captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is away. on the newshour tonight: angry protests after the release of a video showing a black teen shot by a chicago police officer renews the question of excessive force. >> woodruff: then, a century ago, einstein changed how we think about our world. we talk with biographer walter isaacson about the scientist's revolutionary ideas. >> it was a huge leap. it wasn't a little improvement of newton's universe. it was a whole new way of looking at the universe. >> woodruff: and "the queen of soul," aretha franklin, wins one of the first "portrait of america" awards, and talks about her remarkable career.

all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the enginthat connects us.

>> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> 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: less than two weeks after the attacks in paris and with a worldwide travel alert in place, president obama told americans today there's no credible threat to the u.s. this holiday weekend. he urged people to go about their normal activities this thanksgiving. at the white house, flanked by his top counter-terrorism and national security advisers, he said the u.s. is working overtime to protect the homeland. >> the combined resources of our

military, our intelligence, and our homeland security agencies are on the case. they're vigilant, relentless and effective. in the event of a specific, credible threat, the public will be informed. >> woodruff: the president also signed a $607 billion defense authorization bill today, despite provisions that ban him from moving detainees at guantanamo bay, cuba to the u.s. in addition, the bill contains a provision that the president come up with a plan for defeating the islamic state. across the atlantic, the french announced they'll deploy extra police and troops in paris next week as about 140 world leaders, including president obama, arrive for climate talks. meanwhile in belgium's capital city -- where some of the paris attackers were based -- the maximum threat alert remained in place as a manhunt continued. in spite of that, schools did

reopen in brussels after a two- day closure, and subway service was also restored in some areas under tight security. the islamic state has claimed responsibility for yesterday's bus bombing in tunisia that killed 12 presidential guards. in an online post, the group identified the suicide bomber and included a picture of him with explosives strapped to his chest. today, investigators sifted through the wreckage and found roughly 22 pounds of military explosives on the bus. russia today touted its rescue operation of the surviving fighter pilot shot down by turkish jets yesterday. the pilot told reporters he did not violate turkey's airspace and he received no warning, claims turkey rejects. the other pilot was killed. the shootdown sparked outrage in moscow, where protesters pelted the turkish embassy with eggs

and chanted "murderers." and russian president vladimir putin questioned turkey's motivation. >> ( translated ): the problem is not the tragedy we witnessed yesterday. the problem is much deeper. we observe - and not only us, i assure you - the whole world is seeing that the current turkish leadership over a significant number of years has been pursuing a deliberate domestic policy of supporting the islamisation of their country. >> woodruff: in ankara, turkey's prime minister ahmet davutoglu called the downing a "communication accident", while still maintaining the russian jet did cross into turkish airspace. but he said russian airstrikes along the turkey-syria border must stop. >> ( translated ): nobody should pave the way to massacres against turkmens in this region under the pretext of carrying out operations against the islamic state. today, in this region near turkey's border with syria, civilians are attacked with cluster bombs.

attacks, close to a massacre, are being carried out. this should stop immediately. >> woodruff: foreign ministers from russia and turkey have also agreed to meet, but not before russia ordered state-of-the-art air defense missile systems deployed at a russian air base in syria. pope francis arrived in kenya today to begin his first-ever trip to africa. thousands of people lined the streets of the capitol, nairobi, to greet the pontiff as his motorcade passed through. later, he urged kenyans to work toward peace in a world filled with extremist violence. the pope will be in africa for six days, with visits to uganda and the central african republic. before the year even ends, the u.n. weather agency is predicting it will be the hottest on record. the world meteorological organization said there was no point waiting until the end of the year because temperatures around the world have already been so hot. scientists point to man-made global warming and a strong el nino weather system for a

1.8 degrees fahrenheit rise over pre-industrial times. it was a day of light trading and little change on wall street today... the dow jones industrial average gained one point to close at 17,813. the nasdaq rose 13 points, and the s&p 500 dropped less than a point. and president obama carried out a time-honored thanksgiving tradition at the white house this afternoon. he officially pardoned the national thanksgiving turkey, named "abe," during a rose garden ceremony. the turkey -- and an "alternate" bird named "honest" -- will live out the rest of their lives on a farm in leesburg, virginia. still to come on the newshour: analysis of the video released in chicago. what is on the tape and what does it say about the record of the chicago police? new details about the u.s. bombing of a doctors without borders hospital in afghanistan. and much more.

