on america tonight, shocking evidence that america veterans who risked all for our defense were sickened by poisons as they serve their country. >> a lot of people are saying this is our generation's agent orange. >> reporter: shiela mc-victor has an exclusive in depth look at the illnesses facing veterans of iraq and afghanistan and the fiery pits that may have poisoned them. also tonight a big health warning from the fda about one of the most common medical

procedures facing millions of american women, america tonight sarah hokye brought us a procedure that some fear may spread cancer and a follow-up and what doctors should do about it. and branches of government. >> capitol christmas tree is pretty new. >> reporter: we have a story behind the tree now gracing the nation's capitol. >> three, two, one. >> reporter: lighting up a season of peace on earth in a place where peace can be hard to come by. ♪ and good evening and thanks for joining us i'm joie chan and half of the veterans in iraq and afghanistan sufficient tear a disability connected to their

service. they range from traumatic physical wounds of war to life altering psychological scars and now there is increasing concern from millions who say the military should recognize their wounds from poisons they say they were exposed to in the line of duty. america tonight's shiela mc-victor has an exclusive, in depth look at what many believe will be the toxic legacy of iraq and afghanistan. >> i've lost a lot and i don't like being like this. >> reporter: 35-year-old anthony suffers a rare form of brain cancer. >> i could not tell you my last name or my daughters. i don't remember everybody's name. >> reporter: doctors had to take out part of his brain, his left temporal lobe and part of

his hympocampus and has trouble speaking and can't read any more and trouble keeping up with his three-year-old daughter and believes he got sick from toxins he was exposed to while serving his country. >> there he goes. >> reporter: massive open air burn pits like this operated on u.s. military bases across iraq and afghanistan, at the height of the wars more than 250 bases burned their trash. releasing large plumes of black smoke into the air. >> during the day time it was solid black. you could smell it. and depending on where the sun was it would -- it was so thick it would block some of the sun. >> reporter: he worked as a prison guard at camp booka. he says smoke from burn pits

lingered above his living quarters, three years after he came home doctors found the tumor. >> produced a lot of powerful organic compounds and toxics and furons and for example benzine and that is a known human carcinogen. >> reporter: a former affair official and analyzed the toxins found in burn pit smoke, for three years since he left the agency he has been fighting to get the department of defense and va to recognize the burn pit exposure has sickened veterans. >> some of them are dying. we have claims from widows who have died from various types of cancers. we have claims from young guys who just have diabetes or have lymphoma or leukemia. >> reporter: representing 31 year odd rodney a specialist who lived a quarter mile from the

largest burn pit in iraq at joint base valad and that burn pit covered several acres, evening, plastics, human wastes and tires and batteries and old refrigerators went into the fire. >> they would use jp 8 fuel, jet fuel to set it on fire. there was always a yellow haze over that base. and everybody that you talk to had some type of respiratory issues with it. >> reporter: doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong until he had a lung biopsy. >> i showed that i had a titanium, alluminum, chromium, steel, silica in my lungs. slow down, there is no where else i could have got metal in my lungs. i never worked in anything that would have exposed me to that. >> reporter: he was diagnosed with constrike -- constrictive

disease. >> it's like through a small straw. >> reporter: shortness of breath following service in iraq and afghanistan. >> reporter: the doctor miller is a pulmonologist at vanderbilt and saw people with breathing problems and to solve the mystery he performed lung biopsies on patients, one of the first doctors to do so. his diagnosis, constrictive-bronchilitis and is this something you find in a person fit for deployment? >> no, this is a very uncommon diagnosis in an otherwise healthy individual. >> reporter: dr. miller says burn pits are one possible explanation. when he presented his findings to dod they stopped sending him

