captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> ifill: good evening, i'm gwen ifill. judy woodruff is away. on the newshour tonight: iraq's prime minister visits war-torn ramadi, after government forces take the city back from isis. also ahead this tuesday: the world health organization announces guinea is now ebola- free, after being the first country hit with the deadly outbreak nearly two years ago. and, how puerto ricans are dealing with water rationing during an extreme drought. >> we can't run if we don't have water. if we want to open the doors, we have to have water. >> ifill: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by bnsf railway. >> 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. >> ifill: a white chicago policeman pleaded not guilty today in the killing of black teenager laquan mcdonald. that case sparked local protest, and gained national attention. jason van dyke was arraigned on

charges of first-degree murder and official misconduct. police video released last month showed him shooting mcdonald 16 times. meanwhile, in cleveland, protesters gathered a day after a grand jury refused to indict two police officers for killing tamir rice. the 12-year-old was shot dead in november of last year. this morning, mayor frank jackson said the city wants to address public anger, in part with a special committee to examine the case. >> the grand jury has said that there's been nothing done wrong criminally. we are reviewing based on what we have seen, whether or not something has been done administratively. a 12-year-old lost his life, something happened. >> ifill: attorneys for the accused officers reiterated today that their clients did not know rice was only 12, or that he had a toy gun-- not a real one.

in pakistan today, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a government office, killing at least 26 people and wounding scores more. it happened in the northwestern city of mardan, near peshawar, in a province bordering afghanistan. the bomber opened fire, then detonated his suicide jacket at a national registration office. many of the victims were there to receive identification cards. >> ( translated ): i was offering my prayers in my house when the blast occurred. it was a huge blast. when i came running here, there were dead bodies lying all around. it was like doomsday. body parts were scattered on the ground. rescue workers were picking up dead bodies and putting them in vehicles. >> ifill: an offshoot of the pakistani taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. police in belgium have arrested two people in a possible plot to stage attacks around new year's. brussels' main square is popular with tourists this time of year, and was allegedly one of the targets. authorities say the plotters had

military-type uniforms and islamic state propaganda. back in this country, days of heavy rain triggered flooding along the mississippi river today, inundating small towns in missouri and illinois. the rising tide also shut down parts of two interstate highways and forced residents of west alton, missouri to evacuate their homes. governor jay nixon warned the worst is yet to come. here that except to say, we've got a lot more water coming, we try to stay in front of it as best we can, today is tuesday and as i said before we're looking at thursday or friday morning for that to crest, so we have 36-48 hours to get ready for the top. >> ifill: later, the governor activated the national guard. elsewhere, heavy rain continues in georgia and alabama, and new england is finally getting snow, after one of the warmest decembers on record. michiagn's governor apologized today for lead contamination in the city of flint's drinking water.

and, his environmental chief resigned. the city started drawing water from the flint river last year to save money. state officials insisted it was safe, but the water corroded aging pipes and released lead. residents have now been warned against drinking unfiltered tap water. and, wall street rallied on higher oil prices, plus upbeat economic reports. the dow jones industrial average gained 192 points to close at 17,720. the nasdaq rose 67 points, and the s&p 500 added nearly 22. still to come on the newshour: a victory in the iraqi city of ramadi. guinea-- ground zero for the ebola outbreak-- declared free of the virus. a law to prevent data breaches. a drought in the heart of the caribbean. and much more.

>> ifill: now to the fight against isis, and the fate of a key city. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner begins with this report. >> warner: it was a triumphant tour for the iraqi prime minister. today haider al abadi planted his country's flag in the city after government troops re-took its center. >> they did not fight, they fled and many were killed. >> reporter: it was a seven-month slog to this day. it was a seven-month slog to this day. islamic state militants had captured ramadi, capital of the majority-sunni anbar province, in may. after encirling ramadi for weeks, last week, iraqi forces, backed by u.s.-led coalition airstrikes, finally launched an assault into the city. and over the weekend, they made a final push to seize its central administration complex. yesterday, troops celebrated as they raised the iraqi flag above the key government building.

today, speaking from baghdad, u.s. army colonel steve warren underscored the role of u.s.-led airpower in retaking the city. >> i would agree that probably 80% of the effort-- i would in ramadi was due to coalition airstrikes. this is significant. and this is what really facilitated or enabled the iraqi forces to move in. it's using that air power as the force multiplier that it is. >> warner: warren also told reporters that airstrikes over the past month have killed 10 islamic state leaders. several of them were linked to the deadly attacks in paris, and one had direct ties to the ringleader of the november 13th rampage. back in ramadi, there is much work left to do. iraqi forces have cleared the areas shown here in green, but militants remain in other parts of the city. indeed, abadi and his convoy were forced to leave one section of ramadi after mortar rounds landed nearby.

