captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is away. on the newshour tonight, the longest war just got longer. president obama announces a setback in withdrawals from afghanistan, leaving 8,400 u.s. troops to combat a resurgent taliban. then, we continue our series "fault lines," an inside look at the crippling challenges facing ukraine's government. and, parents finally find treatment for children's epilepsy with medical marijuana, but unclear science and stigma threaten this source of relief. >> sometimes the batch will be effective, will make the seizures better; sometimes, the next month, it will be worse, the seizures will get worse. >> woodruff: all that and more,

on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> ♪ love me tender ♪ love me true we can like many, but we can love only a precious few. because it is for those precious few that you have to be willing to do so very much. but you don't have to do it alone. lincoln financial helps you provide for and protect your financial future, because this is what you do for people you love. lincoln financial-- you're in charge. >> md anderson cancer center. making cancer history. >> bnsf railway.

>> xq institute. >> 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: republicans in the u.s. house of representatives are going to investigate the f.b.i.'s inquiry into hillary clinton's email practices. they announced today that f.b.i. director james comey will testify tomorrow on why he recommended no criminal charges be filed.

attorney general loretta lynch will be called before the congress next week. we will focus on the reasoning behind the f.b.i.'s decision, later in the program. a republican gun and anti-terror bill has run into trouble in the house. it bars gun sales to anyone on a terror watch list-- if prosecutors can prove probable cause of a potential crime. some 40 members of the "freedom caucus" came out against it today, even though the national rifle association endorsed a similar bill in the senate. that leaves house speaker paul ryan without the votes to pass the measure-- for now. >> we have members from both sides of the aisle who want to make improvements, who want to make changes to the bill. we want to make sure we get it right. the last thing we're going to do is rush something to the floor that we don't have right. and again, this matters to us. this is the constitution. this means we get this right. we do not want to violate a citizen's due process rights. >> woodruff: meanwhile, house democrats called again for much stronger gun legislation. congressman john lewis of

georgia spoke at a capitol rally today. >> we cannot give up now. we cannot be patient. we have come to that point where we're trying to say to members of congress, all of our members, you must do something! you must act, and act now. not tomorrow, but now! >> woodruff: democrats staged a sit-in on the house floor last month, but so far, speaker ryan has turned aside their demands for votes. a long-awaited report today painted a damning picture of britain's march to war with iraq in 2003. the government-commissioned probe found that the legal basis for military action was "far from satisfactory"; it concluded that britain joined the war effort before all peaceful options had been exhausted; and, then-prime minister tony blair overestimated his ability to influence u.s. policy. but blair today stood by his decisions:

>> obviously, some of the intelligence has turned out to be wrong, the planning wasn't done properly, i have to accept those criticisms. i accept responsibility for them, but i think people want me to go one step further, and this is my problem. it's a very fundamental problem and i know it causes a lot of difficulty, even with people who might support me otherwise. they say, "no, we want you to apologize for the decision." i can't do that. >> woodruff: british combat forces left iraq in 2009, after losing 179 dead. in syria, the military announced a unilateral, three-day truce to mark the end of the muslim holy month of ramadan. state tv showed syrian president bashar al-assad at prayer services in homs. government forces recaptured the city earlier this year. rebel groups said fighting continued elsewhere. a judge in south africa sentenced paralympian oscar pistorius today to six years in prison, for murdering his girlfriend in 2013.

the double amputee could have gotten 15 years. pistorius stood silently in the court in pretoria, as a judge handed down the sentence. she called him a "fallen hero." back in this country, a congressional commission reports the veterans affairs health care system is still plagued by "profound deficiencies." it finds quality of care differs widely, and veterans still face long waits. the findings come two years after revelations that v.a. officials falsified paperwork about wait times. and european markets slipped again, amid concerns about britain leaving the e.u., but wall street made modest progress. the dow jones industrial average gained 78 points to close at 17,918. the nasdaq rose 36 points, and the s&p 500 added 11. still to come on the newshour: protests break out in baton

rouge after video of another police shooting emerges; what's driving the president to keep more troops in afghanistan; a deeper look at the legal standard used in the clinton email investigation, and much more. >> woodruff: the u.s. justice department has opened a civil rights investigation into another police shooting-- this time in baton rouge, louisiana. yesterday, 37-year-old alton sterling was confronted and shot by an officer responding to a disturbance call. the city's police chief said sterling had a gun at the time. but a cell phone video that caught part of the altercation and was widely viewed on social media led many to ask whether the shooting was justified. here is some of what was seen. and a warning-- the video is graphic.

