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The league, the rest of its owners, the team’s coach and players are all figuring out what to do next, as the Clippers get set for a playoff game back in Los Angeles tomorrow night.

Word of tomorrow’s statement comes amid mounting pressure on the new NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, to take strong action against Sterling. Audio clips released by Web sites TMZ and Deadspin purportedly capture the Clippers’ owner arguing with a then-girlfriend, identified as V. Stiviano. She defends being seen with former Los Angeles Lakers great Magic Johnson.

V. STIVIANO: I don’t understand. I don’t see your views. I wasn’t raised the way you were raised.

DONALD STERLING: Well then, if you don’t feel — don’t come to my games. Don’t bring black people, and don’t come.

V. STIVIANO: Do you know that you have a whole team that’s black, that plays for you?

DONALD STERLING: You just — do I know? I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It doesn’t stop there, as Stiviano, herself of mixed black and Latino heritage, challenges Sterling, and he goes further.

DONALD STERLING: It’s the world. You go to Israel, the blacks are just treated like dogs.

V. STIVIANO: So do you have to treat them like that too?

DONALD STERLING: The white Jews — there’s white Jews and black Jews, do you understand?

V. STIVIANO: And are the black Jews less than the white Jews?

DONALD STERLING: A hundred percent.

JUDY WOODRUFF: This isn’t Sterling’s first brush with accusations of racism.

In 2009, former NBA Star and Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor filed a wrongful termination suit, alleging age and racial discrimination. A jury ruled in favor of Sterling. The Clippers owner and real estate magnate was also sued twice for housing discrimination. The cases were settled out of court.

But the recordings have sparked a firestorm. Magic Johnson announced he won’t attend any more Clippers games while Sterling remains the owner.

EARVIN “MAGIC” JOHNSON, NBA Hall of Famer: He’s got to give up the team. If he doesn’t like African-Americans and you’re in a league that’s over 70 percent African-American.

MAN: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

(LAUGHTER)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Charlotte Bobcats owner and former superstar Michael Jordan weighed in, saying: “I’m obviously disgusted that a fellow team owner could hold such sickening and offensive views. As a former player, I’m completely outraged.”

From Malaysia, President Obama condemned the comments as incredibly offensive.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything. You just let them talk. And that’s — that’s what happened here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And across the NBA, current players spoke out.

Miami Heat forward LeBron James:

LEBRON JAMES, Miami Heat: make this the greatest game in the world. And for comments like that, it taints our game, and we can’t have that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The Clippers made their own visual statement, shedding their shirts to reveal inside-out warmups, hiding the team’s logo, before Sunday’s playoff game with the Golden State Warriors. L.A. lost 118-97.

Head coach Doc Rivers conceded the furor could have affected his club.

DOC RIVERS, Head Coach, Los Angeles Clippers: You know, like I said before the game, they’re getting pulled in so many directions, so we have to figure how to pull them in one direction, and then we will be back in the series.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Other teams organized their own silent protests, wearing black socks in some of yesterday’s playoff games. There was more fallout today. The NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter canceled plans for a lifetime achievement award for Sterling. And used car chain CarMax became one of several companies to drop its sponsorship of the Clippers.

So what are the next steps for the NBA and Donald Sterling?

For that and more, I’m joined Michael McCann. He is director of the University of New Hampshire’s Sports and Entertainment Law Institute, and he’s a legal analyst for “Sports Illustrated” magazine. And Kenneth Shropshire is director of the Wharton Sports Business Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.

And we welcome you both to the NewsHour.

Both of you have followed the business of sports for a long time. How do you — what is your reaction to what Donald Sterling is alleged to have said.

Michael McCann, you first.

MICHAEL MCCANN, Sports Illustrated: Well, I think, at a starting point, it’s outrageous that someone would hold these views in 2014, really at any time, but particularly nowadays.

And I think it’s certainly a matter that the NBA has to address seriously, although I would also note that it’s not an easy process to reconcile. And I say that because the NBA has to approach this under the rules of the league, in ensuring that it doesn’t take any steps that prove to be wrong.

For instance, the recording itself, the NBA wants to be sure that it’s authentic, that it hasn’t been tampered with or spliced in any way that is inaccurate. So, the league has to approach this cautiously, but at the same time be sure to issue an appropriate sanction to reflect what was said.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And I want to ask you about that in just a moment.

But, first, Ken Shropshire, your reaction?

KENNETH SHROPSHIRE, University of Pennsylvania: Well, it’s not surprising. If you follow Donald Sterling’s — Donald Sterling’s history, this is something that is not new.

I think what is important at this moment is for the league to really recognize that this is a moment in time where they have the opportunity to make the rules right. As Michael refers, it’s very difficult at this time for them to do the right thing.

So, there should be in some sense a form of a morals clause for owners as well within their governing — governance. There should be a way to move somebody out that expresses, that delivers, that actually acts in this type of way.

So, if this is all proven to be true, it’s very sad that the NBA is handcuffed in how rapidly they can move to encourage the divestment of this ownership interest by Donald Sterling.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Ken Shropshire, my apology. There’s a little bit of an audio difficulty. Maybe we can get the microphone closer to your mouth, so we can hear you a little bit better.

While that is adjusting, let me come back to you, Michael McCann.

We know the Clippers coach, Doc Rivers, said late today he thinks there’s a strong message coming from the NBA tomorrow. What do you expect them to do? And you have already talked about this. You said it’s complicated. So, what can they do?

MICHAEL MCCANN: Well there’s different options that are on the table.

One is to fine Donald Sterling, is to issue a sanction where he could be fined apparently up to $1 million. The fine, though, of $1 million is certainly a lot of money for almost all of us, but Donald Sterling is reportedly worth in the ballpark of $1.9 billion.

I don’t know if a million dollar fine is going to have the impact that is necessary. The league could also suspend him, suspend him for some period of time, a year perhaps, and during which he would be excommunicated from the franchise. He wouldn’t be able to have any contact with the team, its coaches, its players, its staff, wouldn’t be able to go to practices, wouldn’t be able to go to games.

It would be like a restraining order. That would send a message, although still he could make money off the team. The league could also pursue a more radical approach by trying to force him to sell the team. But the league constitution, which is the key legal document at stake, doesn’t likely give the NBA that authority.

And if it were to pursue that path, Donald Sterling could sue the NBA and not be leaving any time soon. I think what we will see tomorrow is that the league will say something to the effect of, Donald Sterling won’t be around the rest of this season, and after which the league will make a more determinative decision.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Ken Shropshire, and I think we do have the microphone fixed now.

What would be involved in ending his ownership of the team, which is we heard Magic Johnson and others calling for? They are saying, until he is no longer the owner of the team, they’re not going to the games.

KENNETH SHROPSHIRE: Well, as Michael expressed, it’s a very difficult process, but not one that is impossible.

You know, if you look back through the history of leagues, there’s a case that focuses on the idea of who can become an owner. And the courts expressed the whole idea that it’s an exclusive club. It’s only 30 people that are a part of this club. You can choose your partners carefully.

What we don’t have is strong case law talking about how you can unravel that situation. So, that’s the decision the league would have to make if they wanted to take those steps. It would be new territory. The constitution and bylaws don’t express a manner to do this, other than for economic reasons.

But this is the challenge that Adam Silver is confronted with. And it may well be that the path that is taken is one of a series of suspensions. And, as we know, everybody is not with us forever. Sterling is not a young man. So, in a matter of time, the situation will change.

And, as I said, this is not the important issue. The issue is, how are you going to deal with this going forward?

JUDY WOODRUFF: And in the short term — I understand in the longer term, something else could happen.

Michael McCann, what steps could the league take if it decides that suspension and a fine are not enough? How would it technically, legally move forward?

MICHAEL MCCANN: Well, as Ken noted, it’s a very difficult situation for the NBA to literally for him to sell the team, that the league would have to argue that, under the constitution, which talks about, from when we know — it’s a confidential document — from what we know about it, that it talks about forcing an owner to leave when he is in financial trouble, not able to pay bills.

That’s not at stake here. Now, you could maybe take a very expansive view of the language and say, well, some sponsors are cutting deals with the Clippers. That is now starting to threat economically the Clippers and the NBA indirectly. But, as Ken noted, if the NBA goes down this path, it’s unprecedented, it’s uncharted, and the language of the key legal documents doesn’t appear to authorize it.

And, also, this is the real issue. Will he sue? Will he file a defamation lawsuit? Will he file a breach of contract? Will he file an antitrust lawsuit saying the NBA and other teams have joined hands to force me to sell my team at below-market value, I lost hundreds of millions of dollars, which, under antitrust laws, would be troubled?

It’s a situation that could defeat the over — if the goal is to remove Donald Sterling, forcing him out may end up having the opposite effect.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, of course, we are very much into speculation territory here, because we don’t know what the league is going to do.

But, Ken Shropshire, back to you. As we just mentioned, there are advertisers, not just CarMax, but a number of others have said — Mercedes-Benz, car dealers and others are saying they are either cutting or suspending their relationship with the team.

Could that economic effect more Donald Sterling to take a step and separate himself?

KENNETH SHROPSHIRE: Well, the immediate economic effect on the team will be negligible.

And it really will not have that much impact. But Michael makes a good point. The idea that it could last for the long term, that that could be pointed to as a reason to at least move forward and try to divest this ownership interest.

I mean, I think, more realistically, what is happening now is more of a conversation with Sterling, an attempt to have a rational conversation, to point to him, look, this is where this thing is going to end up. We can do this gracefully or this will take a long period of time, where there’s going to be a lot of discomfort and a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money in the process.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you’re saying that’s what — you believe that is what is going on behind the scenes right now?

KENNETH SHROPSHIRE: That would be my belief. That would be the most logical step for all the parties to take in this instance.

And I’m sure, as part of the diligence process, that’s what Adam Silver is up to.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Ken Shropshire and Michael McCann, we thank you both.

KENNETH SHROPSHIRE: Thank you.

Note: Due to web restrictions, this video was edited.

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Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, takes a look at alternatives to the quarterly report known as GDP.

But, first, he had to penetrate a batch of confusing initials. It’s part of his ongoing reporting Making Sense of financial news.

PAUL SOLMAN: In 1968 then presidential candidate Robert Kennedy blasted our country’s main measure of economic progress, called GNP in those days.

ROBERT KENNEDY: It counts napalm and it counts nuclear warhead, yet the gross national product doesn’t allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

PAUL SOLMAN: These days we rely on GDP, gross domestic product, GNP’s near proxy, which measures the total dollar value of goods and services sold in the U.S. in a year, plus exports, minus imports.

The measure still leaves out the things the Kennedy emphasized, but that’s because they’re just too tough to measure.

STEVE LANDEFELD, Director, Bureau of Economic Analysis: They’re very large and they’re quite uncertain in their magnitudes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Steve Landefeld runs the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the BEA, which tallies the GDP. The BEA sticks to measures of market transactions. And the data has become fundamental.

