♪ >> good evening. on the news hour 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 news hour has been provided by -- >> in 1995, two friends set out to make a wireless coverage accessible to all. with no long-term contracts, nationwide coverage, and 100% u.s.-based customer support. consumer cellular. freedom calls. >> the judy and peter bloom

kovler foundation, upholding freedom by 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 committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at -- at macfound.rog. 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. >> welcome to the news hour. the federal reserve cut its rate for the 30 consecutive time

by a quarter of a point. many are hoping that the cut will have a clear effects on interest rates with banks and other lender's charge and what consumers pay. but the fed also suggested that will not be as many interest rates cuts in the year ahead as it was planned. jerome powell told reporters today's cut was not easy because of higher inflation in recent months. >> today was a closer call, but we decided it was the right call because we thought it was the best decision to foster achievement of both of our goals, maximum price stability. we see the risk as moving too slowly and undermine economic activity in the labor market or move too quickly and undermine our progress on inflation. we're trying to steer between those risks. on balance we decided to go ahead with a further cut. >> after the announcement that the markets plunged with the dow falling 1100 points, and the nasdaq dropping 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 the chief economics correspondent for "the wall street journal." there had been some question leading up to today about whether the fed would move forward with another rate cut in the -- given that inflation has been stickier than many officials at hoped. but give us a sense of why the chairman went ahead and move forward with this third consecutive rate cut. >> well, the justification was much the same as a last time. inflation has come down. officials have raised interest rates so much and the last couple years that they thought they were really standing on the neck of the economy of the state -- stayed too long. what was interesting today is that it did sound a little half- hearted. if you go back to a few months ago when they cut by a larger half-point, it seemed as though it was really the start of a move lower. and today, you know, jay powell

sounded like someone putting up the yellow like if not the red light to further rate cuts. marcus did not like that. >> on that point, him putting up a yellow light, he also said they will rein in the number of cuts in 2025. what is the thinking? >> that reflects less confidence that inflation will come down to the 2% goal. he was asked about whether policy changes from president-elect trump might have also contributed. and if you look at what trump was proposing on tariffs and immigration, you could, you know, you could have a little bit of, of a kickback up in good s prices and you can see wages go up if you deport a lot of workers. those are developments that working to help inflation come down if you think you will have more disruption on those fronts then maybe you will take a more cautious stance to cutting interest rates going forward. >> fed officials are weighing the potential impact of trump

policies at and planning accordingly? >> i think you have to take into account, at least how you see the risks that inflation will not come down as much as it has or is much as you think that it will pick when powell, was asked, some officials took it on board and some did not. so it is hard to tell just how much that's driving the change. the analysts i spoke to after the meeting said, there has not been enough of a change in the economy in the last couple of months to warrant the shift in the inflation forecast they produce today. so it does seem like they are taking it on board, more trump related policy changes. >> to simplify the fed strategy it seems like a wait-and-see approach. is that accurate? >> that's right, recalibrate and wait. and we will see. they will come back in january. they have another meeting in march. if the labor market holds up, then the fed could be on hold. >> how much of a difference will be three consecutive cuts make in terms of the prices that consumers see and frankly, with

mortgage rates, mortgage rates have gone up. >> i think that was another reason you saw markets react the way that they did today. if you had thought we were going to see a sequence of interest rate cuts, may mortgage rates would come down more. the fed, saying, hold on. we are not sure what the normal rate is in this post-pandemic economy. maybe it is higher than -- the normal rate would be higher than it was last decade when mortgage rates only got as high as 5%. if we are not going back to a normal interest rate structure that we had before the pandemic, mortgage rates could be higher. if you were anticipating that your mortgage rate would go down, maybe buy a house next year, you are rethinking that now. wall street is thinking that now. -- is rethinking that now. >> what is your take on this market performance, as a potentially something we should not do, read too much into this? >> markets go up and markets go down. i think today they were reacting

