captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight... >> general h.r. mcmaster will become the national security advisor. >> woodruff: president trump announces his new national security advisor after the controversial ousting of michael flynn. then, the search to find closure for families who have lost loved ones on the dangerous journey across the u.s. southern border. >> i would think, where's my brother? what happened to him? how did he die? >> woodruff: and, our politics monday team takes stock of the first month of the trump presidency. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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foundation. promoting the well-being of humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at rockefellerfoundation.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the president has a new national security adviser tonight. he named army lieutenant general h.r. mcmaster today, a week after retired general michael flynn was forced out and a few days after the first choice for a replacement turned it down.

retired lieutenant general keith kellogg will serve as the security council's chief of staff. mr. trump made the announcement at his mar-a-lago resort in florida: >> he's a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience, i watched and read a lot over last two days, he is highly respected by everybody in the military and we're very honored to have him. >> i'd just like to say what a privilege it is to be able to continue serving our nation, i'm grateful to you for that opportunity, i look forward to joining the national security team and doing everything i can to advance and protect the interest of the american people. >> you're going to do a great job. >> woodruff: for some background on h.r. mcmaster: he's 54 years old and currently a three-star general in the u.s. army he graduated from west point in 1984, and later got a phd in military history. his doctoral thesis, about the failures of military and political leadership during

vietnam, later became a well- regarded book, called "dereliction of duty." during the first gulf war with iraq in 1991, he lead a tank unit that prevailed against iraq's powerful republican guard. he also lead american forces in iraq in 2005, and successfully brught stability to a city that had been rife with ethnic conflict. for more on all of this we turn to "the washington post's" greg jaffe. he has known mcmaster for years. greg jaffe, welcome back to the program. you were just telling me you've known him 14 years? >> yeah, i think 2002. >> woodruff: what should we know about him? >> fiercely opinionated, very, very smart, he's passionate, he's funny. he understands the media, i think, and talks to reporters, interestingly. i don't think he views them as the enemy. you know, i think the one knock against him is when he believes

he's right, he passionately argues that point and he doesn't stop. i think after a while, that can be too much for folks. >> woodruff: tell me about his military career. we were just reporting a very successful career during the first iraq -- the gulf war. what made him so successful. >> during the first gulf war, he was involved in the battle of 73 east wing, so he was a tank company commander and his tank company prevailed against a much larger unit of the iraqi republican guard. his real fame, though, came later in iraq in 2006. >> woodruff: and what made him so successful? >> you know, his group, i can the "new yorker" described his unit in iraq as rebels against an incoherent strategy was a great line from the "new yorker." at the the strategy in the u.s. was we'll stand down as the iraqis stand up. he was training the iraqi forces. he went against that and said, look, we can't train the iraqi

forms until we stabilize the situation. so he pushed his troops into the city of tel, and then establish. >> woodruff: how is he viewed by the rest of the military? >> in many cases with great admiration. h he's so frank and smart. it's interesting, though, when he was promoted from colonel to one-star, he was passed over to one-star general twice and i think that's a reflection on how frank he can b. he doesn't hold back his opinions and sometimes that rubs folks the wrong way. >> woodruff: is there a political philosophy there, or are you talking about a philosophy of war and fighting? >> a philosophy of war and fighting. he's not a i political guy in ay way, shape or form. he won't bring very sharp political instincts on the down

side. on the upside, he's not a political ideallog. he has strong opinions on war. >> woodruff: we weric look today at the web site for the hoover institution, a conservative think tank. a lot is about military strategy, leadership, he writes about. >> and from the "new york times" begins which a quote that you don't normally hear from a u.s. army officer. >> woodruff: based on what you were saying about him. you were also saying he hasn't spent a lot of time in washington. how do you see him fitting into the city and smack to the middle of power in the white house? >> yeah, i think that will be interesting. he has dealt a lot in telifar and afghanistan, he ran an anti-corruption pass for general petraeus in 2010. he had to deal with the state department, the intelligence

agencies, all of the things you have to deal with as a national security advisor. he hasn't spent a lot of timetying and worrying about politics in washington and i think that's going to be a challenge and a stretch for him because the national security advisor job has to take d.c. politics into account. >> woodruff: he's going to have a military man as his chief of staff, keith kellogg and dealing with a retired general at the pentagon. we're seeing a lot of military people in this administration. >> that's right. it will be interesting -- that's an interesting dynamic. >> woodruff: it's not a position that requires confirmation by the senate. so this is the president's choice and sounds like he's very different from michael flynn. >> he is. flynn was widely respected in the army but he's seen as a more steadying figure than flynn, much lesser racquet. >> woodruff: greg gre jaffe with