explosives also must be removed from streets and buildings. warren declined to predict how long that would take. >> ifill: now, we get the view from iraq with "wall street journal" reporter matt bradley in baghdad. i spoke with him earlier today. matt bradley, thank you for joining us. this victory people have been talking about has been imminent for several days. how significant is that it was accomplished without help of kurdish or shiite militia? >> this victory is vindicating for the iraqi military but also for prime minister haider al-abadi and his partners in the united states. as haider al-abadi said, this is sort of paving the way toward mosul, which will be a much, much more difficult fight. >> ifill: you mentioned haider al-abadi, the prime minister, he made kind of a victory lap througthrough there today.

how well was that received? >> any politician likes to get his picture in the right place at the right time so this is not unusual. rumors were circulating his convoy came under fire from missiles from ten my, but that was not the case at all. this is how difference it is. he is caught between the islamic state on the one side and is shiite militia groups that were very resentful they weren't included in the fight for ramadi. >> ifill: have iraqi troops improved on their performance and how? >> one of the things iraqi troops were able to do in ramadi and not previous battlings were combined tactics, they called the on airstrikes and iraq's military at the right time for the right targets, they combined the use of amphibious assaults when they erected a bridge down river from ramadi to surprise the enemy from the south.

so they have created a combined assault which is a lofty military theory that a lot of these iraqi soldiers hadn't been exposed to until u.s. training this past summer. >> ifill: what effect does it have on morale not only for the iraqi citizens but the iraqi military? >> every victory that happens is strategic. what the iraqi troops really lack is morale, is the feeling they're defending a nation, that their nation is grateful, it's worth saving and their victories won't be usurped or eclipsed by the shiite militias or the peshmerga. this is a huge moment. this is the first time the iraqi military really achieved a victory against the islamic state. up till now, it's only been embarrassing defeats for the iraqi military. >> ifill: and mosul seems like a more difficult target. is that realistic?

>> not at this present moment. mosul is seven times the size of rammedy, second largest city in iraq, the islamic state's de facto capital in this country. there is a huge number of civilians in the city and a lot who have some amount of affection or support for islamic state. so the mosul fight will not be nearly as easy as the ramadi fight, and the ramadi fight wasn't easy at all, so it will get only more difficult. >> ifill: matt bradley reporting from baghdad for the "wall street journal." thank you so much. >> thanks. >> ifill: for the first time in two years, the country where the ebola outbreak began can say it's free of the virus. that's also true for the region of west africa where more than 11,000 people have died in the epidemic. ebola sickened more than 28,000 people across ten countries. mostly in africa.

but a long international effort eventually paid off. william brangham begins our look at the lessons learned and the challenges that remain. >> brangham: the outbreak first began in eastern guinea back in december of 2013 and then spread to neighboring liberia and sierra leone. more than 2,500 people died in guinea before it was fully contained, and today, an estimated 6,000 children there are orphans because of the epidemic. it's now been six weeks since the last known ebola patient repeatedly tested negative for the virus. reports from guinea today suggest a mix of both celebration and wariness. sheri fink has chronicled the impact of the epidemic for the "new york times," and was part of the team who won the pulitzer prize for its coverage. so, sheri fink, guinea says no more ebola. how big a deal is this? >> it's a big deal. as you've said, it's been two years since experts believe the

first case in guinea started this epidemic. that's a very long time. today marks the date all three of the most affected countries have broken the original chain of transmission, the human-to-human transmission that led us to this day of thousands of deaths and many many thousands of people getting sick with ebola. >> brangham: is the scientific community pretty confident we are in fact at zero in liberia at one point was declared ebola free and new cases erupted, so how confident can we be this really is it? >> this has been something we learned this year. in fact, people might even be surprised ebola has slipped from the headlines, that the transmission continued to go up until this date and that is because there have been sort of these cases that nobody knew about of potential ebola kind of hanging out in certain parts of the body that are immune

