NOW on PBS

A terrible statistic: one in six women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. But an even more shocking reality: A backlog in processing rape kits -- crucial evidence in arresting violent predators -- is delaying and sometimes denying justice for tens of thousands of American women. NOW travels to Los Angeles County to investigate why it has the largest known rape kit backlog in the country -- over 12,000 kits are sitting untested in police storage facilities. An internal audit found that more than 50 of these cases have exceeded the 10-year statute of limitations on rape. "The evidence that we're talking about represents human lives," Los Angeles Controller Laura Chick tells NOW. "Those are lives stacked up on the shelves waiting for justice." NOW talks with courageous rape survivors and law enforcement experts for insight and answers in this disturbing but important report. Are these women being victimized twice?

Losing your job is a blow not just to your income, but also to your health insurance. Many can't afford high COBRA premiums, much less private insurance. And the sputtering economy is making a bad situation tragic. NOW travels to Nevada, where a huge budget deficit, spiking unemployment, and cuts in Medicaid and other public services are forcing people to gamble with their own lives. Recently, the only public hospital in Las Vegas had to shut its doors to cancer patients and pregnant women. Should the government be helping out? NOW shares the human stories behind the distressing numbers, and investigates possible solutions and responses with insight from Dr. Howard Dean, former Vermont governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

The Obama Administration recently released its proposal for financial regulatory reform, but before change comes to Wall Street, a reform plan has to get through Congress with its teeth intact. David Brancaccio sits with Zanny Minton Beddoes, economics editor for The Economist magazine, to review the proposal and its ramifications for America. Beddoes encourages streamlining the regulatory system, leaving fewer but more efficient overseers. But where powerful interests are at stake, nothing is a sure bet.

As President Obama begins a new push for peace in the Middle East, NOW travels to Israel to see how a lifetime of war shapes the psyche of a nation where almost every able-bodied man and woman must serve in the military. NOW goes inside Israel's defense forces -- where few have gone before -- to speak with reservists about the impact of constant war on both their lives and their world view.

Once one of the most dangerous and violent cities in the West Bank, Jenin was the scene of frequent battles between the Israeli military and Palestinian fighters, and was the hometown of more than two dozen suicide bombers. Today, however, there's been a huge turnaround. Jenin is now the center of an international effort to build a safe and economically prosperous Palestinian state from the ground up. On Jenin's streets today, there's a brand new professional security force loyal to the Palestinian authority and funded in part by the United States. But can the modest success in Jenin be replicated throughout the West Bank, or will the effort collapse under the intense political pressure from all sides? NOW talks with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the international community's envoy to the region and an architect of the plan. We also speak with a former commander of the infamous Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade about his decision to stop using violent tactics, and to residents of Jenin about their daily struggles and their hopes for the future.

While the're putting the finishing touches on the controversial fence along the southern border between the U.S. and Mexico, the outrage is far from over. The multi-billion dollar plan to build some 700 miles of fencing has been billed as the way to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants and provide security from potential terrorism. NOW senior correspondent Maria Hinojosa travels to Texas to meet border families who fear losing their property, their safety, and their way of life. Many question if the fence can keep people from sneaking in at all. An even greater worry may be the virtual fence the Obama administration is planning for the remaining 1,300 miles of border, at an estimated cost of nearly $7 billion. The problem? The new technology to complete the virtual fence has not been proven to work in the field. Also this week, global warming is front and center in Washington with the passage of the climate bill in the House. We look below the surface at a growing body of evidence that suggests climate change is affecting the chemistry of the seas, which could have potentially catastrophic results on the way we live. NOW travels deep into our oceans with a scientist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and help from other researchers for a first hand look at this stunning sea change, and what we can do about it.

American streets are littered with foreclosed houses, but one daring advocate says they shouldn't go to waste. He encourages and facilitates homeless "squatting." It's an idea that addresses two issues at once -- homelessness and foreclosed homes -- and it's also completely illegal. NOW travels to Miami to meet with Max Rameau, a long-time advocate for the homeless. Rameau's organization, Take Back the Land, identifies empty homes that are still livable, and tries to find responsible families willing to take the enormous legal risks of moving in. Rameau, who considers his mission an act of civil disobedience, says it's immoral to keep homes vacant while there are human beings living on the street. But while these vocal squatters have morality in their hearts, they don't have the law on their side. With the faltering economy separating so many people from their homes, what's society's responsibility to those short on shelter?

Should violence against medical doctors who perform abortions be viewed and prosecuted as domestic terrorism? NOW sits down with two of the remaining handful of doctors who publicly acknowledge performing late abortions. The murder of Dr. George Tiller has reignited the abortion debate, and raised the question: should violence against medical doctors who perform abortions be viewed and prosecuted as domestic terrorism? NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa sits down with two of the remaining handful of doctors who publicly acknowledge performing late abortions, including Leroy Carhart, a fellow doctor in Tiller's Wichita, Kansas clinic. Carhart discusses his vow to carry on Tiller's mission and what it's like for him and his family to live as "targets". The show also investigates claims that law enforcement dropped the ball when it came to stopping Tiller's alleged murderer, Scott Roeder. Hinojosa travels to Colorado as well to talk with Dr. Warren Hern, another late abortion provider who says he's been living "under siege" for decades. Dr. Hern works behind four layers of bulletproof windows and is now under round-the-clock federal protection. NOW goes into the eye of the abortion rights storm to see how Tiller's killing and its ramifications are impacting doctors, free speech, and a civilized society.