>> woodruff: at a press conference today, the mother of one of alton sterling's children, spoke of his death. >> it will not go unnoticed. especially for the future. i, for one, will not rest, not allow him to be swept in the dirt. >> woodruff: the two officers involved in the incident are now on administrative leave. louisiana governor john bel edwards called the video disturbing and said he has a very serious concern. kevin litten is covering the

story for the "times-picayune." kevin litten, tell us exactly what is known about what happened to alton sterling early tuesday morning. >> hi, judy. so what we know now is that alton sterling was in a parking lot of a convenience store in north baton rouge, it's a well-traveled area both night and day, and someone called the police and said that someone was threatening in that parking lot with a gun, when police responded they made contact with mr. sterling and an altercation ensued. from what you can see on the video, they apparently had mr. sterling on the ground and, during that altercation on the ground, shots were fired at mr. sterling, and he died very soon after of his injuries. what's unclear right now is

whether or not mr. sterling actually did have a gun. there's a witness report that said police removed the gun from him, but at a press conference later today, the police would not confirm whether he had a weapon. so i believe it's going to be a key part of the investigation that the f.b.i. is looking at. the other thing we learned today is there's some questionable video from the body cameras that the police had. there is questions about whether or not it's actually going to be able to be used. apparently both officers lost the body cam or it fell off during that altercation, but we obviously had the video that you just showed, and that is what is really driving much of the anger in this city. >> woodruff: and just quickly, you've done some reporting about alton sterling, his life, who he was? >> yeah, i just got back from meeting with someone who runs a transitional housing complex that's, many times, for offenders that are being

released from prison or trying to get back on their feet. so my understanding is mr. sterling was a sex offender. he had been released for about six months. but he was on the right track. the person i spoke to said mr. sterling was one of the good ones and never had issues with him, was always on time, loved to cook for the men he lived with, red beans and rice was his favorite dish to cook, and was good to his children. sounds like in the six months he had been released, he was working a part-time job as a cook, selling c.d.s as a side entrepreneurial gig and in the other time he had, he was trying to see his kids. as you can see from the emotional reaction from his son in the heartbreaking press conference today, there was a closeness he was able to to have with his children and he wanted to stay on the right track to continue to be a part of their lives. >> woodruff: kevin litten with the "new york times" picayune,

we thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: our nation's longest war just got longer. the obama administration had hoped to cut the number of u.s. service personnel in afghanistan, currently 10,000, in half by the end of the year. but today, the president said increased threats will put the number at 8,400. >> we have to deal with the realities of the world as it is. we can't forget what's at stake in afghanistan. this is where al qaida is trying to regroup, this is where isil continues to try to expand its presence. if these terrorists succeed in regaining areas and camps where they can train and plot, they will attempt more attacks against us. we cannot allow that to happen. >> woodruff: hari screenivasan is in our new york studios to explore why this decision was made and what it means. >> sreenivasan: and we get that

from seth jones, director of the international security and defense policy center at the rand corporation. he's written extensively about the afghan conflict, and has served as an advisor to the special operations forces commander in afghanistan. so, seth, the difference between the numbers, 8400 to 5500, why the decision now? >> well, i think it reflects a bit of a collaboration between the military which wanted higher numbers -- the numbers came down from just under 10,000 -- they wanted those roughly the same or close to that, and the president which had asked for about $5,500 or so. this largely meets up somewhere in the middle. didn't go down to the levels the military feared but gives the president an argument politically that he continues to end the u.s. involvement in the war. >> sreenivasan: what's the difference in real practical terms? if we have another couple thousand troops on the ground in different parts of afghanistan, what does that mean to afghan

forces? >> i thinkest issue is if the u.s. had gone down to 5500, it would have been mostly kinetic operations, strikes against al quaida, taliban. with the numbers, 8400, there's some ability to train, advise and assist afghan forces in the field, giving the military more wiggle room to train afghan forces out in the field and back in their barracks. >> sreenivasan: this isn't what the military wanted, so does that end up compromising the end goal here to get the afghan forces standing up as fast as possible? >> well, look, i think this is one of many factors. this is about a number of forces. trr a lot of other things, the posture of u.s. forces, which forces to put in whether special or conventional. i think at this number, it does allow the u.s. to do some training-advising, some strikes against the taliban, but a lot of this will be outside the u.s.'s control, it's going to be

about the quality of the afghan government and that's something the military won't be able to control. >> sreenivasan: and haven't we recently loosened the restrictions on what american forces are allowed to do if they're engaged in combat with the taliban or other torses. >> restrictions in two senses, one is who the u.s. can target on the ground for a while. it was largely just al quaida forces. the u.s. loosened that a couple of months ago to include islamic state operatives mostly in eastern afghanistan and now also to include some senior taliban officials and we saw that with the targeting of mansour recently. there is also changes in what the u.s. can do in putting forces on the ground in combat area. >> reporter: this is tailored to help afghan force. is there something official our troops are engaged in when it comes to training afghan military forces?

