captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc uf >> woo good evening, i'm judy woodrf. on the newshour tonight, no end in sight: the shelling civilians continues in syria, and how the suspicious death of a humanitarian working in the country is raising concerns. then, the trump agenda-- efforts by the president to resist new environmental rules, now a rallying cry on the campaign trail. plus, a look back at the decade in culture.a view of the most important .ontributions in the arts over the last ten yea and... >> ♪ god rest ye merry gentlemen let nothing you dismay ♪ >> woodruff: ...united we sing:t members united states armed forces share another holiday classic. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like yo thank you. re >> woodruff:dent trump is playing down a possible

"christmas surprise" from north test., in the form of a missile pyongyang has warned of unspecified action if the u.s. does not ease sanctions by year's end. but today, at his mar-a-lago resort in florida, mr. trump suggested north korean leader kim jong un may have something >> well we'll see maybe it's a nice present, maybe it's a present where he sends me ase beautiful s opposed to a missile test i may get a vase i may get a nice present you don't know youever know. >> woodruff: t president spoke after a christmas eve video conference with membils of the u.s.ary, stationed around the world. christmas has already arrid in much of the world. in bethlehem today, the main square was filled for the annu parade. the faithful and tourists alike arrived to visit the traditional birthplace of sus. later, at the vatican, worshipps gathered in st. peter's basilica, where pope

francis celebrated midnight mass. but in paris, fire damagepr ented christmas services at notre dame cathedral, for the first time sce the french revolution. in hong kong, christmas eve was marked by a new wave of protests. thousands of demonstrators occupied key roads to block traffic in a major tourist district. riot police fired tear gas to break up the crowds. scuffles also broke out inside busy shopping malls. police beat back some of theot ters with batons. the parliament in iraq approved a new election law today, eting a key demand of protesters. it calls for electing one candidate per district, instead of electing entire slas. the goal is to give ndents a better chance. mass protests have flared across iraq since october. they call for an overhaul of the political system and an end to corruption.ol weather in part of australia helped crews fighting

some 200 wildfires today. and,rime minister scott morrison sought to ensure manpower for the front les, by announcing paid leave eer many volunt. morrison toured burnt vineyards and wrecked homes in adelaide, d thanked firefighters for working through the holidays. >> todayay be christmas eve, but for so many firefighters, it is going to be another day out there protecting their communities. and i thank them for their service. and i thank althose volunteers that are supporting to keep them out there and i thank their families for their forbearance. >> woodruff: the prime minister has taken political heat for vacationing in hawaii last week, as the wildfire crisis explod. on wall street, stocks were mostly flat, as the market closed early for christmas. the dow jones industrial average lost 36 points to close at 28,515. the nasdaq rose seven points, and, the s&p 500 slipp a fraction. britain's prince philip was

discharged from a londonay hospital todin time for christmas. he walke four-night stay.ter a buckingham palace said he was treated for an unspe, pre- existing condition. olprince philip is 98 year and, t u.s. and canadian militaries are tracking santa claus' journey tonight, for the 64th year. this time, the tracker is on social media and 3-d apps, thanks to tech firms working with norad, thnorth american aerospace defense command. about 1,500 volunteers are ao fielding thousands of e-mails and phone calls. still come on the newshour: no end in sight-- the syrian civil war grinds amid accusations of the murder of a humanitarian worker. the trump agenda-- the president's resistance to new environmental initiatives. warnings from antarctica-- our

reporting on the impact of climate change. and much more. by rising temperatnd

melting ice. william, producers mike and emily traveled there earer this year for series about the southern most part of thean . that is a reprieve of their report. it's part of our occasional challenge of climate change." >> brangham: for as far as thee n see, antarctica is covered by thick sheets of ice.l in somes, that ice isde several mile. this massive continent, as big as the u.s. and mexico combined,

has for millions of years, been home to some of the most breathtaking landscapes of ice on the planet. is a very good cross-section of a glacier in antarctica. and at you see with all thos different layers-- that is hundreds and thousands of years of snow and precipitation stacking up, one on top of the other, and slowly exerting pressure downward on those layers of snow. and that's how a glacier is formed. but antarctica's ice is now increasingly being threatened, and most researchers belie it's because of climate change. according to one recent study, the continent's ice is slipping away six times faster than it was 40 yea ago. >> antarctica is now losing 252 gigatons of ice per year. >> brangham: glaciologist joepa mcgregor i of the team at nasa's goddard space flight center that's studying antarctica's ice. using radar and lasers, they measure the thickness of the ice and how its moving.