logically -- immunolodgecally protected in survivors causing minioutbreaks. liberia twice had small flareups thought to be linked from transmission from survivors and in rare cases thought to be sexually transmitted for one thing. so the world health organization is saying human-to-human transmission stopped but guinea will enter a 90-day period of enhanced surveillance to be on thetic lookout for sporadic cases that could pop up and lead to more cases. >> brangham: you reporting over the last months and years have revealed there were real problems in the way the world health organization responded to this epidemic. can you tell us some of the problems they have had and how have they been addressed? >> the world health organization has really been a punching bag for this outbreak and it should be said nobody responded well at

the beginning, but certainly the world health organization as that u.n. body that's in charge of the world's health came in for a lot of criticism and said it was justified, and numerous groups have come out, experts trying to say what can relearn from this. the essential fact was early in the outbreak, the w.h.o. failed to sort of understand its gravity. these cases popped up in a part of the world that hadn't been known to have ebola outbreaks in the past, right at the border of three countries, and very quickly had hit capital cities. so there wasn't just enough of a sense of urgency in that very early response, a sense that this was different from the w.h.o. plus, they had cut down their outbreak response units just before the outbreak happened. this was because, you know, they hadn't had as much money to work with, with the global financial crisis, so they chose to cut certain aspects of their global

health portfolio. unfortunately, one of them was outbreak response. so now the focus is how to strengthen that in the future. >> brangham: you reported also sometimes political concerns got in the way of public health concerns. explain how that happens. >> so the w.h.o. is made up of its member countries, and in the past, even with this outbreak, we saw that there is sort of a punitive response when a country has a dangerous disease like ebola within its borders. airlines shut down flights, countries pull out, and the thought is also that these countries put pressure on the local, the regional w.h.o. offices. they don't want a big deal to be made of this outbreak. so looking forward, a lot of these groups are saying the w.h.o. needs to be protected from that political pressure so that they can address an outbreak, not minimize it, in the beginning as well as the other countries of the world need to reward countries that are willing to come forward and say we've got an outbreak.

and that reward is, you know, immediate assistance to fight the outbreak. more broadly, health systems really need to be strengthened in all these countries. these are countries with poor health systems to begin with, and all the countries of the world have realized that there is an interest in strengthening those health systems. you know, that's partly to help people humanitarian, but partly so that future outbreaks of even more dangerous, you know, epidemics would be stopped at their source. >> brangham: sheri fink of the "new york times," thank you so much. >> thanks. >> ifill: the best way to stop ebola would be developing a vaccine and, in fact, more than a dozen trials and experiments are underway. earlier this year, our science correspondent, miles o'brien, reported on some of those efforts in west africa, and why the search for a cure has been so difficult. this is an encore look from his series, "cracking ebola's code." >> reporter: it's dark and early

in freetown sierra leone. a team of pharmacists is in a nondescript government building preparing the day's supply of an experimental vaccine against ebola. the clock starts running when they take the vaccine out of a very deep freeze. this is likely the coldest spot in the whole country. the vaccine can only be thawed out right before it is injected, or it will lose its potency and all of this will be a waste of time, money and hope. so right now, timing and temperature are absolutely critical. and then it happens. >> the power went out. >> reporter: another reminder of how hard it is to conduct a high-tech vaccine trial in one of the poorest countries on the planet.

but they are ready: they've got two backup generators for the building, solar charged batteries, and if all else fails, a special container that maintains about 100 degrees below zero fahrenheit for five days, without power. pharmacist morrison jusu is delivering the vaccine three and a half miles across freetown. after a seemingly endless national nightmare, he carries a cooler full of expectations. he knows much is riding with him. >> some people lost family members. some families were essentially wiped-out as a result of this thing. if this vaccine proves out to be something that prevents such in the future, then it's, words cannot describe how much relief that would be to this community.

>> reporter: while jusu and the vaccine are wending their way, a line is growing outside their destination: freetown's connaught hospital. the volunteers start showing up before dawn. they are healthcare workers, this trial is limited to them because they are, by far, the most at risk of contracting ebola virus disease. even though there is no evidence the vaccine poses any real danger, they must weigh the rumors and the uncertainties. >> life is all about risks. but i believe it will be of help in the job that i do. >> ( translated ): it is a high risk for me. i believe this can protect me from ebola and that's why i came here for this vaccine. >> reporter: it wasn't always this way, the trial got off to a slow start when it began in april, people were too afraid. dr. mohammed samai is one of the principal investigators. >> people said the vaccine was the ebola virus. so once you get it, you become infected.

so, a lot of people were not willing to come forward there in the first week to take the vaccine because they thought they should wait and see what happens. >> reporter: the vaccine does contain a piece of the ebola virus, a protein, it's enough to trick the body into triggering its natural defenses, but won't give the recipient ebola virus disease. on the wall in the lobby of the hospital: a spontaneous memorial to some of the doctors and nurses who died here during the epidemic, a grim reminder of what motivates volunteers like richard kanu. >> ( translated ): i became aware of it through my friends who got the shot three days ago. since they're not having side effects, i decided to come and have a go at it myself, because i feel it will protect me. >> reporter: kanu works on a team that buries the highly contagious dead. he has been shunned by friends, even forced out of his own home.

