captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight... >> we owe the american people an explanation of what their men and women were doing. >> woodruff: the chairman of the joint chefs addresses the questions still surrounding the ambush in niger that killed four americans. then, it's politics monday-- we talk president trump's dispute with the widow of one of the slain soldiers and if his recent comments on 401 k's could derail tax reform. and, against the odds-- a photographer follows the emotional journey of one couple struggling to start a family after debilitating war wounds and expensive fertility treatment. >> there's always this "if you're falling down, i will pick you up." if you need to lean on me, i

will hold onto you." that's what i took from the year and half of photographing them in so many situations >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> 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 nation's top military commander is promising answers on why and how four u.s. special operations troops were killed in niger. they died october 4 in an ambush by an islamic state affiliate. marine general joseph dunford, chair of the joint chiefs of staff, held a rare, extended news conference today. he acknowledged many things are unclear, including the mission's intelligence and air support. >> it's important for us to baseline what support was requested, at what particular time, when did it arrive, was it what they needed? we certainly have expressed a sense of urgency getting answers to questions you've asked and the families have asked, we want to have that investigation concluded as quickly as possible. but we have prioritized making sure the investigation is accurate.

>> woodruff: secretary of state rex tillerson made a surprise visit to afghanistan today during his current overseas trip. it came as the trump administration commits more troops to shore up the afghan regime. tillerson flew into bagram air base, north of kabul, and met with president ashraf ghani. he reaffirmed president trump's commitment but said it's not unlimited. >> he's also made it clear it is not a blank check commitment. that's why it is a conditions based commitment. clearly we have to continue the fight against the taliban and against others in order for them to understand they will never win a military victory. >> woodruff: tillerson also urged moderates in the taliban to move toward reconciliation and full participation in the afghan government. from kabul, tillerson made a second unscheduled flight, to baghdad, in a bid to curb iran's influence in iraq. he had called sunday for iranian-backed paramilitary

forces in iraq to go home. iraqi prime minister haider al- abadi insisted today the units are iraqi patriots. tillerson also urged a peaceful solution to baghdad's dispute with its kurdish region. the kurds are pressing for independence. there's word of a new massacre in syria by islamic state militants. damascus says at least 67 civilians were found dead in a central town recaptured over the weekend. activists say the real number may be double that. meanwhile, a u.s.-backed militia has captured syria's largest oil field from isis. the militia says it's asking the russians to prevent their syrian allies from trying to take it for themselves. donor nations pledged nearly $230 million in new funds today to aid rohingya muslims in bangladesh. more than 600,000 have fled violence in buddhist myanmar since late august. jonathan miller of independent television news reports on

conditions in the refugee camps. >> reporter: when you've been burned out of your homes, raped, shot at and beaten, and now just want something to eat, this is the last thing you need. the bangladesh army was in charge of this handout today. and it all got a bit testy. at least now though, there is aid. and on the whole, there is order. kutupalong refugee camp, now a shanty city of more than a million. over half, new arrivals. rohingya are still arriving faster than those trying to help them can cope with. but the u.n. has a more visible presence now. medical care is more widespread, and there are thousands of new orange toilets. although there is still only one for every 100 people. there's an acute shortage of safe water, but their sinking

new tube wells daily and hand pumps mean people don't have to wash themselves and their dishes in puddles and filthy rivers. they have now turned into municipal swimming pools. new tented classrooms are being built for the 450,000 children who need education. the schools though still need nearly 6,000 teachers. now that the monsoon is drying up, makeshift shelters are springing up all over the flood plain in this river down here. and you can bet, that within a few weeks this will be covered only to be flooded out again come the next deluge. sometimes you find sick people running high fevers just by the roadside. we walked deeper into suburban kutupalong where there is a frenzied construction boom.

here though, 17,000 people suffer acute malnutrition and an outbreak of cholera or measles could be a mass killer. >> woodruff: jonathan miller of independent television news. in the philippines, the government today declared the southern city of marawi liberated. militants aligned with the islamic state seized it five months ago, and more than 1,100 people died in the fighting since. today, troops celebrated across the city after defeating the last holdouts. federal employees raised the national flag at city hall. back in this country, president trump today presented the medal of honor to a vietnam war medic. retired army captain gary rose was honored for repeatedly risking his life to help wounded soldiers during a battle in september 1970. he spoke later, outside the white house. >> this is our medal, its not mine we all earned it.

