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 re than one million rohingya refugees living in baladesh, forced out by th government next door: myanmar's persecution of this muslim minority. plus, for most of human history, antarctica remained unknown. nt our last report in a series from the icy conti discovery and diplomacy at thef bottome world.

>> this was how you showed that 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. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been ovided by: >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and more. babbel's 10-15 minute lessons are available as an app, or online. more information on babbel.com. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and theihe solutions toorld's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org.

>> 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 iormation at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was 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's tax returns to another panel. former white house counsel don mcgahn is also under subpoena to testify. but leaving the white house today, the predent made clear at he means to resist. >> we're fighting all the subpoenas. look these are not like impartial people. the dems are trying to win 2020. the only way they can luck out eris by constantly going ae on nonsense. >> woodruff: meanwle, democrat ijah cummings, chair of the house oversight committee, accused the administ of unprecedented obstruction, by ordering federal workers to defy subpoenas.su and, on the of 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 re today about the islamist militants they blame for easter sunday's suicidegs bomb the death toll has now grown to 359, and at least 58 people have been arrested. >> the attacks were at least e islamic state. debbie edward, of independent television news, reports from lombo, in sri lanka. >> reporter: the police trying to usher people away from the first of a series of ctrolled explosions they conducted 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 arriving to identify the dead.

with the country's churches still in lockdow 32 people in stody details have started to emerge about those responsible for the easter sunday attacks. this house in a quiet area of colombo was where the family of two brothers responsibho for the l bombings lives. when property on sunday, the wife of one of the men triggered a suicide vest. sinaka lives on the same street. >> ( translated ): the woman killed herself, her two children and three policemen. >> reporter: neighbor mohammad knew the bombers father and can't believe his family were respsible. >> 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 bomere from well off sri lankan families, and one of them studied in the u.k. a worker from a copper factory

owned by the grand bomber said they were shocked when the bomb >>uad turned up. ooking. they are very, very good men.in bude... 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 whe the suicide bombers ha built their bombs and their suicide vests. although that doesn't seem to b the case, ear there are components here that could behe ful in that process. the streets here are full ofpo arce, and signs of grief. the island tonight once again under curfew.t >> woodruff: tport from debbie edward, of independent television news. the united nations reports that afghan and international forces killed more afghan civilians in the first three months of this

year than taliban insurgents did. that reverses the trend of recent years. the report says in all, there were 581 civian deaths. nearly half of those blamed on 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 china to grant free elections in the territory.ll inthousands of protesters took part, and paralyzed hong kong's financial district for 79 days. supporters vowed today to continue fighting for s.mocratic erfo north korea's leim jong 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 byrmoredn traitoday. he was greeted by officials and spoke with russian state television. >> ( translated ): i have comeoo to russia infeelings. i hope this visit will be egccessful and useful. i hope through theiations with dear president putin i will be able to discuss certain questions of reconciliation on the korean peninsula and development of relationshiun between our ies. >> woodruff: it is unclear just what mightome from the vladivostok meeting. in february, kim's second summit with president trump ended abruptly with no agreements. in a remarkable move, the government of japan formally apologized today to imated 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. v

now, ttims 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 690 cases so far, in 2019. health officials say a rise in vaccine misinformation isca ing some parents to skip vaccinating their childr s. boeis it may cost $1 7billion dollars to fix i esx jetliners. some 370 of the plere 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 walltreet, 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 newour: 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 of washington, and much more. >> woodruff: amid the flurry of debate over the reportbert 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 systetic fashion." but yesterday, president trump's son-in-law, white house advisers jared kushner,ssed thes seriousn the scheme.