patients. >> we know people are sick. we are really trying our best to try to determine whether the burn pits are responsible. >> reporter: department of defense top public health official looked at numerous studies and found no proven link to burn pits for long-term health effects. >> we looked at several thousand individual service members who were assigned to locations with burn pits versus locations without burn pits. we looked at that data and we were unable to identify a definitive health risk associated with those burn pits. >> reporter: but dr. miller says the military needs to recognize that small airways disease could be linked to environmental exposure in iraq and afghanistan. and should be treated like other battlefield injuries. >> i think that we compensate people for loss of limb. we compensate people for ptsd. we should compensate people who

have lost 70% of their airways and can no longer climb a flight of stairs without distress. >> reporter: and it's not just veterans who are being diagnosed with this rare lung disease. tony madix was a civilian contractor who worked as a firefighter and par medic in iraq and afghanistan. >> i had asthma in small airways disease. i can walk. it's hard to run. it's hard to swim. >> reporter: he says he was exposed to a burn pit at fob warrior in afghanistan. >> i saw a toyota in there still with the battery in there, seats, tires, 55 gallon drums of i don't know what. >> reporter: 41 years old he had to abandon his career as a first responder. >> the epa says burning trash in the states is bad for you. and so is the american lung

association and every environmental agency for every state in the union. >> reporter: we spoke to other contractors who also believe emissions from burn pits made them sick and cost them their careers. many have not been able to get any compensation for their illnesses. they have to rely on private insurance or a federal compensation program that they say usually rejects their claims. the insurance company that covered him only paid part of his bills, telling him there wasn't enough evidence to link his illness to burn pits. >> they made it home safely and were not killed by enemy fire and didn't get hit by an ied and yet they come home and within months they die from cancer, a completely preventable, it's just heartbreaking. >> reporter: susan is a baltimore based lawyer leading a lawsuit targeting kbr the contractor hired by dod to get rid of waste on many of its bases. she says the kbrdskbr needs to

the bill for people sickened by the burn pits. >> the company received over a billion dollars for this logistical support and not just waste but other support and received all that money and did not perform on the contracts and did not bring in incinerators and did not handle it properly and they are not, in fact, the military and not public servants, they are for-profit enterprise. >> reporter: kbr declined to comment and regardless who will pay for it veterans like anthony says the first step is getting the military to recognize his responsibility. >> all the burning was done wrong and everybody knows that. >> reporter: after years of lobbying from advocates like the burn pits 360 in tune, the va started an online registry for veterans who feel they are sick from burn pits. so far 25,000 people have signed up.

>> i met other people that have been affected and, you know, a lot of people are saying this is our generation agent orange. >> reporter: and his wife jamie says her husband feels betrayed after serving his country more than ten years. >> here these people go and they risk so much and forgo so much for our country and then our country doesn't defend, you know. >> reporter: with more and more veterans and contractors coming forward, claiming that burn pits made them sick, pressure on the military and veterans affairs is mounting. america tonight sheila mc-victor is here and makes you wonder about the history of these things and is this how it's handled in a forwarding operation? >> this is not the first time where the u.s. used massive burn pits but the burn pits consumed everything and burned for days at a time over a very long

period of time. remember these are the wars we call america's long wars. there were many veterans there. many people who were in that smoky haze for months and months at a time. and increasingly now we are hearing from civilian contractors and remember there were many more civilians on those bases than there were actually service personnel. >> reporter: was there anything else that could have been done? >> yes, there was. and, in fact, they had the solution, in 2009 congress passed a law which said if you are going to run bases for more than 90 days with more than 100 people on them then you have to do something else like incinerate your trash. they bought incinerators. they shipped incinerators and here is what the special inspector general of afghanistan has to say about what happened with those incinerators. >> i think they understand the importance of using incinerators instead of burn pits but i don't think they understand how do you properly get this done. what is proper oversight and