to kind of a level change. something that they were not expecting from the fed, even though officials had clearly been voicing concerns they would not cut it -- keep cutting interest rates. >> thanks for being here. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >> the day's other headline start in california which has declared a state of emergency over a bird flu outbreak among dairy cattle. california has seen the most cattle and human infection since the first u.s. cases were detected earlier this year. in a statement, governor 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 involving a person

who has been hospitalized in louisiana peer in more than 60 human infections have been reported this year but health officials say there is 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 release video claiming to show the suspect's confessions. security officials did not release the name but say the suspect is an uzbek citizen born in 1995. 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 -- and his assistant outside of his apartment. he was the head of russia's chemical 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 committee terrorist attacks during the u.n. security council meeting. we are confident that all the organizers and perpetrators of the murder will be found and punished. whoever it may be, wherever they are. >> ukraine had opened a criminal investigation on monday, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons. 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. gazans in a 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 air strikes across northern gaza killed 20 people overnight. it all comes as talks seemed to

inch closer to a cease-fire and a half deal between israel and thomas. -- and hamas. and that is field cautious optimism. >> i hope the talks are sincere this time. not random like every other time. we want the war to truly end because we are exhausted and cannot take it anymore. >> meantime, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu was in court taking the stand in his corruption trials. the first sitting israeli leader to ever stand trial as a criminal defendant. the prime minister has been charged with fraud, taking bribes, and reached -- breaching the public trust. he has called of charges against him idiotically. a british teenager charged in the stabbing rampage this summer remained silent during his court appearance today as a clerk entered not guilty pleas. 18-year-old axel -- was charged earlier with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. he received additional charges

when poison and it 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 of those killed were young girls under the age of 10. his trial is scheduled for january 20th. the u.s. military has repatriated three prisoners from guantanamo bay in cuba back to their home countries. two are from malaysia, they pleaded guilty to charges related to the 2002 bombings in bali and will servile five year s in their home country. the third was accused but never charge. their departure leaves 27 prisoners at one, no, 15 are currently waiting release. after being cleared of wrongdoing years ago. the epa approved two request from california today aimed at banning sales of new gasoline powered cars by the year 2035.

the first will 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 truck's 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 these standards peer the top gun of the silver screen is now a military hero in real life. the u.s. navy has presented tom cruise with a distinguished public service award. the branch civilian honor. ♪ his action-packed role as maverick in the original top gun and it sequent made " outstanding contributions to the navy and the marine corps." the hit drove a spike in enlistment, so much so that the navy set up recruitment tables

outside some theaters. cruise says he was proud to receive what he called the extraordinary acknowledgment of his work. still to come, 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 thes american astronaut stranded in space face another delay before the return to earth -- their return to earth. >> this is "pbs newshour." from the david m. rubenstein studio at weta in washington and in the west at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. >> not even 24 hour's after congressional leaders released a 1500 page bill that would keep the government funded for three months, the threat of a shut down at the end of this week is back. republicans are being pressured by the president-elect and vice president-elect to block the bill.

on social media, mr. trump said congress should instead pass a streamlined spending bill and he told republicans to get smart and tough. lisa desjardins has been following the latest. lisa, three days until government funding runs out. what is the deal with this bill, how much jeopardy are we facing? >> we joked last night about deja vu and the stakes are very high. this bill is really on the first, you can pretty much say this bill is falling apart and it is 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 his one and would include cost of living wages for congress and it would exempt members of congress and obama care and money for seasonal and migrant workers who are here legally but some republicans do not like it. overall there is a process concern peer 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 members. if you look at this chip roy, republican vote no. nicole -- from new york, i will be voting no, she is more moderate. and then we have gold of maine, he will be voting against it and is a democrat. really almost the entire spectrum. saying they had a problem with this bill. it is a political disaster for speaker mike johnson and another factor here is that trump is speaking out, but that came after an important figure in the trump org, elon musk tweeted out he was against it. what we are seeing here is a problem for mike johnson but also a case of who is really driving the ship here, not just for republicans but of government itself? >> these republicans who said they would not vote for it, weren't these folks already planning not to vote for it to begin with? >> no. there were more people that would vote for it today that

