♪ william: good evening. i'm william brangham. amna nawaz and geoff bennett are away. on the "newshour" tonight. early reports surrounding the azerbeijani plane crash suggest

russia's anti aircraft system might have downed the plane. how the assad regime in syria benefitted from producing, selling and exporting a widely used party drug. >> he's traded away our souls for money. and then he slaughtered us using the weapons he bought with our own money too. william: and, a new investigation finds thousands more native american children died at government funded boarding schools than previously acknowledged. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs "newshour" has been provided by. ♪ carnegie corporation of new york. working to reduce political

polarization through support for education, democracy and peace. 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. william: welcome to the "newshour." there are early indications that it was a russian air-defense system that may have brought down the azerbaijan airlines jet that crashed yesterday, a u.s. official tells the "newshour." but moscow has warned against

making, "hypotheses before investigators make their verdict." some of that speculation comes from damage to the aircraft's tail section, which shows holes that could've been caused by shrapnel from an exploding air defense missile. stephanie sy begins our coverage. stephanie: eyewitness video shows the moment of impact. azerbaijan airlines flight crash lands in concert stand. a passenger describes the experience. >> two times it tried to land and the third time something exploded. stephanie: the plane is seen descending rapidly. by this point, the pilot was flying without gps and communications jams. video from a passenger on board shows oxygen masks deployed in

what looks like a crack on a piece of the wing. relative calm among the 67 people on board. and then this. fiery wreckage confronts these first responders. more than half the people on the plane were killed in the crash landing. yet dozens of survived, shaken and badly injured. >> when the plane crashed my wife was sitting next to me. i have not seen my wife since the crash and i do not know where she is. stephanie: as the human losses are counted, investigators are honing in on the multiple holes found on the jet as clues. azerbaijani officials say a preliminary probe say the plane was struck by a russian defense system. the azerbaijan airlines flight was en route to a russian city. flight tracker shows the plane's route changed midway, going

over the caspian sea to kazakhstan, where it crash landed. the plane was diverted in an area where moscow has used air defense systems against ukrainian drone strikes. it harkens back to 2014 when pro-ukrainian forces shot down a malaysian airlines plane, killing 298 people. brazil has joined the probe in kazakhstan. today, in azerbaijan, traffic came to a standstill as citizens observed a day of national mourn ing. in silence they laid roses and shed tears while families of victims wait for answers to a christmas day tragedy. for the pbs "newshour," i am stephanie sy. william: for further perspective on what might be behind this tragedy, we turn to retired army colonel robert hamilton. he spent much of his career focused on the former soviet union, and he's now head of

research at the foreign policy research institute's eurasia program. colonel hamilton, so great to have you on the program. you have a great deal of expertise on how the russian military operates. what do you make of russia's air defense system being complicit in the crash? robert: first of all, thank you for the invitation. i think we are in a case where the simplest explanation is most likely to be the accurate one. the evidence we know, that we have lines up with a theory it was a russian air defense system that shot the plane down because we know there was a ukrainian drone attack going on at the time even though the russians were jamming signals to try to fight the. drone attack the russian air defense system was active and this plane was descending to land when it was shot down.

it was beginning to sense when it was probably shot by this missile. the missile would have exploded in proximity to the plane, which would explain the damage to the fuselage. all the evidence we have lines up with this explanation that it was likely russian air defenses that accidentally damage the plane and caused it to crash. william: i understand the concept of fog of war but how is it possible that a modern-era defense system mistakes a passenger jet for what might have been drones attacking russian positions? robert: that is a great question and the fundamental question here. the type of aircraft you mentioned in the intro, almost 70 people were on board. this is larger than the largest of the ukrainian drones they are able to use to attack russia.

a fundamental error in identification of the target and probably in the chain of command there was an error in allowing the unit to engage this target. someone in the loop, someone in the chain should have understood this was a civilian aircraft. william: your sense is there was some human error going on? this was not an automated mistake? robert: exactly. russian air defenses, the systems are fairly sophisticated. what we were hearing was it was a short to medium range defense system that combines missiles with a 30 millimeter cannon. if they were shooting at drones they could have been using either. in this case it appears that used the missile to engage this aircraft. this would not have been an automated identify and shoot. humans would have made the decision to pull the trigger at

the civilian airliner. william: if this turns out to be the case it would not be the first time the russians have been credibly accused of bringing down passenger plants. it is not the first time the united states did this, back in the late 1990's with an iranian based plane. is this the risk of operating civilian aircraft anywhere near active conflict? robert: yes. we need to acknowledge, too, the russians made another error in not closing the airspace to civilian aircraft. if the ukrainian drone attack was underway and russian air defense was active, that airspace should have been closed. no civilian aircraft should have been flying in that airspace. yes, this does not just happen to the russians. the u.s. has done this. it happens far more often to the russians. in 2014, the malaysian airliner.

