captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc en>> schifrin: good and happy new year. i'm nick sifrin. judy woodruff is away. on the newshour tonight: backing down. a crisis end when demonstrators leave the u.s. embassy compound in iraq. then, nuclear north. kim jong-un announces a "new onstrategic we and warns that north korea can withstand u.s. sanctions. ewand,ear, new laws. from electric cars to minimum wage incre2020 rings in cnew rules across tntry. plus, warnings fthm antarctica. dangers penguins face in a warming world. >>eome species are going to major climate change winners, and there are going to be others species that are no longer able to thrive on the antarctic peninsula. >> schifrin: all that and more hton tonig pbs newshour.

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>> supporting social entrepreneurs and their ons to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives ths.ugh invention, in the u. and developing countries. on theeb at lemelson.org. ported by the john d. an catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just world.t and peaceful more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> schifrin: iraqi militiamen, orsud by iran, have withdrawn tonight from the u.s. embassy compound in baghdad. they pulled backfter a second day of violent assaults on the

u.s.' largest, and most expensive diplomaticex. the siege was sparked by u.s. riair s against milia sites over the weekend that killed more than two dozen fighters. we'll have detailed report, ryafter the news sum in afghanistan, the taliban staged a series of attacks on security forces, killing at least 26. the attackers struck in kunduz, balkh and takhar provinces, all in afghanistan's north. last weekend, taliban officials said they agreed to a cease- fire, but gave no start date, and there's be no let-up in the violen. a pro-democracy movement in hong kostng that began lapring, continues into the new year. hundreds of thousands joined an annual march today that, by nightfall, descended into violence protesters vandalized banks and businesses with ties to mainland china, and threw fire bombs. police firedear gas and arrested about 400 people. new year's day brought only slight relief to parts of australia ravaged by somof

country's worst-ever wildfires. but, after flames cut off several coastal towns, the death toll rose to 17. john ray of dependent television news has our report. >> reporter: in the small town enof mallacoota, res return to their homes to find nothing left to salvage. >> all of my possessions have been completely incinerated. there is simply nothing more, except ash. >> reporter: there is now a brief lull in the nds that whipped up this firestorm that sent thousands of residents fleeing for their lis, and holiday makers trapped on the coast to shelter at sea. firefighters have been foreinrced by the military to bring emergency supplies to unravaged coies, and to help count the cost in a toll of death expected to rise. >> today is the day where it's feo do so, that our police and emergency services can actually go through th

properties that haveeen lost, and in some circumstances make very horrible findings. >> reporter: many of those who died had stayed behind, in a doomed m and businesses. homes for now, in the towns, the fires only smolder. but in the hills, they still rage. and the calmer weather that has liallowed austto take stock of this catastrophe may be only p>> the is every potential the conditions on saturday will be as bad or worse than wsaw yesterday. >> reporter: searing heat in a country left tender dry by years of drought. fire has tested australia to destruction. >> schifrin: that report from john ray of independent television news. severe flooding hit indonesia's capital, jakarta, overnight, after monsoon rains dumped 14 inches during new year's lebrations. at least nine people were killed, and thousands were forced from their homes. curescue workers eed women and children in inflatable boats, while others swam through floodwaters, past submerged

homes and vehicles. at the vatican, in a new year's message, pope francis denounced violence against women. he likened it to profaning god, and called for a greater role for women in world decision- making. he also apologized for striking out at a woman in st. peter's square last night. francis was shaking hands when the woman grabbed him and yanked him toward her. he slapped her hand, and turned away, visibly angry. but today, he said he had made a e.mist >> ( translated ): love makes us patient. soany times we lose patience, even me, and i apologize for yesterday's bad example. >> schifrin: the woman involved in the incident has not been identified back in this country, president trump is again talking about cracking down on underage vaping. he said last night that sales of vored e-cigarettes might be halted. the "wall street journal" reported the food and drug administration will ban all flavors except mentholnd tobao. enthe prespromised a

sweeping ban last september, but never followed through. and former national basketball association commissioner david stern has died. the league said he passed today about three weeks after suffering a brain hemorrhage. stern led the n.b.a. for 30 years, and oversaw its huge growth for basketball in the u.s. and worldwide. in 2014, he was inducted into the basketball hall of fame. david stern was 77 years old. still to come on the newshour: backing down-- the crisis ends at the u.s. embassy compound in iraq. the nuclear noh-- what stark warnings from north korea mean for the future of talks with the u.s. lanew year, new -- changing rules for what you can and can't do in 2020. warnings from tarctica-- penguins face the perils of climate change. anmuch more.