said that they will not. and that momentum gathered as things went along. >> what's the path forward such that anybody knows now? >> well, republicans who have a problem today with would like 72 hours before they are passing any bill. that is usually procedure -- usual procedure but we have the deadline friday. but we expect now is potentially the house rules committee i'm told may meet tonight. there may be a very small bill that kicks finding down the road. we do not know for how long. they do not know what it will look like. but i want to stress why this all matters. it is not just about funding. obviously that is a mod -- a lot at stake as we enter christmas time and hanukkah. this bill, it also contains $100 billion in disaster funding. let's remind people that the hurricanes that hit this country in the last few months, milton, helene, we are talking about $200 billion in damage, and it is across agencies come across many states. this bill will have helped with that.

there is also some drug price performance here that numbers -- members have worked for years to get in this bill. that is off the table. in general this is a question just for republicans, can the govern? he came jeffries said he thinks republicans are not trying to shut down government. chances are, his votes will be needed in order to keep government funded. >> as this has been unfolding, there are republicans in congress who are accusing the former congresswoman liz cheney of witness tampering. all spelled out in a new report. bring us up to speed. >> this report came from the house administration committee which is handled -- handled january 6. when they put out this report is part of the press release, they really singled out liz cheney, there are 128 pages, they accuse her of witness tampering and they went out of their way to say they think she should be criminally charged. this is unique set of circumstances.

the january 6 committee was pass ed by congress, part of congress -- they have a right to set its own rules peer this is unprecedented. liz cheney has fired back in an unequivocal response and said that this report intentionally disregards the truth, fabricates lies, and has defamatory -- there is serious separation of power and is a question of watch liz cheney because of the trump administration targets her for persecution, there is an argument for her to be pardoned. >> and add to all of that all of this news your tracking, the house ethics committee voted to release its report into matt gaetz. >> let me take a deep breath because i know this is a lot to process. but there are sort of some threads that tie it all, threads of chaos and questions of institutions working or not working peer the house ethics committee reporting from cnn said they met secretly and did vote to release that report on

former congressman matt gaetz. he is under investigation for sexual misconduct with a minor. as well as campaign-finance issues. and also other inappropriate conduct. the reporting is that the committee, which meets in secret usually, secretly did vote to release this report and the expectation is from this reporting that it will come out in the coming days after congress leaves town. that all links back, of course, to whether congress can figure out this funding deal. i think they will. it is in everyone's interest to keep government funding but how messy will it be an is speaker johnson's speakership on the line? i think it is. >> you are also reporting on how democrats are preparing for republican-controlled hurt what are they telling you? >> right. this is an important for them to figure out the strategy. there are just a handful of weeks before that change. democrats themselves have been at odds over their future direction during the new trump era, but today speaks to the

extraordinary circumstances democrats are in. republicans unable to pass legislation on their own. we talked about all of that with the freshman congressman greg casar, a 35-year-old from austin texas and was just elected the chair of the congressional progressive caucus. he will be the youngest person ever to lead that group come january. thank you so much for joining me. i want to start with where we are today. it seems as though the proposed continuing resolution may be falling apart. what do you think this means right now? >> i think we are beginning to see the chaos and billionaire corruption of the trump era. trump try to campaign talking about how is going to help working people and deal with corruption and i knew that pretty immediately he was going to betray his own message and his own voters. so, essentially for folks who have not heard -- republicans and democrats were negotiating to come together to keep

essential government services open here at the end of the year, and 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 he said he wanted to shut it down over " democrat priorities." the first priorities are disaster funding to rebuild places like north carolina that got hit by these awful storms. and funding to make sure that small farmers don't go out of business because of things like droughts and tornadoes and other disasters. these are things not just asked for by democrats. a lot of these things impact republican areas and republican constituents. so, democrats said let's keep the government open, make sure people can access services like veteran services and social security over the holiday, and donald trump is basically ordering for all of them to get shot down at the behest of his