management and how do you hold people accountable for when they screw up. it all goes back to one thing, poor management oversight and holding people accountable by the army corps of engineers. >> reporter: in bases all over iraq and afghanistan they had the incinerators and in many cases if they were installed they weren't used, sometimes they were improperly installed and sometimes they were never unpacked at all, but of course the american taxpayer paid for them and we will take another look at that tomorrow night. >> when you look at the pictures it's incredible those veterans standing there throwing things into these flaming pits, incredible story and thanks and america tonight sheila mc-victor. in our next segment an urgent warning about one of the most common medical procedures facing millions of american women. >> when i found out this was a routine standard of care i knew we were dealing with a public health hazard. >> reporter: a story we first brought on america tonight and fda takes a strong stand, we will explain why. later in the program, the flash

point ignited in ferguson and we will hear from the police chief picked by the president to lead a national effort to heal rifs between officers and the communities they serve. ♪

>> the cast sytem is alive and well in america >> a city divided >> this is the third shooting in 24 hours in baltimore >> raveged by violence... > for any black community it's always been a recession >> can a community break the cycle? >> the way the game is rigged... they can't win... >> fault lines, al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> today they will be arrested... >> ground breaking... they're firing canisters of gas at us... emmy award winning investigative series... baltimore anatomy of an american city only on al jazeera america

a new and fore millions of american women urgent warning from the fda about a medical proceed their is commonly performed to treat fibroids and there are serious concern the surgical device routinely used the power morselator and can spread cancer patients didn't know they had and they have a strongest possible warning against using it in most hysterectomies and a boston couple facing a tragedy told their story to sarah hokye. >> the last place amy read a successful anesthesiologist and mother of six over to be in a

boston hospital ward as a cancer patient accompanied by her husband who is a heart surgeon. they received the devastating news last fall and she had a rare and deadly form of cancer liomyosarcoma stage four. >> it was a complete shock when they called me a week later are you home alone or is someone with you i knew right away that was not a good thing. i didn't -- it was not even on our radar screen. >> walking in you felt 100% confident? >> i didn't have cancer walking in and how can it be possible and i had been screened and had tests and spoken to the right people. >> reporter: she did have cancer and essentially hard to defect cancer with survival rate of 3-5 years and it was discovered after she under went a hysterectomy to remove benign fibroids or masses in her uterus

and waging war ever since against the disease and a routi routine procedure on women that they believe upstaged her cancer. >> when i found this was routine standard of care i knew we were dealing with a public health hazard. >> reporter: during her surgery and what is known as minimally invasive hysterectomy the surgeon used a device called an morselator to turn it into pieces to remove the tissues through small incisions in the abdomen and it spread the hidden cancer cells. >> you can see tissues, chunks dripping down and it's not a refined procedure. >> reporter: she says she was never informed or consulted about the use of this during her operation. had she known she says she would have not allowed it. >> i did not know initially. that is not something they tell you when they say your surgery went well and didn't say your surgery went well and we

shredded things up and we had been morselated and learned my chance of recurrence meaning the disease coming back was somewhere in the ballpark of 80% because of how they had handled the tumor inside of me. >> 80%. >> 8-0 and if it comes back i knew that i had a life expectancy of two years. >> she has under gone months of chemotherapy and surgery to remove the rest of the cancerous tissue. >> my wife was hit in a way that was as a surgeon i recognized it as a catastrophic hit. a cancer, if you disrupt a cancer in someone's body you go from stage one to stage four cancer. our life and we were flying at 30,000 feet and got torpedoed. >> it is a rare cancer but women who under go surgery for fibroids it goes up to 1-350

with unsuspected uterine sarcoma and for those women morselation is a risk and this is a campaign telling anyone who will listen there is no place for morselation during hysterectomy and deadly to women with undetected cancer and took concerns to administrators at the hospital where amy had her surgery and where her husband worked at the time, the recovery and their campaign has taken its toll. >> my husband has put a lot of effort into the campaign and getting the word out and trying to change the surgical practice. we initially went to bringham and william hospital and this is going on and what are you going to do about it and they shut us out and shut him down and basically told him don't come back to work. >> reporter: he was relieved of surgical duties and works at a philadelphia hospital and spends his free time researching and sharing his wife's story. >> you could have been quiet and

