captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, the threat to come. in light of the mueller report, we look at what is known today about foreign plans to interfere in the 2020 election. then, a modern tragedy-- there are morehan one million rohingya refugees living in banglash, forced out by the government next door: myanmar's persecution of this muslim minority. plus, for most of human history, tarctica remained unknown. in our last report in a series from the icy continent, scovery and diplomacy at the bottom of the world. >> this was how you showed tha you were a scientific presence. this was a matter of prestige and status. it showed that you had arrived. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention, in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more infortion at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was ma possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: president trump is vowing to fight congressional democrats all the way, over a series of investigations and subpoenas. just yesterday, the former white house personnel security director ignored a subpoena from a committee of the u.s. house of representatives.

and, the treasury department has refused to release mr. trump'sre tarns to another panel. former white house counsel don mcgahn is also under subpoena to testify. but leaving the white house today, the presithnt made clear he means to resist. >> we're fighting all the subpoenas. look these are not like imrtial people. the dems are trying to win 2020. the only way they can luck out isey constantly going after on nonsense. >> woodruff: meanwhile, democrat elijah cummings, chair of thesi house ovt committee, accused the administration of unprecedented obstruction, by ordering federal workers to defy ofbpoenas. and, on the issu impeachment: president trump warned today that he will go all the way to the u.s. supreme court, if congress tries to oust him from office. in sri lanka, investigators learned moreoday about the islamist militants they blame for easter sunday's suicide

bombings. the death to has now grown to 359, and at least 58 people have been arrested. >> the attacks were at least inspired by the debbie edward, of independent television news, reports fromlo coo, in sri lanka. >> reporter: the police trying to usher people away from the first of a series of controlled explosions they condted across the capital today. a nervous public watching on as they dealt with another suspicious vehicle. security is at its highest levels here, even at the morgue, where relatives are still eaarriving to identify the with the country's churches still in lockdown, 32 people in custody details have started to emerge about those responsible for the ster sunday attacks. this house in a quiet area of colombo was where the family of

two brothers responsible for the hotel bombings lives. when the police raided the property on sunday, the wife of one of the men tggered a suicide vest. sinaka lives on the same street. >> ( translated ): the woman killed herself, her two children anthree policemen. >> repter: neighbor mohammad knew the bombers father and can't believe his family were responsie. >> almost everybody knows, you know he's a famous, rich guy. and he's a good guy. he never thought this would happen from his house. its a really big shock for everyone. >> reporter: the government have confirmed all nine bombers weref from welsri lankan families, and one of them studied in the u.k. a worker from a copper factory owned by the grand bomber said they wershocked when the bomb squad turned up. >> looking.

they are very, very good men. but inside... do you know what that means? very, very bad. >> reporter: police have searched this place twice in three days. the two police raids here had led to speculation that this was where the suicide bombers hadth builr bombs and their suicide vests. although that doesn't seem to bl the case, itr there are components here that could be helpful in that process. the streets here are full ofli armed , and signs of grief. the island tonight once again under curfew. >> woodruff: that report from debbie edward, of independent television news.un thed nations reports that afghan and international forces killed more afghan civilians in the firsthree months of this year than taliban insurgents did. that reverses e trend of recent years. the report says in all, there

were 581 civilian deaths. nearly half of those blameon government and nato forces occurred during air strikes. a court in hong kong ordered prison time today for eight leaders of the 2014 pro- democracy protests. three of them face up to 16 months behind bars. they led demonstrations calling for chinto grant free elections in the territory.th in allsands of protesters took part, and paralyzed hong kong's financial district for 79 days. supporters vowed today to continue fighting for demoatic reforms. north korea's leaderong un has begun his first visit to russia as his country's leader. he meets with president vladimir putin on thursday, at a time when the north's nuclear talks with the u.s. have stalled. kim arrived in the pacific port city of vladivostok byrmoredda train toy. he was greeted by offiwials and spok russian state television.

>> ( translated ): i have come to russia in good feelings. i hope this visit will be successful and useful. i hope through the ntions with dear president putin i will be able to discuss certain questions of reconciliation on the korean peninsula and development of relationships between our countries. >> woodruff: it is unclear just what might come from the adivostok meeting. in february, kim's second summit with president trump ended abruptly with no agreements. in a remarkable move, the government of japan formally imapologized today to an eed 25,000 people who were forcibly sterilized from 1948 to 1996. it was done under a eugenics law designed to "prevent the birth of poor-quality descendants". many, but not all, of those sterilized had disabilities.ti now, the v will be eligible for compensation, of $28,600 dollars apiece.