>> a gigaton is a billion metric tons of ice. second, and maen you do the , you wind up with the antarctic ice sheet is out of balance by more than three and a half swimming pools per second. >> brangham: letgee make sure i that: every second, three olympic sized swimming pools worth of ice is disappearing from antarctica?. >> y when considered, on average, over a year. perspective, in the amount ofn time it takes to watch this story, antarctica will shed more water than nework city uses every day. the warming that many betheve is causin ice loss varies in different parts of the continent. ulre on the antarctic peni the long branch of land coming on the northwest corner, warming has been especially pronounced. at the vernadsky research station, which is ruby the

ukrainian government, meteorologists like oleksandr polun have been keeping some of the longest-term temperature records on the continent. while it's warmed and cooled at different times, poluden says the overall trend here on the peninsula is clear: >> ( translated ): you will notice that the temper doesn't tend to increase all the time. there are some fluctuations over time. it becomes evident that over about 70 years, the average year-round temperature has increased by 3.5 degrees. i s becoming clearer that parts of antarctica appear to be unstable, and are losing ice much faster than we expected. >> brangham: michael oppenheimer is a climate scientist and profsor of geoscience at princeton university. he says this ice loss will only celerate sea level rise, which happens for two reasons: one, a warming atmosphere warms the ocea, and rises.ater expands secondly, warming also melts ice and,glaciers all over the wo

sending ter into the ocean, a >> so ultimately, if we lose all the ice that'sulnerable to a warming of only a few degrees, we're talking about a very, very, very, big sea level rise. >> brangham: the most recent u.n. report predicts a foot of sea-level rise this century if we continue burning oigas and coal at our current pace. but a owing number of researchers believe that because of the emissions we've already put into the atmosphere, that prediction understates t threat. >> essentially, the continent's warming from below and also, you know, from above. >> brangham: alexandra isern oversees all antarct science for the national science foundation, who, for the record, is a newshour underwriter. she says that in west antarctica, two huge glaciers-- pine iand and thwaites-- are apconsidered at risk of co. >> certainly there's some researchers that study pine islands and the thwaites gcier

biat feel that it's become sufficiently deszed that we won't be able to recover. >> brangham: michael oppenheifer saysust one of those glaciers winds up in the ocean,l sea levelsrise five times imgher than the u.n. predicted. >> the current ees are that if the thwaites glacier in antarctica were to totally that ultimately, sea level rise would rise by something like five feet. areas around some of our biggest cities, new york, boston, miami, where you've got a lot of development: homes,ng buil infrastructure, roads, right up by the coast. how do you defend those? but how would bangladesh protect itself? it's got many hundred of miles of coastline. it's all right at sel. you can't build a wall to protect that whole coast.s thertually nothing that can be done. >> brangham: that's millions of people that are going to have to move >> right. there are 150 million people in bangladesh androbably a few million are going to have to

move. and where are they going to go in such a densely populated country? and thers already strife when people try to move. they try to move into india? people get killed trying to do th now. what's going to happen when you have a few million people thatl a sudden try to move? it's not a pretty picture. >> brangham: part of the reason antarctica's glaciers are threatened is that they've been losing some crucial protection. many glaciers form what are known as ice shelves-- huge platforms of ice-- some as wide as texas and hundreds of stories tall-- that grow out over the ocean, and they help hold theirl much larger aciers up on land.ey old it back and not let it slide into the sea. >> so you can imagine a piece of ice the size of texas. pretty thick. it's going to slow the ice as it tries to flow into tan. >> brangham: robin bell, of coluia university's lamont- doherty earth observatory, has been studying antarctica's ice for over 2years >> they are esseially acting

as a bouncer in the bar, leaning the ice from flowio the keeping ocean. >> brangham: but as the ice shelves in anta have, major also been collapsing. el 2002, the larsen b ice the size of rhode island, these are satellite images of it breaking into hundreds of pieces. as predict, the glaciers that larsen b anchored up on land, began accelerating towds the ocean. and thentwo years ago, the even bigger larsen c shelf, this is it from the air, developed that miles-long crack in it. this shelf, which sits in front of the thwaites glacier, is also crumbling. d part of the brunt ice shelf is expected to break off any day now, releasing an iceberg that'll be twice the size of manhattan. there's still some debate over whether human-induced warming is the only thing causing these changes. antarctica has lost ice many times before, and that also