>> and you look at whainrussia did, bsome facebook ads to try to sow dissent and do it and it's a terrible thing, but i think the investigations and all of the speculation that's arppened for the last two has had a much harsher impact on democracy than a couple facebook ads. >> woodruff: in addition, a "new york times" article today said that the former homeland security secretary, kirstjen nielsen, was discouraged by the president's staff from discussing security for the 2020 election, in front of the president himself. the white house denied this,r afe story was published. but what about 2020? what has been done, and what more needs to be done, to protect the integrity of that eltion? juliette kayyem previously served in the u.s. department of meland security. and thomas rid is a cybersecurity expert at johns hopkins university, who has closely studied russiane operations lis one. welcome to the newshour to both of you. welcome back. let me start wh you, juliette

kayyem. we hear jared kushner saying it was just a few facebook ads, but weee a much more serious picture being portrayed, painted in the mueller report. what do we know in sum about whatd the russians 2016? >> see, we know now that itar d early than we previously thought, as early as 2014, anthd it was more systemic, or systematic and more targeted than we had once known. what i mean it was systematic, there is a theory russia threw buof 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 sedtand concerted effort to utilize social media, theis adveents, and other networks to perpetuatel essentialls about other candidates or to support, by the end, one particular candidate, donald trump. this is outside the hacking issue. on the hacking issue the story is well known and it'sme doed in volume one, that those-- the hacking that was

initiatad and sed by russia, desired by russia through wikileaks as then sort of weaponnized by the u.s. media in terms of it repeating what was 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 factaldedt very litle genuinely new details to the story of russian interference that was already publicly known. in fact, i'm a little disappointed that e didn't learn more about the social media data specifically that the mueller report cites. they seem to rely o pnublicly available data. but there's an important thing that i think the mueller report is falling short on. the mueller repor tnamedhe ira, the internet research agency, the trolling and the social media, operation first, and, also, that's where the first indictment s published. t the leaking and the hacking,

or rather the hacking and then theaking, of democratic files, especially john podesta's in box, was far morsignificant than the social media operation. so we risk overstating the effect of the social media campaign. >> woodruff: but you're say pg we need attention to all-- to all of it. juliette kayyem, what then do we know about what the russians are up to for 202 >> well, you know i believe white houses matte andible that a white house that is committed to stopping a foreign campaign against our democracy would be relevant. so what we' seeing, of corse, is the denials, the giuliani statement know, it's okay to get this information from the russians. do i don't want to put that aside, because o think that matters. but on the tactical level, you do see a lot of effort being made on the state and local level through the department homeland security to protect elections and the election process. and then, of course, the kind of training and effortsare being done through campaigns,

the democratic party, the republican party, to protect their network. some of that is defense, you know, layered security encryption. as to be of it also offense, which is in this case naming and shaming it. e have to be qublic about when someone's stuff has been taken-- say, email- and th final thing when i mentioned before, the media has to start having some standards by which they will deermine whether things stolen-- not leaked -- things stolen wedl be util by them to amplify the sort of criminal behavior by a foreign entity. >> woodruff: that's a message we need tergive very ious 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 document

at was the russian front, classified, came from hillary clinton's server? ent.state depar all three statements were lies, were just not backed up by the evidence. so we have to expect-- and that's htorical norm-- we have to expect forgeries, and don't trust the leks at face value-- very important message for journalists. but i would highlight a really serious risk here. thbigge risk is eye combination of two things-- it's a combination of the president of the united states. if he iefs deated, calling the legitimacy of the vote into question, which he has announced multiple times already th he would be doing so. sianin combination, a rus operation that would provide some sort of credible evihince claim that the system is rigged in the heat of the moment on election night a 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 you nodding. what gives you-- what makesyou believe that that's a concern? >> because the russians know the play bookat they know he white house is not essentially stopping orul forc stopping the play book, and they will change. so one of my biggest concerns coming from the-- know, both the cyber and physical security space is that the russians will utilize cyber attacks to have a physical impact on the voting process. so, in other words, how do you higan?c you depress 20,000 african american votes in detroit. so whether they, you know, sort rf force traffic issues o signals go out or there's a blackout. and so there's what call the "internet of things" that you would have a cyber attack thait woulpact physical processs. to me, that's my worry. the russians are sophisticatedha enough to doand they will change and modify what we now know because of theueller