>> ( translated ): i will go back and tell them that i've had the vaccine and they should rest assured that i won't have the virus. i will probably encourage them to step forward as well. >> reporter: bad traffic delays jusu's ride to the hospital, but when he arrives, everything is okay. the vaccine isn't spoiled, and the volunteers are ready. the nursing team does not waste any time prepping for the "jabs." aruna thorlie is a chlorine sprayer who disinfects ebola treatment units. have you felt anything different? did it hurt or anything? >> i feel the same as i did before. i hope and pray that it works. >> reporter: the vaccine is made by merck. the trial is a partnership between the sierra leone ministry of health, the u.s. centers for disease control and prevention and the medical college in freetown. >> once we can document the effectiveness of the vaccine and we are now sure that it can really protect them, we can move to another stage where we look at the community and the population at large.

>> reporter: across the border in liberia, a separate trial is testing the same vaccine, along with another one made by glaxo smith kline. it is open to all, and based at this hospital in monrovia. in the darkest days of the crisis here in liberia, a senior doctor and nurse here at redemption hospital contracted ebola virus disease and they subsequently died. many of the health care workers here became afraid to come to work and the hospital had to close for a time. in all 13 members of the hospital staff died here. >> it was scary. it was confusing >> reporter: dr. mark kieh is the site physician for the trial. so far, there are 1,500 volunteers. he is carefully watching them for side effects. so far so good. >> those we've seen are expected side effects of fever, muscle pain, pain at the injection sites, some joint pains, few

people with rashes that resolved over time. >> reporter: the trial is run by liberia's ministry of health and the u.s. national institute of allergy and infectious disease. its director, dr. anthony fauci, has intense, intimate understanding of the ravages of ebola. >> at least in the most recent patient that we took care of, that's about as sick as you can get without dying. >> reporter: on march 14, 2015, he suited up to treat a u.s. health care worker who became infected in sierra leone, and was airlifted to the n.i.h. hospital outside washington where he received the highest level of intensive care possible, it kept him alive while his body mounted its own defense. >> reporter: it was touch and go for a week, but he survived. >> all of the people who have recovered from ebola, even those who have been very ill, it was their immune system that ultimately suppressed and

eliminated the virus. >> reporter: this is why fauci and others are optimistic they have a found a way to stop ebola its tracks. the human body can create the antibodies to fight off ebola, but usually not fast enough. an effective vaccine creates an army of ebola antibodies that can stop the virus before it stampedes through the body. but here is the ironic rub: >> if we are successful in controlling ebola, we won't be successful in determining whether the vaccines are effective at preventing ebola. >> reporter: dr. tom frieden is director of the c.d.c. ebola cases in liberia are now at zero, and sierra leone is close behind. >> if no one is getting ebola, you can't tell for sure if the vaccine is protective. so they have to rely on other evidence. >> reporter: the trials underway now will at least tell us whether they're safe, and they will tell us whether they lead to an immune reaction.

we wish we were further along with the vaccine, but it's very difficult to do research in the middle of an epidemic. in freetown, pharmacist morrison jusu is among those who scrambled to get this trial underway at all. he is anxious to know if the hard work will pay off. >> we are really looking forward to it being successful so that someday in the future we would be able to say, "yes, i was a part of that team and i contributed." it will be a great feeling then. >> reporter: the answer will have to wait. but no one doubts the vaccine will meet its viral foe, someday. miles o'brien, the pbs newshour, freetown, sierra leone.

>> ifill: before the president and congress left town for the holidays, they managed to enact a massive, 2,000-page package of spending and tax cuts. typically, these laws draw attention for the chaos they can create, like shutting down the government. but there's a lot more deep inside-- in this case, a significant and controversial new law governing cybersecurity and internet data. the new law encourages private companies to share data about cyber hacks with the government. protects companies from liability, and also allows data to shared with other companies, and with the department of homeland security. lawmakers from both parties said it was a good deal. >> if someone sees a particular virus, they should tell others. that's what this bill does.