and to a great extent its for all those men who fought those seven years in mac-sog. and even further than that to honor the men in all the special forces groups who fought and ed in that war. >> woodruff: rose is now 70 and lives in huntsville, alabama. president trump today ruled out changes to 401 k retirement programs as part of tax reform. there'd been reports that republicans were talking about limiting the amount workers may put aside in 401 k's. separately: the president also told fox business network that special counsel robert mueller has not asked to interview him about russian meddling in the 2016 election. and stocks closed lower on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average lost 54 points to close just under 23,274. the nasdaq fell 42 points, and the s&p 500 slipped 10. still to come on the newshour: lingering questions about the niger ambush that killed four u.s. soldiers.

what tom hanks has to say about the harvey weinstein scandal. military couples find hope in in-vitro fertilization, and much more. >> woodruff: there are a number of questions still surrounding the deaths of four american soldiers in niger this month. the details of what lead to the ambush remain murky. this afternoon, the chairman of the joint chiefs, general joseph dunford said the military owed the families of the fallen and the american people answers. he laid out what we know now and what remains obscured by the fog of conflict. >> early in the morning, third october as i mentioned u.s. forces a copped that nigerian unit on a reconaissance mission to gather information. the assessment by our leaders on the ground at that time was that contact with the enemy was

unlikely. mid morning on october 4th the patrol began to take fire as they were returning to their operating base. approximately one hour after taking fire, the team requested support. and within minutes a remotely piloted aircraft arrived overhead. within an hour, french mirage jets arrived on station. and then later that afternoon french attack helicopters arrived on station in a nigerian quick reaction force arrived where our troops were in contact with the enemy. during the firefight two us-- u.s. soldiers were wounded and-- and where the casual evacuation plan that was in place for this particular operation. three u.s. soldiers who were killed in action were evacuated on the evening of 4 october and at that time sergeant la david johnson was still missing. on the evening of 6th octoberhsergeant johnson's body was found and subsequently evacuated. from the time the firefight was initiated until sergeant johnson's body was recovered,

french, nigerian or u.s. forszs remained in thatteria. let's keep in mind, although i talked about enemy contact being unlikely on this particular mission, the reason why we were in west africa is because it is an area of concentration of isis and al-qaeda. the reason why our special operations forces are operating in libya is because there is a threat of isis attacks from lib why. the reason they are in east africa is because there is an al-qaeda in a smaller isis presence there. so to the extent that they were taking risks, we have sent them there to operate in areas within which there are extremist elements that if we weren't conducting operations, our judgement is that they would have the capability to plan and conduct operations against the homeland, the american people or our allies. >> in our judgement we're dealing with global threats in al-qaeda, in isis and other groups. and the theory of the case of our strategy is to be able to put pressure on them simultaneously wherever they are. and as importantly to anticipate where they will be. and to make sure that where they

are and where they will be when they get there, they are confronted by local security forces that have the ability to meet the challenges associated with al-qaeda, isis and other groups. >> woodruff: this morning, myeshia johnson, the widow of sergeant la david johnson, spoke of her frustration about the president's call of condolence. >> he couldn't remember my husband's name. the only way he remembered my husband's name is because he told me he had my husband's report in front of him and that's when he actually said la david. i heard him stumbling on trying to remember my husband's name and that's what hurt me the most, because if my husband is out here fighting for our country and he risked his life for our country why can't you remember his name. >> woodruff: for more on all of this, and what the special forces were specifically

doing at the time they were killed and more broadly what is their mission in niger, we turn to new york times pentagon reporter eric schmidt. and laura seay, an assistant professor of government at colby college where she focuses on african politics and conflicts. welcome to you both. eric schmitt, you have been following this story from the beginning. what did you learn today from what general dunford said? >> well, as your report indicates, still many of the most important questions remain unanswered but what the general did say was that these kind of missions in africa are now under review. they'll continue as scheduled, these advise and assist missions, training missions, if you will, but the pentagon will take a long hard look at the kind of support that these teams get when they go out. we also learned it took about an hour before the team after it came under fire called for help. we still don't know what happened during that hour, whether they thought they could handle the threat on their own. whether there were, sm of the injuries took place within that hour, we just don't know. those are two of the main things we learned today.