back in this country, new numbers indicate that measles cases in the u.s. have hit the highest level in 25 years. the associated press reports nearly 690ases so far, in 2019. alth officials say a rise in vaccine misinformation isin casome parents to skip vaccinating their children.s boeing s may cost $1 ion dollars to fix its 7 max jetliners. some 370 of the planes were grounded worldwide after crashes in indonesia and ethiopia that killed nearly 350 people. the company is now working on software changes and other fixes. and, on wall street, the dow jones industrial average lost 59 points to close at 26,597. the nasdaq fell 18 points, and the s&p 500 slipped six. still to come on the newshou what we know about russia's plans to interfere in the 2020

elections. refugees from the persecution of rohingya muslims in myanmar. how the mueller report is resonating outside ofsh gton, and much more. >> woodruff: amid the flurry of debate over the report by robert mueller and his team, the special counsel was clear on one main point: "the russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion."ye buerday, president trump's son-in-law, white house adviser jared kushner, dismissed the seriousness of the scheme. >> and you look at what russia did, buying some facebook ads to try to sow dissent and and it's a terrible thing, but iig

think the inveions and all of the speculation that's happened for the last two years has had a much harsher impact on democracy than a couple facebook dis. >> woodruff: in on, a "new york times" article today said that the former homeland security secretary, kirstjen nielsen, w discouraged by the president's staff from discussing security for th2020 election, in front of the president himself. the white house denied this, after the story was published. but what about 2020? what has been done, and what more needs to be done, to protect the integritof that election? juliette kayyem previously served in the u.s. department of holand security. and thomas rid is a cybersecurity expert at johns hopkins university, who has closely studied russianth operations lik one. welcome to the newshour to both of you. welcome back. let me start with you, juliette kayyem. we hear jared kushner sayin fit was just w facebook ads, but we see a much more serious picture being portrayed, painted in the mueller report.

what do we know in sum about what the russians did 2016? >> see, we know now that it started early than we previousl thought,rly as 2014, and that it was more systemic, or systematic and more targeted than we had onc kenown. what i mean it was systematic, there is a theory russia threw a bunch of things at the wall and something stuck. and what we now know is bot through the republican primary and then through the general the russians had a susndtained concerted effort to utilize social media, the advertisements, and other networks to perpetuate essentially lies about other candidhees or to support, by end, one particular candidate, donald trump. this is outside the hacking issue. on the hacking issue the story is well known and it'sed documen volume one, that those-- the hacking that was initiated ednd staby russia, desired by russia through wikileaks washen sort of weaponnized by the u.s. media in

terms of it repeating what wa stolen, and then became a storyline that by the end hillary clinton had to defend. >> woodruff: and thomas rid, how much of this was underlined-- or in fact became new information in the mueller report? >> the mueller report in factalded very little genuinely new details to the story of russian interference that was already publicly known. in fact, i'm a little disappointed that we didn't learn more about the social media data specifically that the mueller report cites. they seem to rely oubn plicly available data. but 's an important thing that i think the meller report is falling short on. the mueller report med the ira, the internet research agency, the trolling and the social media, operation first, and, also, that's where the first indictment was published. but the leaking and the hackinge or rathe hacking and then the leaking, of dem files, especially john podesta's

in box, was far morignificant than the social media operation. so we risk overstating the effect of the social media campaign. >> woodruff: but you're saying a we need to pention to all-- to all of it. juliette kayyem, what then do we know about what the russians are up to for 2020? >> well, you know i believe ndiblehouses matter, that a white house that is committed to stopping a foreign campaigngainst our democra would be relevant. so what we're seeing, of course, is the denials, the giuliani statement this weekend that, you know, it's okay to get this information from the russians. so i don't want to put that aside, because i o think that matters. but on the tactical level, you do see a lot of effort being made on the state and local level thugh the department of homeland security to protect elections and the eleio process. and then, of course, the kind of training and efforts that are being done throughampaigns, the democratic party, the republican party, to protect their network. some of that is defense, you know, layered security

encryption. but some of it also h offense, which is in this case naming and shaming it. wepuave to be quitblic about when someone's stuff has been taken-- say, emails-and the final thing when i mentioned before, the media has to start havingsome standards by which they will determine whether things stod n-- not lea things stolen will be utilized by them to amplify the sort of criminal behavior by a foreign entity. >> woodruff: that's a message we need to ive very sious consideration to. thomas rid, what about for 2020? what do you see coming in 2020 that this country has to be on guard against? >> important, i would add to what was just said, that we learned in 2016 that some of the leaks were messed with. the very first leak, for example, contained a documentth was the russian front, classified, came from hillary clinton's server? the state departm