>> woodruff: in chicago, the release of a video of a police officer shooting a black teenager has stirred racial tensions and launched protests. a warning to our viewers: some of what you are about to see may be disturbing. >> woodruff: last night, the city of chicago released the video from a police-cruiser dashboard camera. seconds after exiting his vehicle, police officer jason van dyke opens fire on laquan mcdonald. the teenager collapses. van dyke continues shooting, emptying his weapon. in all, mcdonald was shot sixteen times. officers had responded to an allegation that mcdonald punctured a police car tire with a knife. yesterday, van dyke was charged with first degree murder.

hundreds of chicago residents, upset by the video, took to the streets tuesday night. although the protests remained peaceful for the most part, demonstrators and police officers clashed in a few incidents, leading to the arrests of five people. activists had repeatedly called on the city to make public the video of the incident, which occurred more than a year ago. the city had already paid mcdonald's family $5 million at settlement. still, it took a freedom of information lawsuit and a court order to force authorities to release the video. today, members of the city council's black caucus criticized authorities for that delay. >> while we know the system has failed, no one can specifically say how. we must value all the children of the city of chicago, more than just thinking that a clear payout can solve the problem.

a clear transparent process is the only way we can begin to build trust in our communities with law enforcement. >> woodruff: at a news conference last night, mayor rahm emanuel struck a similar tone, and said that the shooting of laquan mcdonald must be an opportunity for the community to heal and come together. >> we need, as a city, to get to a point where young men in our community and parts of our city see an officer and don't just see an officer with a uniform and a badge; but they see them as a partner in helping them reach their potential. we also have to get to a place as a city where officers see a young man not as a potential problem and a risk, but an individual who is worthy of their protection and their potential. >> woodruff: details on mcdonald

and van dyke are still coming to light, but here is what we know now: laquan mcdonald was a 17-year-old african american. he was removed from his mother's care twice at a young age, and spent most of his life as a ward of the state. family services twice investigated allegations that mcdonald was sexually abused in foster care, but no charges were ever brought. at the time of his death, the autopsy found mcdonald had the drug p.c.p. in his system. jason van dyke is a 37-year-old white police officer. he is married with two teenage children. he served on the chicago police force for 14 years. during that time he received eighteen citizen complaints-- eight of which were claims of excessive force. van dyke's lawyer told cnn today that the dashboard camera video is unreliable, and that his

client was justified in shooting the teen. >> no matter how clear it is-- there are problems with video. and most important is the fact that video by its nature is two-dimensional. and it distorts images. so what appears to be clear on a video, sometimes is not always that clear. >> woodruff: officer van dyke is being held without bail. his next court appearance is on monday. now for a law enforcement perspective on this video and the events it captures, we turn to david klinger. he's professor of criminal justice at the university of missouri, saint louis and a former police officer. he is also author of "into the kill zone, a cop's eye view of deadly force." a book based on firsthand interviews with police officers who have shot people while on duty. david klinger, welcome to the program. after looking at this video, what does it tell you about what

happened on that night in october a year ago? >> what i see is i see a tactical failure on the part of the officer that ended up shooting as well as his partner and what i mean by nat is police officers, when they're dealing with individuals who are reportedly armed with an edge weapon, a knife, a hatchet, a ma shedy, what they're trained to do is try to keep distance. if you look at the video, what we see from the back of mr. mcdonald as he's walking toward these police officers is he moves away and the officers actually move towards him away from their vehicle. that's the very first thing i saw. i'm thinking, this doesn't really make any sense. i was thinking at first there were perhaps innocent people on the opposite side of the street. i checked the video two or three times. there is no evidence of any other citizens who might be in jeopardy so it didn't make any sense. so when the gunshots started to ring out, i couldn't understand why shots were being fired, then

mr. mostly cloudy donald falls down and i don't understand why additional shots are fired. i'm looking at this and descrashing my head. it doesn't add up. it isn't -- it doesn't appear to be calling for use of deadly force. >> woodruff: they're saying this officer saw something we didn't see in this video. what could that possibly be? >> i don't know. at one point, i agree with the lawyer. a video doesn't tell everything. what the courts have ruled for a long time, for over 30 years -- or should be for 30 years, now, is you have to take the totality of the circumstances into account when you're looking at what police officers do. and then in 1989 in graham versus o'connor, the u.s. supreme court said you can't look at it with 20/20 hindsight but through the eyes of a reasonable police officer on the