the post-. thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, thousands of anti-trump protesters turned out in cities across the country. they called it: "not my president's day". demonstrators marched, chanted and carried signs in new york, chicago, washington and los angeles, among other places. they challenged trump policies on everything from immigration to abortion. british lawmakers debated today whether to rescind an invitation to president trump for a state visit. an online petition against it has gathered more than 1.8 million signatures. thousands protested against the president outside parliament today, as lawmakers held a non- binding debate. >> i can't imagine a leader of our own country, of whatever political stripe, behaving in that manner. and it is for that reason that i think people are offended and concerned that britain should abandon all its principles. >> i certainly don't like some of the things that he has said in the past, but i do respect

the fact that he stood on a platform on which he is now delivering. he is going to go down in history as being roundly condemned for being the only politician to deliver on his promises. >> woodruff: since the 1950's, only two other american presidents have received the full pomp and pageantry of a state visit to britain: george w. bush and barack obama. the russian ambassador to the united nations, vitaly churkin, died suddenly today. russian officials said he fell ill at his office in new york, and passed away later at a hospital. he was a well-known figure in russian diplomatic circles, and had been u.n. ambassador since 2006. vitaly churkin would have turned 65 years old, tomorrow. in iraq, government forces advanced into the southwestern outskirts of mosul. it's the second day of a new offensive to drive islamic state fighters from the city's western half. police and army troops engaged in gun battles as they closed on the city's airport.

they were backed by iraqi helicopters that rocketed a village on a key hill. back in this country, officials in northern california kept a close eye on swollen creeks and rivers as the latest in a series of huge rain storms rolled over the region. san francisco reported record rain totals, surpassing the normal amount for its wet entire season. to the south, in santa cruz county, they counted nearly three inches of rain in 24 hours, and could get eight more. and, political circles are abuzz after milo yiannopoulos was disinvited to address the conservative political action conference. the planned speech by the highly polarizing breitbart news editor had already triggered a social media backlash. then, video clips resurfaced in which he joked about pedophilia. he called it "sloppy phrasing" but c-pac organizers said that's not enough.

still to come on the newshour, mixed messages about american support for nato. searching for migrants who don't survive the treacherous journey to the u.s. border. our politics monday team on the latest political news, and much more. >> woodruff: top members of the trump administration have been traveling overseas to calm some raw nerves among u.s. allies. the main source of the concern: comments from president trump that led to worries in europe and beyond about american commitments to longstanding alliances and institutions. john yang has that. >> yang: vice president pence spent his holiday weekend hard at work, trying to reassure nervous leaders in europe that the united states has their back. >> whatever our differences, our two continents share the same

heritage, the same values and above all, the same purpose to promote peace and prosperity through freedom, democracy and the rule of law. >> yang: in brussels, the vice president underscored american support for nato, and for the european union. president trump has called nato obsolete, and praised britain's decision to abandon the e.u. at a campaign-style rally in florida this weekend, mr. trump seemed to soften his tone a bit, even as he called again for greater burden-sharing among the allies. >> i'm a nato fan. but many of the countries in nato, many of the countries that we protect, many of these countries are very rich countries. they're not paying their bills. >> yang: today european council president donald tusk welcomed the vice president's reassurance, but appealed for unequivocal american support. >> too many new, and sometimes surprising, opinions have been

voiced over this time about our relations and our common security for us to pretend that everything is as it used to be. >> yang: separately, the head of nato said he doesn't believe "america first" means america alone. republican senator john mccain issued his own critique at the munich security conference. without naming the president, he wondered aloud what earlier leaders would have said. >> they would be alarmed by an they would be alarmed by the growing inability, and even unwillingness, to separate truth from lies. >> yang: meanwhile, defense secretary james mattis made a stop in iraq today. president trump set off alarm bells there last month, with >> if we kept the oil, you probably wouldn't have isis because that's where they made their money in the first place, so we should have kept the oil. but, okay, maybe we'll have another chance. >> yang: today, mattis walked it all back. >> all of us in america have generally paid for our gas and oil all along, and i'm sure that