>> the commandos and special forces, having this number more than the 5500 the president initially said he wanted to get down to the end of 2016, does allow him to tailor some of the training to the high-end forces that will be important in case the taliban try to storm, take and hold a major afghan provincial or even district capitol. >> sreenivasan: the geopolitical aspect, this comes before the n.a.t.o. summit. >> the timing is good, just before warsaw. this sends a message to america's n.a.t.o. allies that the u.s. is going to be committed at roughly decent levels through the next administration and there are german forces, for example, operating in northern afghanistan, italians in the west. they're going to keep their forces roughly the same numbers with the u.s. commitment, now. >> sreenivasan: and also, let's take a look at the

counterweight here. the president says that this should indicate to the taliban that w -- that really is only wy through this, leaving forces on the ground. >> the negotiations are in an infant stage, not a lot of serious discussions like in a lot of other conflicts. it's not clear if we'll get to this end. only a quarter of insurgencies end by settlement, the u.s. would like it to end this way clearly, but we have to get to a stalemate before a settlement. >> sreenivasan: how much is the shadow of iraq looming over these decisions especially in the last few weeks and months when we've seen such incredible violence in iraq? >> i think there's no question that the shadow of iraq hangs over afghanistan. the u.s. decision, sort of black and white, to pull out forces in 2011, and then what happens

after that with the islamic state state takeover of mosul and other places, i think the u.s. is operating more cautiously in incrementally pulling out forces so as to not take too much risk. >> sreenivasan: seth jones from the rand corporation. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: there is some breaking news this evening related to hillary clinton's handling of emails-- attorney general loretta lynch will follow the f.b.i.'s decision to not pursue criminal charges. she said in a statement: "i received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough, year-long investigation be closed and that no charges be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation."

while that appears to put an end to the prospect of legal action, lisa desjardins reports on the political fallout. >> reporter: candidate hillary clinton was out stumping for the presidency on the jersey coast today. but the democrat was still taking heat for her time as secretary of state. this morning, house speaker paul ryan slammed the f.b.i. decision to not recommend charges in its investigation probe of clinton's private email use, suggesting the democrat's nominee-to-be not get classified briefings. >> i was on the ticket in 2012. after the convention, you get the full deep classified information as part of transition, as part of being a nominee. i think, the d.n.i., clapper, should deny hillary clinton access to classified information during this campaign, given how she so recklessly handled classified information. >> reporter: he was asked, did clinton get preferential treatment? >> i'll let everybody be the judge. looks like it to me. >> reporter: f.b.i. director james comey is also in republicans' sights-- the house oversight committee quickly set up a hearing for tomorrow where comey will testify about the email case. attorney general loretta lynch will appear before another panel next week. republican presidential hopeful

donald trump pressed the issue on the trail in north carolina. >> i always felt that hillary clinton would escape criminal charges for her dangerous and illegal behavior. because i always knew, and i always see, and it's so sad, that our system is in fact rigged. it's totally rigged, okay? >> reporter: as for team clinton, their day today was spent on offense-- bidding to move the focus off the email story. part one of her game plan, expanding proposals on student loans. in a statement, clinton said she is taking a page from bernie sanders in proposing to make public universities tuition-free for most american families. part two of her pivot to offense, confronting trump's business record head-on, in a place he knows-- atlantic city. >> we're standing in front of old trump plaza and casino. trump once predicted it'd be the biggest hit yet. now it's abandoned.

it's fair to ask since he's applying for a job. what in the world happened here? >> reporter: but as clinton and her campaign fired off their broadsides, trump responded right away in kind: he issued a statement saying it was common practice to "use bankruptcy proceedings to...ultimately save jobs." and he continued: "nobody understands the economy like i do and no one, especially not crooked hillary clinton, will do more for the economy than i will." meanwhile, there's one fewer person on trump's possible v.p. list-- the man he campaigned with last night, tennessee senator bob corker, took himself out of the running. and amidst all this, bernie sanders met today behind closed doors with democrats in congress, pushing to change the party's priorities. some reportedly booed him for not yet endorsing clinton. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: we move beyond the politics to the legal questions raised by the f.b.i.'s decision

not to recommend criminal charges against hillary clinton, with shannen coffin, who is an attorney in private practice. he previously served as a deputy assistant attorney general for the civil division at the department of justice and as counsel to vice president cheney; and stephen vladeck, a professor at the university of texas school of law where he focuses on federal jurisdiction, constitutional law, and national security law. we welcome both of you to the program. let me start with you, shannen coffin, do you agree with the recommendation of the f.b.i. director and now the attorney general that there not be a criminal prosecution of hillary clinton? >> no, i don't.

