captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: a historic storm threatens to shut down the northeastern united states, as cities, towns and highway crews from pennsylvania to maine, brace for severe winter weather. >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is away. also ahead this monday, the appeal of extremism. why alienation and discrimination at home drives muslims in western europe towards violent jihad. >> it basically tells young western recruits you can be part of an enormous historical project, and people in a thousand years will be talking about those brave young

westerners who came over and joined the caliphate. >> woodruff: plus, at sundance, filmmaker's new frontier of virtual reality: moviegoers get total immersion into the cinematic. >> it's tricking your brain into believing what you are seeing is truth. so it is essentially hacking your audio and visual system. >> woodruff: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

i.b.e.w. the power professionals in your neighborhood. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the northeastern corridor of the u.s. hunkered down this evening for what could be a storm for the ages. cities began shutting down

services, airlines canceled nearly 6000 flights through tomorrow, and some 35 million people braced for blizzard conditions. megan thompson of the weekend newshour reports from new york. >> reporter: snow began falling in earnest on new york city streets this afternoon an early sign of the highly anticipated nor'easter that will pummel the east coast through tuesday. as the huge storm spread, forecasts, shown in this color- coded map, called for snowfall totals ranging from a foot in philadelphia to three feet in boston during the next 24 hours. blizzard conditions were predicted over a 250-mile stretch. five governors declared states of emergency, including massachusetts' chief executive charlie baker. >> this is a top five historic storm. we should treat it as such. the safety of public is our primary concern at this point in time and will remain as such

throughout the course of the storm. >> reporter: and in new jersey governor chris christie urged people to get inside and stay there. >> starting later this afternoon, you should stay home if you can. you should only go out in the case of an absolute emergency or necessity. and the same goes for all day tomorrow. >> reporter: in the meantime cities large and small closed schools early and mobilized snow plow teams. and airlines began shutting down most or all of their operations at major airports around new york, boston and elsewhere. new york city mayor bill de blasio had already warned people not to underestimate what they're in for. >> we are facing most likely one of the largest snow storms in the history of this city. prepare for something worse than we have seen before.

prepare to be safe. take every precaution. >> reporter: many across the region heeded that advice, storming hardware and grocery stores for supplies yesterday in advance of the blizzard's approach. >> we are preparing to not leave the house for a few days should the need arise. >> we got a lot of extra at the store today for backup. we're good for a week. >> reporter: for many, of course, staying at home was not an option today, and for a time it looked as though thousands of commuters might be stranded. new york city and state officials initially warned that bus, train, and other mass transit services in the city could be curtailed before the evening commute. as the day went on, however, governor andrew cuomo announced regular service would continue into the evening hours to help commuters get home. governor cuomo also announced major highways will be shutting down as conditions worsen. >> the blizzard brings with it very high winds, gusts up to 55 miles-per-hour and that's what makes the situation dangerous and difficult from our point of view, it's the snow combined

with the wind. >> reporter: the warnings prompted many new yorkers to cut short the work day and head for shelter. >> usually i go home at 5:00, but now i take the 1:15 bus because then i get home at the right time and it's not going to snow so much because later on it's going to be really bad. >> i just like got to work and like ten minutes before i got to work this morning my boss is like, i'm going to send you home as soon as you get in. >> reporter: regardless of the weather, though, the new york stock exchange pledged it would be open for trading tomorrow. i am megan thompson in new york city. >> woodruff: washington d.c. expected to get only a minor snowfall, but the u.s. house had to postpone votes this evening because so many lawmakers were having trouble reaching the city. in other news of the day, the u.s. embassy in yemen closed to the public as unrest roiled the

arab nation. street protests stretched into a second week in the capital city, sanaa. demonstrators are angry over a power grab by shiite rebels that prompted the pro-american president to resign. the state department said in light of the turmoil, the embassy curtailed its activities. >> we're still providing emergency consular service to u.s. citizens in yemen and due to ongoing security concerns which we indicated last week we would continue to evaluate and make staffing and other decisions accordingly we're unable to provide consular services but otherwise remain opened and operational. >> woodruff: meanwhile, a u.s. drone strike killed three al- qaeda fighters in eastern yemen. it was the first this year. in syria, kurdish fighters have retaken a key town on the turkish border from islamic state forces. the kurds, backed by u.s. air strikes, say they gained full control of kobani today, after four months of fighting. also in syria, president bashar al-assad said the american-led air strikes need to be cleared with his regime.