we will continue to do so in the future. we're not in iraq to seize anyone's oil. >> yang: mattis also promised continued u.s. support for iraq's offensive to retake mosul from the islamic state. we turn now to steven erlanger, the london bureau chief for the "new york times." steve, thanks for joining us. i should warn folks, i think we have a little satellite delay here. steve, how reassuring were these visits from the vice president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state to the european leaders? >> well, they were reassuring up to a point but not that reassuring because, after all, the president of the united states has very different views, and what -- when the president of the united states says words, words matter, and you have this strange image of is major security officials and cabinet officials rung around telling everybody, actually, don't listen to the president of the united states, and then two

seconds later the president tweets something or had that strange, rambling press conference, and everybody gets nervous once again because everything seemed to be -- you could turn everything upside down in a minute. so this is really the problem. i mean, trump has surrounded himself with a lot of basically sensible, traditional security figures. he's just done it again with mcmaster. a lot of them are either businessmen who don't likely know diplomacy, or they're generals who have a strict notion of diplomacy which usually starts with a gun, and they're dealing with a whole network of european officials who are used to american leadership beginning from the top and american support for the idea of a europe which is free, which has shared sovereignty, which is in america's interest.

i mean, trump seems to talk, as far as they're concerned, about every alliance being transactional, that it's a debt to pay or a bill. america's part of n.a.t.o. because it's in america's interest, and america does pay quite a lot, but it has asian interests, it has lots of other defense interests, and, in fact, the europeans are paying more. the price is less of an issue than the efficiency of the spending and the way it's actually used, particularly in the face of new threats from russia and trump's bromance with vladimir putin shakes peel a great deal. they don't like to talk about it. they don't understand it. in the face of more aggressive russia, cyberwar fair, fake news, the use of social media to undermine allied leaders like

angela merkel or the british government -- or the european union, these are troubling things for people. it's great for vice president pence or jim mattis to come and issue the platitudes that most leaders in this administration have rarely had to do. but even those platitudes were greeted with some relief by people, though they do wait for the next trump statement about some terrorist attack in sweden that actually never happened or how n.a.t.o. is somehow about paying bills and not about mutual defense. >> yang: steve, as you look a across the european capitals, what nations are more concerned than others about what's going on now at the -- with the trump administration? >> i would say it's germany because germany is in the middle of an election campaign that

will climax in september, and angela merkel is running for fourth term, and she has been weakened by the migrant crisis and simple fatigue, and, yet, she is the person who is most seen as the strongest figure in europe, not just in terms of the power of germany and the economy of germany, but in standing up to moscow and putin over ukraine and crimea. she's been crucial in keeping the sanctions against russia over its annexation of crimea and current activities, and there is a sense in germany that trump, for whatever reason, doesn't care for her. he's very much a lover of brexit. there's a suspicion that somehow his real sympathies are with the alternative right and not with the people who are keeping europe strong.

>> yang: steve erlanger, the "new york times." we have to leave it there. steve, great to see you again. >> woodruff: perhaps the biggest campaign promise president trump has taken action on is building the wall along the u.s.-mexico border. as jean guerrer of kpbs fronteras reports, a group of immigrants patrol vast swaths of desert from california to arizona, searching for those lost on a dangerous journey. >> reporter: marco antonio garcia vanished crossing the border weeks ago. maximo garcia shows me a text message from a drug mule with a crucial clue about his missing grand-nephew. it reads in spanish: look for him in the coyote arroyo, near the border, where there's some fencing. a drug mule using garcia's phone

said he'd found the young man's body and phone in the arizona desert. these men have volunteered to search for him. we are now starting our search for marco antonio. we drive into the desert, on our way to hike along one of the most dangerous smuggling routes near the us-mexico border. >> ( translated ): if we find him, it's bad news for me. if we don't find him, well, it's bad news either way. >> reporter: the volunteers prepare their gear for hours of walking in 100-degree heat. they stock up on water and ice. they pack extra batteries for they call themselves aguilas del desierto, or eagles of the desert. >> roque! raul! jose! cesar! >> reporter: they're plumbers, farmers, construction workers. most are immigrants who live in san diego. they spend their weekends rescuing migrants or recovering their bodies as far away as arizona.