report. >> woodruff: thomas rid, that's alarming to even think about that.ho can 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, very difficult because this conversation is so highly politicized. but by overstating the threat-- and we are overstatinthe full spectrum of russian influence operations in 2016 currently-- by exaggerating the threats, we are effectively making that operation more successful than it actually was.is 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, awre of this risk of overstating the t problem same time. >> woodruff: being clear-eyed

and direct about everything we hear and what we say. thomas rid, juliette kayyem, we thank you bth. we're going to continue to follow this. >> thank you. >> woodruff: the rohingya peoplo of myanmar hav been persecuted by their government, principally for their muslim rifaith in the buddhist ma state. many now live in camps in. banglade , and as amna nawaz tells e violence they are fleeing continues, andheir temporary home is no longer as welcoming. >> nawaz: over the past few years, about one milon members of the rohingya muslim minority have escaped violence and ecution in their home in myanmar, fleeing to neighboring bangladesh. many have ended in what 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 lking to rohingya people there. dan, welcome back to the newshour. >> thank y good to be here. >> nawaz: so mump of the world focused on this region last year r hundreds of thousands of rohingya had fled into bangladesh w since then,t has changed on the ground? >> we've moved on from the very worst of this human rights abuses, the atrocities we've seen in rent 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 peoomple e? and that's-- that's understandable, but what's getting missed is is not just that myanmar has failed to create the condations thre safe for return. they're actually actively rsuing policies that are make the situation worse. >> nawaz: how are they making it worse?

what's happening on the ground that's causing people to flee after all these months? >> well, talking to people who had ust arrivin bangladesh from myanmar just a few days before, theyold me about ongoing and stepped up harassment, arbitrary arrests, forced labor. so there's been a general i increa insecurity, and that's related to a separate kind of conflict with another group of another ethnic minority group. >> nawaz: that's the myanmar security forces ar carrying out against another group. >> yes. but that's led to a further crackdown on the rohingya. and they are living there without citizenship and basic rights to move around. 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 really need it. >> nawaz: so in your new report you document a lot of sturs heard, including one inrt ularave 70-year-old woman. tell me some of the details of her story, and how consistent were they with the accounts of some of the other people you

talked to? she had just recently come across, though she was there ine thght of the ethnic cleansing campaign that was happening und what a.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 but now is able to flee but talks about how conditions haven't improved and are getting worse. >> nawaz: these are folks were t able k to in bangladesh, but there are many whaio remin myanmar. what is life like there? do you have access to themmir ities there? >> yes, access is very restricted to the rohingya who continue to live in rakind a stat particularly rakhine state. and there are only a couple ofou

that are able to get in. and there's also not eyes on the ground fort whaabuses are happening. we had refugees telling bus seeing food dropped off, and then as soon as the ational information lef it was being confiscated. so there's a lot of abuses going on that we' hearing about, but the international community is not really being allowed to go in and seew bad it really is. >> nawaz: here's one of the biggest questions people have, which is there was a deal,ri t, to repatriate many of the people who fled to bangladesh back to myanmar. both goveredents had ago that plan. why did it fail? and what would happen to them io they wero back? >> yeah, this is part of that conversation of how can we move people back? the government of the bangladesh res a million people they supporting they want to see people go back. the rohingyas themselves want to go back. myanmar wants to p on a face as if they're willing to take them back, alth the ground they're not making the moves for that to happen. so the latest that happened, there was an agrment 20 government of myanmar and the government of bangladesh, to rushvpeople in noember of last

year. and the government of bangladesh even brought bus rea to bring people back, but nobody showed up. there are no rohingya who are volunteering to go back, kwing the way conditions are are now, and hearing from people who continue to come over about how bad those crns. >> nawaz: you mentioned the u.n. fact-finding mission and you mentioned a very important rd to this conversation which is "genocide." that's a legal determination that has to be made. has the u.s. made the same determination. at would change if they were to? >> the u.s. has the state department carried out a very thorough investigation which outlaid all the atrocities thate appened, and largely echoed the fact-finding mission, but they fell short of making a determination of whether crimes against humanity or genocide happened. and that's important because you dmake thermination, and then there's requisite action that should me 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 and these steps taken, a presidential envoy appointed to go after this. i mean, i think it'ling that the president of the united states has not yet directly addressed what's happened to the ivhingya. >> nawaz: dan su, of refugees international, thanks it's a pleasure. here. >> woodruff: with the nation's capital city still reeling over ae mueller report, we tak look now to see how the findings are resonating with voters outside of d.c. i'm joined by chris buskirk from phoenix. he's the editor of t conservative journal and web site "american greatness." and connie schultz. she is a pulitzer prize 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 rction to the mueller

