stopped. When suffered as rebels in Islamic groups tied to al-Qaeda, invaded northern Mali and seized two-thirds of the country. The Oscar-nominated new film titled Timbuktu is about the imposition of a brutal form of Sharia law imposed by the jihadists, targeting women in particular and banning any expression of art. The musician, Fatumata Diora, is also an actress, and she plays a woman who's whipped for singing. In 2012, in Mali, for six months or more, we couldn't play music in Mali. When he mentioned that, I was a suffering lack like in the movie. French and Mali and military intervention drove the Islamist out of Timbuktu after ten

excruciating months. But two years later, much of the North remains unsafe. And there are regular rebel attacks on UN peacekeeping forces. Timbuktu is difficult to visit. With no commercial flights, we reach the city on a UN humanitarian plane, landing on a heavily guarded airstrip. The once-driving city is eerily quiet. More than half its 50,000 residents fled and have yet to return. Its economy has ground to a halt. The prices of staples like gas and grain have soared. Mayor Halay Usmani Sisay told us of his traumatized neighbors. They chased a woman into her house. Her husband was there. Her kids were there. They beat her in front of her husband without any defense, without anything. Just to humiliate her.

Today, there are signs of life returning to normal. On this sandy square where Islamist once carried out public punishments, children now play. Timbuktu's grand Imam had a church response when I asked about the Jihadists who brutalized his town in the name of religion. That's their belief. They have their beliefs and we have a different belief of our own. For all the despair, the poverty, the memories of what happened here, peace talks between the government and rebels are ongoing and there is great hope for the future. The concert in Bamako, in fact, was a big step in that direction. Build as the festival in the desert in exile, its organizers and musicians are ready to return to Timbuktu once there's peace. We need to visit. Then we can go to play again. Until then, Fatumata diuwara is singing for the cause. I don't want to take the same way when people talk about Africa crying. No, I was talking about my problems singing my problems with a lot of hope because that's Africa.

In the meantime, further hope for Timbuktu is coming from the restoration of its culture. Its music, of course, but also its historic role as a center of scholarship and learning. From the West African nation of Mali, I'm Jeffrey Brown for the PBS NewsHour. And there's a photo gallery from Jeff's trip to Bamako and Timbuktu. You can see that on our homepage at PBS.org slash news hour. Good evening, I'm John Boland here with Michael Asop. In an age when technology can deliver

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Remember your donation now can be doubled by this dollar for dollar challenge from Robert Gilchrist. A member of KQD's producer circle. So if you sat through more than a few of these fundraisers please make this the night. You make that call to 1-800-568-9999. We know you don't have to pay for what you watch here. So when you make a contribution you're letting us know that you think the service is worth your hard earned money. In return we pledge to keep bringing you the very best in television with programs like the PBS NewsHour. It's time to go back to tonight's edition but first we want to thank everyone who called in the last few minutes. We also want to thank Robert Gilchrist of KQD's producer circle for continuing to support us with challenge grants during our NewsHour breaks this week. We would love to add your name to the list of people who come through for us so please call soon with your donation to community supported KQD. It's been two decades since the UN first announced a major effort to reduce gender inequality

around the world. A pair of new reports out today from the UN as well as the Clinton and Gates foundations assessed the progress made since then. But also find too many ways women and girls are far from getting equal treatment and participation. Violence, in fact, is often commonplace. The UN report finds life expectancy for women has increased to 73 years on average. At the same time it found an alarmingly high number. More than one in three women worldwide have experienced domestic or sexual abuse. Lakshmi Puri is the deputy executive director of UN Women, the group which released the report. Ms. Puri, welcome to the news hour and I'm happy to say I was at that Beijing conference to cover it. But in your report you say that many of the same barriers that existed 20 years ago still in place today. It's a pretty discouraging report. Absolutely. Although we have made progress in primary education we are still not there

on secondary and tertiary and STEM education where we are progressing in economic participation of women particularly in the labor force. But it's still in vulnerable employment with wage gaps between men and women still persisting in power and decision making. We have many more women in a parliament 36 countries with more than 30% representation and 19 countries with heads of state. But we are still far away from achieving the kind of 50, 50, 50 that are waging really dreamt off and set out of blueprint for. Given the structural and the very difficult challenges you're describing what makes you think that you can make the kind of progress you say is necessary because across the board

whether it's violence against women, legal inequality, the challenges are daunting. But you know it is also a tremendous time of opportunity, historic opportunity because for the first time even since Beijing the world is coming together in terms of awareness of the issues. They know what needs to be done. They are showing much more political will than ever before. UN Women's creation itself was an act of political will and in that context the linking up with the sustainable development goals and with gender goal being identified as a priority for the next 15 years to achieve. I think we are really on an accelerated path to breaking down those barriers and reaching that goal of achieving gender equality and women's