didn't have to do an online petition and didn't have to rally the troops if you will so for you why did you care to do this there is. >> the overwhelming magnitude of the truth of what we confronted there which is that they are doing this to about 100,000 women a year in the united states alone. i mean this happens in europe and south america and other places in the world. so the magnitude of this is not small. this is probably going to be a global epidemic and stage four cancers of women caused by doctors. >> reporter: they declined our interview request however they did confirm in writing they stopped using power morselation during hysterectomy for the treatment of women with uterine fibroids but surgeries stand by the procedure. >> it's a clot we are pulling as it's spinning and cutting through the tissue as we are pulling the tissue out. >> reporter: dr. wong director of robotic surgery at new york

university school of medicine. and she specializes in surgery performing 300 robot procedures a year and this is a valuable approach. >> and we don't think it should be eliminated and we think it has a role in the appropriate patient and don't think it's for everyone but again everything has risks and benefits and cannot take the choice away from women and should be up to the patient and the woman and should be her right to choose whether or not she is going to go through with minimally invasive surgery or open surgery. >> reporter: they have yet to advocate a ban on this but are asking for more data. >> this is a clear wrong. >> reporter: amy have taken their fight to the media and washington d.c. including the food and drug administration which responded with an alert in april saying patients should know that the fda is discouraging the use of laparoscopic power morselation for hysterectomy and it updated

the initial alert recommending they have a warning their use may spread cancer. and he says the fda didn't go far enough. >> if i told you that campbell soup was causing cancer at a rate of 1-350 the fda would pull all the soups off the shelves in the super market, that is a no-brainer. >> reporter: nyu david keith says banning this would be a mistake. >> we have 15 years experience with this and alternatives would be largely an experiment. we are happy to look in alternative experiments but it's an experiment the way medicine is and we don't know whether the solution would be worse than the problem right now, hence the fda's decision not to remove it and it's not campbell soup. >> reporter: you may have one person that says listen you may do 1500, 1600 of these a year but i'm the one and i now have

such and such cancer and sick and dying, what do you tell me when i say i'm that few who is the rare case? >> i would be with them every step of the way. that is the horror of medicine is that people get sick. the surgeons stays with them and they work with them. >> reporter: it's been a year since the couple launched their campaign. with amy cancer free they vow to keep up their fight until the morselator is ban. >> our hope is the government will come in and say it's failing to regulate itself and we need to do so. and but until then individual patients are going to have to step up for themselves and say this is unsafe, i don't want it. >> reporter: they are doing their best to make sure other women unlike amy have the chance to do that. america tonight sarah hokye is following um and now the fda issuing a black box warning, the toughest warning available but that is on the device, how would a patient even know that there

has been additional warning, a stepped up warning here? >> well basically what would happen is it's up to the doctors and patients to inform each other. one is the patient, they are being told you should ask questions, be informed, do your research. and then as the care providers they are being told to inform the patients. so it's really up to the doctors and to the patients to know exactly what they are getting, what is happening and what they need to do. >> sarah given the earlier warning on this before it was increased to the black box warning have hospitals or doctors taken any steps or any indication they are using it on their own? >> some hospitals have stopped using it on their own and kind of what the fda warning does and puts out a notice and puts people in a framework to think about things in terms of liability. if you will. so there are cases, there are hospitals that have stepped away, there is even companies like johnson and johnson no longer selling the tool. so there are people who have stopped using this as well as those you know devices

themselves are being pulled from shelves if you will. >> the last thought and we of course are thinking of dr. amy reed and how is she doing now? >> well, she is cancer free like we mentioned in the piece and she just had a scan in october and it came back negative which is a good thing. now, she does have to get scanned about every three months so there is a slight black cloud that hovers but it because thanksgiving for dr. amy reed. >> reporter: thanks. when we return, a flash point that might reignite anywhere in the u sa. >> we are dealing with concerns that are truly national in scope and that threaten the entire nation. >> reporter: what might help heal after ferguson, a view from the police chief picked by the president to lead the charge for change. later here fighting back, young indian girls and why they are raising their fists of fury.