>> ( translated ): so their relatives will stop having uncertainty about what happened to their relative. to give them that peace. >> reporter: founder ely ortiz started the group after his own brother, rigoberto, disappeared trying to enter the u.s. through here in 2009. his coyote, or human smuggler, confessed he'd abandoned rigoberto during his last breaths. >> ( translated ): i would think, where's my brother? what happened to him? how did he die? a thousand thoughts went through my head. and i told myself, i'm not going to leave my brother lying out there. >> reporter: ely ortiz called the mexican consulates, border patrol and other agencies. >> ( translated ): i asked everyone for help, and nobody would help me. >> reporter: so he went out on foot, with the help of a human rights activist named rafael hernandez. together, they found his brother's body. it was closure for the ortiz family.

inspired, ortiz launched aguilas del desiert. he chose the name aguilas because of the eagle's powerful eyesight and wingspan. his volunteers walk into the desert. some stay with the cars to rescue us if necessary. ortiz reminds us not to lose sight of each other, for safety. along the coyote arroyo, the earth is unusually fertile for a desert. it's one of the most transited border routes precisely because there's so much vegetation for cover. but that means it's almost impossible to follow ortiz's mandate to keep an eye on each other. there's people to my left inside of the brush and to my right. signs of migrants are everywhere-- tossed red bulls, backpacks, dolls and drug mules' shoes with carpet strips on the bottom to cover tracks. there are black gallon jugs,

which smugglers sell as a sort of supernatural, strength- inducing water. as you can see, these are all over the place. i'm following a volunteer named jose genis. he says it's hard to spot bodies in this area because of all the foliage. dying migrants often crawl beneath trees seeking shade. >> it makes it difficult for us to find them because they blend in, especially after the body has been decomposing, and dust >> reporter: genis is a navy veteran and a licensed e.m.t. on previous searches, he has found dehydrated migrants trying to enter the u.s. illegally. he has helped save their lives, treating them until border patrol could come take them to the hospital. >> i feel american, but at the same time, i have my roots from mexico, so i try to help out as much as i can. >> reporter: the heat is oppressive, even through the trees. there are snakes and scorpions and cattle skeletons. we keep losing each other. we repeatedly have to stop and regroup, finding each other by blowing whistles. we have to make it out before sunset, when smugglers inhabit this terrain.

but we're not covering nearly enough ground. >> we've moved one mile if anything, one and a quarter. >> reporter: we press on. genis and i find a bible crawling with insects. i wonder if the person who dropped it made it out of this desert alive. hundreds of people die crossing the border each year, from things like dehydration or hypothermia. in arizona alone, the death count is astounding. official figures exclude countless bodies that are never found. ev meade of the trans-border institute said border deaths since the 1990s range as high as 10,000. >> this is the kind of number we talk about when we talk about an armed conflict or a war. >> reporter: he says the deaths are linked to u.s. border fence construction. border crossing deaths were almost unheard of until the u.s. built long stretches of border fence in the 1990s. today, about 700 miles of the 2,000 mile border are fenced,

mostly around cities. this forced migrants onto remote, dangerous routes through the desert, with its extreme temperatures. president donald trump has vowed to expand current fencing along the border. >> build that wall! >> reporter: meade says trump's wall could increase migrant deaths. some are dying on the way. >> we just really haven't had a serious policy discussion about the humanitarian consequences of the building of the wall. >> reporter: back in the desert, we pass barbed wire fencing. could it be the fencing referred to in the text message? someone finds something. i scramble up a hill, following genis. first, i see the skull. a few meters away are the legs, clothed in pants. the body has been torn apart by coyotes or some other animal. genis says the body looks like it's been decomposing for about

a month. marco antonio disappeared a month ago. >> ( translated ):unfortunately, we just found remains of a human being. we're going to investigate to see if it's him. >> reporter: garcia calls his relatives to tell them what we've found. the aguilas get to work. they can't touch the body; it could be a crime scene. they note the coordinates of the remains, which they'll share with local police. officials will pick up the body and take it to the medical examiner for d.n.a. analyses. the aguilas improvise a marker out of a balloon they find, to help officials spot the body. back at the vehicles, garcia thanks the aguilas for the search. he says they were the only people willing to help him. for the pbs newshour, i'm jean guerrero, along the u.s.-mexican border.

>> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour, fighting disease in the most polluted city on earth. and why 20-foot tall busts of former presidents are sitting in rural virginia. today, february 20th, is one month into the new trump administration, it's an early moment to pause and ask where things stand. for that, we turn to our politics monday team: tamara keith of npr and amy walter of the "cook political report." and welcome to both of you. it is monday. with we are already a month, awo this administration. so let's take a little bit of stock. tam, you have been looking at the presidentas appointments for -- the president's appointments for big positions that have to be confirmed by the senate. what are you seeing? how is he doing compared to

other presidents at this point? >> in terms of getting them confirmed, he is behind schedule. that's not entirely his fault. senate democrats have been slow-walking the nominations in part because they say many of these nominees are sort of out of line with the main stream. mitch mcconnell said the other ar day this is the most conservative cabinet he's seen, democrats take that as validation of their feelings. in terms of broadly, beyond the cabinet, the senate-confirmed positions, president trump named 34 people so far, that is just slightly behind pace of president obama and ahead of the pace of president bill clinton and president george w. bush. so he's not actually behind many stories. you were telling us 515 awaiting confirmation, the 34 they've named and 20 of them are still waiting.