report and the fact thatpl congress iwing ahead with avestigating some of what's in there? well, i really split the response into twoti congratus. you've got journalism students very engaged, fellow faculty members, lots of activists weighing in and then you haveer ody else who are worried about what this mieps for fairness of elections in 2020. and i'm seeing an increased anxiety about that, in community where's we live. we're in the city of cleveland, where the minority rae in our community, and they've already had so many reasons to beo concerned whether their vote is going to count. this is alarming to them. >> woodruff: so the f the mueller report, or the details that came oue, you'r saying isn't generating as much conversation? >> i would say with regularci zens who aren't following politics daily with the same intensity that journalists and faculty and students are, yeah, d say that they are more-- they've always been more focused om the conversations i would

have. this includes a lot of people in labor about what's going to haen with the actual elections because of the russian interference, russia's interferce with the campaign elects last year-- or in 2016, excuse me. >> woodruff: and chris buskirk, what about you? what are you hearing from real people about all this? >> yeah, t 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 between president trump and/or his campaign and agents of the russian government? and i think for people whoai, aren't deeply invested in this, it was sort of a binary question-- yes or no. and the mueller report basically answered that no. i know a lot of people say, "yeah, but, thre's all this other stuff in the the mueller report that looks pretty bad for the. , and particularly for people who don't take a favorable view of him in the first place." for the average man on the y, we answered the big question, by the way, that's last week's news, and now

what are we talking about this week? the second sort of category, which i find in a way more interesting, is there is-- and granted, this is from people who are sort of right of center-- say, you know, there may be an irony here which is that having spent two years on 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 old you it wasake news. there was no collusion, and i was proven right by robt mueller and a team of mostly democratic prosecutors." and so that has some interesting political implications. >> woodruff: so, connie, are ru hearing any of that t of political thinking ahead from folks you talked to? om i understand it's self-selective toe extent 20 two of us. different people talk to us, i suppose be but i'm a columnist so i hear fom everybody. i hear a lot of anger about the

president's reaction. you would want the president to step up and immediately talt k abat he is going to do to make sure elections are safe and fair. none of that is happening. he tweeted or resweeted 50 tim in a 24-hour period recently, and that's pretty discouraging to even consider. and people want a president who is going to be responsive to their concerns. he is doing everything he can now to fight a congratsional investn. this is not infusing the american public with confidence. i've never seen people wth just so much distress in their voices over the state of the country regardless of their political leanings. and that, in particular, ist troubling. >> woodruff: chris buskirk, something cone mentioned a minute ago was people raising concern about russian interference in the 2020 election. we just had two gnsts come o and talk about what's going on ouregard, what their concerns are. doear 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 st of not a-- i guess not a top-10 issue. i think people re 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 elections. i think this is one of those questions where people are concerned about it in principle but it's sort of an amorphousth g, and they're not quite sure what to say or to recommend that pboliticians do ut it. what i do hear is that theris insecurity with regards to vot.e integri on the left people come at it and say there's voter suppression. on the right, people say there's voter coaud. and thon theme here is people are wondering is the vote sself-- does the vote itelf have-- maintain its integrity? is it farr?ate? and that's something, regardless of which particular issue you think is mostta imp, that's something that i think needs to be addressed so the people can have confidence in our elections. >> woodruff: just to set one thing straight. i think it's accurate to sayhe