STEVE LANDEFELD: It is used by the Federal Reserve Board for economic policy. Our consumer inflation rate comes from us. The entire federal budget is based on the baseline that comes out of BEA’s data.

ZACHARY KARABELL, Author, “The Leading Indicators”: GDP has become the king of all statistics.

PAUL SOLMAN: And the king for almost all countries, adds economics writer Zachary Karabell.

ZACHARY KARABELL: Governors rise and fall on their ability to say, I enhanced GDP, or the populace’s ability to say, no, you didn’t, and, you know, GDP went down under your watch.

PAUL SOLMAN: But how does GDP’s still-lofty status square with Robert Kennedy’s 1968 critique, or with more recent evidence of its limits, which Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ, Columbia University: Thirty years ago, we weren’t talking about climate change. Environmental degradation wasn’t as important as it is today.

PAUL SOLMAN: In 2009, Stiglitz chaired an international panel tasked with finding better measures of progress that included the environment and economic inequality.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: GDP has been going up per capita, but most Americans are actually worse off, so median household income is actually falling.

PAUL SOLMAN: Like them or not, better prosperity gauges are hardly a novel innovation. Since the 1970s, for example, in the Himalayas, the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, with GDP per person less than that of the Congo, has used gross national happiness.

It’s GNH score turns out to be as elevated as its location. And back down here at sea level, there’s the GPI.

DAVE GOSHORN, Maryland Department of Natural Resources: It simply takes into account not only our economy, but the health of our environment, the health of our society.

PAUL SOLMAN: Dave Goshorn works for Maryland, the first U.S. state to adopt a metric called the Genuine Progress Indicator, made up of 26 different factors, nine of them environmental. He walked us around Annapolis to explain.

DAVE GOSHORN: When we cut down an acre of trees to put a strip mall in, that strip mall puts people to work, it contributes to our economy, our tax base. All those are very good things.

PAUL SOLMAN: And it’s GDP going up as a result.

DAVE GOSHORN: Exactly. At the same time, it is costing us to clean up the water that is degraded as a result of taking away those trees. We as a society recognize that, but we don’t account for that in GDP. And the GPI is a way of doing that.

PAUL SOLMAN: The GPI does it by subtracting an estimated value of water pollution from total economic output, also subtracted, the presumed costs of climate change.

DAVE GOSHORN: In Maryland, we have sea level, as a result in part of climate change, is increasing considerably, a foot over the past century.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, one foot right here, this is a foot higher than it was a century ago?

DAVE GOSHORN: Yes, and the best projections are that that rate will increase over the next century, even faster than a foot. That has major impacts to a lot of our low-lying — and islands, shorelines where people live, farm fields that are now inundated with saltwater where they can’t produce crops.

PAUL SOLMAN: And how do you put a number on cropless fields or polluted water?

DAVE GOSHORN: Economists have gone out and surveyed the general public and asked them questions such as: What would you be willing to pay to bring your local river up to a state where you could swim in it?

PAUL SOLMAN: In a national comparison of the two measures, GPI and GDP grew together until about 1980, when GPI flatlined. In Maryland, GPI has risen modestly since then, but it still trails GDP growth.

DAVE GOSHORN: I hear on the news all the time, when people comment about, well, what the economic indicators are looking up, we’re coming out of the recession, you frequently hear people comment, but I don’t feel any better.

And I think this is a reflection of that.

PAUL SOLMAN: And that in turn may hinge on another component of GPI: social well-being. Annapolis being the landing place for the hero of Alex Haley’s “Roots,” Kunta Kinte, we took a seat next to the author to probe the value of leisure.

How do calculate the value of, say, Alex Haley reading to these kids?

DAVE GOSHORN: Well, if it counts as education, the value of an education’s included in the GPI. If you count it as leisure time, not having that time is counted as a loss in the GPI. And we also have the value of housework, which includes things like cleaning the house and dusting, but also interacting with your children. That’s a value that’s in the GPI.

PAUL SOLMAN: What about air pollution from cars, or the amount of time it takes you to commute to work?

DAVE GOSHORN: Cost of commuting is considered in the GPI. And that is one that’s hurting Maryland, because here in Maryland, we spend more time in our cars commuting to and from work than most states in the nation.

PAUL SOLMAN: But people will tell you that a great radio show comes on and they go, wait a second, I’m listening to NPR and loving my commute, right?

DAVE GOSHORN: Exactly. Exactly.

And, to some degree, what we’re doing with the GPI is putting a price on the unpriceable. But at least we’re being consistent and seeing whether they go up or down.

PAUL SOLMAN: Maryland’s GPI is boosted by a highly educated population, but, remember, even here, GPI hasn’t gone up as much as GDP, for years now. So, why? Goshorn says a big reason is what Joe Stiglitz highlighted in 2009: rising economic inequality.

DAVE GOSHORN: The same amount of money spent by a few very wealthy people would be attributed differently to the GPI than an equal amount of money spent a little bit by a lot of people.

PAUL SOLMAN: So imagine that, in the extreme, one Marylander earned most of the state’s money, and amassed a fleet of fully loaded Mercedes she never drove, while the rest were reduced to commuting by bus. In that case, GDP might rise, since car sales boost the value of total output, but overall welfare wouldn’t.

It’s a subtle point, a debatable one. But even the BEA’s Steve Landefeld agrees.

STEVE LANDEFELD: Distribution of income may be the answer to me to this problem of the disconnect between GDP and GDP per capita going up and most Americans feeling down.

PAUL SOLMAN: But Landefeld has serious reservations about alternatives like the GPI.

STEVE LANDEFELD: The subjectivity is the Achilles’ heel of it. How much do I subtract for the commuting time? If I enjoy my commute, maybe it’s one thing, maybe not. They end up being systems of indicators that are troubling for an economist who is trying to put together objective accounts, or at least not make normative judgments about what should be.

PAUL SOLMAN: Then again, all economic indicators involve some subjectivity, says Zachary Karabell.

ZACHARY KARABELL: One synthetic number that purports to describe lived reality with an average has to make choices about what you include, what do you add, what do you exclude, because you can’t include everything.

PAUL SOLMAN: And so long as don’t, you can’t really quantify human well-being, especially if there’s any truth to the maxim that the best things in life are free.

GWEN IFILL: The GDP report for the first quarter of 2014 is due Wednesday. Read Paul’s extended conversation with author Zachary Karabell about how relying on an outdated short-term measurement could reduce prosperity over the long term. That’s on Making Sense.

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For the first time in recent years, American high schools have cracked a milestone on graduation rates, reaching 80 percent.

Jeffrey Brown has the story, as part of our American Graduate project, a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

JEFFREY BROWN: In fact, 81 percent of American high schools graduated on time in 2012. That is up from 73 percent six years earlier. The report is based on statistics from the U.S. Department of Education and was compiled by a coalition called America’s Promise Alliance.

Joining us now is John Bridgeland, president and CEO of Civic Enterprises, one member of that group, and he’s an author of today’s report. He has been adviser to the American Graduate project.

And welcome to you.

JOHN BRIDGELAND, Civic Enterprises: Thank you. Nice to be with you.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, what is driving the good news? What — how did we get there?

JOHN BRIDGELAND: Well, the significant gains in graduation rates have actually been among Hispanic students and African-Americans since 2006.

And these students, half of African-Americans and 40 percent of Hispanics, were trapped in these dropout factory schools, where it was literally a 50-50 proposition whether you graduated or not.

JEFFREY BROWN: You use the term dropout factory?

JOHN BRIDGELAND: We do. It’s a tough term, but I think it’s an appropriate term, because, literally, you go into these places, and half of your classmates are not finishing school.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, give me an example of a place or two where you saw the difference that resulted in these kinds of statistics.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: New York City had these large urban school districts. They broke them up into small — smaller learning communities, schools within schools, ninth grade academies, made them more personalized learning environments, where young people could connect to learning in ways that showed relationships between what they were learning in school and what they wanted to be in life.

In fact, we had done a study called “The Silent Epidemic,” listening to the perspectives of dropouts all across the United States. And they told us the leading reason they left is because they didn’t see those connections between career dreams and classroom learning.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, good news, but that of course still means that one in five students are not graduating.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: It’s true.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, there is a lot left to do.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: There is.

And, in fact, the gaps between graduation rates of low-income students and their middle- and higher-income peers up 20 percentage points or up to 30 percentage points in some states. Also, for students with disabilities, the graduate rate in Nevada is 24 percent. The graduate rates in Kansas and Montana are 77 percent and 81 percent respectively. So, we have these huge gaps between students with different needs and abilities.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, what are the main factors you see in schools? Because you look at your report, and, yes, there are some places that are already approaching that 90 percent mark.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: There are — or above it. Then there are others below 60 percent.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: One is the awareness of the gaps between these populations.

Also, we can predict as early as late elementary school and middle school the early warning indicators of chronic absenteeism, poor behavior, course performance in reading and math. And when these young people are falling of track, we can get them the supports they need to stay on track.

We’re also seeing large school systems reform and be redesigned in ways that they become more personalized and engaging to the students, smaller classroom settings, also, beyond academics, teaching social and emotional skills, things like persistence and grit and character and discipline and collaborative problem-solving, the very skills that employers are looking for.

JEFFREY BROWN: I know this has been an effort for a long time, and I read in one article — one — in your report that it’s been undertaken by four presidents.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: It’s true.

JEFFREY BROWN: Why has it taken so long?

JOHN BRIDGELAND: It’s so interesting.

Four successive presidents set effectively the same high school graduation rate goal of 90 percent by some certain date.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: And we have had flatlining graduation rates for 30 years.

However, in the last decade, we have increased awareness. People understood who these young people were, why they dropped out from high school, and that 50 percent of the dropouts were only found in 15 percent of the schools. So it seemed like a targeted, fixable problem.

Also, a civic Marshall Plan emerged. General Colin and Alma Powell assembled a group of leaders, educators, principals, administrators, community-based organizations, and said, let’s take the goal seriously. The class of 2020 is in third grade today. What does the evidence tell us about what we can do to keep those young people on track?

And so all these organizations have been aligning against — this GradNation and plan of action.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, so I wonder now, looking ahead, two things. One, is there any sense that the easy part has been done…

JOHN BRIDGELAND: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: … that from here on, it gets a lot harder?

JOHN BRIDGELAND: Right.

JEFFREY BROWN: And then, of course there’s the factor that we have reported on, on this program plenty of times, Common Core, a lot of changes that are being introduced into the curriculum in high schools around the country.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: Right.

I think the good news, Jeffrey, is that the most progress since 2006 was right during the period when graduating from high school became more complicated, more difficult, more rigorous, more AP courses, more courses — courses required to graduate, exit exams to graduate.

And so schools and districts are rising to a standard of excellence. The Common Core will usher in an era of learning and accountability across the country in ways where we will know that young people, whether they are in Akron or Albuquerque or anywhere in the country, are learning effectively to a high standard. And that’s what we ought to be ascribing to.