>> right. >> woodruff: there is a lot of focus on these numbers. how much does it matter? >> i think there is the story about the process and then about the perception, and i think as we learned from tam, the process, he's not that far off, if you look again, but academic studies, president obama but his first 100 days had only about 17% of his appointees in. it's not the pace that's the problem, it's the perception of chaos. it's about some of the people he's chosen with views different than the president's. ideologically, we don't know where his north star is on a lot of issues. as you pointed out today you had the secretary of defense go to iraq and said i know the president said we're going to come take your oil, don't worry. that's another reason for that. also the talk of loyalty tests for people who want to be in high-level positions. every president wants something loyal to them. there is nothing wrong or different about that. it seems to be taken to a level

we haven't seen before. if you've written or said anything during the course of the campaign critical of donald trump, you are not going to be appointed or you may lose a job that you have been appointed for once they find out what you've actually said, so i think that's what lends this idea that this is sort of a cabinet or a process in chaos. >> and there were so many people in the so-called establishmentser or the people who would be if line for these sorts of positions that spoke out against trump during the campaign. >> there's a lot of material to work with. he said during his news conference, i've gotten more accomplished in my office than some presidents did in their entire term. i think some people thought it was hyperbole and let him get away with a little of that, but what has he accomplished? we've seen a few executive orders. legislations not there yet. >> legislation is definitely not there yet, and at least one of those executive orders is on

hold pending court action and, now, president trump with the travel ban is planning sometime soon to do a new one that would get around some of the legal challenges. but, yes, things he has done, the keystone xl pipeline and dakota access pipeline, he signed that legislative order. it's something on hold and moving. as president, he is able to do something by being there and not being barack obama. >> woodruff: and? and there is still a legislative process to. this he wants to build a border wall, we have to pay for it. it has to go through a legislative process to appropriate that money. you want to get rid of obamacare, there is a process legislatively that's involved with that. he's setting the ball rolling but you still need congress and, of course, the courts to go along with your procedures. the other piece of this, and i feel like a broken record, judy, we've talked about this almost

every time -- >> woodruff: we don't think you're a broken record. >> -- but part of it is the reason we're not talking so much what he's done in three weeks is he steps on his message more than anybody else. a more traditional message would spend every single morning waking up and talking about the two or three or four issues they want to talk about. instead, it's attacks on the media, it's tweets that go above and beyond simple attacks on the media calling them an enemy of the people. so the issue is if he wants to talk about what he's accomplished, he has to have the discipline, the president needs to have the discipline to focus on those issues day in and out and let the people around him not put out fires but actually focus on talking about and pushing ahead on this agenda. >> woodruff: so he pulls out of the trans-pacific partnership trade deal but we're not hearing -- >> he says i'm going to do bilateral deals, okay, let's see what they look like.

>> woodruff: one thing you could argue he's done is stir up the anger and frustration of a lot of democrats or at least people opposed to him, we don't know if they're democrats or republicans. there was another one of those sets of protests today. we have a map, in fact, around the country there were a number of protests in cities. people called it the "this is not my president's day." how much anti-trump energy is there out there? and can we tell if this has legs? will it last? >> clearly there is anti-trump energy. there is energy showing up at town hauls members of congress are having. we don't know whether it's real, whether it's the new tea party or whether it sticks. we don't know whether the democratic party will be able to capitalize on this energy because at the moment there is not really a leader of the democratic party, they're in the middle of an election. >> woodruff: how do you see it? >> we have to watch and see where this energy goes and for those folks who watched in 2009

these raucous town halls and said, well, it's probably not going to be much of anything. proven wrong. all the tea party emerged in 2010. donald trump, all his rallies, oh, well, maybe they're not a big deal clearly, under it there was a great deal of energy for donald trump we were able to physically see. but i agree with tamara, we have to see where this goes. the challenge for democrats is they don't have energy, they have a geography problem. the states they need to win in order to take control of the senate or in order to win seats in the house, maybe in the control congress, are red states, in the senate side, and districts that are really republican. we're with seeing two sides really fired up. that doesn't help democrats. what democrats need is to see republicans become depressed and fall out of love with donald trump. that hasn't happened. >> woodruff: the geography problem, you've written about this. >> yes. >> woodruff: amy walter, tamera keith, great to see you

