♪ geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna nawaz is away. on the "newshour" tonight. the federal reserve cuts interest rates once again but concerns over inflation and the incoming trump administration raise questions about future cuts. in syria, a report from the site

of an infamous chemical weapons attack by the assad regime as people search for their dead. and despite the widespread negative effects of alcohol abuse, why one of the most promising treatments is barely being used. >> it's really tragic. we have a medication that helps people and less than 2% probably receive it who could really benefit from it. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs "newshour" has been provided by. >> in 1995 tw friendso set out to make wireless coverage available for all. 100% u.s.-based customer support. consumer cellular. ♪

>> the judy and peter bloom foundation. strengthening democracies at home and abroad. the walton family foundation. working for solutions to protect water during climate change so people and nature can thrive together. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. 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 news station by viewers like you. thank you. geoff: welcome to the "newshour ." the federal reserve cut its benchmark rate today for the third consecutive time, once

again by a quarter of a point. many are hoping the cut will have a clear effect on interest rates, what banks and other lenders charge and what consumers pay. but the fed also suggested there won't be as many interest rate cuts in the year ahead as it once planned. chairman jerome powell told reporters today's cut was not an easy decision because of higher inflation in recent months. >> today was a closer call. we decided it was the right call. we thought it was the best decision to foster achievement of both of our goals, maximum employment and price stability. we see the risks as two-sided, moving too slowly and needlessly undermine economic activity in the labor market or move too quickly and needlessly undermine our progress on inflation. so we're trying to steer between those two risks. and on balance, we decided to go ahead with a further cut. geoff: after the announcement, the markets plunged, with the dow falling more than 1100 points. the nasdaq dropped more than 700

points. the s&p 500 also ended sharply lower. for more on today's decision and what could be ahead, we are joined by nick timiraos, chief economics correspondent for "the wall street journal." welcome back to the program. nick: thank you for having me. geoff: there had been questioned whether the fed would be moving ahead with another rate cut. give us a sense of why the chairman moved forward with this third consecutive rate cut. nick: the justification was the same as last time. inflation has come down. fed officials raised interest rates so much they felt they had been standing on the neck of the economy. they want to restrain activity but not quite as much as they were. it did sound a little halfhearted. if you go back three months ago when they cut by a large half-point it seemed like this

would be the start of a move lower. today, jay powell sounded like someone putting up the yellow light, if not the red light to further rate cuts in the markets did not like that. geoff: on that point, he also said they were going to rein in the number of cuts in 2025. nick: that reflects less confidence that inflation will keep coming down to the 2% goal. he was asked if whether policy changes from president-elect trump might have contributed to that. if you look at what trump is proposing on tariffs and immigration, you could have a little bit of a kickback up in goods prices and see wages go up if you deport a lot of workers. those were developments working to help inflation come down. if you think you will have more disruption may be will take a more cautious stance to cutting interest rates. geoff: fed officials are

weighing the potential impact of trump policies? nick: you have to take it into account, at least how you see the risks that inflation will not come down as much as it will. when powell was asked, some officials took it on board and some did not. it is hard to tell just how much that is driving the change in outlook. the analysts i spoke to said there has not been enough of a change in the economy in the last couple months to warrant a shift in the inflation forecast they produced today so it seems like they are taking on board more trump-related policy change. geoff: to simplify the fed policy, it seems like a wait and see approach? nick: that is right. recalibrate rates and wait. they have another meeting in march. if the labor market holds up the fed could be on hold. geoff: how much of a difference for these three consecutive cuts

make in terms of the prices consumers see -- and frankly with mortgage rates? mortgage rates have gone up despite the cuts. nick: that was another reason you saw markets react the way they did today. if you had thought we would see a sequence of interest rate cuts , may be rates would come down more. the fed say we are not sure what the normal rate is in this post-pandemic economy. maybe the normal rate would be higher than it was the last decade when mortgage rates only got as high as 5%. if we are not going back to a normal interest rate structure we had before the pandemic, mortgage rates could be higher. if you were anticipating your mortgage rate would go down, you are rethinking that at wall street is rethinking that. geoff: what is your take on the market performance? is that something we should look into or not do? nick: markets go up and markets