billionaire friend elon musk who is cos-playing copresident now. >> you have one of the largest ideological caucuses for democrats and the progressive. what do you want progressives to stand for? >> the progressive caucus is best prepared to help reform and transform the democratic party after our losses in this election. it is progressive caucus members that are leaders, that are unbossed that are willing to stand up to corpore power. and i think what a lot of disaffected voters wanted to hear from the democratic party in this election is that 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 are willing to stand up to the big corporations that are jacking up prices at the grocery store and it's progressive caucus members that have been willing to do that in the past and i hope that we can lead the democratic party to lean into those issues where we are popular. not just with democratic voters for standing up to wall street,

standing up to special interests and corruption is popular with independent voters and people who do not traditionally vote and with a lot of america's conservatives. so i think the progressive caucus can help lead us and that kind of direction. take us away from some of the culture wars that we see republicans starting, republicans trying to divert our attention towards those culture wars and i think the progressive caucus instead should pivot towards those economic issues where the vast majority of the country agrees with us. >> as you are touching on voters the selection, clearly moved to the right. by different degrees in different parts of the country but it was every single swing state for sure in the presidential election. did democrats lose sight of what voters wanted and wanted to hear? or did voters turn away from democrats? >> look, i don't think this is a question necessarily of left or right. in talking to voters in swing states where i was campaigning for the vice president, and talking to swing voters across texas, voters were looking for

authenticity. somebody in their corner, standing up and fighting for them. and so i don't think that democrats are going to succeed if we keep running the same playbook. >> really quickly, can you say that democrats -- are you saying that democrats should work on their authenticity? >> the democratic brand has been damaged. in the past, people said that the number one thing they associated positively with the democratic party was that we were the party of working people. and that holds up in our data from the post-world war ii era up until to --2010, 2012, and we have to get back to that. because voters can disagree on a variety of cultural and social issues. we have got that in my own family. i'm sure you have that in your own neighborhood, around your christmas or thanksgiving table. but back in the day, the way democrats held the coalition together was to say, you might agree on the social issue or disagree on that one, but we are

all united behind a party that is willing to stand up to the powerful in support of working people. i saw this when i was a labor organizer before i was an elected official. i use on construction sites where you had immigrant spanish-speaking workers on the same construction site is a fifth generation texan. we were bringing people together across race and culture and across ideology but everybody was fighting for a raise. and what you have a democratic party that does the same thing, is fighting for a raise for working people, then people are willing i think to be a part of our big tent. we started to lose that we have to regain that. >> congressman greg casar of texas. thank you so much. >>. thank you. >> syrians are celebrating their hard-won freedoms throughout the nation, but that joys tampered

by the absence of so many. imprisoned and never heard from again. disappeared in the night, and. merton in forebodingtorture chambers . in some ways syria is a land of ghost and the job of speaking for the dead falls to their loved ones and the new syrian government. layla malala allen reports from the suburbs of damascus. a warning some of the images in this story are disturbing. >> bringing up the bodies as the full scale of the assad regime's crimes are discovered, syrians are beginning to look for their loved ones underground. this morning they opened a suspected secret burial site on a construction lot outside damascus near one of the regime's most feared prisons. inside, bags filled with bones and human skulls. >> we found seven bags. names of prisoners, the prisoner number. >> so, each of the bags was

labeled with a number of a prisoner. >> we found this. >> but no names. >> from argentina, for example. >> they were bearing human bodies inside flour bags. civil defense volunteers famous for pulling survivors out of a bombardment are working across the country to help secure race sites. -- grave sites. what you think has happened to these bodies, what condition are they in, what has been done to them? >> i think they died in the prison, and they were buried here. some of the bones were broken. >> so, the fact that the bones were broken. what do you think that means? >> torture. >> torture? >> we need to know what happened to our loved. ones >> mass graves like these are not being discovered. many serious lawns expected where they were but were afraid