>> woodruff: laura seay you have been able to listen to what general dunford said, you have been following this, of course too, what did you learn that raises more questions for you? >> well, i think that we learned that there was more assistance initially available to these forces in the field once they asked for help. as erica pointed out it did take an hour and that is a big question as to why we don't know what happened during that hour. but they did have media drone support and the french were able to get there rapidly. so the fact that one of the soldiers did become separated, that something happened in the recovery of the body, those are still open questions. but it is clear to me that the pentagon both is conducted an investigation and also realizes the importance of doing so and realizes the importance of getting answers, not least for the families of the fallern. >> woodruff: eric schmidt i think there were a lot of questions from the reporters today about the length of time that it took, that, when the group was first attacked, that he said it took an hour, then it

took a half an hour for the french to acknowledge the request for help, and then another half an hour it seems like a long time. are there any theories going on right now about all of this? >> well, again what it indicates is that this is a part of the world, the african continent, particularly this as tear where the u.s. performs in small team, special resources with small resource, med evac capability, this is not a full blown battle field like iraq or afghanistan with a lot more american assets, this he had to lie on allies, both nigerian and french allies, this have improved this over the last few years according to the sources i talked to but it is long from the golden hour that the troops in battle fields hen they get injured, the so called golden hour to evacuate wounded.

in this case it took more than two hours from the time that they initially came into contact, and again to stress, we don't know when these soldiers were injured but it took awhile for them to be evacuated. >> woodruff: laura seay, how large is the militant presence whether it's an isis affiliate or an al-qaeda affiliate in that part of the african continent? >> so these are very complicated questions. and we don't actually know because there are so many groups involved. we do know that the group that attacked american and nigerian forces in this particular instance was probably around 50 people. but the size of the group that they are associatedded with, the islamic state in the greater sa harrah,-- sa harrah it is an group constantly changing, constantly bringing in members, people fall out and go and join others, they merge together and so the number of threats that american forces are dealing with in niger and the region is very unpredictable. we are talking about several thousands of forces in some

cases. but you know, it can vary from day to day. and it's not a guarantee that if you are ta tacked one day by one group that that is the same group you will be dealing with a week, month or year later. >> woodruff: is with struck, eric schmidt today and over the weekend hearing how many members of congress said they weren't even aware the u.s. had forces in niger, taking on this mission. it's not that it was operating in secret, so how do you explain that? >> well, actually, there are about 6,000 american troops on the continent, all, about 4,000 of them are in djabouti on the horn of africa. the others are spread over 50 other country there are 800 in niger and the bulk of them are working in a couple of different drone bases. these are surveillance drone operations through that region. but i think what it also says is that a lot of these missions are going on in africa without a lot of notice. i mean it doesn't mean they're secret t just means that most of them are going on in a very

unobserved way both by members of congress and the public until you have a tragedy like this. >> woodruff: and laura seay, how much, i mean were you aware of what was going on there, as an academic who pays attention closely to this. because again i think many americans have been caught off guard by this entire incident. >> i agree. i think most americans were not aware. i am aware. i'm writing a book on the way that u.s. security policy has changed over the past 20 years in africa and this is certainly a huge part of it. but i do think this is something that came about as a surprise to many americans about the presence in africa. and i think many americans what be surprised to learn some of the statistics that eric just quoted. that this is not just an operation in niger but that there are american forces of varying size. some of these deployments are very, very small, six, eight, ten people. but they're going on all across the continent in all kinds of murky missions that we may or may not be aware of. and i think this speaks to some

of the challenges with this idea of a global war on terror that we've been under for the last 16 years. >> woodruff: and it also goes back eric schmidt to your first point, that you are hearing at the pentagon that this entire mission is now under review. i mean i think that says a lot, it raises questions about how much thought went into the mission in the first place. >> well, this is an administration, of course, that is one of made it top priority of combating isis wherever it is in the world. the generals have been given more authority, del gated more authority and very forward leaning, secretary mattis said over the weekend that they will be stepping up activities in africa. i think what you heard from general dunford today was that we are going to look at these kind of missions, we will still go after the threat but maybe have to adjust some of the force protection measures, some of the surveillance measures, some of the support that goes along with troops out in the field in these very remote places. >> woodruff: it certainly has raised a number of new questions

that we are going to be following. and i know both of you are too. eric schmidt, laura seay, we thank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: since the harvey weinstein story broke, there's been a new focus on sexual harassment in the workplace. this weekend, we learned fox news reportedly re-signed its then-top-rated host, bill o'reilly, after he allegedly paid $32 million to settle harassment allegations. in finance, several employees were reportedly forced out at fidelity investments, the mutual fund giant. then, two more developments today: the california state senate announced it is hiring firms to investigate reports of a reported pervasive culture of harassment there. back in new york, the state attorney general launched a civil rights probe into the weinstein company.