"foreign affairs magazine" quoted him as saying: if you want to make any kind of action in another country, you ask their permission. a new left-wing leader, alexis tsipras, was sworn in as prime minister of greece today. his anti-bailout party came from the political fringe to win big on sunday, setting up a confrontation with germany and the european union. we have a report from james mates of independent television news. >> reporter: an audience with the country's president and one of the youngest, certainly the most unlikely prime minister in greek history, is asked to form a government. just short of an overall parliamentary majority, tsipras party of the far left has formed an extraordinary anti-austerity coalition with the party of the right. with a man who even sits with the british conservatives in the european parliament. how could you make a coalition work between right and left?

>> we are in europe. and now, we represent the nation, and the greek nation, it's in one government. together, all the greeks will be together, in europe. >> reporter: but this strange partnership of left and right makes defeated opponents wonder how they can possibly hold together in the negotiation with germany that lies ahead. >> if the germans want to fight the anti-austerity movement, they will have to destroy the first one. >> reporter: that'll be the greeks. >> that'll be the greeks. >> reporter: do you think the germans would do that? >> i think they have no other choice. if they will not do that, the european union will be destroyed. >> reporter: on the streets of athens now pockmarked with shuttered shops and businesses after a five year long depression, that pessimism that anything can really change is pretty widely shared. >> i wish him good luck. he will need it. >> reporter: will he succeed?

>> to say no to merkel, yes. to create a competitive economy no, no way. >> i think it's a utopia. and no sooner had alexis tsipras had been sworn in than an almighty storm broke over the country's parliament. for greece within the european union, the future looks stormy, indeed. >> woodruff: european financial markets remained largely steady, despite concerns over greece's future in the european union. ukraine declared an emergency today across two eastern provinces, amid the worst violence since september. fighting has surged in donetsk and luhansk provinces, and the trouble spread saturday to mariupol, where rocket fire killed 30 people. in response, western nations threatened new sanctions against russia, but today, president vladimir putin blamed ukraine's government backed by nato.

>> we often say ukrainian army ukrainian army. but who is indeed fighting there? this is not even an army, it's a foreign legion. in this case a foreign n.a.t.o. legion. they are there with no national interests of ukraine. they have different aims connected with the geopolitical aim of retaining russia. >> woodruff: nato rejected putin's accusations and, it charged moscow is again sending large numbers of heavy weapons to the rebels in ukraine. president obama ended a three day visit to india today, pledging $4 billion in loans and investments. earlier, he became the first american president to attend the annual republic day parade in new delhi. crowds cheered as the obamas arrived to watch the display of india's military forces. back in washington, a small drone crashed onto the white house grounds early today. the secret service released a

photo of it and said a man was flying it for recreation but lost control. the pre-dawn incident triggered an emergency lockdown of the white house complex. officials later said the two foot long quad-copter did not pose a threat. a former c.i.a. officer has been convicted in a high-profile leak case. a federal jury in virginia found jeffrey sterling guilty of espionage. he was accused of giving details about a mission to undermine iran's nuclear program to "new york times" reporter james risen. sterling denied leaking anything, saying risen found out from senate staffers who'd been briefed on the operation. stocks on wall street inched ahead a bit today, the dow jones industrial average gained six points to close above 17,678; the nasdaq rose more than 13 points to close above 4,771; and the s&p 500 added five points to close at 2,057. still to come on the newshour.