scene. so consequently, we have to take into account everything in addition to the video that might be relevant. what that might be that would overturn what appears to be a clear-cut case of unreasonable force, i don't know what it is. but certainly an investigation is never over merely because a video comes forth. we have to hear the officer's statement, partner's statement, listen to the dispatch tapes. maybe there's other video or audio we're unaware of. the bottom line is the officer has been charged with homicide, with first-degree murder and he deserves his day in court and deserves the opportunity to put forth a defense. we'll have to see what the defense is. >> you started out describing what an officer might do approaching someone, you said, with an edged weapon. what is the standard of practice for an officer in a situation like this? i know you can't generalize across every part of the country, but in general what would be the practice an officer is advised to take? >> in a situation where you're dealing with an individual with a knife, hatchet, some other

form of edged weapon, you want to try to keep distance and the reason is if you are 30 to 50 feet away, it's awfully hard for that individual armed with that weapon to harm you with it. when a suspect is within about 20-25 feet, depends on what training block of instruction you might get in a given police department around the country, that's what we call the zone where an officer could reasonably perceive his or her life is in jeopardy if someone is moving toward them. the reason is three fold. it takes time to perceive something and react to it. are you trying to cut me off, ma'am? >> woodruff: no, i'm trying to get at, when someone is down on the ground, what justifies continuing to fire round after round at that person? >> in this situation, i can't see anything that would justify it. however, if an individual is armed with a firearm, it doesn't matter if they're standing up, sitting down or laying down, if they are moving that firearm in a fashion that could threaten

someone, i.e. could pull the trigger, the firing is justifiable. but i haven't heard any indication that the suspect was armed with a firearm, it wouldn't make any sense to continue to fire. >> woodruff: professor clinger, university of missouri, saint louis, thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: next, we hear from two reporters closely following these events. they both have years of experience covering chicago crime, policing, and race relations. mark konkol is a columnist at d.n.a. info, a neighborhood reporting site. in 2011, he and a team at the chicago sun-times won a pulitzer prize for their reporting on violence, crime and policing in chicago. and jamie kalven is a freelance journalist. he uncovered the autopsy report showing that laquan mcdonald was shot 16 times by officer jason van dyke. kalven is also the founder of "the invisible institute," a nonprofit journalism project

that recently released tens of thousands of pages of civilian complaints filed against the chicago police department. gentlemen, we thank you both for being with us. mark knokol, let me start with you. how does this incident fit into the bigger picture of chicago police relations with the african-american community in that city? >> well, i think that it's just a big example of what's been happening for a long time. there is a severe lack of trust between people who live in poverty-stricken communities that are crippled by violence and fractured -- in chicago, there are a lot of good cops on the department. the overwhelming majority, 90%, 95%, thrivel stories written that, you know, there is a few officers that are troubled. but overall, the police department has a generational

problem that a federal judge said was a culture that's at the public interest and that is the thin blue line code of silence within the department, and it's something that's really wrong with the department and it's been recently said the culture of law enforcement isn't trusted and it's just -- this incident highlights that to the nth degree, and the protests are about being fed up. i think that's the message these protesters have been sending and that public officials have been sending as well. >> woodruff: jamie kalven, as we said, you were part of the effort to uncover the documents that showed just what happened on that night and a broader practice among chicago police. it's been 13 months since

laquan mcdonald died. what could explain the delay in releasing this video and in charging this officer as he was yesterday? >> i think that's the essential question at this point. everything that we now know the day affidavit video was re-- the day after the video was released was known by the city, by the department within hours of laquan mcdonald's death. there were multiple witnesses, police witnesses, civilian witnesses, there is the video and the autopsy you referred to before was actually conducted at 8:30 the next morning with an investigator from the independent police review authority, the city agency tasked with investigating police shootings, in the room. so, you know, with all of that information, the information that has been the basis now for the indictment of officer van dyke, the city put out --

the police department put out a press release saying that the young man had approached and lunged toward the police officers and was shot as an act of self-defense ton part of officer van dyke. they have to have known that that was a fabrication. now, 13 months later, we're getting a quite different narrative. so -- i mean, if this had been a gang shooting in chicago, with this amount of evidence, witnesses, video, the information from the autopsy, i imagine it would have been weeks, you know, a matter of a few weeks before an indictment was returned. so i don't know the answer to that question, but i think it is the question of the moment. >> woodruff: mark knokol, what do you know about your reporting on the chicago police that could explain the delay?