all three statements were lies, were just not backed up by the evidence. so we have to expect-- and that's historical norm-- we have to expdect forgeries, don't trust the leaks at face value-- very important message for journalists. but i would highlight a really serious risk here. the ggest risk is eye combination of two thincombinatt of the united states. if he is dated, calling the legitimacy of the vote into question, which he has anounced multiple times already that he would be doing so. and in combination, a russian operation that would provide some sort of credible evidences to taim that the system is rigged in the heat of the moment on election night and following days to cre uncertainty in eye very fragile moment, and, thurks endanger a peaceful transion of power. >> woodruff: juliette kayyem, just quickly, i see youdding. what gives you-- what makes you

believe that that's a concern? >> because the russians know the play book. they know that the white house is not essentially stopping orly forcefstopping the play book, and they will change. so one of my biggest concerns uming from the-- yo know, both the cyber and physical security ace is that the russians will utilize cyber attacks to have a physical impact on the voting process. so, in other wor, how do you win michigan? you depress 20,000 african american tes in detroit. so whether they, you know, sort of force traffic issues o signals go out or there's a blackout. and so there's what well the "internet of things" that you would have a cyber attack tham would ct physical processs. to me, that's my worry. e russians are sophisticated enough to do that and they will change and modify what we no know because of the mueller report. >> woodruff: thomas rid, that's alarming to even think about that.w n the u.s. be on guard against some or all of this?

>> one important aspect of being on guard is to really look at the available evidence of what is happening in a very, very soaber and cool-headed way, which, is of course, verul diffbecause this conversation is so highly politicized. but by overstating th- threa and we are overstating the full spectrum of russian influence operations in 2016 curntly-- by exaggerating the threats, we are effectively making that operation more successful than it actually was. and we rk, by overstaithe disinformation, we risk engaging in disinformation. now, of course, we still have to be on guard and protect systems, and i support everything that we heard here. but i just think it's really important to be, also, aware of this risk of overstating thehe problem atame time. >> woodruff: being clear-eyed and direct about everything we hear and what we say. thomas ridjuliette kayyem, we thank you both.

we're going to continue to follow this. >> thank you. b woodruff: the rohingya people of myanmar have lon persecuted by their government, principally for their muslim h in the buddhist majori state. many now live in camps in bangladesh. aneas amna nawaz tells us, violence they are fleeing continues, and their temporary home is no longer as welcoming. >> nawaz: over past few years, about one millionembers of the rohingya muslim minority have escaped violence and persec myanmar, fleeing to neighboring bangladesh. many have ended up iwhat were supposed to be temporary camps just outside the city of cox's bazaar, which borders the rohingya's native rakhine state, in myanmar. for an update on the plight of the rohingya, and their prospects for going home, i'm joined by dan sullivan. he is the senior human rights

advocate for refugees international and just spent two months in both bangladesh and myanmar taing to rohingya people there. dan, welcome back to the newshour. >> thank you good to be here. >> nawaz: so mump of the world focused on this region last year afndreds of thousands of rohingya had fled into bangladesh.ha since then, whas changed on the ground? >> we've moved on from the very worst of this human rights abuses, the atrocities we've seen in recent years, where you had hundreds of thousands of people fleeing across the border, to where there's less people coming, and so the conversation has sort of shifted from condemnation to talk of how can we get these peoe?ple hom and that's-- that's understandable, but what's getting missed is it's not just that myanmar has failed to create the conditior thate safe for return. they're actually actively pursuing policies that are make the s wuatise. >> nawaz: how are they making it worse? what's happening on the gro that's causing people to flee after all these months? >> well, talking to people who had just arrived in bangladesh from myanmar just a few days

before, they told me about ongoing and stepped up harassment, arbitrary arrests,rc labor. so there's been a general increase in insecurity, and that's related t a separate kind of conflict with another group of another ethnic minouity >> nawaz: that's the myanmar security forces are carrying our against anoroup. >> yes. but that's led to a further crackdown on the roheyingya. and re living there without citizenship and basic rights to move aroun and their ability to move around, pursue livelihoods has been restricted, and there are even more restrictions on outside humanitarian aid getting in to the people who reay need it. >> nawaz: so in your new report you document a lot of sturs heard, including one in particularave 70-year-old woman. tell me some of the detls of her story, and how consistent were they with the accounts of some of the other people you talked to? e> she had just recently com across, though she was there in the height of the ethnic cleansing capaign that was

happening and what a u.n. fact-finding mission said should be tried as genocide. and she described what is, unfortunately, very familiar from past conversations i've had with refugee refugees about mass happening, people being killed, and villages burned. she survived that and was unable to flee at that time bu now is able to flee but talks about how conditions haven't improved ae tting worse. >> nawaz: these are folks were able to tk to in bangladesh, but there are many who remain myanmar. what is life like there? do you have access to theitir comms there? >> yes, access is very restricted to the rohingya who continue to live in rakind state, and particularly rakhine state. and there are only a couple of t grout are able to get in. and there's also not eyes on the ground fora what ses are happening. we had refugees telling bus