president obama seeks new limits on drilling for oil in alaska. taking violent action in the name of religion in europe. the diary of a guantanamo detainee. republicans queue up early for a chance at 2016. and, transforming the cinematic for a virtual world. >> woodruff: the president is pushing for major new areas of protection in alaska's arctic refuge, and getting set for a big battle in the decades-long debate over oil drilling and production there. currently about seven million areas of the arctic national wildlife refuge are protected from oil and gas exploration. president obama announced yesterday in a videotaped message

the president wants to expand that by 12 million more acres, including along the oil-rich coast. it's the first of several moves aimed at holding back production. here's some of what the president said in a white house video about his decision to protect the area. >> for centuries, it supported many alaskan native communities, but it's very fragile, and that's why i'm very proud that my department of interior has put forward a comprehensive plan to make sure we're protecting the refuge and we're designating more areas including coastal plains for preservation. >> woodruff: the president's actions sparked immediate and sharp opposition from some republicans including alaska senator and senate energy committee chairman lisa murkowski who joins me now. senator, welcome. first of all, why is this a bad idea? >> well, to effectively put off limits forever the entire anwar

area some 19 million acres on top of what is already contained in the state of alaska, we have more than half of the wilderness in the entire united states in the state of alaska. so of all the wilderness and all the 49 other states out there, we've got more than all the other states combined. so what the president is doing through this action is a process that would -- could eventually lead to permanent wilderness status. now, fortunately, this is something that the congress is going to have to sign off on. i don't see any scenario where this congress will allow for permanent designation of all of anwar including the ten or two area the area that's been

specifically designated by congress to be reserved for our oil and gas exploration. >> woodruff: the president's argument is that this is a pristine area, that there are very rare species of animal life there, it's a fragile piece of land that needs to be protected. >> well, look at the map. look at the map that we're talking about. again, this is an area that, in addition to the 1002 area is the size of the state of south carolina that he's saying we need to take off into permanent wilderness status. this is an amazing part of the state, as all parts of the state are amazing. when you have a state that's one-fifth the size of the entire rest of the country, you're going to have some amazing places. okay, i'm with you on that. but for him to take all of this airy and say off limits entirely what we have been

doing in the prudhoe area for 40 years accessing a resource while still being sensitive to the environment making sure that subsistence is still allowed for the native people who live off the land, this is the key here. >> woodruff: is there any room for middle ground here? >> you know what? this administration has not been negotiating with the state of alaska. i made the suggestion they're willing to negotiate with iran but they won't with alaska. they won't work with us. now, is there a middle ground? i have been trying. i have been bending over backwards to be that broker where we can have a relationship to advance some of alaska's interests, but it doesn't seem it makes any difference what the resource is that alaska wants to access, whether our forests in the southeast, whether our mineral developments or our oil and gas up north, it seems like this administration has taken an

all of the above approach to energy policy except in alaska. i don't know what to do except to fight back and i'm gonna do it. >> woodruff: alaska senator lisa murkowski, we thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and now for the obama administration's perspective we are joined by the cabinet special implementing this policy the secretary of the interior, sally jewell. secretary jewell welcome. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: it's clear there's a fire storm the administration has set off. what do you say to this alarm articulated by senator murkowski, that this amount of land if you set it aside 19 million acres, that it's just beyond reason? >> i appreciate the senator 's efforts for the state and she's helped me understand the perspective of alaskans. i have made many trips to

alaskan and worked on elements of the pipeline in college, i visited the wildlife refuges in 2013. i saw polar bears at the airport and flew over some of the areas in the 10-02 area and coastal plain and in the mountains where reactually got off and liked around and could see what an incredible place it is. it is a large area. it is one of the most special places on earth and we are blessed in the united states to have an area of this size that has been undisturbed by development and that is something that i feel very proud of the president for stepping up to protect. >> woodruff: what i'm hearing her say is that it's one thing to set aside 7 million, already, but now 19 million, and she's saying, yes, it's pristine but the entire state is pristine. what's so special about

thisiary? >> this land was set aside in 1960 as the arctic national wildlife range. further protections and wilderness for 7 million acres were granted in 1980. we have been operating on a plan based on a 1980s understanding of this refuge. we now understand the importance of the coastal plain in so much of the health of the the ecosystem. there are many animals that summer in the arctic that come down to the lower parts of the 48. this 10-02 area has not been opened for oil and gas development because congress did not want it to be opened and this codifies the administration's position. >> woodruff: but it's bigger than that. we're not even showing the entire area. what about the other arguments they're making is that this is a blow to alaska's ability to have any kind of economic development? she talks about it affecting generations of alaskaians to