>> there is a provision in the chicago police department union contract that says when there is a complaint of misconduct against an officer, the city, the citizen review board is not allowed to release the name or identify the officer in any way unless the complaint is sustained. when they bring up the fact that officer van dyke had 18 misconduct complaints, all of them were not sustained. some people think that's a red flag, that's something that the public should know when it actually happens. when there is a police shooting, reporters across the city file freedom of information act requests to get the video of the shooting, and they're always doing that for the same reason, that the case is under investigation, it's a very broad statement that police use -- >> reporter: excuse me. we heard the prosecutor say yesterday it's more complex when

it's a police officer involved. >> it is more complex. it usually is. but what happened here is that the city paid a $5 million settlement without a lawsuit being fid. the information didn't come up. it wasn't until journalists fought to get the video released in court that we know what we know now, and i think all those things contribute to a lack of trust in the community, and these are the things that you hear chicago aldermen saying need to be remedied, there needs to be more sunlight on this process. if you want people to be suffering from gun violence in these neighborhoods to be held accountable for cooperating with police, the message that's being sent is we want the police to be under the same amount of scrutiny. >> reporter: jamie kalven, let me just repeat what we heard

mayor emanuel say a minute ago, we want to get to a point in our community where young men see an officer and not just someone in a uniform and a badge but someone that's a partner helping them reach their potential. we hear statistics the number of officer-involved shootings is down in the african-american community in chicago. >> that's only one measure. i spent a lot of time in recent years doing intensive interviews with young african-american teenagers on the south side of chicago and neighborhoods most affected by these patterns. they consistently say two things -- first, if we have an encounter with police officers, we know they have all the power and, secondly, if something happens in a random stop or some other kind of intersection with a police officer, something happens, we know we won't be believed. until those fundamental

conditions change, then i think there are all sorts of otherwise sensible measurers in terms of building relationships and police officers interacting with residents in contexts apart from law enforcement, all these things make perfect sense in the absence of accountability, in the absence on the part of confidence of citizens that if police officers exceed their roles, violate the public trust, they will be effectively disciplined, then i think it just impeaches and undermines everything else. >> woodruff: well, gentlemen, we are going to have to leave it there. clearly, chicago is a city in the spotlight right now and i know we're going to continue to follow this. we thank you both, mark konkol and jamie kalven. thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: the problem of police shootings isn't isolated to the city of chicago.

a funeral was held in minneapolis today for jamar clark, a black man who was fatally shot by police last week. his funeral procession passed "black lives matter" protestors, who have been demonstrating for days. police also announced they have a fourth person in custody in the shootings of some of the protestors on monday. >> woodruff: nearly two months after bombing a hospital in afghanistan, the u.s. military has completed its investigation into the incident. the announcement and details about why the hospital was mistakenly targeted, came today in kabul. hari sreenivasan has our story. >> this was a tragic mistake. u.s. forces would never intentionally strike a hospital or other protected facilities. >> sreenivasan: general john campbell, the u.s. commander in afghanistan, said the

destruction of the hospital in the northern city of kunduz was an "avoidable accident." that's the judgment contained in a more-than-3,000 page report compiled since the early october attack. at least 31 civilians died and another 28 were injured when a u.s. warplane struck the facility operated by "doctors without borders," more commonly know by its french acronym m.s.f. despite repeated calls from its staff to american officials both inside and outside afghanistan, the hospital was hammered by the american "ac-130" gunship for more than an hour. the attack followed days of heavy fighting in kunduz as afghan and american forces fought to retake the city from the taliban. today, campbell said the plane's crew had been given faulty location information of a suspected taliban base. afghanistan was the direct result of human error compounded by systems and procedural failures. the medical facility was

misidentified as a target by u.s. personnel who believe they were striking a different building several hundred meters away where there were reports of combatants. >> sreenivasan: m.s.f. has maintained no armed fighters were in the area near the hospital when the strike occurred. the group released its own report earlier this month. today it repeated its call for an independent investigation, and said the attack "cannot only be dismissed as individual human error." >> sreenivasan: joining me now for more on this is gordon lubold of the wall street journal. he's just been briefed on the report by pentagon officials. so the big question everyone is wondering is how could they get this so wrong when doctors without borders goes out of their way to make sure that everyone in the theater knows exactly where the hospital is? >> right. so what we learned from this report that was released today at the pentagon and general campbell who is the commander of all allied and u.s. forces in afghanistan is that this really was human error. it was just a combination of