>> schifrin: in baghdad over the last day, there was a sense of crisis-- american diplomats trapped in the embassy u.s. troops on the embassy roof, ready to fire into crowds. today, the siege is winding down, but the larger u.s. iran tensions remain high. after e most significant . standoff outside a ubassy in years, demonstrators in dobaghdad today stoo, and declared victory. >> ( translated after the achievement of the iended aim of this stance, we pulled out from this place triumphantly, and we soaked america's nose in dirt. ( chanting ) >> schifrin: for 24 hours, rssupporf the iran-backed militia kataib hezbollah staged a sit-in, scaled the eassy walls, and broke the reception area's windows. ( chanting ) they demanded the u.s. close the anembassd withdraw its more- than-5,000 troops from iraq.

ngthey were respon to sunday's u.s. air strikes against members of the same militia. the u.s. blames the group for mekilling an acan military contractor, and attacking u.s. bases in iraq 11 times in the last two months. on cbs onday, secretary of state mike pompeo blamed the iranian government >> this is state-sponsored or. this is iranian-backed terrorism that took place, that threatened americannterests. >> schifrin: during the sit-in, u.s. troops fired tear gas and stun grenades push back demonstrators. helicopters flew over the opembassy and d flares. and, the u.s. reinforced the embassy, deploying marines from kuwait, and 750 adtional soldiers frothe u.s. the u.s. was concerned iraqi forces alone couldn't handle the situation. iraqi forces at first allowed demonstrators to stream toward the emssy, inside the normally restricted green zone. eventually, they tried to act as a buffer between demonstrators and american troops.

today, they continue to act as security. but the end to the crisis in baghdad does not reduce larger u.s.-iran tensions. yesterday, president trump tweeted that iran "will pay a very big price! this is not a warning, it is a threat. happy new year!" today, iran supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei denied iran played a role, and mocked president trump.>> translated ): that gentleman has again tweeted. they tweet, speak or write articles, and he has said "we see iran responsible for this n in iraq, that iran is conolling this and we will respond to iran." dfirst, you cana damn thing, this has nothing to do with iran. second, be logical! >> schifrin: outside the embassy, there are still a few hundred holdouts. and a few miles away, a separate demonstration-- thousands of anti-corruption protestors fill baghdad's tahrir square. th have been ithe streets since october, demanding less sectarianism and more economic opportunity for all iris.

now, two people with first-hitd experiencethe parties involved in the embassy standoff. sarkawt shams is a member of the iri parliament representing the kurdistan region. he joins me from the city suleimaniya. and, douglas silliman was the u.s. ambassador to iraq until early last year. he is now the president of the arab gf states institute, a washington think tank. the siege is over, but do you right now have criticism of both the iraqi forces that allod some of these protesters, these demonstrators, these members of the militia to get so close to the embassy, and you have criticism what started this, the u.s. airstrikes in iraq over the weekend. >> right, both countries to blame, both parties to blame for the starting of this crisis. first, the u.s. unit lateral action against the shiite

militias of the west, some of them, and it was a mistake, it was a mistake by iraqi forces protecting the green zone, the rnational zone where the u.s. and many other embassies and the aqinstitutions like parliament areocated there. >> schifrin: you were in the embassy until recentlyast year. sarkawt shams says did to iraqi forcesough to keep the people away from the embassy, but also that the u.s. did not do enough to actually tell the pair strikes this weekend.ese >> first of all, in the short term, the iraqi security forces guarding the green zone and the diplomatic establishment obviously did t do enough to keep the ptesters from attacking the embassy and it was only after the attack was underway and there was damage to the wall and the reception area that they called in the iraqi countert are the equivalent to have the

u.s. special forces. this issue is broader and can be put in a cup of contest texts. the iraqi government mas hast pnot done eugh vent the shiite militias, but that's too broad a concept, theserregular forces that are now part of the iraqi government have not been controlled by the government adequately to prevent them from conducting attacks against iraqi institutions or diplomatic institutions. so that's the first issue. the second issue is a larger context. there is still a context of iran consistently trying to poke the united states into action. you saw months and months ago, the shooting down of the u.s. drone and, more recentlyin october, the attacks on saudi araan oil installations conducted by iran, looking for that pressure point that is going to get the united states to react or hopefully, in iran's eyes, overreact to the

iranian provocation and, up until this attack that killed an american, there was not a u.s. military response. >> schifrin: sarkawt shams, there has been a push by the same militia that we saw doing these attacks and this demonstration outside the embassy to evict the u.s. from iraq. will parliament now be more likely to take up the question ecting the u.s. from iraq? >> i don't think so. going to happen in the parliament. it was not the parliament who invited the u.s. army to iraq, it was the theprime minister abi and came at the request of the iraqi goveiament, not pant. the iraq military doesn't need the u.s. army, which i think they need ow. they can just ask them to leave, and they will leave eventually in a few days. we don't need a bill in the parliament to push the foreign forces, taking the issue, the crisis to the parliament that