caused the seas to rise.ar researchernow trying to determine how much warmth it takes to cause truly catastrophic sea lev rise. that glacier you see behind me coects up over that peak t the massive west antarctic ice sheet. and all of those layers of snow edd ice, built up over hun of thousands of years, contain a remarkable history of earth's past climate. >> it's like a tape recorder, a 10,000 foot tape recorder in places. so scientists have drilled ice cores through the layers afar down as they can get, and then they analyze those layers. >> brangham: glaciologist robert mulvaney, that's him in the black cap, works for the british antarctic survey. he and a small team have been drilling over 000 feet down into the ice sheet, pulling out these ice cores. >> what we've been trying to do is recover our climate record over the last 120 to 140,000 years to try to understand how our climate might change over

the next hundred years or so as the climate responds to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. >> brangham: the evidence from a these ice core many others, indicate that when the earth's climate was just a little bit warmer than it is today, the world's oceans were over twenty feet higher. >> at two degrees warmer climate gave a sea level rise of about six to nine metres more than present. g >> branghaen that there are still so many uncertainties over how serious sea-level rise e will be, and over what tan it'll occur, michael oppenheimer argues that there's still time to act and to prepare. >> it doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and run. let's start thinking straight about how we're going to help people. w we're going to help countries deal with the outcome, because it's not going to be pretty, it's going to be expensive, and it's going to be disruptive, if we don't get our act together, no >> brangham: this year, teams

nsom several different nat are studying the thwaites glacier, trying to determine whether it's past the point of no return, and if so, how soon its ice could end up in the ocean. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham in antarctica. >> woodruff: for years, there's been a bipartisan push in washington to change laws, regulations and incentives to anmake household appliance goods more energy efficient. and in a warming world, many scientists and advocates argue even tougher standards should be set. but as john yang tel us, president trump is moving to roll back some of those laws, arguing they've gone too far. >> yang: it's become a feature of president trump's political speeches: highlighting what he says is excessive regulation of

household goods. take the battle creek, michaigan, rally the night the house voted to impeach him: the president bashed stricter energy standards that would have phased out many incandescent on january 1, which, estimates say, would have affected half the bulbs in light sockets in u.s. homes. we're evenringing back the d light bulb. you heard about that, right? the old light bulb which is better. i say why do i always look so orange? you know why, because of the new light, they're terrible. you look terrible. they cost you many, many times more, like four or five times more. >> yang: two days later, the energy department announced it is kping incandescent and halogen light bulbs on the market, saying the new rules wod have been too costly f consumers. business roundtable, theall president's focus was on bathroom fixtures.>> ou turn on the faucet; you don't get any water. ey take a shower and wat comes dripping out. it's dpping out-- very quietly dripping out. people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to

once. they end up using more water. so, e.p.a. is looking at that very strongly, at my suggestion. >> yang: the president has also taken issue with bans on plastic straws-- and has begun selling them on his campaign website, and during a speech in south environmental advocates say many of president trump's claims are inaccurate or use outdated information. all of this comes with an election year on the horizon. democratic presidential candidates havpledged to make climate change a top priority. the president has frequentlyke denied or beenical about the scientific consensus on the issue. e trump administration has also moved to roll back fuel standards on autos and trucks which are, of course, a huge part of americans' daily lives and a big source of greenhouse gas emission juliet eilperin covers all of t.is for the "washington p she joins me via skype from columbus, georgia. thanks for being with us. so, light bulbs, low flow

toilets, fuel efficiency for cars and trucks what areother areas that the president is talking about an where he could have an impact on federal regulations? 's looking at those including disashers, people use in their home, shower heads so really some of these every day appliances that people are familiar with. that affect their lives and of course use energy. >> have real impact. what are somee experts saying on the light bul standards not putting that in place what is the affect. >> you look at the independent estimates, it seems like this is a costs up t$o 14 billion a year. it additional 38 million tons of carbon dioxide to th equivalent of power plants running for a year. >> environmental advocates and mocrats have been saying that the president and some of these argumeens, things he's saying are not necessarily based

on fact or maybe outdated information, what are some examples of that? >> well, he has talked about, foexr ample, said that they havs to get their dishes clean usually takes five minutes. described the idea that for low flilets you have to flush them between 10-15 tes. so in many cases he's describing kind of woefully inadequate function, is that don't seem to comport wih the real world performance of many of these more efficient ones. >> the president ran on deregulation in the first year of his administration it was pretty aggressive, but i was about things like industry lie power plnts, coal fired er plants, what is your sense of why he is focusing these sorts of things now? >> these are the kinds of