go down. today they were reacting to a level change. 's something they were not expecting from the fed. fed officials had been voicing murmurs of concern that they may be would not keep cutting interest rates. geoff: nick timiraos, thank you for being here. nick: thank you for having me. ♪ geoff: the day's other headlines start in california, which has declared a state of emergency over a bird flu outbreak among dairy cattle. california has seen the most dairy cattle and human infections since the first u.s. cases were detected earlier this year. in a statement, governor gavin newsom called the declaration a "targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly" to the outbreak. that came as the cdc announced the country's first severe case

of bird flu in a human, involving a person who's been hospitalized in louisiana. more than 60 human infections have been reported this year. but health officials say there's no evidence of human-to-human transmission, and the risk to the public remains low in russia, authorities say they have detained a suspect in yesterday's killing of a senior general in moscow. russian tv released video claiming to show the suspect's confession. security officials did not release a name, but say the suspect is an uzbek citizen, born in 1995. in the video he says he acted on the order of the ukrainian security service. the video has not been independently verified. the attack killed lieutenant general igor kirillov and his assistant outside of his moscow apartment. kirillov was the head of russia's chemical, radiological and biological weapons unit. russia's foreign ministry said today they plan to address the killing at the united nations, and they vowed retribution.

>> the permanent mission of russia to the un will raise the issue of the committed terrorist attack during the un security council meeting. we are confident that all the organizers and perpetrators of the murder of igor kirillov will be found, punished, whoever it may be, wherever they are. geoff: ukraine had opened a criminal investigation against kirillov on monday, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons in russia's war against ukraine. russia has accused ukraine of doing so as well. both countries have denied any wrongdoing. in the middle east, israel's military is preparing another offensive in central gaza, and is telling palestinians to evacuate the area. gazans in the bureij refugee camp are urged to relocate to a humanitarian zone on the coast, where hundreds of thousands of palestinians have already been displaced. meantime, israeli airstrikes across northern gaza killed at least 20 people overnight.

it all comes as talks seem to inch closer to a ceasefire and hostage deal between israel and hamas. and that's fueled cautious optimism within gaza. >> i hope the talks are sincere this time and not random like every other time. we want the war to truly end because we are exhausted and can't take it anymore. geoff: meantime, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu was in court today, taking the stand in his corruption trials. he's the first sitting israeli leader to ever stand trial as a criminal defendant. the prime minister has been charged with fraud, taking bribes and breaching the public trust. he's called the charges against him "idiotic." a british teenager charged in a stabbing rampage this summer remained silent during his court appearance today as a clerk entered not guilty pleas on his behalf. the 18-year-old was charged earlier this year with three counts of murder, and 10 counts of attempted murder. he received additional charges

when poison and an al-qaeda training manual were found at his home. the july attack happened in a town north of liverpool, at a taylor swift-themed dance class. all those killed were young girls, under the age of 10. his trial is scheduled for january 20. the u.s. military has re-appreciated -- repatriated three prisoners back to their home countries. two are from malaysia and pleaded guilty to the 2002 bombings and will serve about five -- the third return to kenya after being held for 17 years. their departure leaves 27 prisoners at guantánamo, 15 are currently waiting for release after being cleared of wrongdoing years ago. the epa approved two requests from california today, aimed at banning sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.