'vseen these leaders, they don't want the u.s. forces to leave, they just want to show up and just make it a case for the that's not a real step toward removing u.s. forces in iraq, that's just a politicashow. >> schifrin: mr. shams, are you worried the mitary response will play into iran's hand? the iran has been goading the u.s. to attack and are you worried iraq has become the main theater for the proxy war between the u.s. and iraq? >> that's already happening and that's the fear of all iraqis, including the kurdish governmentiraq to be thrown into a proxy war between the two nation. both nations are important to iraq, both have strategic lerelations with iraq and we cannot ignore and favor one over the other one. we want both countes thave their conflict resolved elsewhere, not in iraq.

he already nose iraqi institutions are weak, the economic institutions and we inhave a primeter who can not really execute his full onconstitu power due to he resigned and we are awaiting a new prime minister. vso we are iny fragile and n,a very dangerous regnd we require support from the united states, and we know that it's really easy to start a war, but it is going to be almost impossible to win the peace. sifrin: the reality is -- i would reframe the entire question because it is not a war between the united states and iran on iraqi territory. the goals of the united states in iraq are internationally recognized. rywe have got a 17-cou coalition to help iraq defeat i.s.i.s., finally, and to train and mentor the military. we have been working with the i'm f, the world bank, the united nations, the european union, n.a.t.o. and a number of

other international organizes to build iraqi institutions so iraq can be an independent, sovereign state and exercise its own sovereignty possibly in the international community. it is iran that has been undermining the iranian -- the iraqi constitution, putting its oxforces or supporters into positions in the iraqi government and not obeying the laws and the constitution of iraq, and so, this is not the united states versus iran, ts is the world versus iran, and e als of iran e to essentially swallow iraq politically, economically and elf security, strategic depth. the world want to see iraq fully integrated into the international community in a positive way. >> schifrin: sarkawt shams, there has been a push by the militia the same way we saw these attacks and a push outside the emmbassy to evict the u.s. from iraq. ll parliament be more likely now to take up the question of evicting the u.s. from iraq? >> ifion't think so. t of all, it was not the parliament who invited the

u.s. army to iraq, it was then the prime minister adi that came at the request of the iraqi government, not the parlment. the iraqi military state doesn't need the u.s. army, which i think they need anem now. theyust ask them to lea and they will leave eventually in a few days. >> schifrin: ambassador suleman, former ambassador to iraq. sarkawt shams, thank you very much to you both. >> thank you. >> schifrin: north korea's leader kim jong-un has announced he will no longer abide by a moratorium on nuclear and long- range missile tests, and he warned north koreans of a "long confrontation with the u.s." direct talks with the trump administration a stalled. for more on all of this, we turn okto naoko an adjunct potical scientist from the rand corporation, and a former urnalist who has been to north korea 18 times.

thank you very much, welcome to the "newshour". >> thankn:ou. >> schifhat are your main takeaways from kim's statement? a>> i think this ajor policy shift from -- to an answer on weapons devepment, strategic weapons development and an emfa signs self-reliance in terms of the economy and this is because north korea sees olonged confrontation with the united states, and it think it's unlikely that sanctions will be lifted soon. >> schifrin: so let's take each of those in turn. the first one u talked about, strategic weapon, that's the .word that kim us let's take a listen to a newscaster reading what kim had to say about that. >> he confirmed that the world >> ( translated ): he coirmed that the world will ratness a new tegic weapon, to be possessed by the d.p.r.k. in the near future. he said that we will reliably put on constant alert the powerful nuclear deterrent capable of containing the nuclear threats from the u.s. and guaranteeing our long-term security, noting that the scope and depth of bolstering our

deterrent will be properly coordinated depending on the u.s.'s future attitude to the d.p.r.k. chifrin: so there is two points there, one what is is a new strategic weapon, but also tend phrase, "depend tong the u.s. attitude," how important are those terms? n'>> we dot know exactly what the new weapon will be but it is likely to be something qualitatively new, some component, at least, but we don't know what that is going to be. it could be something to enhance the survivability of north korea's nuclear weapons, and the conditional part is al important, as well. if you read the report carefully, a lot of nde things are ional on what the united states would do. so t flexibility in what the north koreans may do. >> schifrin: flexibility in opening sohat these talks maybe aren't dead? >> yes, so they completely shut the door to diplomacy, and i thinkhat is important, although things do not look very optimistic right now.

>> schifrin: at the top, you laid out the two takeaways, the tone strategic weapon, bu, also the message of resilience, the message of a long confrontation with the united states, and we've go language from kim himself that i , can red let's read that right now. he said the present situation, warning with the u.s., urgently requires us to make a fait accoli that we have to live under sanction tabis hostile forces in the future, too, and strengthen the internal power from aawe suspects. so cutting through the chase of that, you've got to messages, one, the long confrontation, and we have to be resilient, as he said, right? >> yeah, that's correct. so kim jong un is preparing to public for a long confrontation withhe united states which may involved -- which is likely to involve some sort of sanctions for the foreseeable future, and, so, lowering expectatiins for the liof sanctions and preparing the public for aeconomic hardshiad.