seeing food dropped off, and then as soon as the internat it was being confiscated. so there's a lot of abuses going on that we're hearing about, but thsinternational community not really being allowed to go in and see how bad it really isz >> nhere's one of the biggest questions people have, which is there was a deal,t, rio repatriate many of the people who fled to bangladesh back to myanmar. both governmeno had agreed that plan. why did it fail? and what would happen to them io they were toack? >> yeah, this is part of that conversation of how can we move people back? the government of the bangladesh has a million people they are supporting. they want to see people go back. the rohingyas themselves want to go back. myanmar wants to put on a face as if they're willing to take them back, althoughe see on the ground they're not making the moves for that to happen. so the latest that happened, there was an agreement 20 government of myanmar and the government of bangladesh, to rush people in november of last year. and the vernment bangladesh even brought bus ready to bring people back, but nobody howed up. there are no rohingya who are

volunteering to go back, knowing the way conditions are are now, and hearing from people who continue to come over about how bad those crns. >> nawaz: you mentioned then. act-finding mission and you mentioned a very important word to this conversation which is "genocide." that's a legal determination that has to be made. has the u.s. made the same whdetermination. would change if they were to? >> the u.s. has thetate department carried out a very thorough investigation which outlaid all the atrocities thath hapened, and largely echoed the fact-finding mission, but they fell short ofaking a determination of whether crimes against humanity or genocide happened. and that's important because you make that determination, and then there's requisite action that should co along with it. and that's what we haven't seen, and what we need to see is a coordinated global strategy towards this. and so we would lov to see an actual determination andhese steps taken, a presidential envoy appointed to go after this. limean, i think it's te

that the president oesthe united stas not yet directly addressed what's happened to the rohingya. >> nawaz: dan sullivan, of refugees international, thanks it'a pleasure.ng here. >> woodruff: with the nation's capital city still reeling over the mueller report, we take a look now to see how the findings e resonating with voters outside of d.c. i'm joined by chris buskirk from phoenix. he's the editor of the conservative journal and web site "american greatness." and connie schultz. she is a pulitzer pre winning columnist and journalism professor at kent state university in ohio. we say hello and welcome back to both of you. so, connie, i want to start with you. what are you hearing from people in reaction to the mueller report and the fact t congress is plowing ahead wi investigating some of what's in there? >> and well, i really split thee

respnto two congratulations. you've got journalism students very eaged, fellow faculty members, lots of activists weighing in and then you have everybody else who are worried about what this mieps for fairness of elections in 2020.g and i'm seein increased anxiety about that, particularly in community where's we live we the city of cleveland, where the minority race in our community, and they'vedy had so many reasons to be concerned about whether their vote is going to count.la this ising to them. >> woodruff: so the facts of the mueller report,r the details that came out, you're saying isn't generating as much conversation? >> i would say with regular citizens who aren't following politics daily with the same intensity that journ and faculty and students are, yeah, i'd say that they are more-- they've always been more focused from the conversations i would havea this includet of people in labor about what's going to happen with the actual elections because of the russian interference, russia's interference with the campaign

elects last year-- or in 2016, excuse me. >> woodruff: and chris buskirk, what about you? what are you hearinglrom rea people about all this? >> yeah, the reactions sort of fall into a couple of different categories. one is sort of, well, okay, so we spent two years talking about was there collusion betweenid prt trump and/or his campaign and agents of thego russiaernment? and i think for people who, again, aren't deeply invested in this, it was sort of a binary question-- yesor no. and the mueller report basically answered that no. i know a lot of people say, "yeah, but, there's all this other stuff in the tre mueller rt that looks pretty bad for the. , and particularly f people who don't take a favorable view of him in the first plar ." e average man on the street it's okay, we answered the big question, by the way,as that's week's news, and now what are we talking about this week? the second sort of category, which i find in a mayore interesting, is there is-- and

granted, this is from people who are sort of right of cente - say, yow, there may be an irony here which is that having spent two yearsn this subject and so much sort of political and cultural capital invested in it, that this may actually hand the president a weapon to-- for the 2020 campaign where he says, "see, i told you it was fake news. was no collusion, and i was proven right by robert mueller and a team of mostl democratic prosecutors." and so that has some interestino tical implications. >> woodruff: so, connie, are you hearing any of that sort of political thinking ahead from folks you talked to? >> i understand it's self-selective to some extent 20 two of us. different people talk to us, ipp e be but i'm a columnist so i hear from everybody. i hear a lot of anger ut the president's reaction. you would want the president teo p and immediately talk about what he is going to do to make surelections are safe and

fair. pening. that is hap he tweeted or retweeted 50 times in a 24-hour period re and that's pretty discouraging to even consider. and people want a president whos oing to be responsive to their concerns. ge is doing everything he can now to ht a congressional investigation. this is not infusing theer an public with confidence. i've never seen people with just so much distress in their voices over the state of the country, regardless of their political leanings. and that, in particular, is pret troubling. woodruff: chris buskirk, something cone mentioned a minute ago was people raising concern about russian interference in e 2020 election. we just had two guests come on and talk about what's going on naregard, what their concerns are. do you hear people bringing that up? >> not-- not really. it's not that it's-- it's not that it's so much a nonissue, it's just sort of a not a-- i guesnot aop-10 issue. i think people recognize that the russians -- and by the way, not only the russians.