errors, really, to include some technical problems that they had on the gunship used during the october 3 strike that contributed to just the wrong targeting of the -- targeted the wrong building in kunduz that night and it ended up being the hospital, not the building several hundred meters away at the they meant to target. >> sreenivasan: so afghan forces send in the coordinates to this gunship, but according to the summary by the general the gunship is just out of range enough or their g.p.s. is just a little off? >> right, afghan forces conveyed coordinates to the right target which happened to be an intelligence building where the taliban was known to be positioned. through u.s. special forces who were also on the ground there, they conveyed these coordinates to the view of the gunship. but because some of the capabilities on the ship, on the plane itself were

malfunctioning, a lot of this was communicated verbally and the coordinates somehow got plugged in and i think many properly but it malfunctioned and sent the crew to an empty field to be the target. the crew realized this is the wrong place and relied then on a verbal description of the target, and then began striking for about half an hour the hospital and not the actual at that time which was, as i say, several hundred meters away. so i think what we learned was that word never got to them in time to stop targeting that hospital, and they just simply didn't realize that was the place they weren't supposed to hit. >> sreenivasan: during the airstrikes, people from the hospital were calling anyone they could and they were actually getting that information to headquarters saying, listen, you're bombing us, you have the wrong target. wasn't there a list they could

compare to say, look, guys, i guess you're bombing an area that's on our no-bomb list. >> right, and from the outside even to me, and i cover this a lot, it doesn't quite make sense why it would take that long for kind of process to catch up with itself when somebody's calling, as you say, and saying, like, you're bombing us, it's the wrong place. but i think because to have the communications errors, because of as somebody who's very familiar with it described to me this morning said, the crew of the gunship kind of convinced themselves that this was the target. again, i don't think they were getting information that it wasn't the target yet, as i understand it. but because to have the problems and the -- but because of the problems and the verbal description given to them, they essentially were convinced they were targeting the right place and, obviously, they weren't. >> sreenivasan: so what are the consequences now that the government has this report? >> the consequences are that we

don't know yet what will happen to these military personnel who have been suspended from their jobs. general campbell will conduct an assessment and then we'll know what happens to these people. but for now we're in that zone of he's still conducting an investigation into what's going to happen to them. >> sreenivasan: gordon lubold from the "wall street journal," thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: how to eat better and shop differently while living on very little. and the "queen of soul" on her past, present and future. but first, this week marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of albert einstein's greatest work: a series of papers laying out the general theory of relativity. gwen has a look at how it changed our understanding of the cosmos and the man behind the ideas. she recorded this conversation

earlier this week. >> ifill: his work transformed our way of living at the cosmos, when einstein put forward his general theory of relativity, that gravity itself is a bending of space and time by mass and energy, i was a seminal moment in the history of science. today his better recognized than a century ago. nova pays tribute with a program called inside einstein's mind. >> the best places take us where the people who invented them didn't imagine. a wonderful theory like general theory of relativity predicts all kinds of things einstein didn't conceive of. the theory has a life of its own. we understand it better now than einstein ever did. >> and liftoff from space shuttle discovery with the

hubble space telescope. >> today, 100 years after general relativity was presented, new technology is allowing us to explore the most remarkable predictions of the theory, an expanding universe, black holes, space time. and perhaps the most bizarre, the idea that not just space but time itself is distorted by heavy objects. >> ifill: walter walter who's in tonight's special is the author of a well-known biography on einstein and the c.e.o. of the aspen institute. welcome, walter. >> good to be back, gwen. >> ifill: you've said that the general theory of relativity is the most beautiful theory in the history of science. what do you mean by that? >> gorgeous! it is a mathematical as well as conceptual masterpiece. it can be visualized as bodies

telling space and time how to curve and the curving of space and time telling bodies how to move, and then the math goes with it. it wasn't just like a little improvement over newton's universe, it was a whole new way of looking at the universe. >> ifill: define relativity for the layperson. >> relativity begins in 1905 where einstein says time is relative depending on your state of motion. exactly is hundred years ago this week, he comes up with a generalization of the theory that says acceleration, gravity, time, space, they're all related and these equations show how. >> ifill: the thing that bends the whole conversation is the speed of light, right? we use the term speed of light in a haphazard way all the time but he meant it in a very literal way. >> it begins with einstein trying to figure out why is the speed of light always constant? no matter which way you're moving, whether toward the source of the light or away from