>> schifrin: and what's the implication of thaat has he said efore and how will north koreans receive that? >>ell, it's a policy shift because, in april 2018, he said that his policy of pursuing both economic -- economic development and nuclear arms development at e the same ts been accomplished, and he's going to shift more emphas on the economy. well, this is sort of going back to that point where, well, the united states, from the north korean point of view, the unthed states is continuing this anti-nortkorea, its hostile policy toward north korea and, therefore, we have to strengthen both. n:>> schiftrengthen both the economy or the nlear weapons or the nuclear system and that's the strategic which leads to the takeaway. so, i mean, if ehe's talking about a long confrontation, he's talking about new weapons, and the u.s.s not budging, as far as we know, are we going to go toward more confrontation and

more back to where we were in 2017, fire and fury? >> well, that's certainly a possibility. and tensions are likely to rise, but we don't quite know yet by w much and that will depend a lot on what both sides do. >> schifrin: so meaning the necessarily have to go down the tapath of more confron nor will north korea go down the path itself? ti>> that's the stic view, of course, but we could f certainly see a returnat we saw in 2017, but it could, given the political u.s. presidential elections, the politica else, it could mean it could be somewhere below that. >> meaning the united states and the trump administration right snow as y it has noer in ratcheting up tensions? and also north korea nite want to antagonize china, for example, by conducting icbm tests or nuclear tests, so that

is also a factor tt could play in their calculations. >> schifrin: naoko aoki of rand corporation, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> schifrin: on the final day of 2019, illinois governor onj.b. pritzker pa more than 11,000 people convicted for possessing low levels of cannabis. he said hundreds of thousands of others could see their records expunged. >> we are giving pple a new lease on life. we will never be able to fully remedy the depth of the mage that's been done, but today, here in illinois, we can govern cwith trage to right the heongs of the past. >> schifrin:overnor's iannouncement came inois becomes today the 11th state to legalize marijuana.ns as lisa desjarxplains, that's just one example of scor of new laws going into

effect tod across the country. >> congress and the president have been dom night almost hmonopolizing tdlines lathy, but the states are arguably doing more that changes the law, including a sweep of new state laws going into effect today, from criminal justice reforms an to the cost of electric cars. reed wilson a correspondent and joins us from the "newshour" west studio. let's start with criminal justice reform. illinois has wiped out thousands of arrests and revse convictions over marijuana, a small amount of marijuana possession as part of the legalization of the drug for recreational use, but this is also a part of a broader imal justice reform across the country. take us through what's happening. >> yeah, we've seen congress acting on criminal justice

reform as one of the major initiatives this year, basically e ly thing they could agree on on a bipartisan basis. but it states, and we've seen the push toward expunging records for s,minor drug c especially in states where marijuana is now legal, and we've ieen this effoplaces like california, new jersey and elsewhere. s,now, of course, in illins their recreational marijuana law takes effect. in other states, new yorkdeas cash bail. it's another one of the -- another trend we're starting to see in bluer states, a recognition that a lot of colow- residents who find themselves in jail can't afford to bail themselves out and, in some cases, plead guilty to crimes they haven't committed mjust in order tore get t ovals out of jail quickly. and in states like new jersey and kentucky, we've seen a push towards reenfranchising felons who were once in jail and now, once they're o of jail, get the right to vote back. the theory behind it is basically the more you are reintegrated into your community, the less likely you

are to offend again and head back to jail. >> i also want to talk about minimum wages going up. currently, the federal minimum wage, as people know, $7.25 an hour, that's about $15,000 for someone working fu-time. but now we're seeing today, 21 states are seeing increases in their minimum wages. what's motivating these states to have a higher minimum wage going forward? >>e federal minimum wage has not changed since 2009, and, as you can imagine, inflation has not slowed down and basically makes that purches power of that $15,000 far less than it was a decade ago. what we've seen in recent years is a push both through state legislators and ballot initiatives to raise the minim wage to 12, 13, 14, even $15 an hour, and what a lot of the states incremental process. one state might pass a bill to raise the mimum wage to $15 an hour but, by, say, 2022.