to ask or look. the priority now is to securely exhume these remains so they can be identified but also to gather vital evidence to prosecute those who committed these atrocities paid with more than 100,000 syrians still missing, he fears much of his country is now a graveyard. >> this is also a grave. this is also a great. -- a grave. yesterday i received a call. from a mother. she lost her son 12 years ago. while he was arrested 12 years ago and she asked me, crying. i told her no one, it was empty. everyone is liberated. she said it wasn't -- i hope he wasn't taken because i still had hope before. to have my son alive. but now i am sure 99% my son is dead. >> now that the prison has been

freed, she knows he's not there. she's looking for a body. finding dead ends search in hospitals and prisons, families are appealing to the public. this is covered in hundreds of posters of missing men, fathers, husbands sons, they contain the date when they were last seen before they disappeared and a phone number if anyone has any wit information. as we read the posters, people approach us with the stories of disappeared loved ones, begging for help. hamna is walking the streets clutching a fistful of pictures of her son. i asked her what happened. >> in 2012, he went out with this cousin to buy bread. he disappeared. i don't know what happened. but, when they publish the list of names that -- at the prison, his was there. >> has she been able to find any information at all? no, nothing. " without him, >> there is nothing left >>. i'm all alone.

>> as the country celebrates its newfound freedom after more than half a century of autocratic rule, every hope for the future is shadowed by the losses of the past, and for those still searching, the agony of not knowing is making it impossible to move forward. in the wrecked suburbs of damascus, a solitary mourner crouches over an unmarked grave. >> i want to know where my sister is. what am i supposed to tell her? let's enjoy the victory? where's the victory? >> she was searching for her sister buried a decade ago, one of the thousands killed by assad 's chemical weapons. she has no idea where. so she has chosen to mourn here. on till now it has been for bidden to search or even speak of it. >> we couldn't say a word. no one heads -- inside the country could mention the chemicals. we were so oppressed, we could

not even cry. she was just 21 years old. she was pregnant when she died in all my others'siblings are spread across different graveyards. >> in 2013, regime officials launched rockets in the eastern suburbs. it was the deadliest chemical weapons attack since the iran-iraq war. u.n. inspectors who search the site confirms a gimmick and quantities of the gas had been used. nothing was done to stop it happening again. with her six siblings dead, only she and her mother are left. suffering the long-term effects of sarah and without access to treatment. her mother 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 state here. -- i stayed here.

there is nothing left for us. we want things to get better for the young. ones they don't deserve to live anymore years of war. >> we still do not know how many people were killed here partly because of the veil of silence in force on victims by the regime. and partly because whole families were exterminated with no more -- no one left to mourn. some estimates are as high as 2000 people killed in one day. >> what we saw on the bodies of children, women and men from the chemicals was unfathomable. we saw the foam coming out of their mouths and noses and ears, blood coming out and their bodies were blue as if they had been badly beaten. >> he remembers every face, every mother and child. it was he who buried their bodies, laid five of six on top of each other because there were so many. >> yes, they were mass graves. we put each body beside the other part covered them with sand and did the same all over again.

people were bringing piles of bodies from everywhere. it was indescribable. we stayed for three hours bearing the. >> rescuing as many as he could, he was too late to save his own mother. as he rested take her to hospital, 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 then i recited my own last rites. >> he regained consciousness. his mother was dead. he lost 25 members of his own family in the attack. they want revenge for decades of suffering but with assad and his family safely in moscow under pruden's protection, they are likely to get it. the most they can hope for is to finally seek treatment for their many illnesses, and to mourn in the open it last. >> what kind of butch or izzy,