and before the end of this hour a bright spot in the season for hope. 50 years of celebrating the season with a sturdy tradition and adam may with a story behind the capitol christmas tree.

a snapshot of stories making headlines on america tonight president obama said to be considering a top pentagon official ashton carter to replace hagel as defense secretary and it would be the fourth defense secretary of the obama administration and the president could announce his choice this week. a wife and son of the leader of isil has been detained by the lebanese army and arrested the

pair ten days ago at the lebanese syria border crossing and still being held and questioned by lebanese military officials. a grand jury is expected to announce this week whether a new york city police officer will face criminal charges in the choke hold death of eric garner and july they confronted him on stanten island and he was placed in a choke hold and the medical examiner ruled the death was a homicide. and fanning the flames in ferguson, emotions running high the night a grand jury decided not to indict officer darren wilson in michael brown's death and his stepfather is under investigation himself for what he said to a crowd that night, a top cop and activist said if he is arrested the situation will only get worse. [chanting] an angry out burst just as a decision was announced.

but the man seemed comforting mike brown's mother and crying out to the crowd was though bystander and lewis was a dead teenager's stepfather and now ferguson police are considering whether to charge him with trying to insight a riot. [chanting and screaming] even before his rant he seemed to recognize his words could cause trouble. >> start a riot. >> reporter: but did lewis head intend to start a riot? the ferguson police chief has begun an investigation in the question and the lieutenant governor already said he wants to see head arrested but that could further fracture the relationship with the community already leery of its police force. >> they wronged me. >> reporter: the long simmering tensions in and across the nation coming to surface and the top official speaking from

martin luther king's church acknowledged the anger of communities long ignored and the very tough work ahead. >> our police officers cannot be and cannot be seen as an occupying force disconnected to the communities that they serve. >> reporter: but in the fragile atmosphere that lingers in ferguson and beyond, there is fear any new police action, even suspended of being unfair, could ignite a new flash point. >> to blow this out there and say we are going to target michael brown's stepfather at this point in time i think is a horrible mistake because what it does is it sends another message, the message is if you open your mouth, even sometimes saying things that should not be said, if you are african/american there is going to be a punishment for you. >> reporter: improving relations between law enforcement and communities they serve one of the key issues that was discussed in the meetings the president held on monday.

philadelphia police commissioner charles ramsey was one of the invited against and appoints to be cochair of the task force on 21st century policing and commissioner is with us tonight and sir the president acknowledged it himself that some people are out there, they will be skeptical a task force where more talking can make a difference, do you believe you can? >> well, i know we can. the president gave us pretty clear direction. he wants actionable recommendations and a 90-day period. i think it's doable. we are going to focus on certain areas that i think are the most important for us to focus on during that timeframe. obviously 90 days is not very long so we are not going to solve all the problems but we certainly can come up with some very concrete recommendations to at least start the process. >> reporter: can you give me an idea what that would be? we already heard about the body cameras that i think your department is going to pilot using as well. >> well, the use of technology is one area, but training and

education is certainly another area. but building relationships and trust in communities particularly communities of color are more challenged communities in terms of crime and disorder where we tend to have the most tension between police and community. we have to establish trust. we have to open lines of communication. we have to have positive dialog with people in those particular areas. so that is going to be a big part of what we do and obviously things like use of force will be a topic that we will certainly address as well. >> reporter: but what do you do with that, do you make it public and become more transparent, do you have to admit to communities that you know this is happening? >> well, you have to create a culture of transparency and accountability. i mean, that is all part of it. we have to take a serious look at ourselves. there are a lot of people who feel that they are not given equal service, police service. it's not fair. it's not impartial.