the first would require that 80% of new cars sold in the state by that time be electric. 20% must be plug-in hybrid models. the second rule would cut pollution from diesel-powered trucks in the state by 90% in the coming years. the decision has national implications, with at least 11 other states following california's lead on stricter emissions. but it also sets up a clash with the incoming trump administration, which has sought to reduce auto emission standards. and the "top gun" of the silver screen is now a military hero in real life. the u.s. navy has presented tom cruise with the distinguished 's public service award, the branch's highest civilian honor. ♪ his action-packed role as "maverick" in the original "top gun" and its equal made quote outstanding contributions to the navy and the marine corps. the 1986 hit drove a spike in

enlistment so much so that the navy set up recruitment tables outside some theaters. cruise said he was proud to receive what he called the extraordinary acknowledgment of his work. still to come on the "newshour." presidential politics puts a major funding bill that would avoid a government shutdown in jeopardy. the incoming chair of the progressive caucus on efforts to rebrand the democratic party. and the american astronauts stranded in space face another delay before their return to earth. ♪ >> this is the pbs "newshour," from the david rubenstein studio in washington and from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: not even 24 hours after congressional leaders released a 1500 page bill that would keep the government funded for the next three months the threat of a shut is back. republicans are being pressured

by the president elected vice president elected vice president elect to block the bill. on social media mr. trump sent congress should instead pass a streamlined spending bill and he told republicans to get smart and tough. lisa desjardins's has been following the latest. what is the deal with this bill? lisa: we joked about deja vu but i want to tell you today has been extraordinary and the stakes are very high. this bill is on the verge -- you can pretty much say this bill is falling apart and being taken off the table by republicans. i want to explain about why. there are a host of issues republicans do not like. the money for disaster relief is not paid for. it would include cost-of-living raise for members of congress and exempt members of congress from obamacare. there is money for seasonal and migrant workers who are here

legally. 's they say they were not consulted and did not have enough time. i will show you what has been happening today from members of congress across a wide spectrum of numbers. vote no. new york, i will be voting no. she is more moderate. a representative will be voting against it. a democrat. the entire spectrum saying they had a problem. it is a political disaster for speaker mike johnson. trump is speaking out but that came after an important figure in the trump world, elon musk, tweeted out. we are seeing a problem for mike johnson and a case who is really driving the ship not just for republicans but government. geoff: republicans came out and said they would not vote for it. where the already planning up to vote for it? lisa: no.

they were more people who would generally vote for a cr. that momentum gathered. geoff: what is a path forward so much that anyone knows it right now? lisa: republicans would like 72 hours before they are passing in the bill. that is usual procedure but we have a friday deadline. we expect the house rules committee might meet tonight. there could be a small bill that kicks funding down the road. we do not know for how long or what it would look like. i want to stress why this all matters. it is not just about funding -- although there is a lot at stake as we enter christmas time and funding. this bill contains $100 billion in disaster funding. let's remind folks about the hurricanes that hit this country. milton, helene. $200 billion in damage. it is across agencies.

this bill would have help with that. there was also drug price reform. that would be off the table. this is a test for republicans and for democrats. hakeem jeffries came out and said he thinks republicans are trying to shut down government. chances are his votes will be needed to keep government funded. geoff: there are republicans in congress accusing the former congresswoman liz cheney of witness tampering. this is spelled out in a new report. lisa: this came from the house administration committee. it was led by -- when they put out this report as part of a press release they singled out liz cheney. there are 128 pages. they accuse her of witness tampering and said that think she should be criminally charged. this is a unique set of

circumstances. the january 6 committee that cheney was the vice chair of was passed by congress. congress has the right to set its own rules. liz cheney has fired back with an unequivocal response. she said the report intentionally disregards the truth and has defamatory allegations. this also raises serious separation of power issues and there is a question of watch liz cheney because if the trump administration could target her for prosecution. geoff: donald trump's influence present in this. the house ethics committee voted to release the report into matt gaetz. lisa: i know all of this is a lot to process. there are some threads that tied together. threads of chaos and questions of institutions working. the house ethics committee said

they met secretly and did vote to release the report on former congressman matt gaetz. he is under investigation for sexual misconduct as well as campaign-finance issues and other inappropriate conduct. the reporting is the committee which meets in secret usually secretly did vote to release the report and the expectation is it will come out in the coming days after congress leaves town. that all goes back to whether congress can figure out the funding deal. i think they will. it is in everyone's interest to keep government funded. is a johnson's speakership on the line? i think it is. geoff: democrats preparing for a total republican control in washington. lisa: this is an important moment to figure out their strategy. there is just a handful of weeks before the change. democrats have been at odds