the chinese do the same thing, but there are multiple foreign actors who attempt to influence american elei ctions. ink this is one of those questions where people are concerned about it in principle 's sort of an amorphous thing, and they're not quite su what to say or to recommend that politicians do about it. what i do hear is that there is insecurity with regards to vote integrity. on the left people come at it and say there's voterio suppre on the right, people say there's voter fraud. and the common theme here is people are wondering is th vote itself-- does the vote itself have-- maiain its integrity? is it accurate? is it farr? and that's somethin w regardless ch particular issue you think is most important, that's something that i think needs to be aressed so the people can have confidence in our elections. oodruff: just to set one thing straight. i think it's accurate to say that the interference that's been documented, ashe mueller report said, in a sweeping manner was from the russians and not have er governments.

but just quickly, connie, back to you on the 2020 democratic field. they haven't obviously settled it out. we're looking at 20-plus people rubbing. is it taking shape of any sort? we know joe biden is supposed to be getting in tomorrow. >> hmm, is it taking shape? it's pretty big and amorphous as you said. i don't hear too much frustration-- let me put it this way, women and people of color are expressing more frustration right now. it's amazing how many white think they'll be the miracle worker. 's pretty astonish if you're a woman watching and certainly for people of color. we'll see what happens. we will sort it out. i don't believe fo moment that most men getting into the race really believe they'g go win but there's name recognition in running. you definitely get a lot mor attention if you're running. and i don't mean to sound cynical about it but i've been following politics a long time

in thirys cou >> woodruff: chris, to you, from the other side of the political spectrum, talking to people, any sense of the democratic field coming forward for you? >> yeah, you know, i'll tell you, i feel like it's a little rbit of goundhog day. this feels so much like the republican primary four years you know, there are a lot of people-- there's a big field. none of them are tht interesting. andrew yang i find toally fascinating. but it's going to take some time to figure out what it is that democrat voters want, and i think that means getting to know who is out there a what thy really stand for? >> woodruff: well we know we're going to be watching, and i have a feeling the two of you are, too. chris buskirk, connie schultz, thank you so much. >> sure. >> woodruff: during the opioid epidemic, there's been a lot of attention on the drug manufacturers, the doctors and pharmacists who prescribe the pills.

but one of the crucial players are the distributors-- the big companies who make sure pills are shipped and delivered. william brangham explains, for the first time, one of these companies is facing federal criminal charges. >> brangham: that's right judy. the u.s. attorney in manhattan announced yesterday that a company called rochester drug cooperative or rdc, which is a wholesaler, repeatedly ignoredfl res and sent tens of millions of addictive opioid pills and fentanyl products toci phar that were then distributing those drugs illegally.sa prosecutorthat rdc, and t o of its former executives, knew full well ws going on and shipped the drugs anyway, from roughly 2012 thro17. here's ray donovan, the d.e.a. special agent in charge of this case. >> rdc swept customers' red flags under the rug, when releasing orders. rdc was more loyal to customers, i.e., the pharmacies, than to the public health when not

reporting suspicio orders or customers. in fact, one employee compared some of their customer requests for extremely large orders of controlled substances as sticks of dynamite, waiting for the d.e.a. to light the fuse. >> brangham: lenny bernstein has covered the opioid crisis and what led to it for the "washington post." he was part of a peabody award- winning investigation into how the d.e.a.ad been stymied by the drug industry in its attempt to address this crisis. j ns me from the "post" newsroom. lenny, thank you very much for being here. i'm really struck by this indictment. this is really the federal government saying that one of these pharmaceutical distributors is, in essence, a drug-trafficking operation. >> absolutely. that's what they're saying. they're saying theircon to sell drugs for other than medical purposes, to sell them illegally, and they were acting sort of luke a small drug cartel. this is a warning. ofs is a shot across the bow these distributors that if we

can prove this against r.d.c.-- and already the company has said it will not dispute the charges-- we might be able to do it a binst others. ngham: before we get into the mechanics of the case, can you remind us sort of the role the whoarls and distributorslay in the suppl of drugs in america? >> sure. the simplified version is the manufacturers are at the top ofa the supply c. they make the pills. the dtributors are the middle men. they take them from the manufacturers and they bring them to the pharmacy where's people go with their prescriptions from teir doctors to purchase theod o to purchase the prescriptions. the companies that make up the distributors, the distributor community-- there are only a few hundred of them-- and thief them toe gigantic. they're all on th 15 of the fortune 500 list, and theyab controt 85% to 90% of drug distribution in this country. that's ma cessen, cardinal health, and amerisource bergen.