JEFFREY BROWN: That goes to not only the numbers, but the quality of education, which of course is still very much on the table.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: That’s exactly right. Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, John Bridgeland, thank you so much for joining us.

JOHN BRIDGELAND: Nice to be you with you, Jeffrey.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We have a lot more reporting from our American Graduate team, a project funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That’s on our Education page.

PBS NewsHour education coverage is part of American Graduate: Let’s Make it Happen, a public media initiative made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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Photo by Flickr user William Warby

The world’s best-selling toy is 40 years old.

The first Rubik’s cube was created in 1974 by Erno Rubik, a professor of architecture in Budapest, Hungary. Then known as the “Magic Cube,” it took its creator more than a month to solve originally. After a worldwide distribution deal was reached in 1979, the world got to try it’s luck. With around 350 million cubes having been sold around the world and an estimated one in seven people alive having played with the puzzle, the colors of its success are not difficult to decipher.

The goal of the Rubik’s Cube is easy enough on paper: each of the 3x3x3 cube’s six sides must end up having all nine squares be one color. To get there, however, one must twist the puzzle in several different ways until that goal is achieved — a goal Rubik had trouble convincing people was possible.

“I made something I found interesting and my idea was, ‘It’s good and I wanted to share it with other people,’” said Rubik in the leadup to the launch of a Rubik’s Cube exhibition in Jersey City, N.J. “I was not thinking about the size of the popularity and that kind of thing. It’s happened because of the cube, not because of me.”

Forty years after its debut, one can find cube speed runs, robots designed to solve the puzzle and even an international governing body dedicated to keeping world records and overseeing competition.

Still aching to solve the puzzle without resorting to peeling off and rearranging the colored stickers? Rubik’s Cube’s official website has your guide.

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President Obama defended U.S. foreign policy at the presidential palace in Manila, Philippines Monday. Photo by Malacanang Photo Bureau via Getty Images

Today in the Morning Line:

• Obama wanted to be transformational, and is now a singles hitter?
• Is decisiveness the best policy?
• Post/ABC poll offers warning signs to Democrats
• Rough day for House GOP

Obama defends foreign policy: We’ve noted in this space the criticism of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, which has been marked by caution. On Monday in Manila, the president offered a full-throated defense of his record. “If you look at the results of what we’ve done over the last five years, it is fair to say that our alliances are stronger, our partnerships are stronger,” he said, adding, “And that may not always be sexy. That may not always attract a lot of attention, and it doesn’t make for good argument on Sunday morning shows. But it avoids errors. You hit singles; you hit doubles; every once in a while, we may be able to hit a home run. But we steadily advance the interests of the American people and our partnership with folks around the world.” It’s an acknowledgement of the criticism and the frustration some have derided as “leading from behind.” And it’s striking to hear the president talk about singles and doubles when he once aspired to being a “transformational figure.” He was so aspirational, for example, he said in Cairo in 2009: “I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.” High-minded in the abstract, but difficult to pull off in reality.

Decision vs. Caution: But here’s a question to ponder: Is a doctrine of caution always bad and is a doctrine of decisiveness too often more easily rewarded in D.C.? Consider: Mr. Obama’s election in 2008 was in large measure because he was the anti-George W. Bush, who some accused of pursuing a war of choice in Iraq. He hinted at that yesterday, saying, “The point is that for some reason many who were proponents of what I consider to be a disastrous decision to go into Iraq haven’t really learned the lesson of the last decade, and they keep on just playing the same note over and over again. Why? I don’t know. But my job as Commander-in-Chief is to look at what is it that is going to advance our security interests over the long term, to keep our military in reserve for where we absolutely need it.” Mr. Obama promised to get the U.S. out of Iraq and focus more strongly on anti-terror operations centered in Afghanistan, while trying to build a multilateral approach. He followed through — the U.S. is all but out of Iraq, and he got bin Laden. It also matters that in a war-weary country, the U.S. has so far this year seen the fewest deaths combined in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003.

Obama’s false choice? Critics, however, would argue that President Obama is setting up a false choice, because no one is calling for U.S. troops in Ukraine. And that he is too knee-jerk against bold U.S. foreign policy because of Iraq. More broadly, they say, under Mr. Obama, the U.S. is in lower standing (which is difficult to quantify). They point to Iraq being a mess (with bombings continuing and extortionist terrorists in Mosul funding operations in Syria and Afghanistan not exactly being a beacon of modernization. Plus, Putin has tested Obama on Ukraine. Syria is mired in a civil war with some nine million people having fled their homes there. Russia and China (and the U.S. Congress) all but thwarted potential action in Syria, making Obama look weak after not acting when his “red line” was crossed. Then there’s the Arab Spring, Benghazi and (another) failed Mideast peace process. (The book is still out on Iran.) Above all, many critics say, as summed up by Andrew Kutchins of the Center for Strategic and International Studies to the Washington Post, Obama has “often been late” and “surprised more often than he should.” Others ask, though, why the U.S. should lead on Ukraine or be ahead of the Europeans even on sanctions when Ukraine is more of a European business interest. The Washington Post editorial page, which was in favor of the Iraq war, also takes a whack at Obama: “By choosing not to use the economic weapons at his disposal and broadcasting that restraint to the world, Mr. Obama is telling Mr. Putin as well as other potential aggressors that they continue to have little to fear from the United States.” It all makes you want to be president, doesn’t it? Mr. Obama arrives back at the White House from his Asia trip at 6:00 p.m. ET.

New poll holds warning signs for Democrats: The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday offers fresh warnings to Democrats heading into November’s midterm elections. The survey finds that President Obama’s approval rating dropped from 46 percent last month to 41 percent now. Per Gallup, when a president’s approval rating is below 50 percent, his party has lost an average of 36 House seats in the midterm elections. That’s compared with an average loss of 14 seats when the approval mark is above 50 percent. Another point of concern for Democrats in the Post/ABC poll: the health care law remains under water. Last month, 49 percent said they supported the program and 48 percent said they opposed it. Democrats were hoping that was part of a trend, building on the 8 million enrollment figure. But support for the Affordable Care Act now sits at 44 percent in April, while opposition held steady at 48 percent. When respondents were asked whether it was more important to have Democrats in control of Congress to back the president’s policies or Republicans to act as a check on them, 53 percent said they would prefer for Republicans to be in charge, and 39 percent picked the Democrats. Among registered voters, 45 percent said if the election were held today they would vote for the Democratic candidate, while 44 percent said the Republican. Democrats usually need a stronger advantage on that question to make gains, especially given the Republican-leaning shape of congressional districts. We’ll get more numbers Wednesday, when the NBC/WSJ poll is released.

Grim(m) day for House Republicans: Monday was a rough day for the House GOP conference. Louisiana Rep. Vance McAllister, having been caught on camera kissing a staffer, announced he would not seek re-election. And the GOP breathed a sigh of relief. Facing much more boring, yet serious, charges of tax evasion and fraud, New York Rep. Michael Grimm pleaded not guilty in federal court Monday to 20 counts. And although he stepped down from the House Financial Services Committee Monday evening, he’s not resigning from Congress and the party is standing by him in the competitive 11th district in Staten Island. Grimm’s and McAllister’s treatment reflect the different GOP response to ethical slips, depending on the kind of slip. The New York Times: “If House members are caught up in sexual peccadilloes or other made-for-television acts, they have been driven from Capitol Hill posthaste. If the allegations are more complicated, they have largely been given a pass.”

Quote of the day: “A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.” — Secretary of State John Kerry in a closed-door meeting with world leaders Friday. Kerry later backpedaled: “If I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution.”

Daily Presidential Trivia: On this day in 1969, President Richard Nixon presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Duke Ellington. Who established the award and who established its precursor?
Be the first to Tweet us the correct answer @NewsHour, @rachelwellford, @DomenicoPBS, and you’ll get a Morning Line shout-out. No one guessed Yesterday’s trivia correctly. The answer was: Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

LINE ITEMS

• The White House released its recommendations for cracking down on sexual assaults at universities Monday. Vice President Joe Biden will host an event at 2 p.m. ET Tuesday to announce what measures will now be taken based on the recommendations.

• More than 200 evangelical pastors from across the country will gather on Capitol Hill Tuesday to promote immigration reform. The trip will include personal visits to representatives’ offices.

• Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu is not shying away from her Washington experience, highlighting her role as chair of the Senate Energy Committee in her latest campaign spot.

• The Upshot’s Nate Cohn examines Sen. Kay Hagan’s turnout problems in this year’s North Carolina Senate race.

• Stu Rothenberg analyzes the chances of three women running for Senate seats this cycle.

• The League of Conservation Voters is out with a new ad as part of a $1 million ad buy, tying Rep. Cory Gardner to the Koch brothers and employing the familiar refrain that he’s “just too extreme” for Colorado.

• Federal officials are looking into threats against Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, following his strong criticism of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy.

• Elizabeth Warren will headline the Netroots Nation conference this summer. Hillary Clinton turned down an invitation to speak, the Washington Post reports. Who wants to bet she attends Netroots 2015?

• The AP’s Thomas Beaumont looks at the split among 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls when it comes to education policy.

• Arkansas Sen. John Boozman’s doctors say that the Republican senator will make a full recovery. He underwent emergency heart surgery last week.

• The Pew Research Center is out with a new study showing why Americans believe there is a growing inequality gap, based on their political affiliation.

• The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday to decide whether it is lawful for police to perform a warrantless search of a cell phone at the time of an arrest.

• Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has a new job: visiting professor at Liberty University.

• House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon is objecting to a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act that would allow young undocumented immigrants to serve in the U.S. military.

• Keep an eye on the Rundown blog for breaking news throughout the day, our home page for show segments, and follow @NewsHour for the latest.

TOP TWEETS

justice. RT @TIME: Man bit by the squirrel he took a selfie with http://t.co/FtcKB2rxGH

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) April 28, 2014

"If I were in charge…waterboarding is how we’d baptize terrorists,” said @SarahPalinUSA at the @NRA rally: http://t.co/zzbPYEsWbr

— msnbc (@msnbc) April 28, 2014

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The post Which is worse? The Decider or Mr. Cautious appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Photo by Flickr user 55Laney69

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is considering whether police may search cellphones found on people they arrest without first getting a warrant.

The court’s latest foray into the issue of privacy in the digital age involves two cases being argued Tuesday that arose from searches of phones carried by a gang member and a drug dealer. Police looked through their cellphones after taking the suspects into custody and found evidence that led to their convictions and lengthy prison terms.

The Supreme Court has previously ruled that police can empty a suspect’s pockets and examine whatever they find to ensure officers’ safety and prevent the destruction of evidence. The Obama administration and the state of California, defending the searches, say cellphones should have no greater protection from a search than anything else police find.