during the future direction during the trump era. today speaks to the extraordinary circumstance democrats are in. house republicans unable to pass legislation on their own. we talked about that with a freshman congressman, 35-year-old from austin, texas and was -- the youngest person to lead the progressive caucus. thank you for joining me. i want to start with where we are today. it seems as though the proposed continuing resolution might be falling apart. >> we are beginning to see that chaos and billionaire corruption of the trump era. trump tried to campaign about how he would help working people and deal with corruption. i knew immediately he would betray his own message and voters. essentially for folks who have not heard, republicans and

democrats were negotiating to come together to keep essential government services open at the end of the year and then suddenly elon musk, the richest man in the world full of many of the worst ideas in the world basically ordered house republicans to shut it down and said he wanted to shut it down over democrat priorities but those are disaster funding to rebuild places like north carolina got hit by those awful storms. and to make sure small farmers do not go out of business because of things like droughts and tornadoes and other disasters. these are being asked -- the impact a lot of republican areas and constituents. democrat said let's keep the government open and make sure people can access services like veteran services and social security over the holiday. donald trump is basically ordering for all of it to get

shut down at the behest of his billionaire friend elon musk who cause play copresident. lisa: you had one of the largest audiological caucuses for democrats, what do you want progressives to stand for? >> the progressive caucus is best prepared to help transform the democratic party after our losses in this election. it is progressive caucus members that are authentic leaders and willing to stand up to corporate power. i think what a lot of disaffected voters -- we would be willing to stand up to the wall street ceo's that are jacking up housing prices. they wanted to hear democrats say we would stand up to the big corporations that are jacking up prices at the grocery store. progressive caucus members have been willing to do that in the past. i hope we can lead the democratic party into leaning into those issues that are

popular not just with democratic voters but standing up to wall street and corruption is popular with independent voters and a lot of america's conservatives. the progressive caucus can help lead us in that direction, take us away from some of the culture wars with the republican starting, republicans trying to divert our attention and the progressive caucus instead should pivot toward economic issues where the vast majority of the country is. lisa: this election clearly moved to the right. by different degrees in different parts of the country but every single swing state in the presidential election. did democrats lose sight of what voters wanted and wanted to hear or did voters just turn away from democrats? >> look, i do not think this is a question necessarily of left or right. in talking to voters in swing states and talking to swing

voters across texas, voters were looking for authenticity. someone in their corner, standing up and fighting for them. i do not think that democrats will succeed if we keep running the same playbook. lisa: are you saying democrats should work on their authenticity? >> i think the democratic brand has been damaged. in the past people said the number one thing they associate a positively with the democratic party is we are the party of working people. that holds up in our data from the post-world war ii era until around 2012. that is when we started losing that part of our brand and we have to get back to that. voters can disagree on a variety of cultural and social issues. we have that in my own family and i am sure you have that in your own neighborhood, your christmas and thanksgiving table. back in the day the way democrats help the coalition

together is you might agree or disagree on this issue but we are united behind the party that will stand up to the power and in support of more people. i use to on construction sites where you had immigrant spanish-speaking workers on the sin construction site is a fifth generation texan. we were bringing together people across race and ideology and everyone was fighting for a raise. when you have a democratic party that does the same thing, people are willing to be a part of us. we have to regain that. lisa: thank you so much. >> thank you. ♪ geoff: syrians are celebrating their hard won freedom

throughout the nation but the joy is tempered by the absence of so many. imprisoned and never heard from again. disappeared in the night and murdered in torture chambers. in some way syria is a land of ghosts in the job of speaking for the dead falls to their loved ones and the new syrian government. our correspondent reports from the suburbs of damascus. and warning -- some images in this story are disturbing. >> bringing up the bodies as the full scale of the assad regime's crimes against its people are discovered. this morning they opened a suspected secret burial spot outside damascus near one of the regime's most feared prisons. bags filled with bones and human skulls. >> names of prisoners. >> each of the bags was labeled