r.d.c. is the sixth largest. >.>> brangham: these companies in the middle role they py, they're supposed to be flagging suspicious orders. suddenly if one pharmacy is asking for way more opiods than they ever asked for before, they're supposed to say, "hey, let's alert the authorities." >> year, the 1970 law that set this up was very smart. it said the distributors are the gatekethers. they havr eyes on the pharmacies. they can see, like you said, when someone is orderin 10,000 pills one month and 50,000 pills the next, that that is a red flag. they can see when they look at of therecords that 60 people who come into a p particulararmacy are buying with cash. or that people are coming from out of state and traveling to a pharmacy, s, in west virginia, and buying millions, collectively, millions of pildz and taking them bacik to-- takng them back to their homes. so it's a good system when it

works. >> brangham: and so r.d.c. is accused-- and i know they've admitted to some of this-- that they simply ignored these obvious red flags. >> yeah. more than ignored. i mean, first of all, it took them a long time to set up any semblance of anitoring system. then when some of these redag came in, they either turned their head or the allegation is that their c.e.o. said, "look, forget it. it's not important. this is a big account. we want these pills to go down there." ancourse, it doesn't take your viewers to understand why-- bonuses are dependent on that kind of commerce, profits ae pendent on that kind of commerce. so you-- if you're going to do th in aorrupt fashion, you ignore those red fla. on occasion, there are companies that will tell farm easy, "you know, that order is pretty large. maybe we ought to raise your threshold so we don't have to report this to the or "hey, why don't we cut that order into two pieces so itr

won't be lage enough for the d.e.a.-- for to us report it to the d.e.a. or for the d.e.a. to notice." ortingngham: as your rep and other reporting has shoarng it's not just a problem c.with r. many of the distributors and wholesaling companies have had thessame problems. why has this been such a tough nut to crack. >> that brings us sort of full circle to howou started thi off, which is this: even if you find one of these-- fine one of these companies--ivil40 million, $50 million-- in the case of ma cessen-- $140 million-- this is a small amount with the company has $150 or $200 billion in net cap. it's a huge company. and some of these costs can be viewed athe cost of doing business. now, for the first time, the government is they go, "okay, now we're going to bring a criminal charge against some of your executives." and i remember tine invtor saying to us, very specifically,

"guys in expensive don't do well in jail." and they are clearly trying to-- a new tact toik scare these guys and to make them toe the line. >> brangham: we'll have to see a former scooe oingff incu has. lenny bernstein of the "washington post," thank you so much. >> my pleasure. >> wdruff: 2012 was a watershed moment for the boy scouts of america whga the country learning about thousands of abuse allegations within the scouts' volunteer ranks. it was revealed the scouts kept files on suspected childs, molestocuments known as the "perversion files." as john yang tells us, there's new data that show the scope of the allegations was r more widespread than previously known. >> yang: judy, for the first time, we're learning the extent

of those files, revealed by a university of virginia psychiatry professor hired by the boy scouts to review them. in an unrelated court case, she testified the list dates back to 1944 and contains the nameof at least 7800 people believed to have abused more than 12,000 children. attorney jeff anderson highlighted those numbers at a news conference. he represents survivors of child sexual abuse and joins us now. mr. anderson, thanks so much for joining us. were you surprised when you heard those numbers? >> i was note surprcause for years, we hav te knoy have been harboring offenders and keeping these files. we did note have precise number until we got it from the expert on the witness stand. we have had some real appreciation for the magnitude of the problem. we just di not have the precise number of victims and predators

that they are harbored and kept in wt they call "the perversion files." >> yang: the boy scouts ga us a statement today: they also told us that all the names in these filrees have been rted to law enforcement. do you think those-- these names should be made public in the same way that some of the catholic church files have been made public? >> w sn the bouts offer an apology and say that they have reported this to law enforcement, that really is a minimization and a pastisive

in. the reality is that these names need to be known to the public, both the identities of theseof nders across the country and the locations in which they offended that caused them to be put into the perversionl fies. and so when the boy scouts say they've ported to the police, they know-- and as do else in this field-- that the police rarely can act on these cases because they've bn held secret for so long, there are statuts of limitations, see yothey never get invthtigated, d never get prosecuted, and they thus never get known, and, thus, is inaction. so their apologies and the reports that they're reporting to the police are grossly deficient. what has to be done is what we did this week in releasing those names in new york an nd jersey