come because of the fact they won't be able to develop their resources in oil and gas. >> judy, i believe there are right places to develop like the national petroleum reserve in alaska. we're in is process of working with a business to support the permitting of the first development of the national petroleum reserve. we have been actively leasing in the area. we've done an area-wide study to understand the grounds for the caribou for subsistence and the areas high in gas and oil. that has infrastructure to be quickly hooked up to the transalaska pipeline. we're not blocking petroleum development sources in alaska. it's just that there are right places for it too develop and wibl the wildlife is too special for it to develop. >> woodruff: finally her point is the administration won't negotiate. you heard her say i've bent over

backwards and they're not talking with me about this. >> i have had multi-million meetings with senator murkowski and meetings with governor walker. the state of alaska are feeling the low oil prices. my door is always open to her. i suggest we go to alaska together and i rook forward to the opportunity and working with her. >> woodruff: thank you for joining us. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: the paris attacks a few weeks ago brought europe's growing islamic extremist threat into sharp focus. our chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner visited another european country, the united kingdom, to see what's driving young muslims there to extremism and what's being done about it. tonight, we bring you the first of her two reports.

>> warner: imran khawaja was is p. >> the british voices shocked people here waking them up to the fact nearly a third islamic state fighters are from western europe seeking an alternative to the age nation some feel here at home. >> the solution to this is that muslims unite rediscover their muslim identity completely divorce themselves from any form of western identity and start defending the identity if necessary by violent means. >> peter newman, center for study of radicalization at kings college london monitors nearly 700 foreign fighters through social knead media, says ikdz

crafted a powerful appeal. >> some of the rhetoric that comes out of i.s.i.s. about the caliphate, it basically tells young western recruits, you can be part of an enormous historical project, and people in a thousd years reason talking about those brave young westerners who came over and rebroke the caliphate with us. >> reporter: across the internet photos and videos of estimated 600 to 100 young british muslims who traveled to syria and iraq, many calling on fellow muslim countrymen to join them. >> there's one root in and one root out. >> reporter: it is said there are three preliminary tense before responding to the call of the caliphate. >> there are a sense of perceived grieve answer, the second is identity crisis, and the third is a charismatic recruiter who is able to

capitalize on the veefenses and fill the void. >> reporter: a british foreign lawyer of pakistani december sent rails against u.s. and keenine intervention in iraq and afghanistan as the west wars on islam and repeatedly calls for establish meant of shia law in print. among his followers, two muslim converts ac cued of hacking an off duty british soldier to death in 2013 to avenge cig of afghans by british military. he says the recruits are the islamic state caliphate recruit last june. >> people are going to experience the shia to look at life under divine law, to bring up children where they don't face vices of gambling,

et cetera. >> reporter: among those drawn, the brother of the young woman who asked us to hide her face and dub her voice. she says her family was shocked when he converted to islam but didn't realize how radically under chadry and another friend. he'd taken his wife and children to join the caliphate in syria. >> he always wanted to live under sharia law, yes, but i was never aware he wanted to live in a foreign country. >> reporter: when did you first hear the news and how did it make you feel? >> i heard about it. i thought, oh, my gosh! how could this happen? and i felt a sense of guilt that maybe we didn't do enough to prevent him from doing this. it saddens me because i think he's lost his identity. i feel he's taken on this persona that's not really him it's almost as if he's forgotten what he truly likes. where has it gone?

it's just disappeared. >> do you think he felt more muslim than british or more british than muslim? >> of course he's british but he doesn't think you can be british and muslim. they're not separate entities you can be muslim and still british. >> reporter: chadry preaches to other navy u.k. born muslims that there's nothing special about being british. >> being british is loving the queen, fish and chips. because you were born somewhere doesn't mean you have to have allegiance to that place. my allegiance is to what i believe. >> reporter: that upsets drew in the london district of wopping. she says the muslim communities here aren't like earlier waves immigrants. >> they're totally different than anybody west virginia ever had come here before. they are very, very strong in their religion, and they don't

tend to integrate as others have before them. so you have a kind of divide which is not a good thing. so they come here and they keep 100% their way, their original ways. they don't assimilate into our way at all. >> reporter: do you think the muslims are a threat to the british way of life here? >> we feel in certain areas of london that we're losing our culture and it's being replaced with this. >> reporter: that sense of distance seems to be shared by many of britain's nearly 3 million muslims as well. many assimilate and a great many other live in segregated communities. in white chapel in the eastenned, there were muslim crit cooed european culture for allowing disrespect to the