as it happens, this weekend jeffrey brown recorded an interview with actor tom hanks about a new project: his book, a collection of short stories. we'll air that interview in the coming days. in the course of that conversation, they talked about the fallout from the weinstein scandal. and jeff asked whether weinstein's behavior was an open secret inside hollywood. >> i think there was knowledge amongst a certain group of people, mostly who did business with-- with harvey weinstein. there are countless women who understood that that is what happened. and there were many people who said well, that's just harvey being harvey. >> how serious is it, is it about one person, one man or is it a culture? >> you and i and even the likes of the people on the turner classic movies understand that the idea of the casting couch that existed in hollywood is the part of both myth and concrete reality. any place there is a boss with underlings and any corporation

or any industry, you have a type of sexual politics that goes on that can slide in between appropriate ethics and decorum to, let's see, inappropriate behavior to the point of harassment and sexual predatory behavior. >> well, i mean i think people understand that. but the larger question, is there a culture of complicit in hollywood where women are afraid to speak up for being black listed men are afraid to speak up out of the same fear or is this how the system works. >> i think there are people who say this is how it works, plain and simple, this is how i got into, this is why i have power, this is how it works, that does not carry the day, complicit, this is how we do business and that's how it has to be done, i'm sorry it is like that, so beware, that is also present, it does not carry the day. there were also people afraid to speak out who were victims that did if the go forward. that signed, negotiated settlement deals of which a nondisclosure agreement was part and parcel to it.

that also does not carry the day. the dam has burst here in a big way. and it is not just the halls of places like harvey weinstein's office where this was standard operating procedure. and it is criminal, and it is-- it is, it cause for termination it is also happening in every other corner of not just my industry but yours and throughout all of america. >> you think this is a kind of tipping point. >> well, i think it absolutely is. in which everybody is asking, women, what do i put up with and when do i talk about it. and men saying i think we have to live by a code of ethics that we need to think and put down on paper. don't be surprised if you know there is going to be a sign in front of every one of the studio gates that will say all people entering this studio will obey this code of ethics or they will be escorted from the premises. and that will all be about sexual harassment and sexual predatory behavior.

>> woodruff: we'll have the rest of jeff's conversation with tom hanks about his new book and his work in the coming days. >> woodruff: we turn back now to the story of those u.s. servicemembers who were killed in action in niger more than two weeks ago. normally, stories like this are not matters for the political realm. but even today, the president continues to face criticism over his handling of condolence calls. for more on this and other issues on the horizon, we turn to our politics monday regulars, amy walter of the "cook political report" and tamara keith of npr. welcome to you both. it is politics monday. so as we said, the lead story, this terrible thing that happened in niger with the four american soldiers who died, the offshoot of that story that we're also talking about, tam is president trump, the way he handled it. he was asked about whether

he-- why he hadn't spoken about it this time last week. and then that has snowballed, if you will, into-- made a phone call to the widow. there has been a dispute about that now. she today said that she thought the president bungled her husband's name. he then tweeted that he didn't. this is not like anything we've seen before, is it? >> no, certainly not that i have seen before. i mean this is-- this is not how would you expect a president to handle a situation like this. the way you would expect it, i mean it never would have gotten this far. but if it did get this far, you would in theory expect a president to say my gosh, i'm mortgagified that-- that the widow feels this way. and i feel terrible about it. i'm sorry that it was misunderstood. and then go on to praise the service of la david johnson. that is not what has happened thus far. >> there was a time, judy, when

politically speaking you would never polit size the death of a service member and the idea of having a back and forth where you are questioning a gold star family about the way that they saw this issue would never have been acceptable. it's a little bit like the customer's always right. the grieving family is always right in this case. and that is scuffing up the window, the normal rules and the normal boundaries that we put on, what candidates can and can't do, when during the course of the campaign president trump got into a very personal fight with kizer khan who is a gold star family and his family. and once we cross that bridge there is no coming back were that. this is the president's style, and it has been consistent. the one thing after that last tweet you mentioned where the president said this is my recollection of events, the white house went back that more traditional mode.

the president had rose garden press conference, didn't take questions so we wouldn't see more engagement on this. >> unlike last week. >> unlick last week. and then to your issue that you brought up, the story you started today with general dunford, they went and said we really have to start talking about what happened in niger. also's go back to what the core issues are which is ba happened there, how did these men die. >> eoodruff: then we heard general dunford with a full throated news conference. he said i will answer every question that we can. >> meanwhile sarah sanders didn't hold a press briefing today. there were two other toonts where reporters shouted questions to the president and he didn't respond. >> woodruff: mean time we have this, i guess you can say offshoot of all this, and this also dates back to the campaign when the president was critical of john mccain, and said that i don't like people who have been captured. a reference to mccain being a p ow. so today john mccain has given an interview where he reminded everybody about the president's campaign through this comment,