a majority of officers do but the few that don't is the reasons we have issues and proble problems. >> reporter: do you think law enforcement on the line and officers in the street at some level feel misunderstood or not appreciated at this point? >> well, i'm sure they do. because of all the publicity right now, centered around ferguson and a couple other areas in our country, it tends to cause people to feel that everyone is against them but nothing could be further from the truth. i mean people support police by and large and want to have police. they just wants police that are fair to everyone and not have this sense that there is two different kinds of policing that takes place. one community gets one version of policing and another community gets another and we have to make sure that people understand that when that is not the case and if it's the case we will take the steps to correct

it. >> reporter: the ferguson police are considering whether to charge michael brown's stepfather with trying to insight a riot, do you see this as a good avenue to pursue or do you think there might be complexity just in adding fuel to the fire as it were? >> well, i think what he said was wrong. it was said out of emotion but i also think that making an arrest in this situation is just going to further insight the entire situation. >> reporter: thanks for being with us. ahead after the break, why millions of refugees face another brutal winter with little hope of even having enough food to eat. a look inside the syrian refugee crisis, much larger than you might think. also ahead, the strength of tiny hands in a fight to save themselves, india's girls and their battle for justice.

for the past four years of their country's civil war kin tear has been a heroing time in refugee camps but this season could be disastrous and the world food program has stopped food aid to refugees in camps like these because it has run out of money. almost 2 million syrians are in lebanon, turkey, jordan, iraq and egypt, many are in camps

near the turkish and jordan borders with syria. but more than half are in settlements in lebanon valley and in the north all that many of them have to spend in local stores are the u.n. food vouchers and it's only about $30 a month per person. >> this is unfair, the syrians do not deserve this, we flood our country from the ungoing war and hunger and became refugees here. i can go one day without food. but my son cannot. >> we are expecting that people will maybe have to sent their children out to work, they will have to skip meals, they will have to do without food and what we are worried about is some may even feel they are forced to go back to syria even though their towns and villages are not necessarily safe. >> reporter: the problem the u.n. says is donor fatigue and dozens pledged almost $2.5 million for humanitarian aid for the syrians last january but many of those countries have yet to make good on their promises. and now the u.n. says it needs

at least $26 million immediately just to get desperate families through december. al jazeera's jane ferguson visited a camp in lebanon valley to see and to hear what the cutoff will mean to those families. >> close to a million syrian refugees inside lebanon rely on the world food program to help them feed their families, many of the refugees live in makeshift homes like this, in a camp by the side of the road. these houses are made with anything that refugees can get their hands on, plywood, cardboard and materials to separate various rooms, this room is where the families store anything they have to sleep on. they will have to put things away because it's so cramped in here. what is also cramped is the kitchen through here. this is the kitchen where she feeds her family here. right now she only has some tinned goods left over and the news just broke yesterday that she wouldn't be given any more money by the world food program

until they can plug that hole in the funding to feed her family. many people like sumira would take casual labor jobs to feed the families but that work is incredibly unreliable and the money from the world food program was the only reliable source of income for people like her. >> reporter: and jane ferguson reporting and the majority of refugees there are unemployed and have very little in the way of opportunity when it comes to employment. violence against women is a problem all over the world. but in india it has reached the crisis point. one in four women report suffering street harassment in some of the country's biggest and most sophisticated cities and two years ago that horrific gang rape and murder of a 23 rear old student in new deli shocked the world and brought much needed attention to the issue and now a new viral video shows us things might be changing and it shows two sisters, you see them on a

public bus trying to fight off their assailants and use a belt and then fighting with their fists. none of the other passengers decided to even lent a hand here. the sisters keep it up and say they were being sexually harassed and police are now looking into it. they are not the only ones fighting back in india, street harassment inspired another teenager to take matters in her own hands and in the boxing ring, denying a notion that women are powerless and in an shovanistic and she put it in her corner as she got ready for a fight.

she is a winner and won't the boxing title for her age and weight category and hopes to

follow in the footsteps of mary who two years ago who became the female boxer who win a metal and powering up in the final segments the bright lights of a holiday tradition that rises high above the political gridlock.