n hourwill rise a dollar this year and another dollar an hour next year to lessenhe burden and also raise the minimum wage. another thing we've seen acros isthear is teacher salaries on the rise. you might remember, about a year and a lf ago, there were significant teacher strikes in kentucky and oklahoma demanding higher wag. democrats and republicans didn't mewant to see the trikes in their own backyard. so in places like arizona where i am now they proaively raised teachers' pay. >> texting and driving, i think florida is make that a primary offense now. >> one of the things we're seeing is governments across the country are trying to figure out how to handle the big tech giants that are disrupting so many industries across the country, whether a bill like california's ab5 which treats dig workers for uber, lyft and

s,or dash as actual employ that passed last year and will take effect in the new year, thou companies i just mentioned. in states that are raising costs 'sof electric vehicles, th recognition that, as more of us buy prius or teslas or smings like tha the revenue from gas taxes will go down. people putting less gas in their car means less money for roads and infrastructures in the states, so the stes are trying to figure out how to re the new types of electric cars so the drivers of those carsre still paying into the fund that pay for our national infrastructure. >> what are states likely to be talking about this year? >> i think we'll see three broad trends that have some form of bipartisan coopet tion. the fi about ncaa athletes and whether or not they can profit off the use of their image enlighupment. california passed a bill last year that would allow athletes to get mon imr from endorsent deal or video game appearances

and we've seen a number of bills introduced in bipartisan basis in minneso, florida and new york and i think that's going around the country next year. another thing sort of related is spts betting. sports betting is a billion-dollar industry and some are saying they will be able to take some form of revenue in a f tax from what has otherwise been an underground economy. egwe've seenlation pass opened a bipartisan basis in 20several states i and that trend will continue in 2020. the last thing i would point to is state budgets. we've gone through a decade of economic expansionke states have in more revenue than budget for, that's good, but states are worried abt the downturn. recovery won't last forever so a lot millions if not billions away in the rain ae day funds, almost doubled what they were already from the last recession. stio a bit of a bipn agreement, trying to save money

now in advance of what'soing to be an economic downturn whether next year or a coue of years down the road. >> reid, thanks for watching the state governments. reid wilson of the happy hill new year >> thanks, lisa, you, too. >> schifrin: there's no place further south on earth than antarctica, a virtually uninhabited continent, covered almost entirely by ice. william brangham traveled there lastinter to meet a man who' dedicated his life to studying three species of penguins, and how they are adapting to a rapidly-changing environment. aitencore report in our weekly series, "leading edge of science." >> hi, buddy. >> brangham: for more than 35 years, ron naveeneen coming every year to antarctica to do something he still can't believe he gets paid for: research and count penguins. >> i can't believe it. i have the best job on the

.plan >> brangham: is that right? >> well, i'm a penguin counter, for god's sake. t,can't beat tan you? ( laughter ) >> brangham: no, i don't think you can. naveen is former lawyer for the environmental protection agency, but he left governmehe work back in980s to start oceanites, a non-profit that tracks the hlth of three penguin species that breed on the antarctic peninsula. it's home to millions of these charming, occasionally awkward, flightless birds. >> they're really funny. they're like little human beings. they're waddling around all the time. they look kind of silly and stupid and le for dinner, d all that stuff. but they're just cute as hell, and i love spending time watching their behaviors. >> brangham: the antarctic peninsula is the 800-me-long stretch of land that branches off from the northwest corner of the continent. this region has en warming faster than almost anywhere else in the world. and naveen says that warming is having a dramatic impact on

penguins. >> because i have been coming here for so long, i have seen these changes. i have seen the penguin pulations of certain colonies thin out pretty dramatically. one colony that we studi at deception island has gone from an estimated 90,000 breeding 00pairs, to 50,0or fewer. >> brangham: wow. ew>> 50,000 or f. >> brangham: 90,000 down to 50,000? >> yes. >> brangham: that's a huge drop-off. >> right. but these penguins can teach us thsomethinabout life o planet. >> brangham: we first met naveen and his colleague, seabird biologist grant humphries, in e uthern argentinean city of ushuaia. they were preparing for their annual trip sout there, they met with dr. heather lynch, an evolutionary biologist from stony brook university, who was just returning from a tisimilar expe. she and naveen have long partnered in this penguin research. >> some species are going to be major climate change winners, and there are going to be otr species that are no longer able to thrive on the antarctic peninsula. and the changes that we have seen have been so rapid that

it's really important that we're down here every year to monitor them. >> brangham:he research teams hitch rides on the various tourist ships willing to give ifthem ato the bottom of the world. and for more than two weeks, we followed naveen and humphries on thisemarkable continent, as they trudged through snow, hiked up rocky peaks, and wentnto areas few humans are allowed to see. the three different species they have been tracking here are adelies, with the distinct white circle round their eyes; chinstraps, named for that thin marking across their faces; and gentoos, with the orange beaks. >> antarctic penguins are just unbelievable animals. they have been around for 60 million years. >> brangham: grant humphries says these birds have long and thrived in some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet. >> they look like rugby balls, you know? ( laughter ) they just don't look like they're made for anything, and here we are on t of this hill here. they have come up from the water and hiked up through deep snow, up over the rocks and all that to get uhere.