prophet muhammad. >> there should be a limit. we don't use the word "n" for some people because it's insulting and they're all human beings. >> do you feel more muslim than british? >> every muslim feels the same way. we are proud to be muslim first and then whatever country we belong to. >> reporter: british-born muslim sister is a rare and sabrina say they feel hostility from their non-muslim fellow brits. do you think muslims are discriminated against here in the u.k.? >> most of us are. we get the awkward stares, the whispers, people moving from you on the bus. >> a cold frontware developer and mainly british newspaper even sarah had off putting moments. >> i've had a few smart remarks.

we are the people committing atrocities and other people are using our religion to do that. >> reporter: what worriesine governments is some foreign fighter will return determined to launch terrorist attacks on the homelands they have come to hate. >> they are a danger in the next five, ten 15 years not just the next month. we know, of course that the returning fighters, networks they have had military training likely to be more deadly, effective and viable. so i think, in the long term those returning foreign fighters will be the core of a new international network. >> we have a responsibility to fight extremism. >> reporter: trying to shrink the pool of potential new recruits the british government wrote the i maps of nearly 1,000 mosques after the paris attacks asks them to root out extremists

views and use their positions with young muslims to explain and demonstrate how faith in ims can be part of british identity. some imams took offense at the implication. the jihadists -- took offense that jihadists are the mosque's responsibility. >> they say why should we apologize for something we don't agree with? i think that's disingenuous. the ideology has a global appeal, has become a brand. has its own symbols and leaders and narratives, and what we need to do is match it with a competing brand so we can arrive at a day when islam is as unattractive as communism has become to date and that's really a struggle. >> reporter: margaret warner, the "newshour".

>> woodruff: when president obama took office in january 2009 he signed an executive order to close the detention facility at guantanamo, cuba. today, his outgoing secretary of defense chuck hagel told national public radio that closing the facility was going to be very difficult. the 122 prisoners who are still there are among the most difficult to relocate. one detainee's story has just been published. hari sreenivasan has that. >> sreenivasan: some two weeks after 9/11 a 30-year-old electrical engineer was arrested from his african home, questioned by f.b.i. agents and released. in november of that year he was rearrested for suspect connections in a plot to bomb the naissments fat who will load was a harrowing journey through

different countries and finally to the u.s. prison site at guantanamo bay. he remains there today. 13 years later with no charges filed against him. in 2005 he began a journal, confiscated by prison guard and deemed classified. after a seven-year legal battle, a gerald judge declassified the material, though some sections remain redacted. last week little brown and company published gaunt tan mo diary in which he details his first years of prison including isolations, beatings sexual abuse, et cetera. larry siems you say the book has been edit twice once by the u.s. government with 2600 redactions and a second time by yourself. unlike any other book, you haven't been able to talk to the author, right? >> right. >> sreenivasan: and you haven't been working with nancy to confirm the facts so as a

reader how do i know what the author's intent was? >> i think he says what his intent was. by the time he gets going telling the story, he clearly massage it will be read by "us," the american people. he at several points in the book says, what do you think dear reader? he solicits our opinion. this is his appeal for justice you know, for the american people to know what's going on in guantanamo in the fullest sense and to encounter it, to reckon it, to read it and to react to it, i think. >> sreenivasan: nancy, the government's case in different times against your client has been that he had sworn allegiance to al quaida back when they were fighting the soviets, that he prayed at the same mosques as the man responsible for planning out the millennium bombing that his cousin was in the inner circle of osama bin laden. so how do we know exactly what

the facts are in his particular life and why he shouldn't with in gitmo today? >> well, the reasons we know he should been in gitmo first of all is the government never charged him with any crime. secondly the government admitted they didn't believe he even knew about 9/11. the government decided he had nothing to do with the plot to blow up lax airport in 19 # 9, that he had nothing to do with him. the government came to that conclusion even before mohamed got to guantanamo. his cousin is now a free man in moretainia after being interviewed by the united states. so if you click all those off, plus he did swear allegiance to whatever was al quaida in 1990, but in essence, you could say the united states almost did the same thing. we supported that movement.