what jim comey set up is a violation of federal law that prohibits the misuse or mishandling of classified information through gross negligence, and he himself -- >> woodruff: you're saying he made the case of gross negligence? >> he made the case and he himself said that this was extreme negligence, extreme recklessness in handling this information. that is exactly what federal law prohibits and criminal sizes is a felony. >> woodruff: to you now, stephen vladeck, if that's what the federal law prohibits, if the standard is extreme negligence, why wasn't that enough? >> well, i think the problem is that the regs of the statute doesn't just say it's a crime for people like secretary to justify gross negligence in the handling of classified information, it's more specific.

that gross negligence must somehow lead to the loss of classified information, basically the same thing as if a courier left a briefcase of classified documents in a public place, that's not what happened here. so we may very wealthy that what hillary did should be illegal. the problem is the law we're talking about, judy, is 99 years old and not written to address this situation. >> woodruff: but your point is that what happened here did not result in the loss of classified information? >> well, at the very least, we didn't hear anything to that effect from director comey and i would like to think that if the f.b.i. had discovered that secretary clinton's servers had been hacked that, through her in director comey's words extreme carelessness, some classified information had falon into the wrong hands, we would have had to have heard about that. short of that, we may think what hillary clinton did was careless and pretty darn stupid, but the actual federal statute require that the gross negligence lead to the loss of information. there's no claim or proof here

that's what happened. >> that's simply not correct. the law actually only requires removal of the document from its proper place of custody. >> that's not true. you're confusing two different statutes. >> i'm looking at the statute right here, permitting a document to be removed from its proper place of custody -- >> but -- >> woodruff: let him finish andly come back to yowmpleghts losing a document certainly can be a basis for a violation, but there are other things that can happen. simply removing -- this is 793f of the espionage act. >> woodruff: and we're not going to be able to get into all of that because we can't follow that while we're here, but i want to come back to both of you on the standard director comey used yesterday and that is there was no clear evidence that

secretary clinton or her colleagues intended to violate the laws. what about that? >> utterly irrelevant. under this statute gross negligence is the standard and that means extreme lack of care. >> woodruff: so you're saying the f.b.i. director and now the attorney general have misinterpreted the law? >> absolutely. it's plain language. >> i think the problem with that, judy, is it's plain language of a small part of a much larger provision, so i think the issue is there is no precedent, none, for prosecuting, for convict ago u.s. government employee because they discussed classified information in an unsecure system and nothing else. unless that information is somehow lost, removed from the government's possession, the government has never prosecuted anyone under the statute -- >> the entire purpose of the server was to remove this from the government's possession. uh. >> woodruff: the question has been raised whether there is a

double standard, one standard for the secretary of state and another for other people. in fact, jim comey said yesterday, the f.b.i. director, he said this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances a person engaged in this activity would face no consequences. he says to the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. >> right, and there have been. members over the military, sergeant ricky roller (phonetic), a sergeant at marine headquarters here in town, he removed a document, accidentally stuffed it in a bag and discovered it late around decided to keep it in a lawyer at his house and never returned it. he was prosecuted under this very statute. he didn't intend anything. >> woodruff: what about that, stephen vladeck? is there a double standard at work here? >> well, judy, i do think there is a double standard but i'm not sure hillary's is the case to make that point. shannen's right, we're talking about a different section than the one the government used to go after leakers and punitive

whistleblowers. so i think we can make a stronger argument that the government is harder on line officers who disclose information to those not authorized to see it than senior officials like general petraeus who got a slap on the wrist for disclosing information to his mistress "biographer." >> woodruff: do you see this case as closed right now? >> certainly as to classified information. the attorney general's decision not to prosecute ends this. >> woodruff: so no further recourse. >> no, i don't think so. >> woodruff: what about that, stephen? >> i completely agree. i think the real question is congress, which has been urged for the better part of 60 years to revisit the legal regime of the government mishandling private information, is finally compelled to look at this carefully or if it's used to store political points.