things, when he talks about, if you like your old light bulb you can keep it. people have a tangible connection, it res natures more with people. w the same thih gas mileage and what kind of car you drive. at is something that can americans can relate to where they turn on their light switch they're not thinking 'boat th power plant for the wind project that is powering it.o these kindf tangible issues are ones that resonate particularly when you're tat lkg abe upcoming presidential campaign of 2020 where the president is again voking th nostalgia that worked very well in the past. >> one thing we know about the president's speech is that if he gets something that he gets a reaction to, he keeps coming back to it over and over again. the fact that he's focusing on this, that a sign that maybe he's cast into something that resonates with his base? >> you showed thea ge from the

michigan rally when he raised the issue of dihwashers, the crowd responded, they responded when he raised toilets. so, these are issues that connect to folks and he is also, one thing that i think is so distinct he is personally interested in these issues. ked his deputies to look into these issues, he said that he wants to weigh enwhethey finalize their rules creating an exemption for certain kind of dishwashers. this is a esident ho ran a hotel chain and paid attention to the details, whether it was dust on the chandeliers or the condition of the rugs. he understands how people have a tactilexperience with their surroundings and all of this is playg in. >> juliet eilperin of the "washington post," thanks for helping us to understand this. >> my pleasure.

>> woodruff: in syria, forces loyal to the assad regime and backed by russian airpower a advancing in the northwestern province of idlib. it's the last remaining stronghold for the rebels who've been fighting assad fopast eight years. the syrian army and its allies are focused on trying to take over a key highway leading to the city of aleppo. thousands of syrian civilians are caught in the ossfire. in northwestern syria's idlib province, the latest target was this school houses are now war zones. families were left horrified building.trikes hit the human rights activists said the shelling left multiple civilians >> (,translated ): the airplane was hovering around then all we saw was a missile coming down toward us. it fell on a whole family of around 10 people, all of them were killed.

>> woodruff: it was the latest carnage in the assad regime's intensified offensive against syria's last rebel-held stronghold. since last week, government forces, withussian air support, have reclaimed more than 40 villages and hamletsesn the northwrn territory. the offensive has largely targeted civilian areas, leaving many towns crumbled into dust.un thited nations estimates at least 80,000 people, many of them already forced out of other parts of syria, have fled toward the border with turkey. the exodus has left thousands of women and children sleeping in tents. >> 13 votes in favor and two >> woodruff: despite the growing humanitarian crisis, russia and china vetoed a u.n. security council resolution last week to extend cross-border aiinto syria for other year.

the russians have backed damascus through eight years of civil war and in moscow yesterday, the russian foreign minister, with his syrian counterpart, defended the veto. >> ( translated ): we are convinced that safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of syria is the logical solution. >> woodruff: today, a turkish official announced, after talks with moscow, that russia will work to stop the attacks in on any concrete conts.no details i'm joined now by steven heydemann and joshua landis. heydemann is the chair middle east studies at smith college and a nior fellow at the brookings institution. joshua landis is professor of middle eastern studies at the university of oklahoma and editor of the bsite syriacomment.com. welcome back to you both. let me start with you remind us in bref who

is fighting whom here and what are they fighting over? this is the assad regime with support from the keyns patin particular russia who have launched another phase in an ongoing offensive to try to reassert their ntrol ovee last part of syria that is controlled by oposition forces. >> woodruff: what would you add to that? >> one of the problems with idlib the largest collectioof al qaeda fighters left in the there are about 30,000 militan militants, this is why the international community is not coming to the defense of these they don't dark darks they're torn we saw that america just destroyed many isis mess have takeneefuge thre. so i think international community, they see this as terrible humanitarian disaster militants are attacked.as these and syria takes back this land.

they're torn about what to do. they don't want enclave going on for ever in which these mil and plan attacks. >> woodruff: i hear you saying that the international community isn't coming to the defense of these rebels and yet steven heydemann, the humanitarian catastropheis clear. to be hitting a school, hitting again it's civilians who are the targets. >> correct. there may be some overlap of interest in terms of the focus on removing terstrogroups and fighter from idlib. but the way theis regim conducting is generating international commeven ifrom the the means to bring about a change in the conduct of the operations are very limited. we have seen expressions of concern from u.n. secretary general, we know that secretary of state pompeo mass criticized what the regime is doing.