we favor millions of dollars in money and arm ma meant and encouraged people to fight against the soviets. that was not the same al quaida that later turned on the united states. so the reason he shouldn't be there is he is not a terrorist he's an innocent man who should go home. >> sreenivasan: he says there's a point where he finally breaks and admits, yes i did this, yes, i did that. what are the sorts of interrogations that got him to that breaking point? >> he calls it an endless world tour of detention and interrogation. he arrives in guantanamo in august of 2002 and from there until a year and a half later he's subjected to this accelerating intensifying increasingly brutal interrogation. in fact, he sort of lands in the middle of this incredible institutional struggle going on over u.s. interrogation tactics. so you have the f.b.i. and criminal investigation task

force interrogators in guantanamo used to rapport building interrogations. you had a special projects team which defense swell generals interrogators were setting up to enhance the techniques rolled out in the c.i.a. black sites and mohamed finds himself in that tug of war and they struggle between the agencies on who controls his interrogation until spinning of 2003. the f.b.i. loses control of the interrogation, d.i.a. takes over and he's subjected to this special interrogation plan written out ahead of time stepped by stepped, signed by all the way up to donald rumsfeld, secretary of defense, and a year of harrowing abuse that begins with extreme isolation, sleep deprivation extremes in temperatures. strobe lights loud music,

stripping him, sexual abuse and assault. >> sreenivasan: his words paint a picture. "in a recent conversation with one of his lawyers, mohamed says he holds no grudge against any of the people he mentions in this book that he appeals to them to read and correct it if it contains errors, and he dreams to sit with them around a cup of tea after having learned so much from one another." nancy what's he like? >> he's a very talkative person very curious. but he's humble, he's compassionate and he really does hold no grudge. he just wants to get out. he understands that there are good people and there's good and evil really in all of us and he talks in the book about how -- i found it really interesting -- you don't get to choose your

family and this became his family, whether he likes them or not, they're his family and he has to put up with them. >> sreenivasan: "guantanamo diary" written by someone in guantanamo today. larry siems, nancy hollander, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: to politics now and the 2016 race for the white house. on saturday, nearly a dozen republican hopefuls made their way to iowa to woo conservative activists at the inaugural freedom summit. speakers included donald trump wisconsin governor scott walker and new jersey governor chris christie. >> let me ask you this, if i was too blunt, too direct, too loud and too new jersey for iowa then why do you people keep inviting me back? >> if you're not afraid to go big and go bold you can actually get results. >> it can't be mitt, because

mitt ran and failed. he failed. the last thing we need is another bush. >> woodruff: then, on sunday focus shifted west to palm springs, california. senators marco rubio, rand paul, and ted cruz participated in a forum before some 400 potential donors at the winter meeting of freedom partners, a conservative group aligned with the billionaire koch brothers. joining us now to talk about it all are amy walter of "the cook political report" and nia-malika henderson of "the washington post." it's great to see you both again. >> good to be here. >> woodruff: what stands out to you about these early events, amy? >> the fact that they are so early right? we are 500-some days away and we had a lot of candidates in iowa and a lot of press in iievment there were over 200 credentialed

reporters trying to size up these candidates. but they are all trying out for different types of audiences. voters but also donors. that's the voters in iowa the donors in california, of course, but then more generally the national media. a lot of folks aren't now hold names and they're trying to break out and show they have the stuff to be a serious candidate. >> woodruff: they come with their own agenda. >> each are working their own agenda. chris christie sayingics play in iowa. people might by i'm pugnacious but i can play in iowa and other places, too. you have mike huckabee won iowa ino aircrafts him telling the audience there common core don't believe what you've heard of my substance on common core. ben carson i thought was more mild-mannered than he normally is. he usually is very pugnacious and sort of says something to stir the crowd up and stir up the media.

he had a more bedside manner type speech. scott walker is a guy that broke from the pack. this is a guy i don't see as charismatic but he wowed the crowd and reminded the crowd he won three out of the four times in the last years. >> woodruff: do they have to do this? why do they need to do this? >> i think a lot of it is to try to get some of that early buzz. again, one of the down sides of being a scott walker is even republicans don't even know much about scott walker. a lot of this is playing who reads and digest the media?