it. in 1905 when he was just a patent clerk in the swiss patent office, all the swiss physicists of europe were trying to figure this out and he begins his whole path to relativity by realizing if you're traveling real fast on one clock, it will look differently for you if it's synchronized as somebody traveling really fast in the other direction and comes up with amazingly imaginatively that, i get it, the speed of light is always constant by time is relevant depending on your state of motion. so that's the first building block to have the whole theory of relativity. it's called the special theory of relativity because it was just about constant velocity motion and the speed of light. >> ifill: then gravity comes into the equation. >> it takes him ten years to generalize the theory because he's wondering what about the acceleration? and his theory says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. but the theory of gravity says gravity acts instantaneously,

the moon pulling the earth, vice versa, that's instantaneous, and einstein is trying to figure out how that could be, so he realizes the effects you feel from acceleration, like if you're in an elevator car accelerating upwards, feels just like gravity and comes up with the equivalency that gravity and acceleration are both really the same thing. >> ifill: bowling ball and the trampoline. i love that idea. >> that's another way he visualizest it. the cool thing about einstein is he thinks visually in thought experience. one is rolling a bowling ball on a piece of fabric. it curls the fabric. if you roll bigger balls behind it it curls toward the bowling ball, not because the bowling ball has a mysterious fabric but because the bowling ball is

coating the trampoline. the movement coats not just the fabric of the trampoline but all four dimensions of space and time. >> ifill: was einstein a daydreamer? >> these are thought experiments. he imagines what happens if a big object is rolling across a fabric and it's just imagination we might call daydreaming. he never did physical experiments in a lab. he just did the experiments visualizing concepts in his head and said what if i caught up with a light beam? or what if i were in an elevator car accelerating upward in outer space where there is no gravity? or what happened if a massive object rolled over a fabric? these are the imaginative thought experiments that leads him to the most beautiful of all theories. >> ifill: this wasn't proven in a lab. has anyone tried it in these 100

years since to debunk the theory? >> oh and over again. the first major proof is in 1919 does a he says gravity will bend a light beam a certain way. we can look at the light from the stars next to the sun to see if it's bent. they wait for the 1990 eclipse and it proves einstein right. over and over again you see stories, einstein's theory disproved or debunked, then you wait a month or two and there has been nothing that cut out the underpinnings of all of relativity and etch the was einstein thought this can't be true. his theory predict black holes and an expanding cosmos. he says that can't be right so some day i'll have to fix the theory. turns out the the theory is right. the universe is expanding, there are brack holes. 100 years ago. >> ifill: walter isaacson,

thank you. >> thank you, gwen. >> woodruff: people are dusting off roasting pans and stove tops to make family favorites this week. but for tens of millions of americans, getting dinner on the table many nights can be a financial challenge. correspondent william brangham went to new york to visit the author of a new cookbook aimed at helping families eat well while stretching their food dollars. he was there just in time to try a few recipes for thanksgiving. >> brangham: walking through a grocery store with lee ann brown, you're going to get a whirlwind of advice. >> you want to get these snack size. but they are often double the price of what you pay if you're just buying the larger quantity. always get a can of tomatoes rather than a jar. >> brangham: brown's mission

is to help shoppers on a tight budget stretch their money and create new options in the kitchen, at the core of her new cookbook, good and cheap, eat well on $4 a day. the book began as her mathers threecies at new york university's food studies program brown wanted to develop recipes to answer a simple question, could someone on food stamp benefits eat well on the program's average budget of $4 per person per day. >> there is a lot of black and white pamphlets and here's how to eat cheaply but there wasn't a lot of stuff on how to still eat well. most of my life long cooking, i know the cost of basic foods is so inexpensive, you just need to know how to put them together. >> brangham: to brown's way of thinking, eating well is a basing right. >> $4 a day is a reality for 46 million people. in some ways, i think it was a reaction to when i was studying thinking this is so unjust, so

difficult, so terrible -- >> brangham: thesis finished, brown posted the recipes and photos on her web site fry for anyone to download. when someone posted it on a popular message board, it took off. >> at first, i felt awful because no one had been to my web site except my father to tell me all the mistakes i had on there. i thought, nobody's listening! but it turned out to be all the people who were likely excited about it saying this is going to be helpful in my life now. >> brangham: that led to a kickstarter campaign. brown met her $10,000 goal in 36 hours. she eventually raised 14 times that and sent more than 30,000 low or no-cost books to various nonprofits to give away to their complaints. the book's been published with 50 new recipes. for every copy purchased, one is given away to someone in need. it reaches beyond those to those