let's listen. >> what i cared about was when he was talking about other prisoners of war and, there is an individual that lives in phoenix, he's 92. and he weighed 110 pounds when he got out of a german prison camp. and he said to me, he said general mccain, why does the president not like me. you know. that's hard to explain to a 92 year old man. >> woodruff: and that's painful. >> yeah, and it's personally painful to senator mccain who was a prisoner of war and knows other guys and is talking about this. he was actually sort of dodging another question about a remark that he had made on c-span where he referenced bone spurs which president trump got some deferls from serving in vietnam because of bone spurs. and it wasn't a direct -- mccain

din't say directly, but it was more of a commentary about sort of a division between people with means and people without means. and how our military service, how people are so disconnected from u.s. military service. >> woodruff: it doesn't look like the mccain-trump feud isness. >> is getting better at any time soon. especially when we are talking about something like americans killed in action. >> woodruff: i just want to raise one other thing because believe it or not there are other things happening right now. >> there are. >> woodruff: that is tax reform quickly. amy, the republicans have been talking about wanting to get this done, they're going to get this done. the white house wants to get it donement but then the president this morning tweeted that no, whatever you hear about their touching 401(k)s, that not going to happen. do you think republicans were surprised to see this? >> well, this, remember, we don't have a tax plan yet. we've seen nothing official. this is a little bit like flying a plane and building it at the same time. there are pieces that are getting added and subtracted

constantly through this process. the challenge for republicans and this happened for them with health care as well, just when they think they have things buttoned down, the president will send a tbeet out that maybe they didn't expect, maybe they did. lamar alexander the senator who is trying, republican senator who is trying to could be el together a compromise on health care has gotten undercut by these tweets or off-the-cuff statements the president has made. the president of the united states is the leader of his party and he needs to have a leadership role in telling folks where to go. and right now it's really unclear where that is going to be. and i think this is the challenge for republicans. they know they want it get this done but will the president be united in their messaging do you think the white house is aware of this dynamic? >> i think they are. but the president, the president's tweets speak for themselves, i think is what they usually say. the president, this is sort of a classic, at least it seemed to be a classic trial balloon in washington world where something shows up in the papers and it's

an idea that maybe some people don't like and some people do. and so it shows up while the president got wind of it. and made it clear that he didn't like that. and the reality is the president was trying to pitch this to the middle class tax cut. there are a lot of reasons why it may not ultimately be a middle class tax cut. but talking about people's 401(k)s is really undercuts the idea of a middle class tax cut. >> woodruff: there is a little segue, we will continue to watch tax reform, health care and everything else that is going on. amy walter, tamara keith, politics mondayk thank you both. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: the latest book in the hit series that brought us "the girl with the dragon tattoo." and a west virginia poet explores a difficult subject-- the opioid crisis.

but first, we return to a story we first told you about in 2015, about a young couple trying to overcome the scars of war. william brangham brings us up to date. >> brangham: two years ago, we went to colorado to tell the story of a badly-wounded young marine veteran and his wife. they wanted to start a family. but as you'll see, the challenges facing them-- physical and financial-- were daunting. all newlyweds face challenges, but jason and rachel hallett have more than most. jason is a triple amputee. back in 2010, as a 19-year-old marine, he lost two legs and one arm when he stepped on an i.e.d in afghanistan. >> when 9/11 and everything happened i had a little bit of interest in joining the military but as soon as that happened, everything was circling around me joining the military. >> brangham: after his injury, jason had multiple surgeries at various u.s. military facilities.

he hadn't been in touch with rachel since they dated back in the eighth grade. but in the hospital, he looked her up on facebook. >> he sends me this friend request a couple years after i had kind of given up. and when i saw what had happened i just started crying and messaged him right away and sa¡' well, we've got a lot to catch up on.' >> brangham: facebook led to phone calls, which led to a visit, and then: a wedding day. when we first met them, they were living in windsor, colorado. jason was studying to be a certified financial planner. rachel babysat local kids to make extra money, but her full time job really was caring for jason. she got a small stipend from the v.a. for that work. what the halletts wanted most was to start a family, but, there was a problem. >> there's tons of shrapnel everywhere throughout his body. >> brangham: still, in your body today? >> yep, one of the pieces had connected itself to one of my

testicles, so i have to take testosterone injections to get me back to normal. with that, one of the side effects is that is basically kills the sperm off. >> brangham: in order to conceive a child, the halletts only option was to try i.v.f.-- in vitro fertilization. i.v.f. is expensive-- it typically costs about 12 to $13,000 per try, and the first try often doesn't work, so the bills can stack up. but unlike all the other medical treatment related to jason's war injuries, the v.a. does not cover i.v.f. for wounded vets, so the halletts were paying for this themselves. in 1992, congress passed a law that led to the v.a. banning i.v.f. coverage. there were concerns over costs-- which are estimated to be about $500 million over five years. there were also reports that anti-abortion groups who disapprove of i.v.f. didn't want it funded. what that meant was that for the estimated 1,800 veterans like jason, they also have to spend

tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to get pregnant and start a family. democratic senator patty murray wanted that to change. she authored a bill that would lift the i.v.f. ban. but for years, her efforts had been blocked. >> to me when someone goes off to fight a war for us, a man or a woman, we have an obligation to make them whole again, as whole as we can. >> it's very angering and it brings a lot of resentment toward my active service. i don't regret joining the marine corps. the simple fact is that they told us we'd be taken care of us if we got injured. i guarantee that if it were a congressman's kid or them they'd be doing everything they can to make it happen. >> it's hard to know that he would protect them and that he would give up all of this for them, and they will not take just a little bit of time to fix this issue that we are having. >> brangham: when we left, the halletts had just begun the first of their costly fertility treatments.

so that was the end of 2015. since then, senator murray's bill still hasn't come up for a vote, but last december, congress did authorize the v.a. to pay for in-vitro services for wounded vets for a two-year period. this fix didn't occur in time to help jason and rachel hallett, as you'll see-- soon after we left, a young photographer picked up their story and has been documenting their life ever since. kirsten leah bitzer was taking intro to photography at college, and she had an idea for her class project. the idea came from her mom-- she was a nurse at an i.v.f. center, and she's often told kirsten about the tough time couples often go through when they're trying to conceive a child. >> i said: can you please find me a couple who might be interested in allowing me to tag along for their story. >> brangham: and it turned out that jason and rachel hallett, who were just a few weeks into their i.v.f. process at the same clinic, said yes. >> i was asking them to be involved in the most intimate,

one of the most intimate things people can go through. normal, able-bodied couples who are dealing with infertility have enough insecurities and difficulties that they're dealing with already, but when you're dealing with a triple amputee, as well and his caregiver, it's a whole other level of sensitivity training, honestly. >> brangham: kirsten followed jason and rachel through the ups and downs of the whole in-vitro process, and its many different medical procedures. she also went with them for many of jason's visits to various v.a. hospitals for his ongoing care >> i had been to the prosthetic fittings with them and the meeting just before they left for california for the marine corps ball. the prosthetics fitting was supposed to be a final thing because he was insisting he would stand all night long at the marine corp ball. and with his bone grown and everything, because he was still so young his bones were still growing so much, his bones would

poke through the skin and create these open wounds that were just rubbing against the prosthetics, and so the prosthetist was supposed to mold it out in those spots and make sure the final product was going to be accommodating enough for him stand and walk around all night. and it wasn't so he had to use his old ones. and he still did it. >> brangham: even though that's incredibly painful? >> yeah. he was miserable. he was in excruciating pain. >> brangham: this was the marine corps ball-- it's the annual event to celebrate the founding of the corps. this one was in california and jason was a guest of honor. >> he was born to be a marine. he would tell you that. there's this brotherhood and it's nothing that anybody else in civilization can provide for him so i wanted to witness that and try to document that in a certain way. >> brangham: after the ball, back home in colorado, jason started his new job as a financial advisor. and the two of them continued their efforts to finally get pregnant and grow their family.

after rounds of different hormone shots and egg retrievals, two of their fertilized embryos were transferred into rachel's womb, hoping that at least one would take. i.v.f. often takes multiple tries. but not this time. >> the day that they got the news they were pregnant she played it on speakerphone in the car. i was lucky i even got any photos in focus because i couldn't see-- i was crying, silently-- i didn't want to ruin the moment for them, but i was just like ¡oh this is happening!' and after a bit, things settled down, she looked back and me and said ¡you're crying!' and i said ¡i know, how can i not? i'm a human!' >> brangham: and it turned out that both embryos had implanted: jason and rachel were going to have twins. kirsten says that at first, she worried that for a young couple who already had challenges, suddenly doubling the size of their family could be too much. >> before i really knew them, i was thinking this is a tall

order for one woman, honestly, she's the caregiver-- >> brangham: to him-- >> to jason. already. i mean you have to be a strong person to go into it knowing how much more difficult everything will be. i have every reason to be confident in their ability to be just so-- i don't know, capable. which is interesting word to use for jason, i guess because you look at him and you think he's handicapped but in this situation it's-- they have everything they need. >> brangham: on her due date, rachel labored for nearly 17 grueling hours before doctors decided she needed a c-section. >> i mean, there were so many difficulties. they couldn't get the epidural needle in between her vertebrae because she was so huge she couldn't bend forward. she was screaming and jason was as calm and as strong as anybody could have possibly been, and he was saying things like ¡this is everything we've wanted. this is everything we've wanted. you know that you're strong enough to do this.'