a lot of donors. we call the invisible primary. this is not about trying to get the votes in the bank today. today it's about getting the bank in the bank and also positioning yourself to get more money to put in the bank. >> woodruff: we described both of the groups as conservative, the conservative freedom gathering in iowa, same thing. is this just one spectrum of the republican voter electorate that these candidates have to worry about? >> in iowa, that's one. i think there are probably three altogether right. it's sort of the evangelicals, then the thearpt crowd, the crowd that liked ron paul and likes rand paul now. and then the establishment crowd, more jeb bush and mitt romney. ted cruz in iowa and california he's trying to play both sides. he's saying to donors, you've heard about me being the tea party and the evangelical guy, but i can also play in these circles and be more of the

chamber of commerce republican as well. >> woodruff: 200 credentialed media, why? >> this is what's so much fun about 2016. i know a lot of people are viewing this and saying, 2016 is so far away. >> yeah. but this is such a wide-open race for president, none of us who covered it for any period of time has seen a republican race as wide open as this. we can't tell you the frontrunner, who's going to be the nominee. that doesn't happen. we're watching and waiting to see how the candidates perform ease cerebral how they perform under the microscope and that's going to start occurring on a more regular basis. this was just a firs act. >> people really believe that one of the "lesser known" also "rand types" could have made it?

>> i think so. if you asked a couple of weeks ago, i don't think we would have said rand paul or jeb bush would have gotten in. but we'll see. part of the argument is they've done this before, that they've gotten the billion dollars or the capability of raising a billion dollars so that rand quality is a positive and negative. >> woodruff: the last few winners of the iowa caucuses have gone on to disappear. rick santorum, mike huckabee, they didn't win the nomination. the candidate furthest on the right is the candidate that wins. mitt romney technically won on elections night and came to be that rick santorum had more votes but the bottom line is you're right, the more right you go, the more likely you are to win the fight in iowa and, of course, that's not the kind of message you want to bring out

to -- even to the rest of the republican party going to new hampshire and florida and et cetera. so i think iowa is still important in that it's an easy place for everybody to try and get together test out their message, see how they play in a crowded field. remember there's not just going to be one conservative. there are plenty of conservatives in the mix. >> woodruff: anything like this for moderates in the republican party? >> in a state like iowa, i think more like new hampshire which is after iowa, how they play in florida, can they get the big money to play in the big field because the ad rates are so high and such a big state. but i think how you play in iowa, whether or not you go too far to the right or not which is what we saw mitt romney doing, which is why some think that's why he lost because he went so far right in iowa. >> woodruff: we have only a few days to get it figured out. we're almost there.

nia-malika, amy walter, thank you. >> thanks. >> woodruff: finally tonight the power and appeal of virtual reality and what it could mean for storytelling. it's long been discussed in video games and other media. now its moment appears to be arriving in the world of film. it's getting a lot of buzz at one of the country's major film festivals this week. here's jeffrey brown. >> brown: i am flying through san francisco. yes, it's true. i'm a bird. soaring among the buildings of the city by the bay. oops, i crashed. well, i sure felt like i was flying. but i'm actually stretched out somewhat awkwardly on a contraption called birdly. and i'm in park city, utah, at the sundance film festival where one of the main attractions this year is an exhibition called new frontier, showcasing a new world filmmakers are now exploring:

virtual reality. >> in terms of what's coming out of the storytelling community, we're really just seeing the first steps, the first baby steps of what is to come, but i do think it's going to grow very big. >> brown: one of the leaders is chris milk. who's made a name for himself as a director of music videos that push the envelope of technological effects. here's how he describes the virtual reality-- or v.r.-- difference. >> we always are watching the visual stories, the moving picture stories that we watch through these frames. it's always a frame, it's always a rectangle, whether it be your television set or our computer screen or a movie screen. >> brown: right, it's a screen of some kind. >> yeah, it's always a window that you're looking through. >> brown: v.r. technology, milk says, bursts through the window and takes you along. >> it's tricking your brain into believing what you're seeing is truth. so even though... >> brown: tricking my brain?