>> woodruff: you think far more information is classified than should be, but that's another discussion. >> yes. >> woodruff: thank you stephen vladeck from the university of texas law school, shannen from here in washington, thank you both. >> trust. thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: a clean coal facility fraught with complications; and the need for more medical studies, on marijuana. but first, to our series this week on the conflict in eastern europe. last night we reported from the self-declared donetsk people's republic, where moscow-backed separatists have been fighting to join russia. tonight we move inside ukraine, where the government face two fronts: internal corruption and the separatists in the east. special correspondent nick schifrin, with the help of the pulitzer center on crisis reporting, begins in the black sea port city of odessa. >> reporter: on the streets of

odessa, there's a new sheriff in town-- and the new squad car is a prius. their sirens wail when they see a routine traffic violation. >> reporter: but these days nothing about ukraine is routine. >> reporter: hey, what are you doing? what are you doing? >> reporter: we're with them. relax. >> reporter: they really don't like our cameras. the police try to calm them down. it doesn't work. >> ( translated ): what is that then? >> ( translated ): they're filming my work. >> reporter: odessa's been compared to chicago under al capone, full of a shady underworld, and a former police force in bed with the mafia. >> ( translated ): the old police was an obsolete version of law enforcement. there were some problems, which we're trying to correct. >> reporter: 29-year-old oleksandr hrechanyk and this police force are brand new, clothed and paid for by the west. the old police force was so corrupt, it was entirely replaced. you look like a new york city cop. do you see the new york police

department as a kind of model for what you're doing? >> ( translated ): yes, we do. what we're trying to do is facilitate people's lives, and help citizens as much as we can. >> reporter: but not all citizens agree or welcome the change. this man said officers roughed him and falsely accused him of stealing this bicycle. alexander smolianinov rushed to film the cops. >> ( translated ): we do not entirely trust the police structure. some of the old people have remained, so the system hasn't entirely changed. >> reporter: but the police accuse smolianinov of being part of odessa's decades-old mafia underworld. >> ( translated ): these people often perform illegal affairs in buildings and in business. they're trying to use this situation here, to throw their weight around. >> reporter: do you think that there's an element of this city that resists the change that you and your uniform represents? >> ( translated ): there are people who would like to keep the old system. >> this country had had unchanged elite for 25 years. these guys, they miserably failed the country.

they turned it into the poorest country in europe. >> reporter: that slightly awkward trainee with the new police is odessa governor mikael saakashvili. one year ago, he received ukrainian citizenship and was appointed to fight corruption. he made his name as the president of the former soviet state georgia, fighting russian president vladimir putin. today, he is still a thorn in russia's side, but his most pointed criticism is for fellow ukrainians. >> i don't think putin can defeat ukraine. i think ukraine can snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. it can only defeat itself. oh, what are you doing here? let's go inside. >> reporter: saakashvili likes to give off a laid back vibe. he and his family have embraced their ukrainian lives. but ukraine's president hired him to breathe fire. he accuses the politicians who have been running the country of widespread corruption. last december in a cabinet meeting, he called the interior minister a thief. >> ( translated ): i'm not going to let some thief, who the country knows is a thief--

>> reporter: what he lacks in diplomacy, he makes up for with media stunts. on a poorly built road he set up a tent, so he could hold cabinet meetings that pressure the national government to pay for road construction. >> why it's so important to build this road? because we-- people have not seen any difference. if you in one place show a difference, it's a window of opportunity that will, is going to kill the whole corrupt system. >> reporter: what happens if you fail? >> ukraine has no option to fail because it will lead to disintegration of the country. >> if you have a will from the top, then it is possible to fight the corruption. >> reporter: 26-year-old yulia marushevska is one of saakashvili's lieutenants. she's a political novice, with odessa's hardest job-- cleaning up a notoriously corrupt customs house. >> odessa customs was the most corrupt customs. the intelligence forces, the police, the prosecutors, they were just using the possibility to ask for money. >> reporter: arms of law

enforcement were becoming tools of corruption. >> yes, tools of the corrupt society. >> i am the ukrainan, a native of kiev. i am now on maidan. >> reporter: two years ago, she and hundreds of thousands of ukrainians filled independence square, known as the maidan, to protest that old, corrupt society. her anti-corruption call to arms, was viewed almost nine million times. >> we want to be free from the politicians who work only for themselves. >> on maidan, i thought that everything can be done only with your will and wish to change. and now i understood that it is a huge work, a huge job to do. >> reporter: a huge job because of the scale of corruption. this is ukraine's largest port. about $40 million per month was being stolen by local mafia, local officials, and national politicians.