the korean airliner in 1983. the russians still have not acknowledged shooting down the malaysian airliner. it happens more often to russian air defenses, most likely due to poor training and leadership and what it does they do not admit it. the u.s. tends to launch an investigation and fix responsibility and take corrective action. william: as my colleague stephanie sy reported, brazil is offering to send people to help with the investigation. can you explain why that is important? robert: brazil is the manufacturer of the aircraft. the more international the investigation is the more credible it will be and the more likely it is we will know what happened. what i'm reading initially is it will be a team of russian and kazakhstan specialists.

the russian specialists will almost certainly ensure whatever the final report is it does not cast blame on russia, although it is very likely. having brazilians, representatives of the manufacturer, having international experts involved will lend credibility to the investigation and make it more likely we find out what happened. william: it is too early to tell this but do you have any sense if this affects anything on the ground as far as day to day operations within ukraine? robert: i think it is unlikely. i think the russian military -- this will sound harsh -- i think this is the calculus. they would prefer the accidental shootdown of a civilian airliner to refining their procedures, their air defense procedures in ways that may make it easier for

an enemy to attack russian targets. i think from the russian perspective, sort of the cost of doing business. i do not see many changes taking place in what they are doing in ukraine. if there is a way to blame this on ukraine, the kremlin will try. i do not think it will have a major effect on the course of the russian war in ukraine. william: that is retired colonel robert hamilton. thank you so much for being here. robert: thank you. ♪ william: we start the day's other headlines in gaza, where five palestinians were killed by an israeli airstrike on a tv broadcast van. the attack happened early this morning outside of a hospital in a refugee camp in central gaza. video from the scene showed a charred vehicle marked with the

word "press." palestinian officials say those killed were journalists. israel says they were militants posing as reporters. the tv station they worked for is affiliated with the palestinian group "islamic jihad." their colleagues accused israel of intentionally killing reporters to prevent them from doing their work. >> it is known that we, as news crews, work in this area surrounding the hospital. it's where we keep our equipment, our vehicles, and where we broadcast live shots. the occupation deliberately targets journalists to obscure the truth about the crimes it has committed over months of war in gaza. william: israel also escalated its attacks on the houthi rebels in yemen today. that followed a week of increased missile attacks on israel from the iranian-backed group. israel targeted the main airport in the capital. it also hit several power stations and ports.

the head of the world health organization, who was boarding a flight from there, said on social media that he was only "meters away" from the strikes. he was unharmed. authorities in finland have detained a ship with suspected russian ties to investigate whether it might've damaged a major undersea power cable. the estlink two power cable brings electricity across the baltic sea from finland to estonia. its connection went down on wednesday, and media reports say the ship's anchor is suspected of damaging the cable. this is the latest disruption in the baltic region, after two data cables were severed last month, and the nord stream pipeline, from russia to germany, was damaged in 2022. australia is facing some of its worst fire conditions in years, fueled by a simmering heat wave and shifting winds. at least four large fires are currently burning out of control across the southern state of victoria, which is australia's second largest.

authorities says further fires are likely in the coming days, as the dangerous conditions will last through at least saturday. those conditions are similar to australia's "black summer" fires back in 2019 and 2020. those fires burned an area the size of ohio, and killed 33 people . stock trading resumed from the christmas holiday today with some minimal ups and downs. the dow jones industrial average was the only gain on the day, up by less than 30 points. the nasdaq fell, but minimally. and the s&p also barely budged. there are two passings to note tonight. first, manmohan singh, one of india's longest serving prime ministers, has died. he led the world's largest democracy for a decade. singh is best known for reforming india's economy when he was its finance minister in the 1990's. he also oversaw a landmark deal with the united states over nuclear energy. but his second term as prime

minister was clouded by corruption scandals, and singh kept a low profile after leaving office. he died at a hospital in new delhi. manmohan singh was 92-years-old and, business executive richard parsons has died of bone cancer, a close friend told the new york times. parsons gained a reputation for being the man brought in to "right the ship." among the companies he was enlisted to fix: citigroup, during the 2008 financial crisis and time warner, after its disastrous merger with aol. for a time, he was one of the most prominent african american media executives in the u.s. richard parsons was 76 years old. still to come on the "newshour." some international students are advised to return to the u.s. before president elect trump takes office and imposes a promised travel ban. a new movie chronicles a boxing champion's journey from humble beginnings to winning olympic gold. and a report sounds the alarm on

extreme warming in the arctic. ♪ >> this is the pbs "newshour," from the david m rubenstein studio in washington and from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. william: now that the assad regime in syria has fallen, the full scale of the government's production and distribution of illicit drugs is coming to light. leila molana allen reports from the drug factories in syria. leila: damascus. the epicenter of bashar al-assad's web of control. his regime's carefully guarded secrets are being unlocked. we are driving into the mountains on the outskirts of damascus. rebel fighters discovered this. as we pull up outside the unremarkable warehouse you would