>> tricking your brain. so it's essentially hacking your audio and visual system. >> brown: now, i'm not sure i want my brain hacked, frankly but i did strap on the headset, and first entered milk's fantasy film evolution of verse, and then his non-fiction film "clouds over sidra," which took me inside a syrian refugee camp in jordan. it's hard to convey on your screen, but the sensation is one of being in the camp. as a young girl talks about life there. it was shot with a 3-d 360 degree camera system, using eight different cameras. the middle east, in fact, was the focus of several projects here. >> for most americans, the story of syria is so far away they don't really understand what's happened to the millions of people, i think you're able to understand the impact for people just going about their daily business when a bomb hits. >> brown: and that's what happens in project syria

created by filmmaker nonny de la pena, who approaches virtual reality as a journalistic tool. >> here i walked down a street in aleppo, this is animation made from video of an actual street when a bomb exploded. >> brown: whoa, an explosion goes off, smoke's everywhere, people are yelling. an actual event, experienced virtually. de la pena, a former print and tv journalist, thinks the visceral impact of v.r. could bring new audiences to the news. >> younger audiences are growing up now very comfortable with digital environments, with having avatars, and they may not be reading the newspaper or watching television. and i think that these are environments that are really important to think about how do

we do news stories, non-fiction and documentary. >> brown: now, there's reason for skepticism here. much of this can feel like you're merely playing a high- level video game. >> how does that feel? >> brown: but the technology is improving for v.r. creators, and opening up to the public. there was much talk here about the potential impact of facebook's purchase of oculus rift, makers of one system of headgear and software, for $2 billion. it's also getting cheaper for consumers. google cardboard uses your smartphone as the video player and sells for just $20. the real question, it seems, isn't so much technology as story-telling. for now, v.r. is good at immersion, putting you into situations. into a horror film as in "kaiju fury." in "1979 revolution game" you take part in a street demonstration during the iranian

revolution. more intriguing, and more difficult, though, is how to use v.r. to tell complex stories. another top innovator, felix lageunesse, explains. >> i originally come from a background of traditional filmmaking and i migrated toward virtual reality. it's a fundamentally different medium in the fact that, first of all, the viewer is there. the viewer is no longer an abstraction, but he is part of the experience, so you need to think of how you will articulate your story, in the moment that you create, considering the fact that there is a subjectivity at the heart of it. there is someone there. >> brown: that someone is you, or, in this case, me. the traditional filmmaker directs the viewer's eye through shots picked, edits made, and so on. but what happens when you control the movement? how can a story be told? and who's telling it? lageunesse drew from the recent film, "wild" to create a fully immersive environment for the

viewer. again, impossible to convey here, but i found myself sitting on a rock, looking around the woods as reese witherspoon walked down the path, sat down, and looked right at me. she's looking at me and i wanted to talk to her. i mean eventually will i get to talk to her in a virtual reality film? >> ( laughs ) well, it's, you will have to give us maybe ten years for that to be actually possible, but i think for now it just brings you in that place where if she looks at you, it engages you emotionally in a very special way. ten years is a bit, pessimistic. i think those kinds of things will be possible very soon, but for a proper piece of storytelling that was pre- recorded to be sort of interacting with whatever you're seeing, it feels complex, but probably not impossible. >> brown: not impossible. but will we want it? chris milk who's thought deeply about the evolution of story- telling, sees v.r. as a logical future step. one not so far removed from that old-fashioned technology the book. >> you read a book and there is print or ink on a page, and your

brain reads those words and it says these two people are standing in a field, and you imagine the two people standing in a field. there's a suspension of disbelief that your brain goes through to put you inside of the story. same thing with basically all other forms of media. whereas in virtual reality you actually have to remind yourself not to believe. you look this way, you see that way. you exist within the world. and existing within the world is a very powerful thing. >> brown: indeed it is. it was the poet wordsworth who wrote: "the world is too much with us." but if you want even more, look out! virtual reality is coming right at you. i'm jeffrey brown at the sundance film festival for the pbs newshour. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. a potentially history-making storm threatened to shut down the northeast. as millions of people from pennsylvania to maine hunkered down for blizzard conditions.

and the u.s. embassy in yemen closed to the public amid turmoil in the streets. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us on-line and again here tomorrow evening for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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