with the number of a prisoner? >> we found this. >> but no names? >> from argentina. >> they were burying human bodies inside flour bags. volunteers, famous for pulling survivors out of the rubble, are now working across the country to help secure gravesites. what do you think has happened to these bodies? what has been done to them? >> i think they died in the prison. some of the bones were broken. >> the fact that the bones were broken, what dyou think that means? >> we need to take steps to learn wh happened to our loved ones. >> mass graves are being

discovered. many syrians long suspected where they were but they were not free to ask or love. the priority is to exhume these remains so they can be identified and lay to rest. but also to gather evidence to prosecute those who committed these atrocities. with more than 100,000 syrians still missing he fears much of this country is a graveyard. >> this is also a grave. look. yesterday i received a call from a mother. she lost her son years ago. under the ground. she said i hope he was not taken. i still had the hope before. to have my son alive. now i am 99% sure my son is

dead. >> now that the prison has been freed she know he is not there and she is looking for his body. finding dead ends, desperate families are appealing to the public. this monument is covered in hundreds of posters of missing men -- fathers, husbands, sons. and phone number if anyone has any information. as you read the posters, people approach us with stories of disappeared loved ones, begging for help. walking the streets of damascus clutching pictures of her son. i asked what happened. >> in 2012 he went out with his cousin to buy bread and he disappeared. i don't know what happened. when they published the names in the prison, he was there. >> has she been able to find any information at all? no, nothing. >> without him there is nothing

left. i am all alone. >> as the country celebrates its new found freedom after more than a half of century of war, the hope for the future is shadowed by the losses of the past. for those still searching, the agony of not knowing is making it impossible to move forward. indirect damascus suburbs, a solitary mourner crouches over an unmarked grave. i want to know where >> my sister is >>. what should i tell her? let's enjoy the victory? where is the victory? >> she is searching for her sister. she is buried a decade ago. she has no idea where. until now it has been forbidden to search or even speak of it. >> we could not say a word. no one inside the country could ever mention it.

we were so oppressed we could not even cry or get treatment. she was just 21 years old and she was pregnant when she died. all my other siblings are spread across different graveyards. >> in 2013 regime forces launched rockets with a chemical agent. it was the deadliest chemical weapons attack since the iran- iraq war. the regime had been warned that using chemical would force america's hand. there were significant quantities of the gas used in an indiscriminate attack. nothing was done to stop it from happening again. with her six siblings dead, only she and her mother are left and suffering long-term effects. she is blind and unable to walk. she struggles to see well and has lost her sense of smell. >> i got affected by the

chemicals and suffered a lot because i stayed here. there is nothing left for us. we are dead inside. we just want things to get better for the young ones. they do not deserve to live anywhere where there is a war. >> we still do not know exactly how many people were killed here. partly because whole families were exterminated with no one left to mourn them. some estimates are as high as nearly 2000 people killed in one day. >> we saw bodies of children, women and men from the chemicals. we saw the foam coming out of their mouths, noses and ears. there was blood coming out, too, and bodies were blue as if they had been badly beaten. >> she remembers every face. it was he who bear with their bodies. there were so many. >> yes, there were mass graves. we put each body beside the

other, cover them with sand and did the same thing. people were bringing piles of bodies from everywhere. it was indescribable. we stayed there for three hours burying them. >> he was too late to save his own family. he collapsed from the effect of the poison floating through the air. >> i found her taking her last breaths. there was no one to help me carry her and i was so exhausted. i went outside and fell down. i tried to get up again and walked for 20 yards and recited my own last rites. >> he regained consciousness and his mother was dead. he lost 25 members of his own family and the attack. they want revenge for decades of suffering. with assad and his family safely in moscow under vladimir putin's protection, they are unlikely to get it. the most they can hope for our to seek help for their illnesses and to mourn their loved ones in