and the strength shown between the two of them in that situation was monumental. there's always this "if you're falling down, i will pick you up."" if you need to lean on me, i will hold onto you." and in a literal sense, in a metaphorical sense, and that's what i took from the year and half of photographing them and so many situations. baby jay, baby jay. >> brangham: after a short stint in the neonatal intensive care unit, jason, or baby jay as he's known, came home. same with his twin sister, marina. they're both well and healthy. >> when i first started this project i was thinking, it's finished when they have the babies. and i realized that their story is never over. i want to be there to take photos when the babies graduate from high school or college and when they get married. luckily they are open to that and i've been invited to be a part of such an amazing story.

>> brangham: for the pbs newshour, in windsor, colorado, i'm william brangham. >> woodruff: now, the newest installment in a best-selling series. hari sreenivasan has this addition to the newshour bookshelf. >> sreenivasan: first there was "the girl with the dragon tattoo." then "the girl who played with fire" and finally "the girl who kicked the hornet's nest." written by swedish journalist stieg larsson and published after his death in 2004, they were international bestsellers with millions of fans following the brilliant hacker and outsider lisbeth salander. two years ago larson's estate tapped swedish journalist and writer david lagercrantz to continue the series. now the latest has been published. "the girl who takes an eye for an eye." david joins me know. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. pleasure. >> sreenivasan: so for people who are unfamiliar with the

series the central character here is someone who has just been crushed by society but she does something different with the pain than you or i might. >> i mean instead of getting crushed, instead of getting weak she just gets stronger and stronger and that's really the amazing thing about her. she's an outsider and there is of course a key moment in lisbeth salander's life and that is when she sees her evil father, she really had an evil father abusing and raping her mother and she understands that society will not do anything. so she understands even though she's just 12 years old that she's the only one so she tries to kill her father. and they put her in a mental hospital and they try really to crush her but there was something that got her going, so she's really the revenger. >> sreenivasan: well what is it about this character that so many people connect with? >> i think she really changed crime fiction.

if we go back a couple of decades, the female character's were victims. they were murdered, they were raped and they needed a man to protect them or rescue them. lisbeth salander doesn't need anyone. she's the female cowboy in a way, but with certain, much better values. she's a feminist icon i think. >> sreenivasan: in the book there's also a central male character, the journalist mikael blomkvist right? >> yes, yes, yes. >> sreenivasan: here, in the united states version of the movie, we literally had the guy who plays james bond playing him right? what was that transition like? it was almost like stieg larsson wanted him to be one of the central characters, but she became the star. >> yeah but that happens. but mikael blomkvist is a brilliant journalist, he's a crusader, she has all these good values. fighting against intolerance and for fighting against injustice, but we have seen this kind of

character, he's more traditional. but lisbeth was the new, great invention of stieg larsson so in a way lisbeth is sherlock holmes and mikael blomkvist turned a bit like doctor watson, even though he's much more brilliant of course than doctor watson. >> sreenivasan: this is the second book that you've picked up in the series. how do you strike that balance of creating freshness in a character that technically else has begun to frame in their life? >> i worship stieg larsson. he was always the genius, the master who had created this lisbeth salander certainly, but i had to feel that she was mine. i had to go into the character and when i try to understand how i should do it, i watched christopher nolan, you know, batman movies. >> sreenivasan: oh yeah? >> yeah, i really did that.

and what he did was deepen the mythology of batman. added darkness to it. so i thought it was one of my missions, to answer questions that stieg larsson hasn't had time to answer >> sreenivasan: how do you keep the mystery in a character while you're working to reveal more and more? >> that's the tricky part. you should always try to understand a person. an icon person, you should try to answer questions. but you should never fully explain a person because if you fully understand the person, the person will stop being interesting. so i think lisbeth salander will and should always be an enigma. but we the readers and i the writer should try to deepen the enigma and find out more things about her. >> sreenivasan: there's a lot of current events weaved through this. you're dealing with racism and hacking and misinformation.