>> we believe that sharing is an area where we really can't do any harm. it doesn't hurt anybody to talk, but right now, they can't even talk. >> does it make sense that we require the report of a case of measles to a government agency but not a cyber attack? >> ifill: but some security advocates and privacy groups say the law manages to go too far, as well as not quite far enough. jeffrey brown has that debate. >> brown: to understand more, we're joined by james lewis, senior fellow for the center for strategic and international studies, and elissa shevinsky, founder of jekudo, a tech start- up designed to provide private communications to customers. welcome to both of you. james lewis, let me start with you. the proponents of this in congress say that this will allow the government to

coordinate information, and they think this is the best way to do it, and then push back to other companies, push out information about how to prevent it in the future. >> you know, it's a really good first step, and it's great congress managed to pass a law, almost amazing, but we have a lot of work to do. in cybersecurity in general, this is a little step. in information sharing, a lot of things have to come together for it to work. we've tried this for a long time. it's hard to share information, classified information, private information. we'll see where we are a year from now, but a good first step, a long way to go. >> brown: from a security perspective, what's the goal and how will the new law try to achieve it? >> this is something the u.s. has been trying to do for almost 18 years now and it's never worked. the theory is, if you remove some of the obstacles to sharing information, people will do more, will know what the threats are and maybe they'll take action, but that's where the

bill falls apart. >> brown: that's where you see a problem. >> yeah. there is no incentive for people to use information. this doesn't change. it's like me telling you, hey, the chinese are trying to hack into your computer, be ready. it doesn't really affect what people will do to defend themselves and keeps us in a reactive posture. >> brown: ms. shevinsky, a lot of people raised privacy concerns in all this. explain the problems you see. >> there are numerous problems with this bill. it doesn't actually help us with security. more, it's more information gathering for the government, and it makes it difficult for executives like myself to actually safeguard the privacy of our customers. in the past, we've been able to rely on our privacy policies to create trust with our customers. we can say the privacy policy says that we can't share your data with third parties.

with this bill, that will no longer apply. now companies will be coerced into sharing customer data with government. >> brown: is it voluntary? they say it's voluntary, but if the government comes to you and says they want information, it's tricky to say no. >> brown: what do you say about this? >> it's the d.h.s. we're talking about and it's very hard for them to coarse anyone. it's voluntary. that's my concern -- since it's voluntary, people are unlikely to do anything. this doesn't expand the information companies are gathering, it's their decision whether they share it and no authority in the bill for the government to coarse anyone. so i haven't thought about coercion as a problem. >> brown: what would you like to see happen? gets we'll have to tackle hard issues. we'll have to tackle what is the role of the military, where do we need to regulate and how do we work with other countries to come to some understanding of what we should or should not do in cyberspace. >> brown: what do you see the

government saying to companies? >> what they're saying is you eat normore than we do, which could be true. you certainly know different things than we do. so if you can give us that threat information and we can share back with you, it will help everyone. it could work. it hasn't worked so far, but that's the theory. >> brown: elissa shevinsky, where do you see the line from where you sit, this line of security and privacy? >> we need to actually build and enforce real security. it requires encritting our data. it -- it requires encrypting our data and taking new measurements in the government. so many offices were hacked this year, we need to review their security practices if they hold more citizen data. >> brown: that could be right, this is an evolving threat both to the private sector and the government. >> that's right and this bill doesn't address that. this bill is information gathering for d.h.s. and doesn't

actually support what we need for improving the security of our companies and government agencies. >> brown: what kind of system would you like to see in place? >> we need to actually improve the security of how we're storing and managing data, who has access to that data. more threat intelligence will help us because we already know what the threats look like. >> brown: james lewis, is there still a lot to work out? a still a lot to know about how this will be implemented. >> yeah, the bill has a lot of reporting dates and actions for implementation. i think that -- you know, the debate between the privacy community and the agencies with where does the information go, they settled on d.h.s., now d.h.s. has to prepare itself. so there is a lot of action. right now, it doesn't change anything. maybe three months from now we'll see some improvement. >> brown: how would you judge success in something like this?

how do we know? >> unfortunately, the metrics are very simple, how many people are getting in, how much data is flowing out and if the numbers aren't going down, it's not working. >> brown: james lewis, elissa shevinsky, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> ifill: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: the winner of this year's national book award for poetry. and, why there are still so few women in science. for the entire summer of 2015 the residents of puerto rico lived under drought conditions. water was rationed and in some towns only available in public places. as special correspondent chris bury reports, the rains have returned but the island's recession and debt crisis remain a burden on the water infrastructure.