and the locations of those offenders that we took from their files and they have to do that nationally so that the communities can be warned and children can be protected. the boy scouts of america are choosing to protect themselves and not he kids. >> yang: you mentioned statute of limitations. new york just passed aew law expanding, lengthening the statute of limitations for child sex abuse caizs. other states are doing the same thing.o is this going elp hold the boy scouts accountable, help victim survivors of child abuse, have their day in co >> the removal of the statute of limitations in new yand soon to be in new jersey is going to hugely advance child protection and cause the boy scos of america other and organizations eo not only have to disclose secrets and the identities of the offenders and those that chose to protect theut be held accountable in a way they

never have had to because they have been able to hide behind imitations and use that as a sword and a shield. the removal of that statute of limitations in new york and elsewhere is now going to advance child protection and going to require these institutions to come clean and speak tuth. >> yang: the boy scouts say they continue to evaluate their financial situation. are you concerned-- or what would a bankruptcy by the boy outs do to plaintiffs like the ones you represent? >> wll, look, if the boy scouts go ginto reorganization, whaca they chapter 11, what they really do is stop litigation in its tracks, and keep us and theo survivors disclosing and discouraging allhis information to protect kids. i expect they may do that. and they may claim that they don't have the ability to pay these claims. but the real reality is that they and a lot of the roman chalg church dioceses used the

bankruptcy to really continue to hide and sheld themselves from real liability and forced discloser. so if they use a chapter 11 reorganization, it will be an challenge, buthe meantime, we'll continue to work with the survivors to diclose these long-held secrets, fors force ty scouts of america nationwide toe lean, and disclose the identities so in the end, kids can be protected much better in the future than they are today. >> yang: attorney jeff anderson, thank you very much. >> you're welcome >> woodruff: and now, the last in our series about antarcti. we are excited to announce we're also launching a new podcast based on this reporting trip. we hope you will listen.

more on how to hear it later. but first, for most of human history, the icy continent at the boom of the world was an unknown, un-visited place. humans only discovered antarctica about 200 years ago. but as william brangham and producers mike fritz and emilyt, carpeaux repow we govern the continent today has fostered diplomatic and scientificat cooperion among many nations. it's part of our weekly series on the leading edge of science. >> brangham: there's no place further south on earth than antarctica, a virtua uninhabited continent, covered most entirely by ice. there's no indigenous human population, no official government, not even a single paved road. >> it was the last place to explore. brangham: alexandra isern is the head of antarctic sciences for the national science foundation, which also supports some newour reporting.

archival hunters, 1800s she says the first humans to ever set foot on antarctica were >> it's an excellent example of cooperation. and seals in the early 1800's, hoping to kill them for their pelts, or boil them down for their oil. >> there was a real economy built around whaling.ng >> bm: once those mammals were discovered here, it set off something of an antarctic gold rush. >> you still see remnants today around some of the stations a,ere, particularly in the antarctic peninsulhere the whalers would have had a kill and they would render the oil on shore, and all the remains are >> brangham: relics of this oncn boominstry are scattered across the continent: this was a former british and norwegian whaling station. those huge tonks? they wer full of whale oil. but once the whale and seal populations were decimated, the hunters went home.

>> it wasn't that there was any environmental reason. they lefbecause they had fished everything out. >> brangham: up until this point, who sections of antarctica remained a mystery. ers had largely stayed away for reasons that went beyond just the harsh conditions, according au historian anor stephen pyne. >> nobody's going to get weahy in antarctica. there are no cities to sack, there are noeoples to convert there's nothing there. the further you go into the interior the more and more there is only one thing and that is ice. it's probably as close on earthh you can come to being on another planet. >> brangham: but by the rn of the century, several nations rushed to explore the continent's untouched interior: kicking off what is known as" the heroic age" of antarctic exploration. >> this was how you showed that you were a scientific presce. this was a matter of prestige and status. it showed that you had arrived. >> they were hearty souls. we still have the historic huts that they used around mcmurdo

their clothes and everything are still there. it's a through any winter with what they were wearing. >> brangham: but some early explorers didn't make it out. in 1912, britain's robert falco scott rway's roald f amundsen ranntic, party froze and starved to death on their journey home. b antarctica proved exceptionally tricause all esof the things that centuf exploration by the west had had relied on; having native peoplen as guides, hrocks and being able to follow rivers, being able to identifyta mos, all of the sorts of markers of exploration and the indices that you had succeeded disappeared and you're left with >> bngham: but perhaps the most famous stories of antarctica are not stories of discovery but rather incredible feats of survival. british explorer ernest shackleton, a veteran of an launched his own attempt toco cross thinent from north to south in 1914. he set off with 27 other men in a ship called the endurance. but disaster struck before they