and it's not like they have hands. i an, it is spectacular ho hardy these animals are. >> brangham: the sou that we hear them making, when they put their head up, and make that cry, what are they doing there? >> they're displaying one to another, hee-haw, hee-haw, the donkey call of the penguin. >> brangm: but are they communicating something with that? >> this is my nest. yore my mate. this is my territory. >> brangham: in the summer, when it's a balmy 20 to 30 degrees out, the birds seek out some clear ground, where they build these piles of rocks for nests. after their chicks hatch, the penguins head back to sea for the winter. penguins are generally monogamous. roughly 80to 90% stick together for life. that doesn't mean, though, that when they come back to nest ea summer, it's all marital bliss. >> the me will come back, claim his ros, and start displaying. and, hopefully... >> brangham: that's the "come hither, ladies," sound?>> come back to me, my lady

from last year." and she hopefully will show up within 10 or 14 days. and, if she doesn't, he's going to take and get it on with awhateverilable female comes by. i mean, he's ready to go. and, of course, you see these fights, which are presumably between the two females when wife number one shows up late, finds somebody else in the house, and they have a battle royal. >> brangham: because sheants to be back with her mate from before? >> well, she doesn't understand who this other bird is that is sitting in the nest, and he'sla got a lot of eing to do. ( laughter ) >> brangham: life hereor the birds has never been easy. there are predators everywhere, from the sea, like this leopomd seal, and he sky, like these skuas flying overhead, constantly raiding penguin nests. but now they're facing a host of new threats. krill, the tiny shrimp-like creaturewhich are the penguins' main food source, are declining. they're being heavilfished to supply the booming fish- supplement industry, and

everything down here eats krill, including the resurgent population of whales. but climate change is also believed to be harming them. that's forcing penguins to dive deeper and travel further in hopes of finding food. the warming on the peninsula is also causing another, seemingly --contradictory feore snowfall, which makes it harder for the birds to breed. at seems counterintuitive, that a warming environment brgs more cold snow. >> yes. eethe interaction bethat warmer air and the cold sea surfe temperature means that you're actually getting sort of more evaporation. you're getting rain. you're getting snow. things t happen on the peninsula over the course of a whole season. and that heavy snowfall events these birds from being able to breed, because it packs down on top of them. the nests fail. >> brangham: it's all led to a rapid de the peninsula.rds on adelie populations have dropped 75by nearlsince 1990. chinstraps have, in some

oncations, dropped by half. >> we're quiterned about adelies and chinstraps. we're seeing colonies that are close to blinking out, and it could veryell be likely that, in our lifetime, we will see adelie and chinstrap penguins completely disappear the antarctic peninsula >> brangham: but, remarkably, the gentoos are actually thriving--heir numbersave grown six-fold over the same period. researchers believe it's because they have adapted and are now eating more fish, instead of krill. and, as the breedi season gets harder, they're re-laying their eggs a second time. >> there's a real lesson for us, atthas people, as communities, as cities, we're all going to have to figure out what's going to work in the future. d it may look very different than what's worked in the past. >> penguins are us, you might say. they breathe the same air. they have to have food, a good home, a good environment. if one of those falls out of synch, it's troubling. so, my question, you might say, in a very general, euphemistic way, aree going to be gentoos

e in the future, or oing to have a sinking population, like se of the chinstrap aio adelie popul? >> brangham: meaning, are we going to figure out either how to stop this warming or how to adapt to it? 't>> i dnow if we're going to be able to stop it. what i have been focusing a lot upon is whether we're going to be able to adapt. >>m: brangt 73, ron naveen is also learning to adapt. onnew technologies like dr and satellites are now used tocoount penguin nies from above. but he says old-fashioned manual counters like him will always be needed to verify what's pping on the ground. and even after all these years, he admits that saying goodbye to this magical place is never easy. >> i get very wistful and teary- eyed, to be honest. it's my last day in the antarctic for this season. i do want to come back. i'm intending to come back. i have been doing this forever. i want-- i'm not ready to hang

enup thein clicker. but i will have a few moments later this afternoonith my favorite guys, sitting down there communing with them. and i will go back to the ship and have a big fat smile on my i'ce. the luckiest guy on the planet. or>> brangham: fhe pbs newshour, i'm william brangham in antarctica. >> schifrin: communities across the country have seen their local nepapers print fewer pages, less frequently, and in some cases, witnessed those newsrooms collapse entirely. several recent studies paint a p grture of the decline in local newspapers in the u.s. and the impact it's having on our politics. jeffrey brown has our look. a recent report by pan america was entitled losing the news, a decimation of local

fojournalism and the searc solutions, and the evidence comes in news room jobs lost and .papers shut do according to the report, at least 200 coties in the u.s. have no newspaper at all. the internetof course, helped change the economics of the news business, as advertising grated online, and the internet offers new ways for all of us to get news, but what's happening and what's been lost at the local level? for that, i'm joined by chuck plunkett, he a former editorial page editor for "the denver post." in 2018 he protested layoffs of the news room staff after the paper was taken over by a hedge fund. he's now directors of the news corporation at the university of colorado-bouer, a media program for student journalists. and charles sennott, a veteran fjournalist anderrenned c.e.o. of groundtruth project fothat founded reporamerica which helps train and replace reporters in local noms.