>> reporter: the remnants of hurricane danny and tropical storm erika that drenched puerto rico in august were, in fact, a great relief for this tropical island-- 3,500 square miles surrounded by the blue caribbean. in a new era of greatly reduced rainfall, and extended dry spells, the most precious commodity these days is water. clean, fresh water. but for nearly five months in the summer and early fall, the most populous parts of the country depended on 1,600 gallon tanks of water, like this. at one point, more than 100 of these tanks helped puerto ricans cope with the worst drought in more than twenty years. near san juan, juliana chiclana was filling up water jugs for a household that includes eight grandchildren. >> ( translated ): one is emotionally affected by the drought itself, which, at least for me, i've never experienced a drought this big. >> reporter: in this town, the

tap water was on for 24 hours. then, off for 72 hours. so families had to load up with enough to get through three days without tap water at home. >> ( translated ): in a way i'm grateful that it's three, because they had announced that it was going to be five days. >> reporter: the rationing, in force from mid-may until september, was the most stringent ever imposed. just outside san juan, the torres family lived for months with those restrictions. so we have the kitchen without water? >> that's right. >> reporter: on the day we visited, water rationing was in effect for the entire neighborhood. here, they could turn on the taps every other day. what happens if you try and turn on the water? >> well if you turn it on you have no water. we are in a drought rationing. so we have a rationing, 24 hours, we have one day with water, one day without water. >> reporter: 24 hours on, 24 hours off... >> 24 hours on, 24 hours off.

>> reporter: so, like thousands of others here, dehuel and his wife jessica had to cope, creatively. in the bathrooms, he installed 22 gallon tanks for cleaning and hygiene. >> to use our toilet on a regular basis. >> reporter: and to bathe, they relied on this small camp shower. dehuel filled it from a big barrel that sits outside in the sun, to keep the water warm. then hung it up in the bathroom, where the showers-- by necessity-- were brief. >> there we go, got our shower. >> reporter: and, in the kitchen, some more improvisation: dehuel attached a faucet to this big bucket. that's how they saved enough water to do the dishes on those days when the tap ran dry. >> we have to turn it off, then clean each cup or dish one by one, to save water. then turn it up to rinse it. >> reporter: for the torres family, the drought not only meant a dramatic change in their daily lives. it's cost them more money, too. >> it's more expensive.

we need to buy more containers, container to supply our needs, so that's another expense that we have to look into. >> reporter: in much of puerto rico, the drought created a cottage industry of coping: hardware stores hawked buckets with faucets already bolted on. this sign said, "don't stay soapy." along highways, vendors sold the bucket contraptions, too-- $15 apiece. and, on rooftops everywhere, plastic cisterns stored extra water to ride out the rationing. for many businesses, such as this seafood restaurant and bar, the drought made life more difficult, and more expensive. employees washed dishes the old fashioned way. plastic cups replaced glass ones and the restaurant relied on delivered ice. >> like you see, it's brand new. >> reporter: outside, manager luis torres showed us two new 600 gallon cisterns that stored water for the days when it was not available. how important is water to your business?

>> we can't run if we don't have water. if we want to open the doors, we have to have water. >> reporter: many of the island's tourist resorts were relatively unaffected because their water flows from a remote aqueduct, not local reservoirs. but the lack of water took its toll on agriculture on the the drought dried up the pastures where cattle typically graze. in much of the country, milk production fell. this farm grows plantains, mangoes, avocados and other fruit. but farmer daniel carrenas says the dry weather stunted their growth. >> there might be as many fruit, maybe, but they tend to be smaller. and then a lot of things can die, let's say the plantanos usually they definitely need water >> these two sections, are the ones that are very dry. >> reporter: jose molinelli freytes, a professor of environmental science at the university of puerto rico, blamed a confluence of factors,