But the defendants in these cases, backed by an array of civil libertarians, librarians and news media groups, contend that cellphones, especially smartphones, are increasingly powerful computers that can store enormous quantities of sensitive personal information. They say that officer safety is not an issue and that police can take steps to protect a phone’s contents from being wiped clean without also conducting a warrantless search.

The issue is of more than passing concern for many people. More than 90 percent of Americans own at least one cellphone, the Pew Research Center says, and the majority of those are smartphones. More than 12 million people were arrested in the U.S. in 2012, according to FBI statistics.

Lawyer Jeffrey Fisher, representing a San Diego gang member, said arrests even for such minor violations as jaywalking and littering may subject someone to a cellphone search. The administration said cellphones are an important tool in the commission of crimes.

In the two cases, David Leon Riley of San Diego carried a Samsung smartphone, while Brima Wurie of Boston had a less advanced flip phone.

Prosecutors used video and photographs found on Riley’s smartphone to persuade a jury to convict him of attempted murder and other charges. Officers who arrested Wurie on suspicion of selling crack cocaine checked the call log on his flip phone and used that information to determine where he lived. When they searched Wurie’s home, armed with a warrant, they found crack cocaine, marijuana, a gun and ammunition.

Under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, police generally need a warrant before they can conduct a search. The warrant itself must be based on “probable cause,” evidence that a crime has been committed. But in the early 1970s, the Supreme Court carved out exceptions for officers dealing with people they have arrested.

The cases are Riley v. California, 13-132, and U.S. v. Wurie, 13-212.

The post Supreme Court takes on warrantless cellphone searches appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Carjackers, you have been warned.

A new effort launched Monday in Detroit and Flint, Michigan, warns would-be thieves that carjacking is a federal crime, punishable with up to life in prison, or in some cases, death.

U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade hopes the campaign, “Carjacking is a ride straight to prison,” will act as a deterrent and raise awareness of the stiff penalties associated with the crime.

“The offenders are often stunned when they find out the kinds of penalties they face,” McQuade said Monday at a press conferences in Detroit. “We’re hopeful that if would-be criminals have this information, it’ll have a powerful, deterrent effect.”

According to the Detroit Free Press, to date, the city of Detroit has seen 167 carjackings this year, compared to 180 at this time last year, an 8 percent decline. Flint has seen just one carjacking this year, compared to 12 last year, and 19 the year before.

So far, three billboards featuring the slogan “Carjacking is a ride straight to prison” were erected in the two cities.

The federal armed carjacking law, which took effect in 1992, carries penalties of up to 15 years in prison for each count; 25 years if someone is seriously injured; and life in prison or the death penalty if someone is killed. If a gun is used in the carjacking, extra years are added to the sentence.

The post Carjackers will drive themselves to severe penalties in Detroit appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Photo by Flickr user Jose Sa

Though its themes of justice, honor and tolerance are timeless, “To Kill a Mockingbird” will take on a distinctly 21st-century form later this year when, half a century after its publication, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel will be released electronically.

In a statement Monday night, HarperCollins Publishers announced that they had acquired digital and audio rights to the classic story. Readers will be able to download both an e-book and an audiobook, narrated by Sissy Spacek, beginning in July, the 54th anniversary of Mockingbird’s original publication.

Harper Lee, the book’s famously reclusive author, had been a stalwart against digital publication. Though she has published only sparingly since “Mockingbird,” she took to the pages of Oprah Magazine in 2006 to extol the pleasures of ink-and-paper books. “In an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books,” she wrote.

In Monday’s announcement, Lee professed that she is “still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries,” but added that “this is ‘Mockingbird’ for a new generation.”

“To Kill a Mockingbird” tells the story of Atticus Finch, a lawyer defending a black man accused of rape in the Jim Crow-era Deep South, from the perspective of his daughter, Scout. A bestseller and perennial classroom favorite since its publication in 1960, it still sells more than a million copies each year and has been translated into over 40 languages.

The post ‘Mockingbird for a new generation’: A classic text goes digital appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

The standard for a college education should be that every graduate must leave with a job, says headhunter Nick Corcodilos. If they can’t get a job, the college has failed. Image by Mehmed Zelkovic/Getty Images.

Nick Corcodilos started headhunting in Silicon Valley in 1979, and has answered over 30,000 questions from the Ask The Headhunter community over the past decade.

In this special Making Sense edition of Ask The Headhunter, Nick shares insider advice and contrarian methods about winning and keeping the right job, on one condition: that you, dear Making Sense reader, send Nick your questions about your personal challenges with job hunting, interviewing, networking, resumes, job boards, or salary negotiations. No guarantees — just a promise to do his best to offer useful advice.

Question: I am 20 years old, going into the summer before my senior year of college. I am looking to work in the finance/investment industry next year and am trying to get prepared for one of the biggest decisions in my life.

All of the major financial services companies that I am looking at have these large recruitment fairs, and almost none of them are coming to my school. (I go to a small private liberal arts college.) What am I to do?

It seems like all of the new hires out of college go through the same process of getting hired through human resources. (I am almost finished reading your book, and I understand why you suggest avoiding HR and going instead to hiring managers.) It almost seems like I can’t escape the traditional hiring process as a new kid on the block. Any advice?

P.S. I have had a couple of internships with local financial planners who have contacts deep within the big investment firms, and they have written me recommendations, but where do I go with this?

Nick Corcodilos: The answer is in your P.S. It’s nice to have letters of recommendation from the financial planners (FPs) you interned for, but what you really need are introductions. Ask the FPs to make a few calls to get you in the door. Alternatively, ask them to get you some so-called “informational interviews” where you can just ask questions and meet the people you might be working for next. (For more about this, see “How to Say It: Informational (gag!) Interviews.”) Personal referrals like this are the coin of the realm.

Another way to get an edge is to check your college’s alumni rolls: Find out which alumni are in the financial industry, call them up and ask them for advice and insight about the industry. Do not ask for job leads; that will turn them off. People love to give advice, especially to students at their alma maters, but they hate being burdened with requests to submit resumes for them. So, talk shop with them. Ask what they like and don’t like about their work and how they would advise you to prepare for such a job.

Most important, ask if they can refer you to a manager or two at their company, so you can “continue learning about the business.” These are the people who can get you in the door ahead of the job fair recruits. (Note that there is no mention about applying for a job. That comes after you build a critical mass of contacts.)

This is how to bypass HR entirely and get an insider’s edge.

Some college alumni offices balk at giving students access to alumni. If you encounter this problem, it’s time to go to your college president’s office and politely but firmly ask why, if they don’t bring the right recruiters to campus, the alumni office won’t at least help you by making introductions? Tell your college president I said it’s his or her responsibility. The school will ask you for alumni donations in a few years, so they ought to give you the benefit of alumni contacts now, when you need them.

Unfortunately, most colleges do a very poor job of helping students and grads with their careers. “Career offices” offer a rote system that’s not much better than handing you job listings and telling you to apply. The “resume help” and “interview advice” they provide is available for free at your local library. It all comes from the same books.

How can college career offices really help students? They should be creating a career component to every single course you take during your four years. While I have no beef with the idea that the purpose of college is to educate you broadly — not to deliver vocational training — I think it’s disingenuous of colleges to suggest that they bear little or no responsibility for getting you started on a good career. For the $100,000 to $250,000 or more that you’re paying for a degree, your school should be working much harder to ensure you graduate with a job. (See “Colleges fail ‘How’.”) Adding one class session to each course, to illuminate how the “learning” can be applied in the world of work, is eminently do-able and, I think, necessary to your education.

The standard for a college education should be that every graduate must leave with a job. If they can’t get a job, the college has failed. (I’m a big fan of “education for its own sake,” but I’m a bigger fan of return on education investment.) We’d see a quick shift in the relationship between colleges and the business world.

Invest your time in developing personal contacts, and leverage your college to do it. Please also read Lisa Locher’s excellent “How To Approach An Investment Job.”

I wish you the best!

Dear Readers: Can colleges do a better job of preparing graduates for jobs? What was your experience? How would you advise this reader?

Nick Corcodilos invites Making Sense readers to subscribe to his free weekly Ask The Headhunter© Newsletter. His in-depth “how to” PDF books are available on his website: “How to Work With Headhunters…and how to make headhunters work for you,” “How Can I Change Careers?”, “Keep Your Salary Under Wraps” and “Fearless Job Hunting.”

Send your questions to Nick, and join him for discussion every week here on Making Sense. Thanks for participating!

Copyright © 2013 Nick Corcodilos. All rights reserved in all media. Ask the Headhunter® is a registered trademark.

The post Your college owes you a job appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Ray and Ann Goldwire look at some of their family photos in their Gainesville, Fla., apartment, which is part of a university-based retirement community. Video still by Steve Mort/PBS NewsHour

Ray and Ann Goldwire lived and worked in the college town of Toledo, Ohio, before they retired to a resort-style retirement community. There they expected to enjoy a life of leisure. Instead, they quickly grew weary of the activities that absorbed most of the retirees’ days. “It was golf, golf, golf, bridge,” Ann Goldwire said. “Ray and I didn’t get along real well there.”

In retirement, it’s not uncommon for older Americans to find themselves isolated from their communities.

“We’ve built a lot of really beautiful retirement communities in this country, but unfortunately they are in many ways completely separated from the rest of society,” said Andrew Carle, an expert in senior housing and a professor at George Mason University. “A bird in a gilded cage is still a bird in a cage.”

So the Goldwires moved once again, this time to Gainesville, Fla., the home of University of Florida. Nearly 50 years after he graduated with a degree in business, Ray Goldwire now lives next door to his alma mater. Instead of a dorm, his new home is Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a university-based retirement community, which offers him all the perks of a college campus, minus the term papers and final exams.

In 2006, Carle, who founded George Mason University’s program in senior housing administration, coined the term “university-based retirement communities” — or UBRC’s for short — to describe retirement communities that have a formal or informal relationship to a nearby university, and as a result, offer their residents academic benefits that others cannot.

Like the Goldwires, many older Americans are trading the leisure circuit for the college campus in retirement. By moving close to a university, Carle said, seniors are primed to get what studies show they want: “They want active, they want intellectually stimulating, and they want intergenerational retirement environments.”

Ray Goldwire uses a smoker to gain access to his bee hives at his retirement community in Gainesville, Fla. Video still by Steve Mort/PBS NewsHour

He isn’t looking for some magical fountain of youth, but he hopes that living near a university will help him to age better than his parents. “My mother lived to 102, and I don’t want to stick around and live in a nursing home like she did. It’s up to me to sort of take care of myself,” he said.

Just as no two university campuses are identical, no two UBRCs are the same either. And some may be better managed than others to fulfill residents’ expectations. Andrew Carle says there are steps that can be taken to achieve a win-win-win opportunity for the university, the retirement community and the retirees.