so, whatever the overlap of interest might be, the focus on civilian targets, on schools, on hospitals, the death o civilians, closing roads to prevent the evacuion from civilians coming under attack these are aspects of the way the regime and russia are conducting that offensive that are really seen ascc unatable. they are crimes against humanity. >> woodruff: the syrians and russians defend this along with the chinese, vetoed this resolution at the u.n. >> they did.a syscended into what we would call total war a long time ago. and to puthat in some perspective it's like sherman's march through the south where he burnt the wheat crops, he tried to destroy the morale of the enemy. it's a little bit like bombingor hiroshimag sack key and unfortately these things work. and at is the terrible, i

guess the terrible comentary on humankind. horrib things appeningthis, and the people are getting ground down under the feet of >> woodruff: we've been hearing about this war in syria of course since e civil war, there began, steven heydemann, ght years ago, it's still going on and the two of you wer telling usis battle in idlib is not the last, you are expecting more fighting to come, northeastern syria near the turkey border. >> notjust noreastern syria but let's keep in mind that the major urban center in lid lib province, idlib city where the population between 1.5 and 2 million people has so r escaped the kind of direct attack that we're seeing now on further tole bi the east and south. but it will happe it will come.s and thiis an enormous source of pressure not just for humanitarian regions but turkey has closed the border. people are fleeing fighting have no where to go.

rat i understand that y and russia have now negotiated something of aned? ing that cities immediately in the path of this offensive may actually be turned over to the regime to falunder joint russian-turkish patrols precisely to mite the pressure on turkey is accept new ways of refugees. >> woodruff: the fighting continues. thousands of inernally displaced refugees. steven, the assad regime is inl. cont is it not, after eight years of fighting? yes. president trump has said there's something but sand and ath in syria this they can fight over it. unfortunately this has been the attitude, the europe is paying turkey, helping turkey subsideth building of a wall to contain these people inside, because turkey can't accept any more refugees. this is really the sad commentary is that the world is it's not on the headlines.d

united states has wihdrawn we're preoccupied with impeachment, elections and other prings and syrians are going to pay a higice. >> woodruff: and steven heydemann, it looks as if that is one of the reasons we wanted to focus on it tonight because it hasn't beegetting attention. but the world looks n and we're helpless to do anything the rest pf the world. >> the oportunities to engage on humanitarian level have been narrowed by the russi an chinese veto in the u.n. that your story highlighted. we face a significantdilemma, if turkey will not permit refugees in the coin tree numbers of displaced increase oth enormous flooding, terrible weather, the scathe catastrophe is quietedin extraoy. i would hope that governments in the west would respond despite the vote in the u.n., rebound if it means defying the vote in the u.n. to prent what

would otherwise be a real catastrophe. >> woodruff: just finally quickly, joshua landis, president of syria comes of this feeling vindicated? >> wl, he wants treconquer his country. and both the united states,s turkey and ria all are saying that syrian sovereignty should remain and territory should remain end gal. on international lawhehas the superior position and nobody can quibble with that, really. unis is the -- legally the international coy still recognizes him as the president of syria. and recognis these other insurgent groups and rebel grps as ultimately the u.n. never passed a vote as they did in syria in libya, to make the rebels the legitimate government of syria. and that is the shortcoming that these rebels are facing today.

>> but the issue isn't whether there's any sigficant challenge to sovereignty at this point, it's maui conducts the operation to reimpose this control over this one remaining hold out. and he's chosen the most brutal method possible. he's used tactics that do constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. and there are alternatives that are available to him if he had wantedo pursue reassertion of his congtrol without impos such an extraordinary price on civilians in that part of syria. >> woodruff: it's a subject that we believe iportant to continue to look at. >> thank you. . >> woodruff: thank yofor joining us. joshua land is, thank you. >> woodruff: now a story of humanitarian trying to help syria. c woodruff: british officials are being urged duct a thorough investigation into the suspicious dth in turkey last month of james le mesurier, the co-founder of the white helmets rescue oanization in syria. friends and colleagues fear he was driven to suiss by ar that relentampaign of character assassination.

special correspondent malcolm brabant has beenxaming this and has the story. a warning, vwers may find some of these images distressing. >>reporter: the body of for british army officer james le mesurier was discovered by worshippers outside a mosque in the western rt of istanbul television, le mesdiedtate from the impact of falling from an upper floor of his apartment. le mesurier, seen here in 2015, ran a nonprofit called mayday rescue which trained mbers of the white helmets, also known as syrian civil defense. they are first responders whons help civ caught in sustained syrian and russian air strikes and we nominated for the nobel peace prize in 2016. >> in the last two years, they've saved over 15,250 lives, people who have literally been