including el nino: the unusually warm currents in the pacific that affect weather globally, and reduce precipitation in the caribbean. another factor: hot dust from the sahara desert that dissipates storm clouds before they reach puerto rico: all part of a changing climate. >> the models predict, for example, that for the caribbean, we're going to have 20% reduction in rainfall by the middle of the century. and it will be intensifying. >> reporter: and that, he says, does not bode well for puerto rico's aging-- and crumbling-- water system. that the dams need maintenance. that the reservoirs have too much silt and sediment, reducing their capacity. and that old water pipes routinely springs leaks, such as this one bubbling up on a city street. >> when it is pumped through the distribution system, more than half of the water is lost due to aging infrastructure and leaking. >> reporter: more than half? >> more than half. >> reporter: but puerto rico, suffering from a recession and

deep in debt, is too starved for cash to even partially plug the leaks. and the rationing drained revenue from the island's water utility, which is headed by alberto lazaro. >> it's costing us quite a bit. it's costing us about $12 million per month. and that cost is mostly income or revenues that are not being received, because if we are shutting off services for two days at a time, then people are going to use less water. >> reporter: dehuel and jessica torres told us the drought was another burden to shoulder in a difficult economy. one more reason they have thought about leaving for the mainland united states. >> with this situation of uncertainty that we're experiencing right now, the drought, the government is not actually helping us. it creates a lot of uncertainty in the people, and people might say they have the option, we're not in another country, we have the option. we're american citizens. >> reporter: even the scientist who studies the climate here was counting on nature to intervene. is puerto rico praying for a good hurricane?

>> i will say that a good hurricane that passes by and brings a lot of rain, that will be a blessing if that occurs. >> reporter: the late summer rains did dump enough rain on puerto rico so that the water authority eventually ended the rationing. but now the dry season has begun, and puerto rico will need more rain next year to prevent another drought that will send the residents of this tropical island scrambling for that most precious commodity: clean, fresh water. i'm chris bury for pbs news hour in carolina, puerto rico. >> ifill: when the 2015 national book awards were announced last month, robin coste lewis, a fellow at the university of southern california, was awarded the poetry prize for her first collection of poems, "voyage of

the sable venus." jeff is back with their conversation, conducted at the recent miami book festival. there are many personal poems in this, but the poem that anchors the collection, the "voyage of the sable venus," has a very particular focus, the history of african-american women, their bodies in art. >> yes. it's actually the history of black female bodies in art. that's partly why i did the project. it exceeds the national boundaries and events, the history of america by several millenia and goes into prehistoric images of black females. >> brown: why did you want to explore that? >> i didn't want to go back that far, but once i started doing research, and i have a background in ancient languages, so i went into the ancient world to see what was going on there, and i found images of black women in subservient positions

or as the tripod of a lamp or a handle of a razor blade or five and i thought, how long have you been doing this to each other? that was my primary question. everywhere i looked, the time period, the continent, it was having. i couldn't look away. i had to keep going. >> brown: why do poetry? it's a huge subject. it's a fascinating subject. >> right. because poetry is song. poetry first and foremost is the music, the lyric. and epic is one of the oldest forms we have as human beings and i thought it would be really helpful and also mirror the history itself if i tried to capture the history of how we've looked at black women visually in epic form. it made sense to me as opposed

to writing essays. essays are fun and i love writing them as well, but to do it with poem, it's like poetry is almost primordial for us, like breathing. everybody lullabies. we all know what it means to be sung so. poetry is close to that. i wanted to keep my reader close. i didn't want a distance between me and my reader. >> brown: "voyage of the sable venus" is a painting, right? >> an etching from 1787, i think. >> brown: a kind of allegory of a black woman on passage from africa to -- >> it's a redepth of venus on the clam shell but this is a blackwoman and she's been drawn to the water by ciewp ids and neptune. instead of neptune having a trident, it turns out to be this image and is based on a poem based on this title "voyage of

the sable venus." it's on how to rape a white woman is disgusting and how it's different raping a black womanl in night because you can't see their bodies. you continue to realize that the title itself was so gorgeous, the "voyage of the sable venus." the complete contradiction of what the image performed and what the title side seemed to me to be a cue to look further. so the more i looked and the more titles i found, the weirder it got and the more interesting it got. >> brown: is it important for you that poetry connect with things, with history, with -- >> yes, it is. >> brown: yes? yeah, because, i mean, this is just me, right? i'm not saying all potes should

do this, i feel like i'm here in the body of a particular time and that time is completely impacted by very large and very small movements by human beings, whether it's on grand historical scale like wars or small historical scales like i had a baby. all those things are in time, impact bid how we treat each other, how we live in the world, so it's important to me that be reflected in my work for sure, otherwise, i feel like i'm wasting my reader's time. i don't want to waste my readers' time. my readers are very important to me, you know. so if i'm going to -- i don't want to pretend that they're not there. i don't want my work to pretend they're not there. i want them to know every moment i'm thinking of them. i don't necessarily need to see them or entertain them, but i treat them with great respect and i also assume my readers have great intelligence so i also don't want to talk down to