putting all these people underneath the ground like this? what have they done to deserve this? may god take revenge. i wish for assad not to do is till he sees the agony of mothers, my mom's agony who wakes up every day asking for her little girl. >> an entire nation seeking answers and justice, the man responsible out of reach. in damascus. >> as we learn more about the atrocities committed by the assad regime, investigations are underway at sites across the country. authorities and relatives are trying to uncover the fate of the many thousands detained and feared and murdered during assad 's rule. we went to visit three mass grave locations today. she joins us now. tell us what you saw. >> it was quite grim. these mass graves really bear witness to just how systematic the killing was under assad's

government and the details are only just beginning to come out. the first site we went to was in a suburb of the south of damascus and it is known for a massive event that occurred in 2013, alongside a series of extrajudicial executions. essentially, this neighborhood had been turned into a killing field. when we went there, residents pointed to several shallow graves that have 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 also holocaust and people had become to living near these mass graves which have not been secured at all. now, the second site was quite different. it was in a rural area close to a prison, which was by now dubbed the human slaughterhouse of syria. and this site is probably where

many thousands of people who perished inside the prison were buried. it was a lot more organized, he could tell the site had been planned out, it had been segregated into sections, and vaults had been lined with concrete. so, it was quite shocking to see how much planning and effort the government had exerted in to disappearing and killing people. it was not something that really happen randomly or in an isolated manner. it was very much a function of the state. >> how is the new government navigating this work of trying to secure these sites while starting the delicate work of unearthing them? >> not much has really happened on this front. it is too soon to start thinking about exhuming these sites, even though the relatives, they want answers, they want the remains of their loved ones. we were at one of the mass graves and we met two siblings who had just found out there brother was buried in one of

the mass graves and essentially demanded that the grave be opened immediately but the country and the government are just not ready for that. these are crime scenes that must first be secured and then exhumed with the necessary expertise and equipment. none of which are available in syria. to give you an example, for example, the only dna testing facility that was available in syria was part of a research facility currently the country has no capacity to do dna testing, so as to identify these bodies and hand the remains back to the relatives. so, 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, a lot more agony for the people in syria who are waiting for answers and closure. >> 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 then opioids or any other illegal drug. but as william brandon reports, promising treatments that could help people curb their drinking are barely being used. >> salad dressing? >> over the last two years, especially after she retired, cindy felt like she was thinking too much. she said, nobody else noticed, not her husband or their kids, but she did and she just could not stop. >> trying to dial back on my own was really difficult. i would go through this cycle. i would drink a little bit too much. i would wake up with, fine, i will not drink for a while. that night it would not drink, and then two days later it is

like, i can have a glass, and it would just set things off again for >> and you could never do just -- 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 don't want to be thinking about this all the time. >> one day, while driving near her home in princeton, new jersey, you must be 18 to 70 and want to reduce your drinking. she heard about a study at the university of pennsylvania that was using a long acting version of the drug naltrexone to help people curb drinking. >> are you kidding me? how come i have heard of this medication? >> most frack patients still do -- most practitioners do not know about these drugs. >> this addiction psychiatrist was running that study. >> she wanted to be able to drink normally"" meaning having

one or two drinks and stopping. and that is a common complaint that people have. where there is a feedforward affect among many people who drink one or two drinks and go on to drink five or six. >> it is estimated that nearly 29 million americans suffer from alcohol abuse disorder, but less than 2% received medication to treat it. naltrexone 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 rewarding sensations are reduced. >> a good analogy is the accelerator and the break -- the brake in a car. and if there is a strong accelerator affect and a weak brake effect, you end up drinking more than you planned or much more than is good for you. and so, naltrexone can be thought of as something of a

braking mechanism. >> that advertisement on public rating, do you want to reduce your drinking? >> she signed up for the truck hit she got her first dose. she wasn't told if it was naltrexone or pla placebo but she knew immediately. >> the made dinner and opened the diner up -- a bottle of psycho and i had a drink and i knew -- bottle of proseco and i knew i felt different and i'm focusing on the conversation not thinking about should i have another one? wow, i can't believe i am not white knuckling anything. i am enjoying it. this has to be a chemical, physical thing because i am not thinking my way out of this. i just feel really different. >> from that day forward, her relationship with alcohol has totally changed. when the trial ended, she got a daily prescription for