dragged from the rubble of buildings that have been blown up inside syria. >> reporter: syria's president assad was one of the first to express a theory behind le mesurier's death. he told russian television that western intelligenceas to blame. >> ( translated ): of course it's the work of secret rvices. but which ones? when we speak of turkish and so other secret services i our region, these are not secret services of sovereign states. these are subdivisions of the chief intelligence service, the c.i.a. that is the truth. they're all obeying one master, in crdination with each othe r >>eporter: le mesurier's swedish wi emma has reportedly d told turkishectives her husband was taking medication for stress. suicide has not been ruled out. but friends and collgues find it hard to believe that le mesurier would have intentionally leapt from such a relative low height. >> in the last two yr so, an awful lot of people who've

disagreed th the russians in particular have fallen off balconies. i so i thiis very suspicious. >> reporter:amish de bretton gordon is a british army chemical weapons expert and former colleague of le mesurier. they last met a month before his death. >> i didn't leave that meeting really troubled. someone who is but having sd that the amount of abuse, the amountl disinformation that's on social media and the internet coming out of russian bots and rian regime and others wasun arable. >> reporter: days be ore his deattwitter, the russian foreign ministry accused le mesurier of being a spy with a history of facilitating terrorist groups, a claim britain's u.n. ambassador karen pierce has vigorously denied. on a hillside at christmas common, in southern england, le

mesurier was honored at an art installaon commemorating wartime military heroes. the artist danarton added white helmets to the silhouettes to pay tribute to the humanitarian work, for which the former army captain wa decorated by the queen. the artist was also eulogizing kill since they d workolunteers james le mesurier died on armistice day, when britain rn emembers falterans. whatever the cause, le mesurier was a victim of very modern conflict. there is no hiding place in cyberspace. le mesurier was at the epicentre of a propaganda war and his friends are appalled by what they regard as a campaign of character assassinion. and if you cross tt thency line, something should be done. some othe stuff coming out of these people, i think, crosses that decency line. some of the accusing people of

being al qaeda, of supporting terrorism. >> reporter: de bretton gordon o is most criticvanessa beeley, a frequent contributor to russian media outlets.s she belo a collection of academics and others callingor themselves theng group on syria, proganda and media. is group backs president assad's claims that the white s lmets have staged attack trigger western retaliation against the syrian regime. earlier this year in oslo, beeley alleged the white helmete linked to al qaeda and claimed they engaged in organ harvesting, charges dismissed by other middle east experts. she accused le mesurier of n.mplicity, pointing to his prior role as a eacekeeper in former yugoslavia where he encountered the kosovan liberation army, the k.l.a. >> the k.l.a. were running organ trafficking operations, cross bord organ trafficking

operations, and they were being whitewashed by james le mesurier, former m.i.6 who in 2013, set up the white helmets, that are effectively al qaeda, dressed in humanitarian clothing. >> reporter: beeley is a frequent visitor to assad's syria. via twitter i asked whether her attack on le mesurier could be her response: >> what amazes me consistently is the emphasis from channels like yours on attacking those who raise the lesue of such d crimes and heinous activity while neverat investg the atrocities committed against syrians,y testified torians. however, you are so quick to condemn the syrian government based on unverified and fraudulent testimonythe white helmets. shameful. where is your humanity? i stand by e>>ry statement. eporter: and when pushed about the consequences of the personal cpaign against le mesurier, this was her reply. >> you might seriously consider

liability issu if you even remotely suggest publicly that critics of james le mesurier or the white helmets are responsible for his demise >> reporter: professor david miller is another member of the syria working group to whi beeley belongs. it claims the white helmets faked this 2018 missile attack in doumalose to damascus. up to 50 people were killed and hundreds more, including children were wounded. convinced the missiles contained chlone, the u.s.-led coalion launched air strikes against syrian government targets. but miller's group claims the missile strike was staged to provoke western retaliation against damascus and insists it is backed by whistleblowers within the u.n.'s specialist watchdog, the organization for the prohibition of chemicalap s. >> the douma case undermines the

investigation into the alleged douma attack but it must also throw into question previous reports th we have done. have written about some of the previous alleged attacks which appear to us to be fraudulent or faked. >> reporter: the u.n. watchdog, whose inspectors are seen here in damascus, is re-examining the douma case. but in an email to the newshour, the organization said it stood by the initial impartial assessment that toxic chemicals were used. as does chemical wponsxpert hamish de bretton gordon. >> i've investigated a number chemical weapons attack in syria in the rebel held areas one in particular in 2014, in a place called talamenes which is what these assad useful idiots and assad is claiming was done by the white heets. now, i didn't see any white helmets doing anything there. i saw helicopters with syrian army insignia on them drping chlorine barrel bombs.te