both. thank you. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: india's capital, delhi, now outranks beijing as the world's most polluted large city. and it's taking a toll on its resident's health. but as special correspondent fred de sam lazaro reports, there are efforts underway to make the city's air less toxic. it's part of his ongoing series agents for change. >> reporter: he murmurs and he gasps, waiting for a spot to free up, for a chance to just breathe. as nebulizer treatments open up the lungs of a handful of patients, dozens more await their turn at the chest clinic in a delhi government hospital. this is the scene outside of the doctor's office. clinic hours are from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00, and on a typical day the doctor will see 120 patients who've been here before and 30

brands new ones. three to four patients are seen at the same time, in the same room, by dr. raj kumar and his team of junior doctors and residents. the most common complaint: simply "change of season"-- the winter, which brings dust and tiny carbon particulates into the environment >> when there is a change in environment or increase in the particulate matter and everything, these asthmatic and c.o.p.d. patients do get exacerbation of their symptoms. >> reporter: they get exacerbation of their symptoms? >> yeah. >> reporter: dr. kumar can do little more than check on their medications and advise them to avoid some of the most polluted outdoor air on the planet. weather and wind patterns are blamed for trapping pollutants over india's capital: carbon dioxide, ozone and fine carbon particles. dirty fuels are the culprit from

several sources, automobiles the major one. on average, 1,400 new vehicles are added to delhi's streets every day, most now burning a highly polluting diesel, long outlawed in europe and the united states. by 2021 diesel fuel here will meet european standards. the government has also promised to shut down old coal fired plants and restrict new ones. and wood and coal burning brick kilns has been moved farther away from the city. but the pollution continues. to get an idea of how polluted the air is, we went to one of the cleanest places in delhi: the american embassy school. it serves the children of american and other expats and diplomats. many don face masks but only until they're inside says the director ellen stern. >> we have an air system that goes all the way through the

school and we now have four different kinds of filters on it that filter out various kinds of things. >> reporter: barun aggarwal showed me the elaborate system his company, breathe easy, has set up in the school, pulling out the first layer of filter, thickly coated with a grimy soot. if you were to walk outside today this is what is coming into your lungs? >> absolutely. >> it's most of the black carbon actually passes through a filter like this. this is mostly dust and the black carbon will get trapped in the finer particle filters. >> reporter: so how old is this accumulation? >> less than six days. >> reporter: the fine particle filters also show stark before and after evidence of the harmful air outside. you'd think such systems would be in strong demand, but aggarwal says aside from a few buildings mostly occupied by expats, its been a hard sell. among india's growing middle

class, he says he's there's denial or indifference, a sense that pollution is the price of india's rapid economic progress. >> the number of myths that are there with regards to air pollution in india is incredible. the first one i get by mostly indians is that if i breathe clean air for eight hours then my immunity will come down and when i go out i will fall sick. completely wrong because if you believe that then you should be giving your children two packets of cigarettes to smoke every day. >> reporter: the problem, like cigarette smoking is: except for those with lung disease, the health consequences of pollution: such as lung and heart disease and stroke come later in life. >> it'll happen in 20-30 years. so if you ask a 20 year old, is this important, they say "no, no, no, it's not important, i need to make money, get ahead in life. >> reporter: kamal meattle is an environmental activist, an also designed the embassy school's filtration system. it works well, he says, but is no panacea for a city of 20-plus million residents

>> purifiers and filters for the people who can afford them. it has to be for the people on the road, in slums and they have to be dealing with people who go on motorcycles, busses, metro, they're the ones who are exposed most to the pollution. >> reporter: meattle, who trained at m.i.t., has developed lower cost ways to cope with the pollution, which we measured just outside an office building he owns in central delhi, using an instrument used to measure fine carbon particles. >> 290. 288. >> reporter: what is the w.h.o. standard? >> it is w.h.o. is 50. >> reporter: so what you have outside your building is an air quality that's six times worse than the w.h.o. standard? >> that's right. >> reporter: can we step back inside and see what it's like inside? from 290, the level dropped to-- -9, thanks not just to filters and air purifiers but to plant--