on budget. >> i like to think of my role as coaxing people to give it a try because it's so easy. you have to try it. i think cooking sells itself. >> brangham: the fast approaching holidays won't don't mean brown's principles of thoughtful efficient shopping and cooking have to go out the window. so it's thanksgiving season, people are thinking about planning for the meal. what are basic guidelines you would offer? >> this is the time of year where cooking from scratch is awesome and you're eating a lot of seasonal foods which is a good and cheap principle. the thing i want everyone to keep in mind is you shouldn't feel like you have to make all 20 of those side dishes because that can get really inefficient. >> brangham: brown picked a few recipes that could work as thanksgiving sides and appetizers. >> we're going to make thanksgiving style deviled eggs. >> brangham: i love them. me, too.

they're a great party snack. i say, obviously the classic is fantastic, but you can make them taste like anything you happen to have around. so we're going to basically cut all these guys. lier boiled them. we're doing the take beautiful rosemary and pureed squash with garlic. this is my favorite but it could be sweet potatoes or maybe mashed cauliflower or whatever you have around if you think that could go well with eggs, why not? >> brangham: you don't mind if you're serving this dish with these eggs, you feel these distinct enough you're not overlapping? >> totally, i think this just brings the meal together. >> brangham: each serving costs 15 cents. all of brown's recipes show you roughly what they cost. next cheesy cal cauliflower como

about $1.65 per serving. >> we chopped up the beautiful cauliflower and boiled it 3-4 minutes. now we have that in the bowl and we'll make our sauce. so we'll let the butter melt. one bay leaf, three cloves of chopped garlic. we're going to had flour all in there at once. this is a cup and a half of milk. then we will grab our cheese. >> brangham: the cheese sauce goes over the cauliflower? >> yes. we'll bake it at 400 for about 45 minutes. i have one baking. we can grab that right now. oh, yeah. oh, my gosh. >> brangham: gorgeous. your book, on the surface, seems like a cookbook. it's masquerading as a cookbook but certainly seems there is a manifesto buried on every page there. am i reading into that or is that there?

>> no, i think it's definitely there. i think it as a strategy guide for eating well, you know, how do we do this whole thing? and cooking is a massive part of it but not all of it. i think the manifesto part is it's a strategy guide and a thing we have to do but also something we all absolutely deserve regardless of how much money we have. >> brangham: today more than 71,000 copies of good and cheap have gone to nonprofits around the country where they're distributed to clients who couldn't afford to buy it otherwise. william brangham in new york city. >> woodruff: if you're cooking for only a few this thanksgiving, you'll find a special recipe from leanne brown for a one-pan thanksgiving dinner on our website, where you can also find the recipes from this story. aretha franklin has been given many honors over the years.

but last week, she was honored in a new way as gwen and i emceed the inaugural american portrait gallery gala to honor the portraits of a nation. gwen is back with a conversation with the queen of soul about her remarkable career, and her big plans still coming up. >> ifill: it was an evening to honor legends-- from designers to heroes from the world of sport and the military. but it was the queen of soul who got the red carpet crowd to their feet. ♪ mid-concert, detroit's own aretha franklin added another prestigious honor to her extensive collection. the national portrait gallery's first "portrait of america" award. franklin's likeness hangs at the washington museum.

>> we were ladies, and gentlemen, and we weren't overnight stars. it was gradual. and for me, i just try to keep my head out of the clouds, keep my feet on the ground. ♪ >> ifill: the 73-year-old franklin has been honored for her jazz, rock, pop, classical and gospel singing and is the first female-- and just the fourth artist overall-- to place 100 career titles on billboard's hot r&b /hip hop songs chart. ♪ franklin is no stranger to washington, performing at tree lightings, inaugurations and white house concerts.