naltrexone. it costs $5.00 a month. she still has the occasional drink or two but says that monkey on her back is gone. >> cheers. >> drinking alcohol has been linked to huge number of health risks including many cancers and heart and liver diseases. in all, about 178,000 americans are dying every year from excessive drinking. a nearly 30% spike since 2016. >> it's really tragic. we have a medication that helps people and less than 2% probably receive it who could really benefit from it. >> this doctor is a psychiatrist at the university of new mexico and she runs an addiction center there. she says lack of knowledge among doctors is partly to blame. >> there are two misconceptions, one is that providers believe they do not know how to treat substance use disorders, that they don't have the licensure

needed to treat substance use disorders which is not true, and they think abstinence is the only way. that alcoholics and narcotics anonymous is the only way. so providers will just refer the patients to those groups without even trying to tackle the addiction in their office. >> she argues this attitude not only harms patients but also hinders drug development pitch she is part of a group that is petitioning the food and drug administration 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 more than three for women. >> so, if you look at people coming into alcohol clinical trials, looking for medication, some of them are drinking upwards of 20 drinks a day. we have people in our samples coming in, in our studies who are drinking 60 or 70 drinks a day. >> wow. >> yeah, so, for them to reduce

to five or six drinks, would be a huge success in my book, but according to the fda, that would be a failure of a medication. >> naltrexone is not a cure-all, it does not work for everyone and a range of studies have demonstrated mixed results on its effectiveness. >> it's not like a drug that works for everybody. it clearly does not. and that is why we need more drugs. >> for 74-year-old stephen it did work. what it alcohol due to your life? >> boy, it eventually destroyed. >> though it took them decades, he's an alcoholic. he suffered from depression his entire life and drank heavily for close to 50 years. his work -- at his worst he said he could be 40 or 45 times a day. over the years, his wife urged him repeatedly to get help, but nothing he tried, therapy, alcoholics anonymous, none of it worked. and then his wife simply had

enough. >> when she left me, i started drinking even more, which was hard to believe. if i was awake, i drank. and i just said, you know, i think i don't want to do this anymore. i got my gun out. i loaded it. and -- i took it and i fired it into the wall. and that is when i decided, ok, i need help. >> now you are feeling more emotions, having more of that, those changes. dealing with them, coping with them. >> he went to an addiction clinic, the head of psychiatry at the university of new mexico medical school. >> things that used to trigger urges, no longer affect me. >> in addition to psychological counselor, he also started him

on a long-acting form of naltrexone to dial back his craving for alcohol. he's now been on it for four .years >> we know from decades of science in animals and humans that cravings are one of the biggest reasons why people go back to using a substance. and this medication suppresses it. and secondarily, if i do drink while i'm on it, i do not get as much of a buzz. >> i just never think about liquor at all. >> is that right? >> i don't. i don't have any urges, the things that used to trigger me, you know, which i can't even begin to remember what they were, i did not have a drink from that day forward. >> we have these effective interventions but they are not prescribed at nearly the rate i would like to see. then the last piece i wonder is this siloing that we have in our medical system culturally where

substance use disorders are something else. right? there may be moral weaknesses, maybe things for the criminal justice to deal with but they are not medical problems. >> he says he's grateful to have finally found something that helped him get sober. but this time is bittersweet. his decades of alcoholism drove everyone he loves away. >> i've been sober for four years, but i do not have anybody to share with. i have estranged everybody. then my life. >> i want to be in control and be able to enjoy, having a toast. >> cindy is grateful she randomly learned about naltrexone at this point in her life. she recently completed a half marathon and went on vacation to italy. she says because her drinking is not always in the back of her mind, she has never felt more present. >> i could just enjoy my

friends, my family, the vacation, and it just not be there in my head all the time. just that waking up clearheaded oh -- it's wonderful. i feel like i have a lot of my life back. it is very exciting. >> i'm william brangham. ♪ >> a pair of nasa astronauts stuck at the international space station since june will have to wait a little longer to come back to earth. as they wait once again for a new capsule to send in their replacements. butch will and sonny williams will not return now until late march or even april, which means they will have lived and worked in orbit for more than nine months. we're joined by our science correspondent, miles o'brien.