the open it last. >> what kind of butcher is he? putting all his people underneath the ground? what have they done to deserve this? i wish for bashar al-assad not to die until he sees the agony of others. my mom's agony, who wakes up every day asking about her little girl. >> an entire nation seeking answers and justice, the man responsible out of reach. geoff: as we learn more about the atrocities committed by the assad regime investigations are underway across the country. authorities and relatives are trying to uncover the fate of the many thousands detained and feared murder during assad's rule. the team went to visit three mass grave locations and she joins us now. tell us what you saw. >> these mass graves really bear

witness to how systematic the killing was under assad's government and the details are only beginning to come out. the first night we went to was in a suburb in the south of damascus. it is known for a massacre that occurred there in 2013 alongside a series of other executions. essentially this neighborhood had been turned into a killing field. residents pointed us to several shallow grades that had been dug in between the homes. we saw human remains and bones sticking out of the ground, children playing on these sites. it was quite jarring to see how accustomed people had become to living near these mass graves which had not been secured. the second site was quite different. it was in a rural area close to a prison that has been dubbed

the human slaughterhouse of syria. this is where many of the thousands of people who perished were buried. it was a lot more organized. you can tell the site had been planned out, segregated into sections and the vaults had been lined with concrete. it was quite shocking to see how much planning and effort the government had exerted in killing people. it was not something that happened randomly or in an isolated matter. it was very much a function of the state. geoff: how is the new government navigating trying to secure the sites while starting the delicate work of unearthing >> them? >>not much has happened on this front and it is too soon to start about thinking about exhuming the sites. the relatives want answers and the remains of their loved ones. at one of the mass graves we met

two siblings who just found out their brother was likely buried in one of the mass graves and they demanded the graves be opened immediately. the country and the government are not ready for that. these are crime scenes that must first be secured and exhumed with necessary expertise and equipment, none of which are available in syria. the only dna testing facility that was available in syria was part of a research facility. currently the country has no capacity to conduct dna testing as to identify these bodies and have the remains back to the relatives. this is probably going to take a long time until a mechanism is put in place to start exhuming, which means a lot more waiting and a lot more agony for the people in syria waiting for answers and closure. geoff: reporting tonight from damascus. thank you. ♪

in our ongoing look at treating substance abuse in america we turn to the most commonly used drug in one of the deadliest -- alcohol. drinking kills more americans every year than opioids or any other illegal drug. promising treatments that could help people curb their drinking are barely being used. >> more salad dressing? >> the last few years especially after she retired, she felt like she was drinking too much. she said nobody else noticed, not her husband or their kids, but she did and she could not stop. >> trying to dial it back on my own was really difficult. i would go through this cycle. i would drink too much, but i would wake up and say i would not drink for a while.

that night i would not drink. two days later it was like, i can have a glass and it would set things off again. >> you could never do just one? >> it was really difficult to do just one. one would make me want another one. it was like a monkey on my back. i do not want to think about this all the time. >> one day while driving near her home in princeton, new jersey -- she heard about a study at the university of pennsylvania that was using a long-acting version of a drug to help people curb their drinking. >> are you kidding me? how come i have never heard of this medication before? >> most practitioners do not subscribe or know about drugs like this. >> an addiction psychiatrist is running the study. >> she wanted to reduce her drinking and to be able to drink

"normally," having one or two drinks and stopping. that is a common complaint people have. there is an effect among many people who drink one or two drinks and then go on to drink five or six. >> it is estimated nearly 29 million americans suffer from alcohol abuse disorder but less than 2% received medication to treat it. it is one of three drugs approved to help people manage their alcohol use. it blocks the receptors in the body were alcohol attaches so the pleasurable sensations are reduced. >> a good analogy is the accelerator and the brake in a car. if there is a strong accelerator effect and a weak break affect -- brake effect, you end up drinking more than you planned or is good for you.