empowerment and that too by the expiry date of gender inequality and discrimination and violence by 2030. Yeah I was struck by that that you that was your expiration date for achieving gender equality in 15 years when it's been so hard to get any further in 20 years and yet you're optimistic that changes are going to come. Absolutely and we cannot afford it otherwise. We won't get anywhere on poverty, eradication, anywhere on economic growth, anywhere on social development or environmental sustainability without empowering half of humanity. And also if we go at the present pace it's going to take us another 81 years. We cannot wait another century. We cannot wait another two millennia that we have already waited. Just finally what should ordinary men and women in this country watching this

interview think what can they do? Do they sit back and watch the rest of the world? What is the role of the developing world and the non-developing world and making all this happen? Well I think the developed world has a particular responsibility both in terms of rule modeling what should be done and what progress has already been made should be showcased and how they got where they got there. But also the developed world has not really also achieved perfection and they need to continue not be complacent, continue to take those special measures, make that investment in gender equality which is necessary and not only investment in their own countries but in the developing world so that the developing world embraces the agenda with as much enthusiasm as is required for development because there can be no development without gender equality. We thank you very much Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director of

UN Women. Thank you. Finally to our news hour shares of the day something that caught our eye that we thought might be of interest to you too. It's the annual Ididarat sled dog race, a thousand mile run across snowy Alaska but this year there wasn't enough snow. Our friends at Alaska Public Media sent us this footage of mushers basically turned into slushers thanks to high temperatures at the regular starting point in Anchorage. What you see here is snow imported just for this weekend's opening festivities. Dog racer Martin Buzer called the warmer conditions the new normal. The dogs like a little cooler, the drivers like a little cooler, our gear is designed to be dry and warm not wet through cold. So I mean we just have to adapt and make changes to some equipment and we'll see whether that's the moment for the years to come. The race got its

officials start today more than 300 miles north of Anchorage in Fairbanks where there is snow. Again the major developments of the day three major credit reporting agencies agreed on ways to reduce errors and change how medical debt is counted. The new policies could affect more than 200 million Americans. 47 Republican senators warned that any nuclear agreement with Iran must have congressional approval. President Obama responded that the senators are making quote common cause with hardliners in Iran. And there were more protests in Madison, Wisconsin over Friday's police shooting of an unarmed teenager. While in Aurora, Colorado, police at a 37-year-old black man shot there on Friday by an officer was also unarmed. On the news are online, every child is special in the eyes of their parents, but new research shows that making your offspring believe he or she is more special than other children can lead

surprise to narcissism. So how to hit that sweet spot between positive reinforcement and over praise? You can read about that on our homepage. That's on our website pbs.org slash news hour. And we think you're special. Very special. And that's a news hour for tonight on Tuesday. We talked to the filmmaker behind a powerful new documentary on gang rape in India. I'm Judy Woodruff. And I'm Gwen Eiffel. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. For all of us here at the pbs news hour, thank you and good night. Major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by from a world of darkness. We became a nation of light. A nation powered by electricity, a nation powered by the IBEW. IBEW, power in North America, BNSF Railway, and by BAE systems inspired work.

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Engaging conversations Friday nights on KQED. KQED thanks our members and community partners for their support. So, Rossette? Yep, with Xfinity Internet, your family can use all their devices at once. Works anywhere in the house, even the garage. Max, what's going on? We're doing a text order. We're going public! Xfinity Internet, in-home Wi-Fi for the entire family. Can you imagine us? We're all so excited seeing this size you've ever seen. And the parents said you have to go to America because there's no future for you here. And so they came, millions of Jews, and brought with them incredible personal stories. Don't miss the upcoming special.

The Jewish Journey, America. Wednesday night at 730, followed by inline for end-frank. Briturian, a San Francisco-based provider of artificial intelligence and machine learning, providing real-time intelligence from all data sources, regardless of type, complexity, and volume. Learn more at briturian.com The Bay Area News Group introduces the all-access subscription, which includes home delivery of one of our local papers and digital access to over 38 other publications. More information available at Bay Area News Access dot com. This is Fightly Business Report, with Tyler Matheson and Sue Herrera. Pull market birthday stocks edge higher as investors mark the sixth anniversary of the bull market butt. Will the run in stocks live to see a seventh? Tarnished arches McDonald's reports another month of week sales, what the new CEO plans to do to improve business.

Credit relief? Why mistakes on your credit report, which determine whether you get a mortgage, a student loan, maybe even a job, just got easier to fix. All that and more tonight on Nightly Business Report for Monday, March 9th. Good evening, everyone, and welcome. What better way to mark the sixth anniversary of the bull market, one of the longest in history than with a rally. Stocks bounced back today, helped by a couple billion dollar deals, much different from what we witnessed on this day in 2009. When the US was in a deep recession,