♪

and finally from us good cheer and wishes for peace on earth in a place where they so often can barely keep the peace. the nation's capitol, the holiday tradition and america tonight's adam may with a look at the story behind and beneath that big tree. >> five, four, three, two, one. [shouting and applause] . >> reporter: they get something done, the lighting of the christmas tree. how is this different? >> this is tall and the trees have kind of grown over the years and gotten larger and larger and this one is 88 feet tall which is pretty spectacular. >> ron is a former congressman from connecticut, now head of the u.s. capitol historical society. we met up with him before the tree lighting ceremony.

>> i will be presenting the marble ornament and it is marble and taken from the steps of the front of the capitol and it's part of the capitol. >> reporter: this year the capitol tree comes from the chipawa spruce with 10,000 ornaments representing each of minnesota's 10,000 lakes plus one. >> it will end up on the tree. >> reporter: 10,000 ornaments on the tree. >> we will have to look very hard to find that one but from our perspective it's neat being part of the process in presenting an ornament for the capitol tree lighting. it's kind of neat for us. >> reporter: the capitol christmas tree tradition is pretty new, 50 years ago the speaker of the house decided he wanted a christmas tree and had a live tree transplanted from pennsylvania to here on the capitol grounds. well, after a couple of years

and a wind storm that tree eventually died. but it did give birth to this current tradition of finding a tree from somewhere in the u.s. >> there was a controversy a few years ago and changed the name of the tree from christmas tree to holiday tree and then speaker hastner changed it back to christmas tree. >> and it's still a christmas tree. >> the capitol christmas tree, the event being celebrated. >> reporter: the tree is smack in the middle of the capitol lawn and every side faces the public, unlike some politicians there is no way to hide a bad side in some corner. but it's not the only tree in town. and just like our branches of government, there is division. >> we have had trees from the very beginning not necessarily at the capitol but the white house and the capitol does a tree, there are trees all over the city. it's not that kind of a competition. and if it was i think with an 88-foot tree we would probably have the tallest. >> reporter: isn't that how we

like it bigger and bigger. >> that is what happens in the city, no matter what it is grows. >> reporter: like the capitol building itself which expanded numerous times over its history, this year scaffolding on the back of the tree and the dome getting a much needed face lift. >> everyone moved into it in 1800 and john adams opened the first session of congress and sort of under construction and you know it's been built and rebuilt and burned and remodelled and changed over the years. >> reporter: has it served our democracy well? >> i think so. it really is the symbol of our government. >> reporter: a symbol that has more and more americans frustrated, but for now it's shiny and bright. for the next few weeks anyway. adam may, al jazeera, washington. you can buy the capitol tree ornaments from the historical society and get them online although the ones from the white

house are typically the ones in much higher demand. that's america tonight, we do hope you join us on wednesday on our program shiela mc-viktor will continue her exclusive in depth use of burn pits used in iraq and afghanistan and the concern that toxic smoke from them has sickened millions of veterans and out lawed in 2009 but the military still using them as late as last year and we will explain why. if you want to comment on any stories you have seen log on to our website al jazeera/america tonight and join the conversation with us on twitter or at our facebook page, good night, we will have more of america tonight tomorrow. teach for america is supposed to

educate poor children. >> schools where kids need grade teaching the most. >> can unprepared teachers make a difference? >> why are we sending them teachers with 5 weeks of training? >> new terror threats to international travel. also lebanon says it has the wife of isil's leader in custody. do they have the right person? >> the death penalty case in texas that has republicans and democrats calling for mercy. welcome to consider this, those stories and much more straight ahead. >> britain's sunday express said ismi