to try and fix that, marushevska will soon inaugurate a new customs terminal with more automation and streamlined procedures. but when you fight corruption, corruption fights back. >> the simplification of the procedures faced a great resistance, and even persecution from the central government. it's war of past and future. we want future to happen, and they want to live in the past. i think we are fighting two wars-- one war inside the country, and the other war in the east of the country. >> reporter: you've got enemy forces this way and right about that way. so you're fighting, kind of, on two sides. >> yeah. >> reporter: 22-year-old lieutenant jan fidrea is a platoon commander in ukraine's other war, on the front lines near donetsk. we are 350 miles east of odessa. they fight in trenches against an enemy 1,500 feet away. >> those woods in front of us, they're shooting at us from there. >> reporter: their enemy are ukrainians who want to separate

from ukraine and join russia. but they don't call this a civil war. >> this is not a civil war. this is like a war between ukraine and russia. it's my country. i'm defending my country. >> reporter: just a few miles away, the area known as the industrial zone is the hottest front. ( explosion ) ukrainian soldiers hide in a basement from mortars. ( explosion ) >> reporter: the next morning, all that's left of this former industrial company, is used as cover from bullets. this front hasn't moved in more than a year. and that's left soldier masi nayyam frustrated. >> ( translated ): our guys here are being wounded. for what? since we're being ordered not to advance. >> reporter: those orders are from ukraine and russia's political negotiations. but on the front that lack of progress perpetuates the war. >> ( translated ): i don't see any strategy or planning about what happens next. the people don't understand what

we're doing. >> reporter: just a few miles away, the town of avdiivka looks bombed out. it was seized by the separatists, and then taken back by the ukrainian military. nearby, locals try and maintain some normalcy. and the dikhtyaryov family shows their support for ukraine, and desire to ally with the west, on the children's clothes. but this war has taken a heavy toll on nine-year-old diana and her mother natalya. when you hear the bangs and the noises at night, are you scared? >> if i'm awake, i'm scared. yes, if i'm awake, i'm scared. >> i think that they don't have any future here. i know it sounds really sad. but there's nowhere to go. >> reporter: for more than two years, this region has been at war. ukraine believes it has no choice. it has to fight russia and corruption simultaneously. but wars do not discriminate. they steal soldiers' and children's futures. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin in avdiivka, ukraine.

>> woodruff: tomorrow night the series continues with a report from estonia, the nato nation most vulnerable to russian aggression. >> woodruff: the technology known as "clean coal," along with solar and wind energy, is central to the obama administration's plans for combating climate change. but a new investigation by the "new york times" questions the ability of this technology-- and a high profile coal plant-- to deliver on its promise. william brangham has the story. >> brangham: the "new york times" investigation published this week examines problem at the kemper power plant in kemper county, mississippi. it's under construction but the price tag billions over budget and it has a lawsuit by rate pairs who say they have been

defrauded. also called into question is obama's reliance to fight climate change. so what is clean coal? >> sort of the promising notion that we can still burn coal but without so much pollution, and behind the promise is the technology that will allow you in different versions to pull carbon out of the emissions from coal plants. >> brangham: so it doesn't get into the atmosphere and drive climate change? >> correct. >> brangham: was the idea the technology is proven but we don't know how to do it economically? what's the question been about it? >> so the technology, as you say is, proven, and we know how to make it work. the challenge is can we scale it up? so to move it from the model stage to big enough plants to make a difference, and can we do so affordably. ththe affordably is where it ges complicated because that means can we do so in a fashion that's

cheaper than natural gas, can we do so quickly enough so that the prices don't change and then, by the time you get the plant online, it's no longer the same price tag and this has been the stumbling block with kemper included. >> brangham: this plant is owned by southern energy. what is it that's gone wrong down there? >> a bunch of things. mostly, it's way over budget and past deadline. there was a certain amount of hue brings, it seems, on the front end of the projecty they promised the moon and, in terms of how quickly they could build a plant of this size, and they quickly fell behind schedule and overbudget and that problem got compiled by their competitor which is natural gas, the price for it fell through the floor and just kept falling, and, so, this plant became less and less attractive with time. then what our investigation revealed was that the problems

ran deeper inside the plant ranging from mismanagement and potentially fraud in the sense that the managers who ran the plant were covering up problems as they encountered them and continuing to promise things that they couldn't provide. >> brangham: some of your reporting comes via whistle blower brett wingo, what does he say is the problem? >> brett is a mid-level manager hired by the company in 2008-2009. in the beginning, he was a real loyal pitch man for the project. with time, brett became frustrated with what we says was mismanagement and overstated promises on how quickly and how affordably the project could be accomplished, and he attempted to work from inside the project in the plant to raise his concerns, and after a while he decided to go public.