His five criteria for creating a successful UBRC are as follows:

• Programming: Formalized programming between the university and the retirement community is critical to create intergenerational diversity.
• Proximity: The UBRC has to be within a mile or so of the campus or you won’t likely feel like you’re on the campus. And both 20-year-old college students and 80-year-old retirees are commonly without cars.
• Senior housing and health services: The retirement community has to have a full continuum of care and senior housing services, including independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing and dementia care.
• Alumni Base: At least 10 percent of residents at the retirement community should be alums, former faculty member or former employee of the university in order to bring the culture and spirit of the university into the retirement community.
• Sound financial planning: The university should not operate the retirement community — for legal, financial, and practical reasons — however there should be some kind of financial relationship that ties the two together, because this gives both an incentive to help each other succeed and thrive.

Of the approximately 70 retirement communities in the U.S. that tout their ties to nearby universities, Carle says only about a dozen meet three or more of his ideal criteria.

While universities stand to gain new revenue streams by supporting these types of retirement communities, Carle says they serve the surrounding region too. “If by 2030, one fifth of the community is over the age of 65,” Carle said, “then you have an obligation to be paying attention to a fifth of your population.”

How do university-based retirement communities shape up to Andrew Carle’s model for success? Here are some of the communities that meet many of his criteria.

The Forest at Duke | Duke University, Durham, N.C.

Photo by Chris Hildreth/Duke University

Proximity to campus: Two miles; Residents rarely walk to and from the Duke University campus, but the retirement community operates a bus that runs frequently.

Senior housing and health services: Full continuum of care. The retirement community has independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing, and other options as residents’ age and health requires. On-site there are primary care, dental and pharmacy services, a variety of rehab therapies and memory support.

Programming: The Forest at Duke partners with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute to provide adult continuing education courses held on the Duke campus as well as at the retirement center. Duke does not allow residents or local retirees to audit classes for free.

Alumni Base: Approximately 30 percent have a direct tie to Duke.

Financial arrangement: The Forest at Duke pays a license fee to use the university’s trademarked name. Duke does not own, operate or manage any part of the retirement community. However, the retirement community contracts with the university to provide a medical director and the oversight with their health center.

While the university made no financial investments to help build The Duke at Forest, the project was strongly supported through consulting support, especially by the Duke Center for Aging.

Kendal at Hanover | Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.

Photo by Eli Burakian/Dartmouth College

Proximity to campus: From Kendal at Hanover to the location of continuing education classes is 1.7 miles walking or a seven-minute drive. The retirement community operates a shuttle bus for more popular events or classes.

Senior housing and health services: Kendal at Hanover is a continuing care retirement community with four different types of living options, independent apartments, assisted living and memory support for those with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia and skilled nursing. Through the on-site clinic, residents can get routine physicals, immunizations and health screenings. Residents can also receive other services on-site by referral, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, social service, and dietary counseling.

Programming: Residents take advantage of Dartmouth College’s Institute for Lifelong Education at Dartmouth (ILEAD), a continuing education program started in 1990 for local retirees and alumni. More than half of Kendal at Hanover residents are members of ILEAD. Classes are offered in three “semesters.” In Spring 2014, there were 38 full-length courses and 18 mini-courses offered, lasting two to eight weeks. Kendal has more than 100 additional groups and committees that residents can join in order to explore their interests.

Alumni Base: About one in four residents are Dartmouth alumni, former faculty or staff.

Financial arrangement: Dartmouth College did not lease or buy land for Kendal at Hanover, nor did it provide any investment funds or loans for the construction of the retirement community.

The retirement community contracts with the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to host an on-site clinic exclusively serving residents. Dartmouth medical school students from the Geisel School of Medicine can do a rotation at that clinic as part of their education.

Holy Cross Village at Notre Dame | Holy Cross College, Notre Dame, Ind.

Photo by Glenn Simmons/Flickr

Current number of residents: 246
Average age of resident: 82
Average age of entry: 83

Proximity to campus: Only 1,000 feet separate the main building of the retirement community and the university, and the physical proximity makes it very easy for residents to interact with young college students, as well as staff and faculty.

Programming: Residents receive library cards and college identification badges for Holy Cross College that give them access to the library, fitness center and athletic events. The retirement community provides transportation to events on the University of Notre Dame campus every month. Residents can also purchase tickets to sporting events such as the popular football and women’s basketball games.

Residents can audit courses offered by Holy Cross College and St. Mary’s University, and participate in quarterly lecture series. Holy Cross College hosts an art festival, displaying student artwork at the retirement community and student artists visit to discuss their work. Retirees also regularly welcome international students for dinner several times a year.

In addition, residents who are former college professors also sit on jury panels and grade student presentations at Holy Cross College.

Senior housing and health services: Holy Cross Village has independent living options, including free-standing villas, duplexes and apartment units. Most residents live in apartments. Assisted living and skilled nursing options are also available. Some residents have private health care assistance, which they pay for in order to remain in their independent living quarters. The retirement community allows for this as long as the residents’ health and the safety of others allows.

Alumni Base: Thirty percent are retired faculty and alumni from Holy Cross College, St. Mary’s University or University of Notre Dame. While the schools were all started by religious priests and brothers connected to the Catholic Church, residents come from all different backgrounds. Many of the residents are older religious brothers.

Financial arrangement: The retirement community is owned and sponsored by Brothers of Holy Cross, a Catholic society of lay religious men, who also own and operate the buildings and land for Holy Cross College. While Holy Cross Village is a separate not-for-profit organization, the same religious order manages the university and the retirement community. Several members of its board of directors work for one of the three college administrations. The university and retirement community share contracts for security since they can be easily executed and operated together.

Vi at Palo Alto | Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.

Photo by Jill Clardy/Flickr

Current number of residents: 631
Average age of resident: 84
Average age of entry: ~70-75 years

Proximity to campus: Less than a mile. The free university shuttle system has two stops on the retirement community campus.

Programming: Residents organize a weekly lecture series and connect with contacts at the university, such as professors, researchers and physicians, who come to discuss topics nominated by the residents themselves. A few courses, which last several weeks, are taught by Stanford University professors. In addition, residents can pay to attend sporting events and performances on campus. Residents who want to audit classes or participate in continuing education programs must pay tuition.

Senior housing and health services: As a CCRC, residents have access to short- and long-term care, including assisted living, memory support and skilled nursing care. Its care center is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If residents must go to Stanford Hospital for any reason, Vi at Palo Alto has developed partnerships with the hospital in order to provide more one-on-one attention for residents.

Alumni Base: Vi at Palo Alto’s executive director Steve Brudnick estimates that 25 percent of residents have some connection to Stanford, either as alumni or as former faculty or staff. However, Vi doesn’t officially ask its residents for a connection during the application process.

Financial arrangement: Vi at Palo Alto has little affiliation with Stanford University. The retirement community is located on land that has been leased for 75 years from Stanford, but it is independently operated. The retirement community pays professors to come and teach classes to residents.

Lasell Village | Lasell College, Newton, Mass

Photo by Lasell College/Flickr

Proximity to campus: The retirement community is located across the street from the college campus. Lasell Village drives residents to parts of campus as needed.

Programming: Unlike other UBRCs, continuing education opportunities at Lasell Village is not optional. It is mandatory that all residents complete a minimum of 450 hours of learning and fitness activity each calendar year. These hours of learning can take place inside and outside the classroom. Residents have an academic dean who helps oversee all their educational programs, on campus and at the retirement community. Residents can enroll in college level courses free of charge and they are expected to be fully participating members of the class. In addition to college courses, there are a number of classes hosted at the retirement community. There are also formal programs for residents to mentor students, participate in joint volunteer activities or even complete independent research.

Senior housing and health services: Lasell Village is a continuing care retirement community and offers short-term and long-term care. Residents who are able to live independently live in apartment homes. Each of the 16 buildings at the retirement community has a classroom, studio, library or fitness facility. Residents can get health services at the on-site wellness center. When needed, residents have access to rehab, stroke recovery, wound care, pain management, short-term respite care, assisted living, skilled nursing and end-of-life care.

Alumni Base: Very few of the residents at Lasell Village have any formal connection to the college. When the retirement community was established, its mission was not necessarily to serve only alumni.

Financial arrangement: The retirement community and the college are deeply intertwined. The retirement community is actually zoned as an educational institution. Though not the original plan, the college currently manages the operation of Lasell Village. The retirement community pays the college to lease the land. The two share contracts for security, IT services and front desk operations.

Kendal at Oberlin | Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

Photo by Flickr user abbyladybug

Proximity to campus: Three blocks from the retirement community to the heart of the Oberlin College campus. Because the terrain is very flat, it is very easy for residents to walk or bike, even during the winter. Kendal also offers transportation to the campus for those who need it.

Programming: Through a local community college-sponsored Academy for Lifelong Learning, also affiliated with Oberlin College, residents can take not-for-credit courses taught by current and retired faculty. Some of the instructors are Kendal residents, and some classes are hosted at the retirement community every semester. On campus, residents can audit, free of charge, by just asking the professor if they can join.

Faculty, students and staff go to Kendal at Oberlin to host activities, such as faculty lectures and individual and group performances by the internationally recognized Conservatory of Music at Oberlin. Many students work at the retirement community for federal work-study in order to learn about aging.

Kendal at Oberlin residents are also able to use the college library, athletic facilities and attend some of the 1,200 events held on the campus, most of which are free or low cost. Some residents even teach, conduct research or offer consulting services to the college. Some serve as mentors to Oberlin freshmen, part of a course called Ars Moriendi.

Senior housing and health services: Residents have the option of living in cottages and apartments located on Kendal at Oberlin’s 107 acres. In addition, there are exercise and recreational facilities, craft areas, garden plots and a fitness center with a swimming pool and tennis courts.

Kendal at Oberlin is an accredited continuing care retirement community. Residents have access to assisted living, skilled nursing and short-term rehabilitation services.

Alumni Base: Approximately 37 percent of residents have a former tie to Oberlin College; most of the group is alumni.

Financial arrangement: Oberlin College and Kendal at Oberlin have a very special relationship, but it is not dependent on any legal or financial tie. Though the college assisted the retirement community to acquire property, the land is owned by Kendal at Oberlin. There is no fee arrangement or contract to use the name of the college or operate any part of Kendal at Oberlin.

Oak Hammock at the University of Florida | University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.

Photo by University of Florida

Proximity to campus: One mile as the crow flies to the University of Florida campus. But in reality, it is about three to four miles away, an eight to 10 minute drive. This means most residents do not get to campus, unless they drive or take a shuttle provided by Oak Hammock.

Programming: Oak Hammock is host to its own Institute for Learning in Retirement, offering classes for people over the age of 55. With over 550 students, half of whom come from Oak Hammock and the rest from the Gainesville area, Institute members can take classes at Oak Hammock, taught by current and retired professors from the University of Florida, as well as retired faculty from other universities who live at the retirement community.

By state law, seniors, age 60 or older who are residents of Florida, can audit classes at public universities for free. Residents at Oak Hammock can audit college courses at University of Florida. Residents also go to campus to attend football and basketball games, performances, and for other campus services.