that interference that's been documented, as the mueller report said, in a seping manner was from the russians and not have other governments. but just qckly, connie, back to you on the 2020 democratic field. they haven't obviously settled we're looking at 20-plus people rubbing. is it ting 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 a id. i don't hear too much frustration-- let me put it this way, women and people of color are expressing more fru right now. it's amazing how many white men think they'll be the miracle worker. it's pretty astonish if you're a ndman watching certainly for people of color. we'll see what happens. we will sort it out. i don't believe for a moment that most men getng into the race really believe they're going to win but there's name recognition in runing. you definitely get a lot more

attention if you're running. and i don't mean to sound cynical about it but i've been following politics a long time inhis cory. >> 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 yo i feel like it's a little bit of groundhog day. this feels so much lik republican primary four years ago. you know, there are a lot of people-- there's a big field. none of them arehat 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 and what ty really stand for? >> woodruff: well we know we're going to be watching, and i hve 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 is aerative or rdc, whic wholesaler, repeatedly ignoredd ags and sent tens of millions of addictive opioid pills and fentanyl products toma phes that were then distributing those drugs illegally.s prosecuty that rdc, and two of its former executives, knew full well what was going on d shipped the drugs anyway, from roughly 2012 through 2017. here's ray donovan, the d.e.a. special agent in charge of this case.>> dc 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 suspicus orders or customers. in fact, one employee compared some of their customers' requests for extremely large orders of controlled substances as sticks of dyname, 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. had been stymied by the drug industry in its attempt to address this crisis.he oins me from the "post" newsroom. lenny, thank you very much for being here. i'm really suck by this indictment. this is really the federal government saying that one of these pharmaceutical distributors is, in essce, a drug-trafficking operation. >> absolutely. that's what they'reg. they're saying they conspired 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 aning. this is a shot across the bow of these distributors that if we can prove this against r.d.c.-- and already theompany has said it will not dispute the charges-- we might be able to do it against others. >> brangham: before we get hanics of the cas can you remind us sort of the role thehoarls and distributors play in the supply of drugs in america? >> sure. the simplifd version is the manufacturers are at the top of the supply chain. they make the pills. the distributors are the middle men. they take them from the manufacturers and they bring them to the pacrmy where's heople go with their prescriptions freir doctor to purchase the opiods, to purchase the prescriptione mpanies that make up the distributors, the disittributor comm- there are only a few hundred of them-- and thief them are gigantic. they're all on the top 15 of the fortune 500 list, and they

control about 85% to 90% ogd 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 play, they're supposed to be flaggg suspicious orders. suddenly if one pharmacy is asking for way more opiods than theyver 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 saiorthe distribare the gatekeepers. they have their eyes on the pharmacies. they c see, like youaid, when someone is ordering 10,000 pills one month and 50,000 pills the next, that that is a red flag. they can see when they look at their records that 60% of the people who come into a particular pharmacy are buying with corsh. hat people are coming from out of state and traveling to a pharmacy, say, in west virginia, and buying millions,

collectively, millions of pildz and taking them back to-- taking 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 a monitoringem sy then when some of these red ags came in, they either turned their head or e allegation is that their c.e.o. said, "look, forgeit. it's not important. this is a big account. we want these pills to go down there." and, of course, it doesn't takee yourrs to understand why-- bonuses are dependent on that kind of commerce, profits are dependent on that kind of commerce. so you-- if you're going to do this in a corrupt fashn,ou ignore those red flags. 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 havto report this to the d.e.a." or "hey, why don't we cut tha order into two pieces so it won't be large enough for the d.e.a.-- for to us rept it to the d.e.a. or for the d.e.a. to notice." >> brangham: as your repngor and other reporting has shoarng it's not just a problem r.with c. many of the distributors and wholesaling companies have had ese same problems. why has this been such a tough st to crack. >> that brings ut of full circle to how you started this off, which is this: even if you find one of these-- fine one of these companiesil civ-- $40 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 comd pany. me of these costs can be viewed as the cost of doing business. now, for the first time, the government is they go, "okay,

now 're going to bring a criminal charge against some of ur executives." and i remember one investigator saying to us, very ecifically, "guys in expensive suits 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 le. brangham: we'll have to see a former scooe going off inha cuffs. lenny bernstein of the "washington post," thank you so much. >> my please. woodruff: 2012 was a watershed moment for the boy scouts of americy when the coungan learning about thousands of abuse allegations within the scouts' volunteer ranks. it was revealed the scouts kept files on suspected cld molesters, documents known as the "perversion files." as john yang tells us, there's new data that show the scope of