welcome to both ofnnou, charles t, help us define the problem and its causes. in bad terms, how do you describe the current situation? >> i think the csis in journalism in america has become a real crisis for our democracy. as you pointed out, there are nrzs across the country that are seeing their staffs decimated. itwe are seeing comms where their news organizations have p closedd gone away. there are 2,000 newspapers that have completely shut down, 2,000 communities without a newspaper. 1300 no longer have any local news coverage at all, no one watching the store from all towns to medium-sized cities. when we lose 30,000 reporting jobs, as we have in the last ten years, what we lose san ability for us to have a shared set of facts on a local level, and for us to have a civic debate on a local level, and i think we're really sing a fraying of communas a result. >> brown: so, chuck plunkett,

you've seen this up close. put it in specific and even personal terms, what's not getting covered? wh are we missing? >> i mean, here in denver, it's a perfect example. apit'sning across the country. when i started at "the post" in 20re03, there early 300 journalists, now there are 70. that's covering the city hall, the state house, the important beats like cops, business. studies have shown when therrt are fewer res in communities that corruption initably starts to grow, taxes start to go up, voter icipation starts to drop >> browni mentioned, of course, the changing business model and you both have watched that, so, in the interim and onsome of the solu charlie, you're addressing one of them, it is part of this nonprofit movement. tell us about your project. se. what we're trying to say is we need to have a movement to confront this challenge to local

reporting in america, so we started report for america as a real service project to say, this is a call to service for a new generation of journalists to come forward and serve these local communities. as chuck pointed out, there are greet needs to cover education, to cover health issues, to cover rural areas where no one is really having their story told, so what we are trying to do is create a kind of teach for aramerica or city or journalism and to deploy young journalists in the host news room. the host news rooms will now take in 1250 report for america corps members, as we call them, reand we'rly trying to put boots on the ground so we can say the best wconfront the crisis is going to be with real lhuman beings doing r reporting and answering the need. >> brown: chuck, if th economics don't work so well anymorthe way they traditionally did for your industry, is it only projects like that, nonofit,

experimental, relatively small, even if trying to -- even if having an impact in? >> every little bit helps, jeff. i fear that we need igmething muchr than that. for years and years and years, before the rise of the internet and things likcraigslist and facebook, the rule of thum was that traditional newspapers got 80of their revenue from pricey print ads and classieds and things like that. when ads shift to online and people can go to craigslist, that revenue just evaporates. so the dopes that had really -- the denver post that had top level reporters andphone photojournalists and the whole llpark, suddenly you find them in a situation where they need a lot more money to be able to pay the bills, and trying to go the subscription model or the nonprofit model, the courageous experiments you're seeing out there, isn't really getting the i came around to the idea that a

unpublicng option to help subsidize, to help backfill some f of that, 80%e revenue that's been lost is going to be critically important to keepin our democracy alive and healthy. newe need our watchdogs, w the people who are journalistically trained to get out there. you need a source to go to that's relble, that speaks for the community, that's trusted and is considered one of the most plugg-in members of the community like the "deer post." >> brown: we're talking about economics but we're also at a time where journalism and journalists are contested areas, facts and truth are contested and you're both now woing with young people, you're working with what you hope is a new generation of urnalists. charlie, what do you say to people coming into this? t >> w say to young people is, look, you can go into a uncoy and you can be of service to that community and you can change things. right now, too many counities have no one watching the store. there's great journalism that

can be done to go out into these mmunities and uncover really important the community.ter to so, jeff, you and i came of an age when journalism had a big future to it and you could get into these jobs. we want to restore the pipeline for a new generation of journalists to come forward and we really want to urge them to reply. you go to report for americorg and apply for these position >> brown: chuck, you're working at yafort now, so you're with young people. what are they coming to you for, and what are you saying to them? >> our students have a lot of passion. they look at the world that they liven and they fear that it's chaotic and that it's full of stricksters and a lot -- as much as the internet gives us wonderful informatioand tools o use, it also brings a lot of mischievous activity, and they look at e state of the country and they see that there is a lot of disconnect and angea and they haval passion for wanting to do something about it and get involved and to develop the skills that it takes to go far beyond the kind