-thousands of them on this rooftop greenhouse. this greenhouse produces clean air and each floor is pulling it in as needed. >> yes. and there are plants on each floor also. this is the central air cleaning system for the whole building >> reporter: plants do more than produce oxygen, he says. they are natural air purifiers, their roots eat bacteria and fungi and they absorb chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene produced by office products. >> these are areca palms for the day time, bamboo palm. >> reporter: most importantly, he says, these are common, fast growing species and should be in every home, for clean air benefits to both lungs and brains. >> harvard and the university of california at berkeley have done studies that show your cognitive abilities improve in such an environment. >> reporter: they're small steps people can take indoors but he

acknowledges, there's a huge complex problem outside these clean air bubbles, not easily solved in india's chaotic democracy. >> i think its politicians anywhere in the world think the same. they will only act when it's a very straightforward solution. then they will implement it and take credit for it but until they find they don't have a clean straight solution they will keep the matter confused. >> reporter: but environmentalists say years of lobbying seem to be yielding some results, helped by prodding from india's supreme court which has compelled government agencies to act. one group claiming the credit says it distributed pollution gauges to prominent delhiites. its leader, sunita narain says campaign targets included the court. >> we took the machine in, put the machine there and the chief justice said this is unacceptable. so i think slowly that sense of

unacceptable, this is not right, this is not fair, it's increasing the burden of health on our children, we have to change it, that's happened. >> reporter: but in the meantime, for years to come, india's capital and for that matter most of its major cities will continue to be among the most difficult places on earth to breathe. for the pbs newshour, this is fred de sam lazaro in new delhi. >> woodruff: fred's reporting is a partnership with the undertold stories project at the university of st thomas, in minnesota. >> woodruff: the oscars are this sunday. one of the best picture favorites is a coming-of-age story that's been honored for its approach to dealing with sexual identity and race. "moonlight" grabbed its latest award last night: best screenplay from the writers guild of america.

it's up for eight oscars. jeffrey brown sat down with the filmmakers this fall. here's a second look for our series "beyond the red carpet." >> reporter: it's a life we don't often see portrayed in commercial films. a coming-of-age tale of love and anguish. a movie that's garnered critical acclaim for the story it tells and the beauty and power of its telling. in "moonlight", we watch chiron growing up in the liberty city neighborhood of miami as the crack epidemic is taking hold in the 1980s. he is young, poor, black and coming to terms with being gay, quietly and painfully wrestling with these identities. the story is based on the life of tarell alvin mccraney, who first wrote it as a play and

then the screenplay for the new >> it's a story that i still feel like i have to tell, but that i also feel i have to explore and to understand. i mean, it's a story rooted in events in my own life that i'm trying to make sense of. and make sense of the world out of. and i think, for me, i always am interested in trying to get a group of people to have the same conversation. >> reporter: director barry jenkins-- who also grew up poor in liberty city at the same time, and with a mother fighting addiction-- presents the story in three separate acts, using three different actors to play chiron. at the new museum of african american history and culture-- where the film was recently screened-- he told me he purposely kept the actors from watching one another. >> one of the themes of the film, for me, is about the way society is shaping these young men, from our communities, though positive reinforcement, negative reinforcements. this is what masculinity looks like, this is what it sounds like. and so much time passes between

each story that i feel like the world has shaped this character into a different person. so i wanted to cast different people to play the same person, and i wanted them to be different. >> reporter: we watch chiron grow through high school, tormented by bullies and his own insecurities living with a mother-- played by naomie harris-- who sinks more and more into addiction. >> what's wrong? >> nothing. >> reporter: this is a young man who "speaks" more loudly in his looks and silences than in words. >> the power of cinema is that we get to watch people, you know? and we get to watch people like, in close up. of the power of the feeling in a person's eyes, you know, they can be doing active-- they can be less active and yet, revealing so much more. i think of "moonlight" of like an "iceberg" film. you know the hemingway phrase, you know? 10% is above water, and 90% is below?