the allegations s far 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 names of 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 notis surbecause for years, we havwne knohey have been harboring offenders and keeping these files. we did not havthe precise number until we got it from the expert on the witness stand. we have had some real

appreciation for t of the problem. we just did not have the prcise number of victims and predators that they are harbored and kept inhat they call "the perversion fies." >> yang: the boy scouts gave us a statement today: they also told us that all ths e nain these files have been reported to law enforcement. do you think those-- these namea should be public in the same way that some of the catholic church files have been made public? >> when the boy scouts offer an apology and say that they have

reported this to law enforcement, that really is a minimization and a pasinsive tion. the reality is that these names lic, to be known to the pub both the identities of these offenders across the country and the locations in which they offended that caused them to be put into the perversion fles. and so when the boy scouts say theye reported to the police, o everybo-- and as d else in this field-- that the police rarely can act on these cases because they've been held secret for so long, there are statutees of limitations, see estigated, andet inv they never get prosecuted, and they thus never get known, andth , 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 relhoeasingse names in new york and new jersey and the locations of tho offenders that we took from their files. and they have to do that nationally so that thean communities be warned and children can be protected. the boy scouts of america are choosing to protect themselves and not the kids. m >> yang: yntioned statute of limitations. new york just passed a new law expanding, lengthening the statute r limitations child sex abuse caizs. other states areoing the same thing. is this going to help hold the boy outs accountable, help victims, survivors of child abuse, have their day in court? y the removal of the statute of limitations in nk and soon to be in new jersey is going to hugely advance child pr and cause the boy scouts of america other and organizations to nhat only ve to disclose the

secrets and the identities of hee offenders and those that chose to protect but be held accountable in a way theyad never have to because they have been able to hide behind the statutof limitations an use that as a sword and a shield. the removal of that statute of limitations in new york and elsewhere is now gog to advance child protection and going to require these institutions to comean and speak truth. >> yang: the boy scouts say they continue to evaluate their financial situation. are you concerned-- or what would a bankruptcy by the scouts do to plaintiffs like the ones you represent? o well, lok, if the boy scouts go ginto reorganization, weyhat call chapter 11, what they really do is stop litigation in its tracks, and keep us and the survivors from disclosing and discouraging all this information to protect kids. i expect they may do that. and they mayclaim that they

don't have the ability to pay these claims. but the real reali is that they and a lot of the romanh chalg chu dioceses used the bankruptcy to reay continue to hide and shield themselves from real liability aorced discloser. so if they use a chapter 11ni reorgation, it will be a challenge, but in the meantime, we'll continue to work with the survivors to sclose these long-held secrets, fors force ty scouts of america nationwide to me clean, and disclose the identities so in the end, kids can be ptotected much beter in the future than they are today. >> yang:ttorney jeff anderson, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: and now, the last in our series about antarcca. 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 bottom of the world was an unknown, un-visited place.hu ns only discovered antarctica about 200 years ago. but as william brangham and producers mike fritz and emilyor carpeaux r how we govern the continent today has fostered diplomatic and scientificop coation among many nations. it's part of our weekly series on the leading edge of science. >> brangham: there's no placefu her south on earth than antarctica, a virtuallyd uninhabintinent, covered almost 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 someewshour reporting. archival hunters, 1800s she says the firstumans 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 theirhe pelts, or boildown for their oil. >> there was a reaeconomy built around whaling. >> brangham: once those mammals were discovered here, it set off something ofn antarctic gold rush. >> you still see remnants today around somof the stations where, particularly in thens antarctic penia, where the whalers would have had a kill and they would render the oil on shore, and all the remains are >> brangham: relics of this once booming industry are scattered across the continent: this was a former britishalnd norwegian g station. those huge tanks? they were once full of whale