Some students intern at Oak Hammock, and many work with residents in the retirement community’s fitness center as personal trainers and fitness class instructors. Music professors assist with the retirement center’s choir and chamber music ensemble.

Senior housing and health services: As a continuing care retirement community, residents have access to all levels of care that are needed as they age. Residents have 21 different options for independent living, from studio apartments to free-standing “villas.” For those residents who come to need additional services, skilled nursing, assisted living and memory care living options are also available.

There is an on-site primary care clinic, dental services, and rehabilitation services. In addition, residents can take advantage of personal training and classes at the fitness center. Residents are part of a free advantage program for in-patient and out-patient health care services at University of Florida and Shands Health care.

Alumni Base: About 30 percent of all residents have some formal affiliation with the university as alumni, faculty or staff. Three former university presidents have called Oak Hammock home.

Kendal at Ithaca | Ithaca College/Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.

Photo by Ithaca College

Current number of residents: 298
Average age of resident: ~86
Average age of entry: 77-83, varies by year
Proximity to campus: By road, it’s about 8.5 miles. Due to that distance, the campuses are not accessible by foot or bike.

Programming: Residents can’t audit classes free of charge. There is no year-round curriculum designed specifically for residents, but there are summer programs. Faculty often come to the retirement community to give lectures. Students visit to perform concerts and give presentations on various class projects.

Residents participate in research conducted by Cornell University and Ithaca College on the effects of aging on the brain and balance.

Student also come to the retirement community and give presentations on various class projects.

Senior housing and health services: For residents living independently, there are 167 cottages on Kendal at Ithaca’s 50 acres, and 45 apartments attached to the Community Center.

Kendal at Ithaca is a continuing care retirement community and offers assisted living residences, skilled nursing care and home care. They have physical and occupational therapy available in the health center.

Alumni Base: While Kendal at Ithaca does not have an official count, more than 17 percent have some kind of formal affiliation with the two universities. Many residents still maintain offices and academic responsibilities at Cornell. They continue to teach, supervise graduate students and do research.

Financial arrangement: The retirement community has no financial ties to Ithaca College or Cornell University. Kendal at Ithaca owns the land and independently operates the community. It does not contract any of its services with the universities.

The post Why boomers are retiring to college appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

American Electric Power coal burning plant in Conesville, Ohio. Photo by Michael Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday handed the Obama administration an important victory in its effort to reduce power plant pollution that contributes to unhealthy air in neighboring states.

In a 6-2 decision, the court upheld a rule adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2011 to limit emissions from plants in more than two-dozen Midwestern and Southern states. The pollution drifts into the air above states along the East Coast, and the EPA has long struggled to devise a way to control it.

Power companies and several states sued to block the rule from taking effect, and a federal appeals court in Washington agreed with them in 2012.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the court’s majority opinion, which reversed the lower court ruling. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Justice Samuel Alito took no part in consideration of the case.

Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution from power plants can be carried long distances and the pollutants react with other substances to form smog and soot, which have been linked to illnesses. The cross-border pollution has prevented many cities from complying with health-based standards set by law.

The new downwind pollution rule was triggered by a federal court throwing out the previous rule penned by the Bush administration. The new rule would cost power plant operators $800 million annually in 2014, according to EPA estimates. That’s in addition to the $1.6 billion spent per year to comply with the 2005 Bush rule that was still in effect until the government drafted the new one.

The EPA said the investments would be far outweighed by the hundreds of billions of dollars in health care savings from cleaner air. The agency said the rule would prevent more than 30,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of illnesses each year.

Texas led 14 states and industry groups in challenging the rule. Most downwind states support it.

States had argued, and the lower court agreed, that they deserved a chance to figure out how much they were contributing to pollution in other states and how to reduce it before the EPA prescribed fixes. The lower court also faulted EPA for requiring states to reduce pollution through a complex formula based on cost that did not exactly match how much downwind pollution a state was responsible for.

The high court said the EPA was allowed under the Clean Air Act to implement federal plans in states that had not adequately addressed pollution that blows downwind. The court also ruled that the EPA also was authorized to consider how costly controls on pollution are and did not have to require states to reduce exactly the amount of pollution that they contribute to downwind states.

“In short, we are satisfied that EPA’s construction of the statute reasonably responded to a perplexing problem the statute itself does not resolve,” Ginsburg said.

The post Supreme Court upholds EPA emissions limits appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Video by the Associated Press

Around 150 pro-Russian demonstrators broke into and seized the regional administration building Tuesday in Luhansk, Ukraine.

The activists, some wearing masks and others carrying metal bars and baseball bats, emerged from a crowd of 3,000 protesters arguing for more powers for Ukraine’s regions. Once the building was seized, the activists broke windows and placed Russian flags atop the building. Local police offered no resistance.

“The local police did nothing,” said Stanislav Rechynsky, aide to Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. Interim President Olexander Turchynov also criticized police inaction as “criminal treachery,” the BBC reports.

Luhansk, located 15 miles from the Russian border, is one of the larger cities in Ukraine and home to more than 450,000 people.

The post Pro-Russian demonstrators storm building in Luhansk, Ukraine appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

NBA has attributed racist remarks to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league is imposing a lifetime ban on Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling from the NBA, in a statement Tuesday regarding racist remarks attributed to Sterling.

“This has been a painful moment for all the members of the NBA family,” said Silver. “We stand together in condemning Mr. Sterling’s views. They simply have no place in the NBA.”

The NBA is also fining Sterling $2.5 million, the maximum amount allowed by the league, added Silver.

The statement came amid mounting pressure from the league’s own players to take strong action against Sterling after audio clips released by Web sites TMZ and Deadspin purportedly capture the Clippers’ owner arguing with a then-girlfriend, identified as V. Stiviano.

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The Obama administration Tuesday released guidelines that aim to curb sexual assaults on school campuses, while helping the victims.

The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault stated, in a report released Tuesday entitled “Not Alone,” that they aim to fight, prevent and bring more transparency to campus sexual assault crimes, which are currently underreported in the United States due to victims “left feeling isolated,
ashamed or to blame.”

The Task Force, created by President Barack Obama in January, seeks to change the culture and prevent assault by identifying problem areas and provide prevention programs and strategies. The goal is also to create and improve effective response systems in schools to respond to sexual assaults, which include identifying trained, confidential people a survivor can talk to, comprehensive sexual misconduct policies, trauma-informed training for school officials, improved school disciplinary systems and partnerships with community services and 24-hour help.

A new website which launched Tuesday, NotAlone.gov, will offer information to victims and provide an avenue to file a complaint.

“Colleges and universities need to face the facts about sexual assault – no more turning a blind eye or pretending it doesn’t exist,” said Vice President Joe Biden. “We need to give victims the support they need – like a confidential place to go – and we need to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

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America’s historically high rate of incarceration is increasingly questioned by some state leaders, justice officials and experts. And it’s back in focus this week thanks to two major reports looking at these questions. Tomorrow, the National Academy of Sciences will release a report on the causes and consequences of incarceration’s four-fold rise in the U.S. over the past 40 years. It’s also the subject of tonight’s Frontline, “Prison State,” the second of a two-part series about those who are locked up behind bars, now totaling more than 2.3 million people in the U.S.

The documentary profiles the path of four people caught up in the cycle of Kentucky’s criminal justice system. The four come from Beecher Terrace, a housing project in the west end of Louisville where one out of every six people cycle in and out of prison every year.

“If you look at incarceration spending as an investment in a neighborhood and as an investment that’s being done to keep neighborhoods safe, you see the money that’s being spent on Beecher Terrace is three times higher on incarceration than it is on education,” says Dan Edge, the filmmaker who produced “Prison State” and last week’s episode on solitary confinement. “We asked, Is this a sensible way of spending money? So many people there go to jail yet the crime rates remain high.”

Frontline went to Kentucky, in part, because it has one of the fastest-growing prison populations in the country— rising 45% in the decade ending in 2009, Edge says. “And the reason we focused even more tightly on this community is that we managed to get from Kentucky these great data sets. We could map incarceration rates and where people live before they are sent to prison, we could map real hot spots and see which neighborhoods were costing the state the most.”

Kentucky is also one of a number of states now considering reforms, particularly to its juvenile justice system.

One of the more intimate profiles in tonight’s film looks at the case of Demetria, a 14-year-old who grew up in Beecher and has been in juvenile jail multiple times, including on a charge of assaulting her aunt. Her mother was shot dead when she was nine years old.

“She had no father to live with because he was in prison on drug charges,’ says Edge. “Her family was already riven by crime and overincarceration. Essentially she has no place to go and ends up in juvenile jail at 13. Her case is emblematic to me of the issue where incarceration becomes the answer to so much. Mental health issues land her in jail. There’s a discipline problem, it’s dealt with in jail.”

Both films in the series give the audience remarkable access to the prisons, the inmates, the corrections officers and officials dealing with these issues — something that Edge said took the better part of two years to complete. In the case of Beecher Terrace, Edge says he spent a long time earning the trust of residents and the community.

“Those people feel marginalized, burnt by the media in the past, they have felt demonized and rightly so,” he says. ” It took us a long time and being there for months without cameras.”

Last week’s look at solitary confinement in Maine State Prison had access never seen before—featuring imagery that was often dramatic, shocking and even horrifying. Edge says the warden and former corrections officials were hoping to spark more conversation about the use of solitary confinement.

As other states consider changing some of their incarceration policies and practices in the wake of a recession, Edge says, “We’re at the end of an era potentially. It’s the first time in four decades where the number of prisoners are not going up. The question is whether films like ours are marking the end of an era or just a blip. The primary motivator for the change in this has been money. States started realizing they were spending a big proportion of money on incarceration. The question is whether that momentum will continue.”

The post How high incarceration rates cost states and shatter communities appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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The Supreme Court heard arguments today in two cases that challenge whether all that information should be fair game for law enforcement when a suspect is placed under arrest.

Marcia Coyle of “The National Law Journal” was in the courtroom this morning, as always, and she is back with us tonight.

Last week, we were talking about streaming video. This week, we’re talking about cell phone data. The Supreme Court is suddenly getting very modern. How did this case get to the court?

MARCIA COYLE, “The National Law Journal”: A new world, as one of the justices said today.

GWEN IFILL: Yes.

MARCIA COYLE: This, as you said, involved two cases, two separate arguments for an hour each. The one case was a state prosecution. Police stopped a man who was driving because his tags had expired. They found concealed and loaded weapons in the car, arrested him, confiscated his smartphone.

They searched the smartphone and found video and photos that linked him to a gang-related attempted murder. The evidence was used to convict him. The second case was a federal prosecution. A suspected drug dealer was arrested. His flip phone was searched by police. They looked at the call log on the flip phone, found a phone number that they used to find an address of the man’s house, later went and searched the house with a warrant and found drugs. That evidence was used to convict him.