this voyage was supposed to last about a week. remind us why bush -- butch and sonny have been on the iss for so long. >> it is pretty extraordinary. talk about a holdover. they arrived at the international space station on a spaceship manufactured by boeing called the star liner. the arrival did not go well, there were all kinds of problems with thrusters that fried when they should not -- that fired that should not, things that failed outright. and nasa became very concerned about whether those thrusters were due as they were supposed to on reentry, where it is very critical that they do things precisely on time precisely as designed. they could not get comfortable with what was causing the problem, even though they tried to simulate things on the ground, and so, in the end bill nelson decided it was not safe to return that capsule with human beings on board. it ended up landed without

incident but it was in his case, nelson's case the better part of valor to leave them aboard. but boy, it has been a long run. >> williams and wilmer are veteran astronauts but still, what are the long-term psychological and health effects of prolonged stays in space? >> there is a lot to unpack. they are both edges, both troopers, they have, you know, completely assimilated with the crew. i have been doing the tasks that astronauts do up there. but over the course of time, human beings who spend that much time in microgravity encounter all kinds of muscle and bone loss because you are not using them, you you have kartik -- your cardiovascular system does not has to work as hard. that becomes a problem when you land. believe it or not, the fluids change so much the distribution of fluids in your body such that you get pressure on your cornea, and that can cause long term vision problems.

and then, of course, there is the psychological stress and stress in general which can actually impede your entire system and its ability to fight off disease. so there is a host of issues that crop up. it is not unknown. there are a lot of people that have spent long stints in space. nasa continues to learn about this with an eye of sending human being towards mars. >> let's shift our focus to broader nasa issue specifically about president-elect trump's nominee, jared isaacman. why has he been nominated? >> jared isaacman, a 41-year-old-year-old who dropped out of high school and began a payments company called -- in his parents basement, is a very close associate of elon musk. as a matter fact, after nasa, he

is probably one of elon musk's better customers. he's purchased two space lines so far, and in one case becoming the first civilian on a spaceflight to conduct a spacewalk. so he is a space enthusiast,he is a pilot who collected a whole fleet of fighter aircraft. and truly believes in the commercialization of space. and is a big believer in the mission of space-x clearly and elon musk's goals to ultimately send human beings to mars. so, he comes to nasa with a strong bent toward commercialization, which is the general trend that nasa's been heading in any way. >> you interviewed him before this for some work that you did for the national business aircraft association. what does his nomination suggest about the future of nasa? >> well, clearly nasa will be

heading into the commercial direction. there is no doubt about that. some of the unknowns are what is jared isaacman's thoughts for example on climate change? a big portfolio for nasa are earth observing satellites used by s-- by scientists to measure the climate emergency and he said precious little about that. he did offer up once we long ago that -- not long ago where he says it is a false choice to say you have to make a choice between space exploration and fixing the climate on earth. beyond that we do not know much about that. the science mission of nasa important. he has proposed a mission to use a spacex starship to go and re-boost the hubble space telescope which nasa has rebuffed. that might change. and then ultimately, he is going to have to make a decision on whether to continue with that boeing starliner capsule, which

brought sonny williams and butch wilmore to the space station. will it ever fly again for nasa? you could say there is a conflict of interest here given his close association with ace-x and elon musk, given that that is the alternative to the boeing spaceship. lots 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, using jared isaac min. >> miles o'brien, our thanks to you as always. >> you are welcome. and that is a news hour for tonight. i am geoff bennett. for all of us here at the pbs news hour, thanks for spending part of your week -- 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 biltner 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. ♪

♪ ♪ >> you are

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