oil. but once the whale and seal populaons were decimated, the hunters went home. >> it wasn't that there was any environmental reason. they lt because they had fished everything out. >> brangham: up until this point, wle sections of antarctica remained a mystery. orers had largely stayed away for reasons that went beyond just the harsh conditions, according to historian and author stephen pyne >> nobody's going to get wealthy in antarctica. there are no cities to sack, there are no peoples 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 earth that you can come to being on another planet. >> brangham: but by the turn 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 presence. thisas 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 miracle they made it through any winter with what they were wearing. >> brangham: but some explorers didn't make it out. in 1912, britain's robert falcon scott and norway's roald amundsen ran a frantic, party froze and starved to death on their journey home. >> antarctica proved exceptionally tricky because all of the things that centuries of exploration by the west had had eorelied on; having nativees as guides, having rocks and being able to follow riverid being able ttify mountains, all of the sorts of markers of exploration and the indices that you had succeeded disappeared and you're left with >> brangham: but perhaps the most famous stories of ftarctica are not stories discovery but rather incredible feats of survival. british explorer ernest shackleton, a veteran of an

launched his own attempt to cross the continent from north to south in 1914. he set off with 27 otheralen in a shipd the endurance. but disaster struck before theyd even reahe continent. the endurance was trapped by the sea ice that encircles antarctica, forcing the men to >> it's one of these stories where you think the worst has happened, at 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 exoditions, giving lectures visitors on board. we talked in the ship's movie theatre. she told us how shackleton became a legend, not for his exploration, 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 l rced to eat their dogs. later they used smats to navigate two death-defying ocean crossings, before finally landing at a remote whaling station on south georgia islanda

>> theleton endurance story is ultimately a feel-goodr because we know that everybody survives absolutely against the odds. when the worst happens and your ship goes down and youstill at least a thousands kilometers no help is coming for you, youne to rescue yourself effectively, and you manage to do so, that's absolutely incredible. >> brangham: over the next several decades, dozens of countries came tantarctica and tried to plant their nations' fls on the continent. to help establish territorial claimscountries built scientific bases like these all over antarctica. and, according to tucker scully, who for years was chief negotiator on polar isor 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 tecto a lot of the scientific community wanted to get into antarctica to do that kind of work. >> brangham: while science was

driving a new age of exploration, 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, ercluding the u.s. and the soviet union, ha out a dramatic breakthrough: the signing of the antarctaty. the treaty says that antarctica must remain exclusively peaceful. that means no milita exercises, no nuclear testing, no nuclear dumping. a o says that scientists can come here and conduct research sserever they want, regard of territorial claims and that those findings must be shared publicly. >> i think the antarctic treaty found two 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 union and the united states, yo could, in faclare 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 antarctica still helps spur 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. n there was a strong push the scientific side that was helping the diplomats at the time figure out that, well, maybe we can preserve this area for peace and science.m: >> brangearly six decades today, however, there are new challenges on the horizon. man-made climate change is already altering this pristine landscape, potentialming some of the continent's iconic species. there's also growing pressure for more tourism, and more large-scale commercial fishing. and wi the vast majority of the world's freshwater frozen in antarctica, me hotter, drier

nations have begun eyeing all that ice. in fact, ausiness in the tited arab emirates recently announced plans ry 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 environmental protections expire in 2048 and will have to be renewed. >> best thing we can do for antarctica is keep it like it is. >> i think there is a very >> they are proceed of preserving it as a place for peace and science, and i think that is something they don't want to go back >> brangham: one of the biggest questions marks facing this remarkable continent is, will that commient hold? for the pbs newshour, i'mll m brangham in antarctica.

>> woodruff: what a remarkable series. ank you to william and your team. our new podcast is called "the last continent," and gives a much deeper look at our team's joury to antarctica. hope you'll listen. search for "the last continent" or pbs newshour on apple podcasts or your favorite t app to subscribe and download episodes. rate us or write a review. you can also listen to those episodes directly on website, at pbs.org/newshour/the lastcontinent, whered e also at's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. 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 wireedss plan desior you. with talk, text and data. arn more atular. consumercellular.tv >> babbel. a language app that teaches

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