i mean stieg larsson also has that kind of a moral core that he wanted to talk about the things that were happening. >> i think he was a very contemporary writer dealing with the issues of his time, trafficking, and i think that was part of his success. lisbeth salander was it. but he was moral crusader himself, there is a moral pathos in the book and there has to be, >> sreenivasan: and there are, you have different sort of subplots that are weaving in and out that are little bit more of a moment in 2016, 2017 when you're writing this book. >> yes, yes of course. i mean we have the problem of unrelated violence for example, an issue that certainly would concern lisbeth salander, and then there of course is the big question we have with fake news with misinformation with hacking, so i think i'm preaching in the book i'm preaching now in interviews value of good journalism because now we know

there are organized, there are hackers spreading lies and hatreds so we need good journalists more than ever. and people are bashing journalists, but doesn't understand they are vital for democracy so mikael blomkvist here that we need. and lisbeth salander is also here that we need because now the most horrible hacker attack is done by the states, by russia or whatever. >> sreenivasan: the book is called "the girl who takes an eye for an eye." david lagercrantz, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. pleasure. >> woodruff: now, our america addicted series continues with a different take on the nation's opiod crisis, this time captured in verse. jeffrey brown is back with the story.

>> i would come back for the holidays, thanksgiving or christmas, and someone i knew suddenly wasn't around anymore and i would ask "what happened to this person?" and friends would say, "oh they're on the pills. we don't really see them anymore." >> brown: the pills that poet william brewer talks about are opioids, and they've become the scourge of both the city and state where he was born and raised: morgantown, west virginia. the state has the highest rate in the nation for overdose deaths, with one happening every 12 hours. >> there's no doubt that something that wasn't going on 10 years ago is now going on on a massive scale. i gave my body to the mountain whole. for my body, the clinic gave out petals inked with curses. refill, refill, refill, until they stopped. >> brown: the opioid crisis is also the subject of brewer's first collection of poetry, called "i know your kind," published last month. it was a topic that brewer

initially wanted to avoid. >> west virginia is very rarely looked at in a positive light. and so here again is a situation where something really quite terrible is going on, but it became so clear that this thing wasn't going to go away and was starting to seep into my daily life, so eventually i kind of couldn't help but engage with it. and once i started, it kind of took over and kept going. >> brown: what did you see that then compelled you? >> it got to the point where it was a matter in my daily life every day. not with me. i have not suffered with opioid or opioid addiction. but i was seeing the ways that it was impacting both the individual suffering and those that cared for that individual. and when that's going on, it's quite difficult to really think about anything else. >> brown: in the book, brewer speaks in many different voices. sometimes an observer, sometimes a concerned family member, most often, the addict himself.

in one particularly vivid poem, brewer describes the lengths two addicts go to get more pills. >> we were so hungry; tom's hand on the table looked like warm bread. i crushed it with a hammer. then walked him to the e.r. to score pills. why'd you keep hitting, he asked. i don't know. and i didn't. one of the things that is really crucial is the sense of bewilderment that people find themselves in. no one really starts out shooting pills or heroin into their system. no one quite understands how they get there. it happens so quickly that someone can turn around and it's been a year and they've been abusing opioids for a year. i spent a lot of time playing in the barn or the creek. >> brown: as a young boy, brewer spent time on his family's farm, and on hiking trips in the region.

he left west virginia to go to college and grad school, and is now on a fellowship at stanford university. but he's always been fascinated by the landscape of west virginia, and sees a connection to the opioid epidemic. >> west virginia is one of the most distinct and beautiful landscapes in the entire country in my opinion. but it is a landscape that is rarely ever free from the influence of industry. so any space you're in, there's a good change that timber has been there. or coal has been there or agriculture has been there. >> brown: in good times and bad? >> good times and bad. labor and how you make your life here, for a lot of people, meant you work with your hands. and your connection to the land was very deliberate. you can't separate the two. >> brown: in a very visceral way. >> it's very visceral. so when one of those is taken out of the equation, you notice it. so when the coal stops or the timber stops you notice that

absence. there's this strange shadow problem where you walk around and it's immensely beautiful but you know there's this terror going on privately in the homes of its people. where once was faith, there are sirens: red lights spinning. door to door, a record twenty- four. in one day, all the bodies at the morgue filled with light. who can stand another night stealing fistfuls of pills from our cancer-sick neighbors? of the railcars crying, the timber trucks hauling away the history of a million birds. pitiful? maybe. but oblivion is all we have. >> brown: for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in morgantown, west virginia. >> woodruff: you can read more from poet will brewer, and find all of the stories in our america addicted series on our website, 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: >> collette. >> 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

[ bells play tune ] [ theme music plays ] -♪ i think i'm home ♪ i think i'm home ♪ how nice to look at you again ♪ ♪ along the road ♪ along the road ♪ anytime you want me ♪ you can find me living right between your eyes, yeah ♪ ♪ oh, i think i'm home ♪ oh, i think i'm home -today on "cook's country," brian makes julia authentic south carolina smoked, fresh ham. adam reviews the best potato mashers with bridget.