>> rr: richard benyon, who used to sit on parliament's intelligence and defense committees says the syria working group are little more than trolls. >> there's a much more sinister element which is very often people within top academic institutions, universities in the united kingdom, who are relentlessly pursuing those who support the work of humanitarian organizations like the white helmets.ss and relely pursuing a line that supports the actions of one of the most brutal regimes we've seen since nazi germany. >> reporter: what do you think of these criticisms that you are apologists for the assad regime and their russian comrades in this fight? >> i mean it's ridiculous, the idea that we as lonely academics in the u. writing briefing papers which wput on the web are anything to do with ourvi s on russia or syria is preposterous. >> reporter: as the tuish inquiry continues, richard benyon is calling for a fu

british investigation into le mesurier's death and for universities to review the employment of staff involved in rsy. contro nd the universities employing highly suspect iiduals with disgusting views where they are prepared to be apologists fo the kind of brutality that we are seeing in syria, well to take responsibility for this. >> this is not a question of my views, this is a question of social science research methods and material that we've produced, and if as i say, it's wrong, let's show it to be wrong, and let's not have this mccarthyite hysterical witch hunt to try to get academics sacked for simply doing their jobs. >> reporter: after the body of the white helmets' founder wastu ed to britain, his friends lamented that if anyone was subjected to a witch hunt it wam james urier. >> to me he's a toro. the world's going to be a much >> reporter: a manelpedmes.

save countless syrian lives, but who couldn't save his own. for the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant at christmas co on. but tonight, we start lighter as jeffrey browtakes note of some of the big changes in arts and pop cuture, and how politicsennd social mov impacted all of that. >> brown: new technology changed the way art is made and received in a world of streaming video, podcast and selfies. new stars emerge with new stories. the social and political divisions of our times were reflected in music, books and other art forms. we look at some of the decade's trends and trend makers with two critics who watch for them. wesley morris of the "new york ttimes" and lorraine ali "los angeles times." welcome to you both. wesley, let me start with you.

when we think big about why i just mentioned technology, in what ways has that been most impactful for you? >> i live in new york city ande ea that i now as a part of my daily life, have to swerve out of my way to avoid people watching tv. that was not happening 10 years ago. that is a new development. eld there is a way to which this device has compl transformed not just our relationship to art and popular lture, but to our environmental space. each other are our daily routines are now sort of ambient light oriented around constantly experiencing some podcasts,on televihow, music, movie, hold in our hands and inthat we transport ourselves from one place to the next. >> brown: rraine, what do you want to add to that? and are there specific examples itof artists or shows that

that moment for us? >> yeah, i mean, i think it's the sheer amount of what we're seeing as well. and, you know, whether we're talking about television streaming and the idea of bingeing content and idea of bingeing, a show like we didn't know what that meant last decade and now it's like, i have toee this. there's the mu see bingeing thing. this is why you need to stay indoors and never leave or be on your phone and not street, as wesley said. this is this is this is a good h thin? you can look at it either way. and if that is the double edged sword of technology. right. we've seen these great advances in entertainment. but it's also kind of either it's connected us, but it's also kind of pulled us apart in different ways. >> brown: wesley, give it give it a couple of examples of sort of what shows or stars, for that matter, what artists have shown most brighid that. >> what was the biggest star of person.a is probably not a it's the odds are that it's a company.

and one of the biggest stars a company, been the companyen netflix, which used to just be a ma delivery video service. and is now, you know, i mean, it's the biggest entertament t company in world, if not by. no. although i think that might be true then definitely by ethos. sitting there and watching most anof the first season of " is the new black" and "house of cards," too. i mean in some ways, they in very different ways define this era. both, both formally because you're given a bunch episodes of a television show and one dose, but also just in terms of how dark one show is and how sort of deceptively light and optimistic the other. "orange is the new black" is one >> but i think bringing up "orange is the new black." the way that that show also it was made by womre seeing. it starred women.