we flip it upside down. you know, we want to show you that 90%, below water, but it's moving very, very slow. you know, it's a patient film, you know. but the character's revealing himself, you know, by these terms, you know, and his expressions. >> reporter: the adult chiron is played by trevante rhodes, a one-time track and field star at the university of texas who only found his way into acting his senior year. >> i think the beauty of the scene is he didn't know. >> reporter: an outgoing and gregarious man, he told me how he approached playing a character so different. >> it was really just about walking around l.a. with the three weeks i had prior to filming feeling as if-- feeling as if i had a secret to hide from everyone, you know? >> reporter: you were walking around feeling... >> walking around feeling as if

i had this secret, feeling as if i connected with someone, they would be able to see through me. they would be able to see my insecurities. they would be able to see this mask that i was putting on. feeling as if i couldn't love myself because chiron had this self-hate and because of that, he couldn't love others. i feel that all of us really relate to shyrone in a sense that we all at some point are insecure about something in our life, you know? and i'm someone who i try to make sense of everything and i feel like chiron tends to do the same thing, just in a different way. the context is a bit different >> who's here? >> nobody. >> reporter: another compelling character is juan, played by mahershala ali, a drug dealer stepping in as a father figure to the young chiron. juan was based on someone mccraney knew as a child.

>> it often pains me to know that people sort of see him, and go, "oh, that's unusual." when i think, when i think back over my life, i think, "oh, but there have been many times i've run into many people like him who are reflections of him in my mind. and i hear other people go, "no, i had a person in my life like that, too." so, i keep thinking, well what-- what are we doing? what-- why are we silencing that story? why are we-- what is happening to us, that we're not seeing him more often? >> reporter: do you feel this is a film that could have been made five years ago? ten years ago? >> i mean, the one thing i can, i can stand up on is, i couldn't have made it five years ago, or ten years ago. i don't think i was intellectually or emotionally capable at that point. >> i'm shaking my head because i had it ten years ago. and it didn't get made. >> i do think that right now, there's a time in this country, when i think people are-- they want to see beyond the barriers of their own experience, you know. and i think a part of that is,

i think this country is a place where many voices, you know, are, are, are being sought, you and then they go, and they see the film, and they go, "that voice is kind of similar to mine," you know. "i kind of relate to this guy, even though i don't want to sit next to him on the subway," you "maybe i will next time." >> i think we're, we're in a moment where everyone has to understand that authenticity work is key. because when you come to the table truthfully, then we can kind of-- we see that there's actually-- we illuminate that there's actually more room for voices, rather than that just one voice that we heard previous. >> reporter: "moonlight" is for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: now to our newshour shares, something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you, too. some people collect stamps. some coins, or in the case of our founding co-anchor jim lehrer,

anything to do with buses. but one virginia man owns dozens of giant sculptures of our nation's commanders-in-chief. to mark president's day, the newshour's julia griffin paid his collection a visit. >> reporter: cracked and crumbling... battered and broken... these are the former residents faces of the "president's park." the ten-acre tourist destination outside of colonial williamsburg opened in 2004. the main attraction? 43-texas-sized busts of presidents past by houston artist david adickes. utility contractor howard hankins helped build the original park. >> the eyes look like they're staring at you, just gazing at you. it's incredible how big they are and lifelike. >> reporter: the statues are big, but attendance was low, and the venture went belly up in 2010. when the president's park went bust, the presidents' heads were destined for a landfill. rather than let that happen,

hankins decide to bring them here, to his family farm in virginia. but the steel and concrete sculptures weigh between 15- to 20,000 pounds, and moving them wasn't exactly an easy lift. >> i climbed up and knocked a hole in their head and rocked them loose from their frame with about a 70,000-pound machine, and picked them up and put them on my lowboys and brought them here. >> reporter: abraham lincoln, in particular, took a bashing beating. >> lincoln over there we dropped him on the back of his head. we had tires to cushion him and the chain broke and we dropped him. >> reporter: the busts can be repaired. but for now, hankins lets the elements take their toll. >> being out of concrete, water gets in and freezes and cracks them. they kind of have character the way they are. i mean a little mold and moss on them, crack here and there. >> reporter: and even though it's private land, intrepid explorers, selfie sticks in hand, still flock to the farm for a glimpse of the stone-faced leaders.

>> i have to tell them, this is not a site you can visit and i'll be as nice as i can be, i'll let them walk around and look and they try to climb on them and i say no climbing on the statues. >> reporter: rather than relegate the busts to an unofficial tourist attraction, hankins recently started raising funds for a new park outside of richmond, one that will include two additions: presidents barack obama and donald trump. until then he'll keep a close watch over his commanders-in- chief. >> these guys all seem to get along right here! i don't see anybody fighting. >> reporter: it's all bipartisan once you retire? >> they're good people. they all listen to me. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, i'm julia griffin in croaker, virginia. >> woodruff: and on the newshour online right now, we test your knowledge of all things presidential with our presidents day quiz. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour.

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 see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> 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. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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