this drug can be thought of as a braki mechanismng. >> the advertising, do you want to reduce your drinking> yes. >> she got her first dose and was not told if it was the drug or a placebo but said she knew immediately. >> the very next day i made dinner and we opened a bottle. i had a drink and i knew -- i felt different. now, i am focusing on the conversation with our friends and not thinking about, should i have another one? wow, i cannot believe i am not white knuckling anything. this has to be a chemical thing because i'm not thinking my way out of this. i feel really different. >> from that day forward her relationship with alcohol is totally changed.

with the trial ended she got a daily prescription. it costs $5 a month. she has been on it less than a year and still has the occasional drink or two but said the monkey on her back is gone. drinking alcohol is linked to many health risks including cancers and heart and liver diseases. 178,000 americans are dying every year from excessive drinking. that is a 30% spike from 2016. >> it is tragic. we have a medication that helps people and less than 2% receive it who could really benefit from it. >> the doctor is a psychiatrist at the university of new mexico. she runs an addiction center there. she said lack of knowledge among doctors is partly to blame. >> there are two misconceptions.

one is that providers do not know how to treat substance abuse disorders, they do not have the skills or licensure needed which is not true. they think abstinence is the only way. alcoholics anonymous is the only way. providers will refer their patients to those help groups without even trying to tackle addiction in their office. >> she argues this attitude not only harms patients but also hinders drug development. she is part of a group petitioning the fda to change its threshold for drug approval. right now the fda says a viable drug has to prevent any so-called heavy drinking days, which is more than four drinks a day for men and three for women. >> if you look at people coming into clinical trials looking for medications some are drinking upwards of 20 drinks a day. we had some people drinking 60-70 drinks a day.

>> wow. >> for them to reduce to five or six would be a huge success in my book. according to the fda, that would be a failure. >> the medication is not a cure all and does not work for everyone. studies have demonstrated mixed results. >> it is not like a drug that works for everyone. it clearly does not. that is why we need more drugs. >> for this 74-year-old, it did work. >> what did alcohol due to your life? >> and eventually destroyed it. >> it took him decades to admit it but he is an alcoholic. he suffered from depression his entire life and drink heavily for close to 50 years. at his words, he could have 40-45 drinks a day. his wife urged him repeatedly to get help but nothing he tried worked.

and then his wife simply had enough. >> when she left me i started drinking even more, which is hard to believe. if i was awake, i drank. i said i do not want to do this anymore and i got -- i loaded it. i took it and i fired it into the wall. ok, i need help. >> you are feeling more emotions. having the changes. dealing with them, coping with them. >> he went to an addiction clinic run by the head of addiction psychiatry at the university of new mexico medical school. >> things that used to trigger urges longer affect me. >> in addition to psychological

counseling the doctor also started him on a long-acting form of a medicine to dial back his craving for alcohol. he has been on it for four years. >> from decades of science in both animals and humans, cravings are one of the biggest reasons why people go back to using the substance and this medication suppresses it. secondarily, if i do drink while i'm on it i do not get as much of a buzz. >> i never think about liquor at all. >> is at right? >> >> i don't >>. i don't have any urges for things that used to trigger me. i cannot even begin to remember what they were. i did not have a drink from that day forward. >> this intervention is not prescribed at nearly the rate i would like to see. the last piece i wonder if this siloing that we have in our

medical system, culturally, where substance abuse disorders or something else. maybe they are moral weaknesses. things for criminal justice to deal with but they are not medical problems. >> he said he is grateful to have finally found something that helped them get sober. this time it is bittersweet. his decades of alcoholism drove everyone he loved away. >> i have been sober for four years. i don't have anyone to share it with. i have estranged everybody that was in my life. >> i want to be in control and be able to enjoy -- >> she is grateful she randomly learned about the medicine at this point in her life. she completed a half marathon and went on vacation to italy. she said because her drinking is not always in the back of her mind she has never felt more present. >> you can just enjoy my friends