in 2005, she received the nation's highest civilian honor: the presidential medal of freedom. this latest honor guarantees that her image will live alongside her soundtrack. national portrait gallery director kim sajet says franklin was a natural choice: >> the portrait of aretha is a gateway. i get a sense of her singing, a big hair moment and she's singing but also her name is spelled in capitol letters "aretha" and she's one of the only few people in this country who we know exactly by her first name, who we are talking about. she's a lesson for all of us. being smart and tenacious and having a dogged determinedness about herself which i think many of us can admire. >> ifill: after her performance at the gallery, i sat down with franklin-- who is seen worldwide

as the diva, the queen, the consummate entertainer. how do you see yourself? >> the lady next door. >> ifill: but nobody thinks of you that way, none of your fans, none of the people in that room tonight, they think of you as much more than that. >> well, no, they don't see me in that setting, right. >> ifill: yeah, so then how do you handle the weight of the diva-ness of this all? because i mean there's a little bit of that in you, you have a lot of flare. >> i love to sing, it's just a natural thing for me. >> ifill: and in the span of a six-decade music career, there was never anything else she wanted to do. so is part of you, you know, always going to be reverend c. l. franklin's daughter? >> absolutely, absolutely. >> ifill: i'm a preacher's kid, too, so... but i don't sing quite like you. >> oh, well, we don't all sing. >> ifill: we have other gifts. >> yes, you have other gifts. >> ifill: i want to ask you about that, because one of the things that comes up with people who are immensely successful about what they choose, is what

brought about the success, who urged you, or who didn't stop you. >> well, my mentor was clara ward, of the famous ward gospel singers of philadelphia, and my dad was my coach, he coached me, and just my natural love for music is what drove me. >> ifill: do you keep watch of the young people who are huge out there, and think that person was the young me? >> when i see choirs, the junior choir. >> ifill: really? >> ifill: but in each and every one of those cases, and tonight, too, you devoted a lot of it to gospel, which i think surprised some of the audiences. do you do that routinely, did you do that on purpose? >> no, i just, i was listening to some of the cds earlier today, and i wasn't happy with my opening song, it just wasn't what i wanted it to be, and then up popped "i came to lift him up", and i said that's it, that's it, that's what i want to

sing. ♪ ♪ >> ifill: exactly. >> it's sunday, and what could be better, this is the lord's day. >> ifill: i see you do that when it's not sunday. >> mm-hm. >> ifill: and i wonder if part of you feels-- >> yeah, you don't have to have any special day. >> ifill: one recent capstone to her career: an invitation to perform for pope francis when he visited philadelphia. she jumped at the chance. >> it was wonderful, a very, very gracious man, very gracious man. >> ifill: and did you get that what you were bringing to this? >> i think that he did, yes, he was all about "the word," bottom line. ♪ ♪ >> ifill: when did you cross the line from gospel to pop? >> i didn't cross the line, gospel goes with me, wherever i go gospel is a constant with me. >> ifill: so when-- >> so i just broadened my musical horizons. >> ifill: so when people hear you sing pink cadillac, there's gospel in that? >> no, no, that's secular.

>> ifill: that's secular. >> that is secular, yes. ♪ >> ifill: i asked her if technology-- including auto-tuning and other digital enhancement-- has changed the music industry's definition of success. >> my generation, we came along, we had to really know our craft, and my dad helped me do that long before i left home. people really don't have to give you anything, so appreciate what people give you. and just don't let that go to your head, whatever it is they give you. it's a lot more difficult now because you've a lot more hart

artists now particularly hip-hop, singers, rappers, the competition is extremely high so you really have got to have something going on. >> reporter: franklin still has a lot going on including upcoming projects with old friends, artists she's gone but not recorded with for decades. >> have you recorded with smokey? >> no, jensen and i are going to do some things together. i've got a lot of fabulous recording ideas. >> are you going to retire? i'm not ever going to retire. that wouldn't be good for someone just to go somewhere, sit down and do nothing, please. >> ms. franklin, thank you very much for talking with us. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: this holiday week, we here at the newshour are giving special thanks... to our fans. we just topped 500,000 followers on the pbs newshour facebook page. if you're not already following the newshour on facebook, take a look. you'll find all of our best content, chats with our anchors and experts, news about what we're working on and thoughtful comments from other viewers like you. thank you for helping us reach this milestone. and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, making sense of the economics that brought the pilgrims to plymouth rock. i'm judy woodruff. join us online. and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, wishing you a happy thanksgiving, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> announcer: this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. fiscally fit? new economic reports show whether the consumer is in good financial shape heading into the holiday shopping season. managing the millions of travelers. what one airline is doing to help things run smoothly during what's expected to be the busiest thanksgiving since 2006. worth the cost? you won't believe how much the nation's largest public pension fund pays for the privilege of investing in private equity. but maybe it's worth it. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, november 25th. good evening, everyone. the consumer is king, at least it is at this time of the year, when many start shopping for the holidays, and that's because consumer spending accounts for nearly th