even reached the continent. the endurance was trapped by the sea ice that encircles antarctica, forcing the men to>> t's one of these stories where you think the worst has happened, that nothing else can go wrong and then it does. >> brangham: katie murray is a polar historian, and expert on shackleton's endurance voyage. in tourist season, she works for the company, one ocean expeditions, giving lectures to visitors on board. we talked in the ship's movie she told us how shackleton became a legend, not for hisex oration, but simply by keeping his men alive after the endurance was crushed to pieces. stranded on the ice, they ran out of food and were eventually forced to eat their dogs. later they used small boats to navigate two death-defying ocean crossings, before finally landing at a remote whaling slstation on south georgiad. >> the shackleton endurance story isltimately a feel-good story because we know that everybody survives absolutely against the odds.

when the worst happens and your ship goes down and you're still at least a thousands kilomers no help is coming for you, you need to rescue yourself effectively, and you manage ab do so, that'lutely incredible. >> brangham: over the next several decades, dozens of countries came to tarctica and tried to plant their nations' flagon the continent. to help establish territorial claims, untries built scientific bases like these all over antarctica. and, according to tucker scully, who for years was chief orgotiator on polar issues the u.s. government, there was genuine science to be done. >> it was a place that was obviously the least studied part of the planet, particularly in things like the earth's magnetic field, upper atmospheric physics, plate tectonics. a lot of the scientificun coy wanted to get into antarctica to do that kind of work. >> brangham: while science was driving a new age ofex oration, by the late 1950's, there were growing concerns that the ice-covered continent would

one day be exploited, colonized by the world's powers. so in the 1960s, at the height of the cold war, twelve nations, edcluding the u.s. and the soviet union, hammut a dramatic breakthrough: the resigning of the antarcticy. the treaty says that antarctica must remain exclusively peaceful. that means no military exercises, no nuclear testing, no nuclear dping. it also says that scientists can come here and condt research wherever they want, regardless of territorial claims and that those findings must be shared publicly. >> i think the antarctic treaty foo issues that were really resonated at the time. one of which was cooperation in science. secondly, the idea that you even between two extreme adversaries like the soviet clion and the united states, you could, in fact, e some areas off-limits to that kind of rivalry. and it worked, and continues to work. >> brangham: evan bloom is currently america's top diplomat for the arctic and antarctic.

he says the sheer difficulty of doing anything in antarcticasp still help international cooperation. >> in these remote places you have to support each other, and share logistics and food, and all sorts of other things to make it all work out. so tre was a strong push on the scientific side that was helping the diplomats at the time figure out that, ybll, we can preserve this area for peace and science. >> brangham: nearly six decades challenges on the horizon.n-w de climate change is already altering this pristine landscape, potentially harming some of the continent's iconic species. there's also growing pressure for more tourism, and more large-scale commercial fishing. and withhe vast majority of the world's freshwater frozen in antarctica, so hotter, drier nations have begun eyeing all that ice. in fact, a business in the united arab emirates rently

announced plans to t to tow a massive iceberg, containing billions of gallons of fresh water over 7,000 miles to the persian gulf. and finally, while some of the antarctic treaty's eironmental protections expire in 2048 and will have to be renewed. >> best thing we can do for antarcticas keep it like it is. >> i think there is a very >> they are proceed of preserving it as a place for i thinkd science, and that is something they don't want to go back ci brangham: one of the biggest questions marks this remarkable continent is, will that commitment hold? for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham in antarctica. >> woodruff: what a remarkable series. thank you to william and your team.

our new podcast is called "the last continent," and gives a much deeper look at our team's journei to antarctica. pe you'll listen. search for "the last continent" pbs newshour on apple podcasts or your favorite podcas download episodes.nd rate us or write a review. you can also listen to those episodes directly on o website, at pbs.org/newshour/the lastcontinent, where we also and that's the newshour for tonight. w i'm judruff. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> ordering takeout. >> finding the west route. >> talking for hours. >> planning for showers. >> you can do the things you like to do with a wirelessorlan designedou. with talk, text and data. arn more atular. consumercellular.tv >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and more.

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♪ ♪ hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour & company," here's what's comg up. ♪ mass burls and a day of national mourning in sri lanka. isis claimed it was b the easter sunday bombing. i discussed that with the uam. ssador to sri lanka. then one of the most straight-talking diplomats on the international stage. the outcoming french ambassador to the united states, gerard araud gives me his blunt assessment on the state of play in washington. plus -- >> why do you seek wealth and power and everyutcomfort, refuse to ask what your life and the world around you might actually mean. >> what does it really mean to live in a democracy? it is the focus of a new place