it told the stories oflyhese reomplex narratives and many women of color. you know, socioeconomics that we hadn't seen before in a lot of rtows. so i think it so of ushered in this era not only of a show dropping all at once, but also seeing these characters we hadn't really seen before being the central focus of a story. >> brown: and i think about the changi vces, the changing the words, the images, and not just television go, wesley. i mean, think about hamilton and what other what other game changers have struck you when you look bacat the last 10 years? >> there's all kinds of have like actually changed the way that people get to see other people. what this country is and when and who gets to call themselves an american, i mean, hamilton is an obvious example of that, and it's proven that there's an auence out there for peopl who are interested in stories about nonwhite people, jusfor starters. >> brown: and then, lorraine, i mean, we still have the major

stars teing their story. i mean, you can't talk about a decade like this without mentioning beyonce, for example. >> oh, no. this was beyonce's decade.an you're talking about, you know, she came from essentially a girl group. and this decade, from the super bowl to the inauguration to beychella to lemonade. this was her decade. and i think in many ways it kind of showed the breakthroughs and how different it was in this f deca. just in terms of the agency that women had, but also, you know,lo when you'ring at the ecpact that music r&b and hip hop made in thise. i mean, kendrick lamar won a pulitzer prize and that's the first hihop thought on that. i mean, that was astounding. and you knew it wait wasn't the idea of the old stories where, oh, look, you know, rap is influencing mainstream culture. it's in may. it was driving it. and that was, i think, a tippinn >> brown: how about before we go? just give us a couple of

things that have stayed with you for the whole decade that this stally sum it up for us, lee. a thing that l am surprised by how good it is and deserved.ite get the love it although people were excited when it dropped wad'angelo's black messiah, which came out in the middle of the decade. it is it ia beautiful album. it sounds it just sounds like a like a great oral stew. the question in the middle of that era, that was the beginning of the black lives matter and it was the question was what was going to look like under these circumstances and was it going to take things directly head on? i or wgoing to be a bleak about its relationship to the moment? and this album is just a one of examples of the way that you can take a political moment and also still make great r&b love songs and find new ways of creating soul music that still do things to your body that you know you like music to do when it's good.

>> i would say girls and insecure because they were shows remember how seinfs just about a bunch of people doing nothing? i feel like these shows were the same, but for young women and they were stories that i could really relate to that i hadn't seenefore. but i also tnk two other shows, ramy and "master of none" looked at kind of the immigrant experience with the second p generation, wiple, you know, with kids that were already there, grew up here. and i think they showed th side of immigration, like nothing else i had seen. >> brown: all right. i know, i know. i asked the impossible to boil it all down, but thank you both, very morraine ali of los angeles times, wesley morris of the new york times. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> thanks for having us. >> woodruff: finally on this

christmas eve, at the request of the newshour, the defensero departmentced a music videof service personnel around the world singing a holiday favorite. tonight, "god rest ye merry gentlemen." ♪ ♪ ♪ god rest ye merry gentlemen let nothing you dismay ♪ remember christ our saviorch was born osts day pow'rsave us all from satan's ♪ when we were gone astray jooh tidings of comfort an ♪omfort and joy oh tidingsf comfort and joy ♪ god rest ye merry gentlemen let nothing you dismay ♪ remember christ our savior was rn on christmas dayal ♪ to save ufrom satan's pow'rn

♪ w were gone astray oh tidings of comfort and joy ♪ comfort and joy oh tidgs of comfort and joy ♪ in bethlehem, in israel this blessedabe was born ♪ and laid within a manger upon this blessed morn ♪ the which his mother mary did nothing take in scorn ♪ oh tidings of comfort and joy comfort and joy fear not then, said the angel♪y let nothing you affright this day is born a savior ♪ of a pure virgin brighte to free all tho atrust in him from satan's pow might ♪ oh tidings of comfort and joy

comfort and joy ♪ oh tidings of comfort and joy god rest ye merry gentlemen ♪ let nothing you dismay remember christ our saviorn ♪ was b christmas day to save us all from ♪ satan's pow'ron when we wereastray ♪ oh tidings of comfort and joy comfort and joy >> woodruff: and that's the joy newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. thanks for joining us, and merry christmas eve. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic entgement, and the advancem of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc ca ioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

♪ >> hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour and company." this holiday season, we're dipping into the archives and looking back at someof ur favorite interviews from the year. so here's what's coming up. de we didn't sign up. to fight a war tnd the kurds against a long standing nato ally. d and we certainn't sign up to help them establish an autonomous kurdish state. >> christiane. >> how are you? >> fine. good to see you again. >> good to see yougain. yeah. >> a look back at my exclusive interview with u.s. defense secretary mark esper as u.s. forces were pulled out of syriat i sat down whim in saudi arabia as more troops were sent there.. .. >> the people inside those organizations realize i'm the last line ofefense. if i don't stand up and say something, no one will ever ow. >> in an age of whistleblowers, author tom mueller discusses thc l word and the retribution they can face. plus...