, family, the vacation. it is not in my head all the time. >> just that waking up clearheaded -- it is wonderful. i feel like i have a lot of my life back. it is very exciting. >> for the pbs "newshour," i am. ♪ geoff: a pair of nasa astronauts who had been stuck at the international space station since june will have to wait longer to come back to earth as they wait once again for a new capsule to send in the replacements. nasa says -- astronauts butch and suni will not return until april. we are joined by our science

correspondent. this voyage was supposed to last about a week. remind us why butch and suni have now been on the iss for so long. >> talk about a holdover. it is extraordinary. they arrived at the iss on a spaceship manufactured by boeing called the starliner. the arrival did not go well. all kinds of problems with thrusters, things that got stuck, things that failed outright. nasa became very concerned about whether those thrusters would do as they were supposed to on reentry, where it is critical they do things precisely on time and as designed. they could not g comfortable with what was causing the problem, even though they tried to simulate things on the ground. a nasa administrator decided it

was not safe to return that capsule with human beings on board. it ended up landing without incident but it was in his case the better part of valor to leave them aboard. but it has been a long run for them. geoff: they are veteran astronauts but still what are the long-term psychological and health effects of those prolonged stays in space? >> there is a lot to unpack. they are both veterans, both troopers. they have completely assimilated with the crew and have been doing the tasks that astronauts do up there. over the course of time, human beings who spend that much time in microgravity in muscle and bone loss because they are not using them. your cardiovascular system does not have to work as hard so that becomes a problem when you land. the fluids change so much, the distribution of fluids such that you get pressure on your cornea

and that can cause long-term vision problems. there is the psychological stress and stress in general that can impede your entire system and its ability to fight off disease. there is a host of issues that crop up. a lot of people who have spent long stints in space, nasa continues to learn about this with an eye sending people to mars. geoff: let's shift our focus to broader nasa issues, specifically about president trump's nominee for administrator. why has he been nominated? >> a 41-year-old billionaire who dropped that fi school and began a payment company in his basement -- his parents' basement -- is a very close associate of elon musk.

after nasa he is probably elon musk's better customers. he has purchased two spaceflights so far, both of them orbital. in one case becoming the first civilian on a spaceflight to conduct a spacewalk. he is a space enthusiast. he is a pilot who has collected a whole fleet of fighter aircraft. he truly believes in the commercialization of space and is a big believer in the mission of spacex and elon musk's goals to ultimately send human beings to mars. he comes to nasa with a strong band to work commercialization, which is a general trend nasa has been heading in anyway. geoff: i know you interviewed him for some work you did for the national business aircraft association. what is his nomination suggest

about the future of nasa? >> clearly nasa will be heading in the commercial direction, there is no doubt about that. some of the unknowns are what are jared's thoughts on climate change? a big portfolio for nasa on earth observing satellites used by scientists to measure the effects of the climate emergency. he said precious little about that. he did offer one tweet not long ago where he said it was a false choice to ve to make a choice between space exploration and fixing climate on earth. the science mission of nasa is important. he has proposed a mission to use a spacex starship to re-boost the hubble space telescope which nasa has rebuffed. that might change. ultimately he will have to make a decision on whether to continue with that boeing

starliner capsule that brought suni and butch to the space station. will it ever fly again for nasa? you could say there is a conflict of interest giving his association with spacex and elon musk, given that is the alternative to boeing. a lot of questions about how much elon musk will have a say in the space program. clearly his imprint will be all over it one way or another with jared in that role. geoff: thank you to you as always. >> you are welcome. ♪ geoff: and that is the "newshour " for tonight. i am geoff bennett. for all of us at the pbs "newshour," thank you for spending part of your evening with us. >> major funding for the pbs "newshour" has been provided by

the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the "newshour," including jim and nancy and the robert and virginia schiller foundation. the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

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>> hello everyone and welcome to amanpour & company. here is what is coming up. >> food, shelter, but also the funds to redevelop the syria people can believe in again. >> lp