>> brangham: is kemper really emblematic with the problems of clean coal or is this an isolated case? >> every president going back, roughly to reagan, has had sort of a pet project that they dumped a lot of federal subsidies into sort of hoping they could burn coal cleaner, and all of them have turned out to be boondoggles. so this one, the jury's still out. the plant may still come on line in the next couple of months and, ultimately, they could pay down their debt and produce cheap and clean electricity, but so far it's, again, two years past deadline, 4 billion over budget and still not online so it's not looking good. >> brangham: what do these problems specifically at this plant mean for the obama administration in their attempt to fight climate change partly through this type of technology? >> well, so the administration put a lot of political capitol into this project.

the carney p.a. administrator appointed this project as a poster child of what we should hope for. so, politically, it's embarrassing. but just more practically, if we're leaving the country, going to achieve the goals set out in paris, our climate change goacialtion we have to figure out how to handle the fact that 25% of the world's electricity comes from coal plants. so we can't pull those offline tomorrow. we have to figure out how to make them burn cleanly. this was the shining hope that we might have figured that out, and it doesn't seem to be panning out. >> brangham: we reached out to southern company for a comment and a spokesperson told us that your article was a "negative recap" of old news, that you were set on creating a "preconceived narrative" and that southern company was trying to finish this in the right way and you didn't arizona that. with regards to the whistle

blower, the company said they had done two investigations into his claims, one internal, one external, and "his claims were unsubstantiated and not otherwise supported by the facts." what's your response to that? >> there are two federal investigations underway, one quite serious about potential corporate fraud by the securities and exchange commission on these various issues, and that's ongoing. there are two lawsuits -- rather large lawsuits. the project and company have had two major credit downgrades. so i think the reality is that this is not the "new york times" raising these concerns, it's more the "new york times" attempting to figure out what actually went wrong. everyone knows that things have gone wrong. now, again, whether southern can pull this project out of its nose dive and turn things around, that remains to be seen. but the question even then still remains, will they be able to keep the plant online?

will they be able to capture as much carbon as they promised? and who's going to bay -- pay for the $4 billion tab that's there, the taxpayers, investors, company? >> reporter: ian urbina of the "new york times," thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: what are the benefits or drawbacks of medical marijuana? in some cases, the law is ahead of the research. miles o'brien explores, part of our weekly reports on the leading edge of science. >> reporter: a sunny day, a scooter, and a little boy tearing up the driveway. a simple pleasure for him. a cherished moment for his parents. >> i see him do it, and i said, "i can't believe he's riding a scooter by himself." it's not a big deal for most people, that's what kids do, but for us that's a big deal. >> reporter: lenny and amy

lopez's adopted five-year-old son isaias has epilepsy-- dravet's syndrome-- which besets its young victims with incessant seizures. how often would that happen? >> in the beginning, it happened all the time and he would have hundreds. >> just, all day long. >> he wouldn't be able to play, he wouldn't be able to eat, he would just fall. then when he would have more severe ones, he would literally just shut off and fall down and smack his head. >> reporter: amy and lenny noticed a near-instant improvement for isaias after this became a part of their daily routine. a squirt of cannabis oil-- it is mostly c.b.d.-- a chemical in marijuana that does not alter consciousness. isaias' seizures have reduced in intensity and frequency, by about 80%. >> we went through a couple of different strains and then just the dose, how much do you give, what time of day do you give it, so definitely trial and error. >> reporter: for all intents and

purposes, amy and lenny are experimenting with their sick little boy. it is a calculated risk born of desperation and fear. >> 911 recorded line. >> hi, i'm calling about, my son is having a seizure >> it's a helpless feeling because no matter what you do, you think it might be diet, you try pharmaceuticals and nothing seems to be working. >> when your child is turning blue and he's not responding to you, and you know he's not getting any air-- like my husband said, "you don't know if that's it. that's the last one." so you just hope and pray that he pulls through it. >> reporter: they tried conventional pharmaceuticals designed to curb the seizures. but the side effects were horrible. they made him either unresponsive, or caused him to act out and hurt himself. it was not a real solution.

then one day they saw the cnn documentary, "weed." it told the story of a family in colorado using a high c.b.d. strain of cannabis to treat their daughter's dravet's epilepsy. the marijuana was working. >> she didn't have a seizure that day, and then she didn't have a seizure that night, and she didn't have one the next day, and then the next day. >> reporter: was it like a revelation? >> yeah, i was like, "we have to get this." i knew it wasn't legal here at the time, but we have to get this. >> reporter: easier said than done. the doctor they had at the time would have nothing of it. so they found their way to a more sympathetic ear. >> for the past three years i don't think there's been a single patient i have seen that hasn't asked about c.b.d. or medical marijuana. >> reporter: dr. elizabeth thiele is director of the pediatric epilepsy program at massachusetts general hospital. >> when this first came up, i think that there were a lot of-- sometimes i use the word "haters."