of citizen journalism that's needed. >> brown: chuck plunkett and charles sennott, thank you both very much and happy ne. appy newier. year. >> schifrin: returning to climate change, global water supply faces constant and worsening threats: rising mmperatures, over-consumption, poagement. it's a challenge pushing scientists, politicians and designers to seek innovations that could lead to new sources of water. john yang has this encore report. >> yang: situated on the edge of the sahara in southern morocco, mount boutmezguida gets only about five inches of rain a year. but what it lacks in rain, it makes up for in fog, which blankets the area for about half the year. so, that's where residave now turned for their water-- harv it from fog. alongside scientists from the german wateration, the

modccan non-profit dar si h has set up what's said to be the largest fog collection project in the world, about 19,000 squa feet of nets called cloud fishers. as fog rls through, the mesh traps freshwater, which drips into a receptae. a network of pipes takes it to the villages below, where about 1,000 people every day use it for drinking and watering plants and animals. jamila bargach is director of dar si hmad. >> the fact of having water has radically transformed the life of the women, who used to walk e for hours to get water, d two. there was always the fear of not having enough ter. right now, that fear is not there anymore. >> yang: but in other places, the fear remains. experts say there's a global water crisis, with at least two-thirds of the population living in areas that lack water one month a year or more.

this summer, cheindia, has had to rely on water deliveries from tanker trucks. a poor monsoon season left all the city's reservoirs dry. >> the relationship between water supply on the one hand and water demand on the other hand. ct>> yang: betsy otto dires the rld resources institute's global water program. >> we're seeing really icant shifts, much more erratic rainfall. snowpack and glaciers, that have been very important sources of slow-release water to much of the world, are disappearing. we're seeing really significant changes from global climatchange. >> yang: while collecting water from fog mayound revolutionary, it's actually an ancient technique and one found in nature. an african beetle captures fog droplets with small bumps on its ck. and, archaeologists have found evidence it was used centuries ago in the middle east and south

america. how can we get as much water as possible from fog today? with climatehange and high consumption making water scarcity a growing problem orld, researchers are tackling that question. one technique is being tested here at thisat virginia tech. >> we're fog harvesting. >> yang: industrial desi professor brook kennedy is part of the team that developed the fog harp. it uses tightly-placed vertical wires, as opposed to crisscrossing mesh. >> either they tend to be too open, so a lot of fog passes through them, or they're too tightly woven, and so the fog droplets get stuck. what we have done differently here is that we have removed the horizontal wires, and this ts the water droplets from getting stuck. so they quickly, through gravity, droaway. >> yang: tests have found this design to be at least three times more effective at capturing water than traditional nets. for kennedy, this was a case of biologically-inspired design, influenced, in part at least, by

california red the towering trees draw most of their water from fog accumulating on their needles. ed the solution isn't embe tech accoutrements or features. it's a fairly simpleolution, but yet, by just tweaking meaningfully the desig really at a small scale, the results are rather dramatic. >> yang: in cambridge, massachusetts, m.i.t. scientists are tryingo take the innovations surrounding fog collecti even further. theydiscovered that zapping air rich in g with a beam of electrically-charged partdraws the droplets toward the mesh, dramatically increasingts ability to collect water. >> right now, the system is off. so you can see that this plume can pass through the mesh unaffected, and then it goes around. but when we turn the electric field on, the plume vanishes instantaneously and then water

starts collecting on that mesh. >> yang: the idea is to use the system on power plant cooling towers. almost 40% of all freshwater taken from u.s. rivers, lakes and reservoirs is set aside for that critical purpose. m.i.t. mechanical engineering professor kripa varanasi leads the te. >> we have been able to trajectory of these droplets. in fact, are going away make a u-turn and come back. and so we wentrom a half to a couplef percent efstciency, to al00% efficiency. >> yang: while both the projects hee promising, the expert, scientist, and the designer agree-- water innovation must be coupled with better water management. >> we're going to have to find new ways of storing it or capturing it in places that used to have more water than they will now have. yes, i those technologies, but that

alone is not enough. >> water is a very passionate topic for me, coming from india, where water is a crisis. it's a big societal problem, and not as simple as "you ve a power plant, i can sell you this thing." on it's not going to be th measure that needs to be taken. i mean, i think conservation, in combination with other techniques, working in unison, will help us tackle water arcity. >> yang: that combination may mean the difference between losing or maintaining one of the most basic elements ofife on earth. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. >> schifrin: and that is the newsho tonight. i'm nick schifrin. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, happy new year. i hope you had a good day. than and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been prided by: >> when it comes to wireless, consumer clular gives its

customers the choice. our no-contract plans give you as much-- or as lixtle-- talk, tend data as you want, and u.s.-based customer service team is on hand to help. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv >> fidelity investments. >> american cruiselines. >> bnsf railway. nd with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporatn for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you.

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