them. so all those things go into how i present the work on the page. >> brown: who do you look to for influences? >> oh, that's such a hard question. >> brown: yeah. yeah. who don't i look to for influences. on the one hand, i look to, you know, visual artists, there is a long list of those people. then musicians with whom i can't live out, holmes, parker, oscar was talking about his work today, i look to poets, sure, but it's just a large, lush, saturated feel i go to. toni morrison was a big influence on my work as a teenager. what she did with english, i joke she speaks 20 englishes simultaneously and she knows how to do that. it's just huge. a long list. >> brown: robin coste lewis, her book "voyage of the sable

venus." thank you so much. >> thank you so much. >> ifill: now we turn to one of our newshour essays. women in this country earn just over 57% of bachelor's degrees in all fields, yet they receive less than 20% of degrees conferred in computer science, engineering and physics. a recent study by the american association of university women also found that in 2013, 26% of all computing jobs were held by women-- a drop from 35% in 1990. we asked eileen pollack, one of the first two women to receive a bachelor's of science degree in physics at yale, and who now teaches creative writing at the university of michigan, to share an idea from her latest book: "the only woman in the room: why science is still a boys' club." here's an encore look.

>> when i was growing up, i wanted passionately to be a physicist. but in seventh grade, the principal wouldn't let me enter the accelerated track in science and math. girls never go on to careers in those subjects, he told my mother. besides, he said, getting skipped ahead in science and math would ruin my social life. as a result, i arrived at yale in 1974 far behind my male classmates. i failed my first physics midterm, and my parents urged me to switch majors. but i worked incredibly hard and didn't give up. four years later, i graduated with a nearly perfect g.p.a., an "a" in a graduate course in gravitational theory, and two original research papers. even so, i didn't go on. as ridiculous as it seems now, i assumed that if i were talented enough to apply to graduate school, one of my professors would have let me know. since then, i've done a lot of

research on gender bias in the sciences, and i'm sorry to report not much has changed. when parents ask why there are still so few girls in advanced science and math classes in high school, i tell them: because girls still need way more encouragement than boys to take those courses. we still raise girls to look to other people for assurance they are attractive and smart, while boys are raised to determine their own value. many girls are still made to feel it's not feminine to be good at science or math. and if a girl complains about how hard her a.p. calculus class is, her parents are more likely to let her drop than if her brother voices the same complaint. as a result, by the time they get to college, most girls won't, or can't, sign up for rigorous courses in science or math. those who do often find themselves unprepared or lacking in confidence. what delivers the one-two punch

that knocks so many women and minorities out of stem fields is that scientists have this strange belief that if you need to be encouraged, you aren't talented or dedicated enough to be one of them. if you flunk your first physics or calculus midterm, you deserve to be weeded out. what they don't realize is that young women and students of color grow up in a society that fails to encourage-- and often actively discourages-- them from thinking of themselves as scientists. ask most people to picture a physicist and they will imagine albert einstein or sheldon from "the big bang theory." my parents didn't know how to provide me with the encouragement i needed to achieve my dreams. but the solution isn't rocket science. if your daughter finds herself in a course designed to weed her out, you can cheer her on, urge her to seek extra help, and give her a giant pat on the back for having made it so far, despite all the discouragement she

already has overcome. >> ifill: on the newshour >> ifill: a news update before we leave you, former new york governor george pataki is dropping his 2016 presidential bid. pa tacky reportedly told reporters he is suspending his campaign and will air a special message in new hampshire, iowa and south carolina later tonight. h he is the fifth republican to drop out leaving 12 in the race. on the newshour online: 38 million people are expected to fly u.s. airlines this holiday season. that demand increases the likelihood that you might get bumped -- even when you have a confirmed reservation. but there is one carrier that lets you decide how much your seat, and your time, is worth. see how delta lets its passengers bid on travel vouchers when it overbooks.

that story is on our making sense page. and, with the g.o.p field now down to an even dozen, see how well you remember the year in politics. take newshour political director's lisa desjardin's quiz. i bet you can do better than i did. that story is on our home page, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, author michael pollan's new documentary on the dangers of processed food. i'm gwen ifill, join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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