What will jobs of the future look like? Many studying that question are seeing green -- green jobs. And with President Obama promising to create 5 million "green-collar" jobs over the next 10 years, some are predicting these new career paths in energy efficiency and clean power will transform the American economy. NOW on PBS talks with environmental activist Van Jones, founder of "Green For All," a group dedicated to bringing green jobs to disadvantaged Americans. In March, Jones was appointed Special Advisor on Green Jobs at the President's Council for Environmental Quality. Now that he has the President's ear, will Jones be creating a new career frontier for America?

NOW on PBS partners with best-selling author and journalist Robert Lacey to investigate the surprising success of Saudi Arabia's approach to dealing with terrorists and extremists -- without torture or water-boarding. Given extraordinary access to the Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry and its practices, Lacey visits terrorist rehabilitation camps that use "soft policing" tactics to be nice to the bad guys. In the program we see the Saudis providing a private jumbo jet to bring inmates home from Guantanamo Bay, giving them a hero's welcome, then sending them to a converted holiday resort for re-education. Then, the men are set free. Is this rehab program working, and can we trust the Saudis to protect themselves -- and us -- against Islamic extremism in the future? Watch this NOW on PBS report for a perspective on terrorism you've never seen before.

A record 115,000 U.N. peacekeepers are now deployed in 20 countries, and their mission is more vital than ever. But critics and insiders alike are openly worried that the current peacekeeping model is overstretched -- and at risk of failure. NOW travels to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to witness today's largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation. There, 17,000 U.N. troops are tasked with protecting millions of people over a rugged and dangerous territory the size of the Eastern United States. But the effort is struggling -- last November, local rebels massacred civilians less than a mile from one of the U.N. bases. How can U.N. peacekeeping be improved so that it fulfills its promise of protection to the world?

How do we fight both the swine flu pandemic and our fear of it? NOW's David Brancaccio sits down with one of the most prominent figures in world health to find out. Dr. Larry Brilliant is an epidemiologist, former chief philanthropist at Google.org, and was a central figure in the World Health Organization's successful small pox eradication program. The two discuss how high tech tools are making it easier for scientists to detect global outbreaks, the critical importance of early detection and early response, and how the current pandemic has yet to show its real hand. "Anyone who tells you that they know that this is a mild pandemic, and the WHO has overreacted, they don't know. Anyone who tells you that the WHO and CDC have underestimated it, they don't know," Brilliant tells NOW. "We're all going to find out at the same time... we're all in it together."

How is Secretary of Education Arne Duncan going to spend $100 billion in stimulus money -- almost twice the education budget -- to fix our nation's schools? During his seven years running Chicago's public schools, Duncan went head to head with the teacher's union and skeptical parents by closing down low-performing schools, getting rid of all the teachers, principals, even the janitors, and reopening them with new staffs as "turnaround schools." It's a drastic step, but the results have been promising. NOW travels to Chicago to investigate the collateral damage of a top-to-bottom school makeover, and to get a glimpse of what the future of education might look like for the rest of the country. "We have to be willing to experience a little bit of pain and discomfort, but our children desperately need it and deserve it," Secretary Duncan tells NOW. "Just as we have to do it, unions have to change, principals have to change, teachers have to change, parents have to step up... business as usual is not going to get us there." Do we need to gut our public schools in order to save them?

Two men on a remarkable journey high in the Himalayas investigate threats to global water and food supply.Seventy-five percent of the world's fresh water is stored in glaciers, but scientists predict climate change will cause some of the world's largest glaciers to completely melt by 2030. What effect will this have on our daily lives, especially our water and food supply? With global warming falling low on a national list of American concerns, it's time to take a deeper look at what could be a global calamity in the making.In a special one-hour NOW on PBS, David Brancaccio and environmentalist Conrad Anker -- one of the world's leading high altitude climbers -- adventure to the Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayan Mountains, the source of the Ganges River, to witness the great melt and its dire consequences first-hand. The two also visit Montana's Glacier National Park to see the striking effects of global warming closer to home and learn how melting glaciers across the world can have a direct impact on food prices in the U.S.Along the way, Brancaccio and Anker talk to both scientists and swamis, bathe in the River Ganges, view a water shortage calamity in India, and see with their own eyes and cameras the tangible costs of climate change."We can't take climate change and put it on the back burner," warns Anker. "If we don't address climate change, we won't be around as humans."

Americans are addicted to coal -- it powers half of all our electricity, and is both plentiful and cheap. In fact, some call America the "Saudi Arabia of Coal." But are we paying too high an environmental price for all this cheap energy?With carbon emissions caps high on the Obama Administration's agenda, coal is in the crosshairs of the energy debate. NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa travels to Wyoming to take a hard look at the coal industry and its case that it can produce "clean coal" -- coal that can be burned without releasing carbon into the atmosphere. President Obama has been outspoken in his support for "clean coal technology," but some say the whole concept is not much more than a public relations campaign.As part of the report, Hinojosa talks with Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal and Jeff Goodell, the author of "Big Coal," who says that carbon dioxide emissions generated from coal contribute to global warming.Can America's cheapest and most plentiful energy resource be produced without burning the environment?