GWEN IFILL: But they didn’t have a warrant to search the phones.

MARCIA COYLE: That’s right, exactly.

And common to both these cases is sort of an exception to what generally makes police searches reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, a warrant, and that’s an exception that’s known as search incident to an arrest.

Police can search you after they arrest you for two justifications, one, an officer’s safety, and, two, to prevent destruction of evidence. And that’s what was focused on today during the arguments. Did the officers have those justifications?

The lawyers for the criminal — the convicted criminals can here said, no, the police seize the phone, secure them, get a warrant. Get a third-party magistrate to say what they can really look at on the phone. The government argued, no, no, this is an officer in the field. Cell phones today are very sophisticated.

They can be used to trigger bombs. They can send messages to confederates, criminal confederates, to either run or come and help the person arrested.

GWEN IFILL: So having a cell phone is not the same has having a wallet. A wallet, they could reasonably search, and nobody would say anything, because it’s on your person. But a cell phone is different?

MARCIA COYLE: Well, that’s the question. How different is it, really?

The justices, for example, gave an example. You have a billfold in your pocket and it contains five photos. Justice Alito said, police can look at those five photos after they arrest you. Why can’t they look at your cell phone that has 1,000 photos?  What’s different here?

And that drew them into discussions about why it is so different, that some photographs on cell phones have information that’s more just the image in the photograph. Justice Kagan, for example, pointed out, also, that cell phones today, people have their entire lives on their cell phones.

Where do you draw the line on what the police can look at if they can search the cell phones?

GWEN IFILL: It sounds like the justices themselves were kind of going back and forth among themselves about what they are supposed to be judging this on.

MARCIA COYLE: Absolutely.

Some of them, maybe two or three, seemed to think, well, you know, why not get a warrant? These phones were searched at the police station. There was time to get a warrant. But, again, the government lawyers come back and said, look, you know, you’re talking about officers who, you know, are standing out on a street and they have arrested somebody. They have to make quick decisions.

Also, the technology — the lawyer for the Obama administration said the FBI is finding an increasing problem with encryption on cell phones. There are buttons where the cell phone can be — all the information can be encrypted, and it’s taking their labs months, if ever, to break through to the encryption. So they want to be able to get into those cell phones as soon as possible.

GWEN IFILL: Where does a conservative justice like Justice Scalia come down on something like this? Did he tip his hand at all?

MARCIA COYLE: No, he really didn’t.

For him, this may be hard. He often — in criminal cases, you know, he goes with the text of the amendment. That sometimes puts him on the side of the criminal defendant.

GWEN IFILL: Right.

MARCIA COYLE: It seemed to me they were really struggling today to find a middle ground, a middle ground that would allow police to be safe, to preserve evidence and yet, at the same time, not open your cell phone to everything in your life.

GWEN IFILL: So establish a line of reasonable suspicion, when it’s reasonable to look at…

MARCIA COYLE: Well, that’s — you get a warrant.

But I think more — it has more to do with going beyond those two justifications for the search incident to your arrest. The government suggested, let us search for evidence of the crime of the arrest. That takes you a little farther into the cell phone itself.

I think it’s a real struggle for them. And they want, usually, to have a bright line so that the police know what they can do and what they can’t do, and there was no evidence of a bright line today.

GWEN IFILL: No bright lines today.

Marcia Coyle, thank you.

MARCIA COYLE: Oh, my pleasure.

The post Supreme Court considers warrantless searches when cellphones hold troves of personal info appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, speaks during his weekly news conference on March 26, 2014. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

House Speaker John Boehner made headlines last week when he mocked his colleagues for not wanting to take a difficult vote on immigration reform. With Congress back in session this week, he had a chance to put that genie back in the bottle, as one Republican put it.

He turned to a familiar foil: President Obama

“I wanted to make sure the members understood the biggest impediment we have in moving immigration reform is that the American people don’t trust the president to enforce or implement the law that we may or may not pass,” Boehner said Tuesday after meeting with House Republicans.

Louisiana Rep. John Fleming said the speaker told Republicans the same thing in their meeting.

“He actually doubled down today on our existing position, which is not to move forward until the president gets right with this,” Fleming said.

Fleming added that Boehner told the conference he would not consider the comprehensive Senate-passed immigration bill, a position long held by Boehner. He had previously left the door open to a piecemeal approach, but then shut that down earlier this year when he said his conference couldn’t “trust” the president.

His comments in Ohio seemed to indicate that at least a piecemeal approach could be back on the table. But the developments Tuesday don’t bode well for the prospect of anything getting done on immigration before the midterm elections.

There are a few House Republicans, like Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, who continue to push for a vote, as are many Democrats. And 250 evangelical pastors made the rounds on Capitol Hill Tuesday calling for a vote as well.

“Are we going to move forward with trying to fix it, or are we going to pretend, because it is a difficult issue, that we don’t have to do anything about it? And I think most people want to fix it.” Diaz-Balart said.

It isn’t clear exactly what President Obama can do to gain the trust of House Republicans. Asked by the NewsHour if immigration reform might be more likely with a different person in the Oval Office, Fleming replied, “Yes.”

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And finally tonight to Egypt, where the remains of some 50 royal mummies were discovered in a huge tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the country’s antiquities minister said yesterday. The relics are thought to date back to more than 1,500 years before Christ.

Jeffrey Brown has the story, part of his series Culture at Risk.

NARRATOR: The 4,000-year-old Temples of Karnak in Egypt are now being restored. These first pictures show the amount of work being carried out by the Egyptian authorities, working in cooperation with experts from Chicago University.

JEFFREY BROWN: For decades, Egyptian and international archaeologists have worked to carefully excavate and preserve some of the world’s most treasured historical sites and objects, the ancient Pyramids of Giza, the Valley of the Kings, the tomb of King Tut, and much else thousands of years old, much of it yet to be unearthed.

In the aftermath of Egypt’s January 25, 2011 revolution, which threw out longtime leader Hosni Mubarak, competing interests have jockeyed for political control. There’s a security vacuum in parts of the country, tourists have largely stayed away, and Egypt’s antiquities have been increasingly under threat from looting, vandalism, illegal development and violence.

Just in January, a car bomb targeting Cairo’s security directorate did major damage to the Museum of Islamic Art across the street. And last summer, thieves broke into the Malawi National Museum in the upper Egyptian city of Minya, burning or destroying nearly 50 artifacts and taking with them more than 1,000 objects.

MONICA HANNA, Archaeologist: The more chaotic the political situation appears and the more that the security is afraid, and the more the looting will continue.

JEFFREY BROWN: Archaeologist Monica Hanna was at that site and others to document the damage. She’s the founder of an organization called Heritage Task Force. And she spoke with us recently during a visit to the U.S.

MONICA HANNA: The problem is very serious.

The amount of sites that are being looted, the amount of archaeological sites that are being destroyed because of the looting is very high. And the amount of objects leaving their archaeological context, losing their provenance and their history forever, and going on the antiquities market is very high.

JEFFREY BROWN: Who is doing the looting? And how organized is it?

MONICA HANNA: We have two types of looters.

We have the very organized mafias that work for very famous antiquities dealers. They have access to the archaeological knowledge. They come to the sites with four-wheel drives, with Jeosonars, with very, very high-technological weapons coming from Libya.

So even the local guards cannot really stand in front of them. And they know what exactly to excavate and where to excavate. The other people are the regular villagers. Usually, young youth and children are sent by a local person to find the objects, and they give them money.

JEFFREY BROWN: In February, Egyptian tourism police announced they’d broken up a major smuggling ring, recovering thousands of stolen objects. But it remains a pervasive problem.

GEN. MUMTAZ FATHI, Assistant to Tourism Minister (through interpreter): We have apprehended dozens of people with digging equipment. Maybe on a daily basis, there are at least seven to 10 cases of illicit excavation.

JEFFREY BROWN: Last month, Egypt’s antiquities minister asked the Obama administration to impose emergency restrictions on the importation of ancient artifacts. Those would allow U.S. customs officials to seize objects that lack official documentation.

The U.S. State Department says it’s open to the idea, but the formal request will take time to submit and approve. But Hanna says a global effort is needed.

MONICA HANNA: I don’t think the rest of the world is doing enough. And, again, we need to target older markets, because if we stop the market in the U.S., the market will shift to Dubai, the market will shift to Eastern Europe or Western Europe. It has to be an international effort.

JEFFREY BROWN: In the meantime, she’s turning a relatively new tool, social media, using Twitter, for example, to sound the alarm and pressure authorities to do more.

On Facebook, she’s posted hundreds of photos of illegally excavated sites, some with human remains scattered about.

MONICA HANNA: The fastest thing to report a heritage problem, rather than going to speak to the media, is just tweeting or writing a post on Facebook, where journalists have access to, people can read, people can get informed. The spreading of the awareness creates a pressure on the different governmental bodies to take actions and take concrete steps.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, how easy is it to go into these sites? Are you invited in? Do you sometimes have to sneak in?

MONICA HANNA: Most of the time, we get invited by the local inspectors, who are very afraid on the archaeological site. But they have nothing in their hands to do.

So, what we do is that we go, take photographs. If it is safe enough, we draw sketches. And we post them on Facebook. We send them to the media. We just publicize the problem as much as possible.

JEFFREY BROWN: This can be dangerous work, though, right?

MONICA HANNA: For example, one time, I was shot at in Dahshur in the archaeological site, in the Memphite Necropolis. The looters there started shooting in the air while I was driving because they saw that I was taking photographs.

Another time, in another site called Abu Sir Al-Maleq, I was also attacked and they tried to confiscate the camera.

JEFFREY BROWN: So why do this? Why did you start this work in the first place?

MONICA HANNA: Because I’m Egyptian, and I have had a good education.

And so I’m a bridge between the two worlds, and because no one else was doing it. Most of the foreign archaeological missions are very scared to speak up on the looting, because they can risk losing their concessions. The local inspectors are not empowered enough. They do not have the channels to speak up, so someone had to voice out the crime that’s going on.

JEFFREY BROWN: For her efforts, Monica Hanna was recently given an award from the New York-based preservation group Saving Antiquities for Everyone.