the medical profession, i think, was not necessarily welcoming this at first. >> reporter: but dr. thiele shared in the lopez's frustration even though the number of conventional medications aimed at treating epilepsy has more than doubled in the past few decades. >> most children with dravet don't respond with the medications we have. so there continues to be a significant unmet need for epilepsy therapies. >> reporter: while there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that cannabis helps children with dravet's, the drug enforcement administration classifies marijuana among "the most dangerous drugs"-- a schedule 1 controlled substance. as far as the federal government is concerned, cannabis has "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." as a result, scientists have trouble accessing the drug legally to do research, so we know precious little about the medicinal value of marijuana to treat epilepsy, or anything else.

that's starting to change. the british pharmaceutical company gw is testing a version of cannabis oil called epidiolex. designed for children with seizure disorders, it is nearly pure c.b.d. it's early, but the results are promising. if they can be repeated in larger studies, dr. thiele says it could be a breakthrough. for now, she can't even be sure precisely what is in the cannabis her patients are taking. >> sometimes the batch will be effective, will make the seizures better; sometimes, the next month, it will be worse, the seizures will get worse. so i don't feel comfortable prescribing something that i don't understand better than that. >> to grow the pharmaceutical grade cannabis that we're growing, it takes quite a bit of effort. >> reporter: norton arbelaez is on a mission to change this. he is a consultant for new england treatment access in massachusetts-- one of 25 states and the district of columbia that have voted to make medicinal marijuana legal.

he gave me a tour of neta's cultivation and manufacturing facility, where they grow about 60 distinct strains of marijuana. at any given time, there are 14,000 plants here at various stages of development. they work hard to maintain precise, consistent conditions. >> so, these are clones. initially we grew it from seed. >> reporter: what's the advantage of cloning, as opposed to planting seeds? >> well, that we have control of the genetic stock. the patients are looking for very specific strain to deal with the very specific type of illness, so we want to be able to reproduce that each and every time. >> reporter: strains are identified by color. every barcoded batch is tested by a third party before it is sold to patients. but analyzing batches of marijuana for a handful of chemicals only scratches the surface. a massachusetts-based genomic testing firm, courtagen life

sciences, is trying to learn the genetic makeup of various strains of marijuana. >> what we do down here in the laboratory is run some robotics that then go into the genome and extract the regions that we want to sequence. >> reporter: kevin mckernan is the chief scientific officer. he hopes to inject some objective science into the conversation. >> it's about as scientific as a wine, you know? oaky, woody, earthy, if we want medicine to absorb this, we need to start talking about the cannabis in the language that physicians like, which is about genotypes, not woody, earthy, oaky smells. >> reporter: they have sequenced 600 strains of marijuana so far. what are we seeing here? so what you're looking at is the genetic distance between different cannabis strains and the length of this line. if you follow this in and out is the length of the genetic distance between these. and in each of these names are names of the strains. >> reporter: after all these years, this familiar plant remains a mystery. marijuana contains more than 400

chemicals, including 80 cannabinoids. scientists are not sure how they may interact with each other to provide some medicinal benefit. they are trying to understand if isolating the compounds works, or if there is a so-called entourage effect. >> i think it's this entourage effect that the other compounds that are there in the whole plant extract are doing something we don't understand yet. there's something about isolating the compounds that seems to not replicate what the plant does on its own. >> reporter: the real answers won't be forthcoming unless research dollars flow, and more human trials begin. but that won't happen until the federal government reconsiders whether marijuana appropriately belongs in the same category as heroin. the centers for disease control and prevention says there has never been a documented overdose death from marijuana. so amy and lenny lopez see much more benefit than risk. >> yeah, but he's--

>> it's definitely worth it. >> he makes my blood flow. >> yeah. >> that kid make me breathe. i would do anything for him. >> reporter: the proof is in the scooter. miles o'brien, the pbs newshour, lowell massachusetts. >> woodruff: the d.e.a. has been evaluating proposals to loosen the classification of cannabis, which would make it easier for scientists and doctors to do research. but the agency missed its own july deadline and it is not clear when there will be a decision. in his next piece, miles will speak with the israeli chemist whose pioneering work into medical cannabis 30 years ago is now being embraced by the scientific mainstream. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. 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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