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An agent from Sunshine Life and Health Advisors helps sign people up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act in Miami. Although 8 million have signed up, new polls show the health care law remains a net negative for many Americans. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Today in the Morning Line:

• Polls offer sobering view of midterms for Obama, Democrats
• The importance of young voters
• Another White House, Senate coordinated push — now on minimum wage
• Boehner says there’s “no secret conspiracy” on immigration. Remember, he kids because he loves

Back to October: After the news of the 8 million health care sign-ups, Democrats last week were feeling a little better about their prospects for the midterm elections. Polls out this week remind them of reasons to worry. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday has less dire numbers than the ABC News/Washington Post poll released Tuesday, showing President Barack Obama’s approval and health care ratings at six-month highs, but they still aren’t great for the president’s party. Mr. Obama’s approval is up three points to 44 percent and his favorability ratings are now a net-positive — 44 percent to 41 percent — for the first time since early October (before the health care website debacle). He appears to have put the skids on the potential slide into an approval rating in the 30s like George W. Bush suffered at this time in his presidency. The health care law remains a net-negative — 36 percent to 46 percent, which is actually a slight improvement from last month. Democrats are taking some solace in 48 percent saying the health law is either working well or needs minor modifications versus 49 percent who say it needs a major overhaul or should be eliminated. That’s up from 40 percent to 47 percent in December. The congressional ballot, however, shows Democrats and Republicans tied at 45 percent. As we pointed out Tuesday, Democrats generally have to do better than that to make gains in the House, especially because of the GOP tilt of the playing field. And among the voters with the highest interest in the midterms, Republicans lead by 15 points, 53 percent to 38 percent. Overall, “it’s like the difference between from being five runs down, to one or two,” Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who helps conduct the poll, told NBC’s Mark Murray.

The importance of young voters: Speaking of Democrats with lower interest in the election, a Harvard Millennials poll released Tuesday showed young voters’ interest lagging even behind 2010. That’s a big potential potential problem for Democrats, because young voters, like women and minority voters, are a key plank for them to win elections. And just like minority voters, young voters are less likely to turn out in midterms. For example, as a share of the electorate, voters age 18 to 29 were seven points lower in the 2010 midterms than the 2012 presidential election. And they voted less Democratic in 2010 than 2012.

Obama, Democrats coordinate minimum wage push: President Obama and congressional Democrats will team up Wednesday to call for raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, part of the party’s broader push to highlight economic inequality ahead of the November election. The president is scheduled to address the issue from the White House at 3:10 p.m. ET, which will likely come after a Senate vote to advance a wage hike proposal. Like previous attempts, that effort is expected to fail due to GOP opposition. In advance of the president’s remarks, House Speaker John Boehner’s office is pushing back on Democratic claims about the economic benefits of a wage hike. They point to the Congressional Budget Office estimate that raising the minimum wage could cost the economy 500,000 jobs. Democrats, of course, will tout the same report, which also shows that 900,000 people would be lifted out of poverty. By the way, Hawaii late Tuesday voted to raise the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. And this will play in at least one key state — Arkansas, which will have a minimum wage increase on the ballot that incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor backs.

Immigration reform in 2014? Nevermind…: Less than a week after mocking fellow GOP lawmakers for their refusal to tackle immigration reform during a speech in Ohio, Speaker Boehner looked to clean up what he called a misunderstanding over his comments. At a closed-door meeting Tuesday, Boehner assured his colleagues there is no “secret conspiracy” to jam through an immigration plan this year. Boehner also told reporters that “some people misunderstood what I had to say,” and he again blamed the lack of trust in the president as the main obstacle to getting legislation passed. The comments would appear to take the wind out of the sails of those hoping to move forward with an overhaul this year. The odds were always long in an election year, but Boehner’s comments last week, combined with his earlier statement that he was “hell-bent” on passing reform this year and some GOP rank-and-file voicing support for action, made it seem like there was movement in that direction. Louisiana Rep. John Fleming told the NewsHour that Boehner “doubled down” on the party’s existing position, which is that Republicans would not move forward “until the president gets right with this.” But Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who is leading the GOP effort behind the scenes, said he thought most lawmakers wanted to fix the problem. After Tuesday’s public and private comments from Boehner, it’s hard to see that happening before November.

Quote of the day: “Today, 50 Cents is a singing group. Am I right about that?” — Sen. Barbara Boxer, on the Senate floor (not in da club), talking about earning $.50 per hour as a teenager during remarks Tuesday in support of raising the federal minimum wage

Daily Presidential Trivia: On this day in 1789, George Washington took office as the first U.S. president. How many people ran against Washington & what percentage of the vote did he receive?
Be the first to Tweet us the correct answer using #PoliticsTrivia, and you’ll get a Morning Line shout-out. A belated congrats to Graham Morris (@GrahamHMorris) for guessing the right answer to Monday’s trivia question.

LINE ITEMS

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that Senate Democrats are working on a deal to vote on the Keystone XL pipeline.

• Americans want the U.S. to play a less active role in the world — 47 percent said so in the latest NBC/WSJ poll.

• 2016 watch: Hillary Clinton gets a 48 percent to 32 percent favorability rating in the NBC/WSJ poll. Jeb Bush is just 21 percent to 32 percent, and Rand Paul is 23 percent to 26 percent. As for the Koch Brothers, by the way, 49 percent either don’t know who they are or aren’t sure; another 20 percent are neutral.

• The Wesleyan Media Project says that outside groups are accountable for 59 percent of ad buys for Senate campaigns so far this cycle. In North Carolina that number jumps to 90 percent.

• House Majority Leader Eric Cantor asked Rep. Vance McAllister to resign Tuesday. McAllister declined.

• Ken Vogel reports on a liberal hush, hush Democratic big donor conference, the Democracy Alliance.

• Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, running as a Democrat this time, holds his lead over Gov. Rick Scott 48 percent to 38 percent in the latest Quinnipiac University poll.

• New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie named a new Port Authority chairman Tuesday afternoon. John Degnan will replace David Samson, who resigned in the wake of the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal.

• After spending most of April in the Garden State, Christie is hitting the road for more RGA fundraising. Noteworthy stops: Iowa and South Carolina.

• Wendy Davis’ campaign manager slammed Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, for not being more optimistic about the Texas Democrat’s gubernatorial campaign. “The uninformed opinions of a Washington, DC, desk jockey who’s never stepped foot in Texas couldn’t be less relevant to what’s actually happening on the ground,” Karin Johanson said in a statement. A Davis campaign spokesman later said Johanson was “referring to whoever at the DGA prepared the governor’s talking points.” Shumlin also made news in New Mexico for saying the DGA wouldn’t spend money there.

• After botching the first of two executions planned for Tuesday night, Oklahoma temporarily stayed the execution of one death row inmate.

• A federal judge in Wisconsin struck down the state’s voter ID law, saying it violates the Voting Rights Act and places an unnecessary burden on the poor and minorities. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, eight states have a similar law to the one struck down in Wisconsin.

• In a new report out from the Migration Policy Institute, the organization found that over the past five years at least 75 percent of immigrants deported through the Secure Communities program had been previously convicted of a crime; however, the report did not disclose the level of crimes committed.

• Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens will testify at the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration’s hearing on dark money Wednesday.

• In a 6-2 ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to limit cross-state pollution.

• Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced that children of illegal immigrants can qualify for in-state tuition under current law.

• A Republican congressman from Virginia is leading a push to legalize medical marijuana.

• Keep an eye on the Rundown blog for breaking news throughout the day, our home page for show segments, and follow @NewsHour for the latest.

TOP TWEETS

Alleged Bigamy, an indictment, a call for resignation … it's Tuesday and Congress is having quite a week.

— Henry C.J. Jackson (@hjacksonAP) April 29, 2014

#AdamSilver for President in 2016

— Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) April 29, 2014

Time Man of the Year: Adam Silver

— Brendan Buck (@BrendanBuck) April 29, 2014

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver showed courage and moral leadership today in doing the right thing- thank you.

— Arne Duncan (@arneduncan) April 29, 2014

David Ortiz is Dunkin' Donuts' new spokesperson: http://t.co/hTzQxrcFlp pic.twitter.com/LqBD0nNS63

— bostonmagazine.com (@BostonMagazine) April 29, 2014

An amazing photo of Air Force One. So cool. http://t.co/P1Ieuk3zZ7 pic.twitter.com/nsWF70ODZ6

— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) April 30, 2014

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The post Health care law not quite yet what the doctor ordered for Democrats appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

In this photo from January, South Sudanese People’s Liberation Army soldiers patrol the streets of Bentiu where its forces had killed several hundred civilians. The U.N. Security Council may be willing to impose sanctions if attacks on civilians continue. Photo by Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry is bringing his two main tools of diplomacy — peace talks and threatened sanctions — to Africa this week to help find a way to end months of killing that is threatening to rip apart the world’s newest nation, South Sudan.

It’s not yet clear whether the U.S. will impose the sanctions while Kerry is in South Sudan — which, he said recently, he planned to visit during a week of stops that also include Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. U.S. officials are still trying to persuade three of South Sudan’s immediate neighbors to issue similar penalties against people on both sides of the brutal fighting.

A senior State Department official traveling with Kerry said the U.S. was still compiling its own list of individuals whose assets could be frozen and who could be banned from travel to the U.S. The official was not authorized to be identified by name while briefing reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kerry arrives in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Wednesday. While there, he will meet with African Union leaders to discuss a range of security issues confronting the sub-Saharan region, including South Sudan. The U.S. wants the AU to deploy peacekeeping forces to South Sudan, but that was still being negotiated, the State Department official said.

South Sudan has been rocked by violence since December, when President Salva Kiir accused former Vice President Riek Machar of staging a coup. The violence is taking on an increasingly ethnic dimension between Kiir’s Dinka community and Machar’s Nuer community.

The State Department has not provided additional details of Kerry’s visit to South Sudan and usually does not disclose travels to high-threat conflict zones ahead of time for security reasons.

The trip gives Kerry a chance to help shepherd peace in a new area of the world after his nine-month quest to end decades-long tensions between Israel and Palestinian authorities fell flat. Kerry had hoped to at least put the Mideast on a path to peace, but an April 29 deadline to keep talks going passed this week with both sides as far apart as ever.

U.S. sanctions have had slightly better, if mixed, success when deployed in recent days. Kerry and the rest of the Obama administration have imposed several rounds of economic sanctions and travel bans against dozens of Russian and former Ukrainian officials and businesses to punish Moscow, in the White House’s view, for inciting unrest against the new pro-Western government in Kiev. U.S. officials have described the sanctions as pinching Russia, but so far they have not deterred President Vladimir Putin, who has amassed 40,000 troops on his border with Ukraine in what many fear is the first step to an invasion.

It’s unclear how effective U.S. sanctions would be in South Sudan without similar penalties imposed by Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya.

Describing the fighting as an extension of a personal battle between Kiir and Machar, the State Department official said the U.S. was well aware of the potential of tensions when the country broke off from Sudan after a 2011 referendum. But, the official said, few expected any fighting to happen so quickly or be so brutal.

The U.N. Security Council last week expressed “horror” at the recent massacre of several hundred civilians in the city of Bentiu by rebel fighters. It said council members may be willing to impose sanctions if attacks on civilians continue.

In a statement Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called Kiir and demanded assurances that militants who attacked the U.N. compound in the southern city of Bor and others behind the killings in Bentiu would be apprehended. He also “called for an immediate halt to the vicious fighting and the appalling killing of South Sudanese civilians” and denounced the attack in Bor as “completely unacceptable.”

Kerry was expected to return to Washington on May 5.

The post Kerry to promote peace, sanctions in South Sudan appeared first on PBS NewsHour.