never know it is the lifeblood of an organized crime network. the only sign of anything amiss are the rebel fighters stationed outside. and empty bullet casing scattered across the parking lot. a fighter leads us into the darkness. a calvinist basement of a former food factory. we walked inside, suddenly, pallets full of -- packed and ready to smuggle. that is a pill. those two little semi circles. this former corn ship market was repurposed after the owner fled five years ago. now in place of corn and flavorings, bags of chemical stacked along the walls. this is the room where they made the pills. it seems hastily abandoned because some of this liquid from the mixture of chemicals was still drying. you come over here. this is a pallet with little

shapes in which they would pour the mixed chemicals and harden the pills. against the walls, bunks where workers slept in shifts to produce high quantities of the drug at speed. factories like this have been found across syria. the rebels who discovered this think there are at least two point 5 million pills just in this room. there are millions of dollars worth of drugs stacked on these pallets. this is how they are smuggling it. when you open it up, there is a drug inside. inside that drum, pills. one of the fighters guarding the factory said they were not surprised to find this. >> what he has done here is produce drugs to destroy a whole generation of people just to increase his own wealth and power. leila: it was not just a party

drug. it has been used by fighters to keep them alert on the battlefield. members we spoke to did not want to answer whether the group's fighters had used the drug or if they are worried. the workers burned documents showing where the drugs were due to be shipped before they fled. in the adjoining rooms we found evidence of other methods of smuggling them out. this has been painted to look like a pomegranate. inside, styrofoam filling with a little pocket for the pills. it is to be shipped as if it were fruit. cardboard fruit boxes litter the floor. we know these pills were bound overseas. the boxes are marked for export. his brother who led some of the most feared military forces spearheaded the facilities in syria and areas of the lebanese

valley. after the economic collapse from 2019 drove lebanese to desperate measures to survive. cap the gun has found its way across the sea. one of the most widely used party drugs in saudi arabia and the uae. gulf governments desperate to crack down on the drugs floating their cities began to re-normalize relations with the regime. syria's regime created the problem and then benefited from their illegal trade, both financially and politically. the drug trade brought in about $10 billion per year. estimate said the syrian government, which manufactured 80% of the supply, pocketed between $3 billion-$5 billion of that itself. as store holds are broken open, incriminating documents and drugs.

one of the most feared and brutal -- air force intelligence. at this syrian air force base in damascus, families came to search for signs of disappeared loved ones. >> ever since this prison was liberated we have been searching for his name or any thread that might lead us to him but it is all in vain. leila: this is the air force base a sod used for attacks on his people. it is clear it was not just a launch pad for death. in every detainment cell, evidence this was a torture chamber, too. searching families flooded in. alongside civilian id cards and abandoned interrogation files they discovered piles of drugs. this man came to look for his relative. what he found was piles of the drugs which paid for the weapons that destroyed his neighborhood. >> the drugs of assad, may they

be cursed. this is the country's filth. >> i have friends in saudi arabia and the gulf. they say it is so easy to find the syrian drug and it is so cheap a child could get it. leila: spies on every corner, they are still uncertain about what is safe and who is watching. furious but nervous, these men do not want to use their real names. >> assad has been smuggling since the beginning of his rule. he has traded away our souls for money and then slaughtered us using weapons he bought with their own money. leila: the new authorities are doing their best to dispose of this stockpile. there is widespread concern that while the large facilities will be shut down the drug has become such a mainstay of syria's black economy that small, secret producers might try to keep going. caroline has studied the drug

trade here for years. >> almost seemingly overnight, in 2018-2019 and especially after 2020, who started to see drug seizures in not just the thousands but the hundred thousands and in some cases the millions. state actors and state aligned actors were able to commandeer. it is extremely addictive. over time it can cause psychosis. it does allow fighters to stay up late. it can sometimes produce a feeling of invincibility or euphoria that reportedly helps them focus and perpetrate attacks and fire against adversaries. leila: the rebel alliance said it will shut down all

facilities, destroy the pills and get rid of captagon completely. >> that will be a harder thing for the transitional government to tackle because there are a few individuals and remnants of the security apparatus that have knowledge of how to chemically create and manufacture captagon in many different ways. there will be many illicit smugglers who will seek to set up shop in iraq, lebanon, turkey as a result of this crackdown. leila: the little white pills that fueled a dictator, his reign is over, wiping out the criminal networks he left behind might prove less decisive. i am leila molana-allen in damascus, syria. ♪ william: most college students are on their winter break right now, gathering with family and friends at home. but some, who live outside the united states, may return to

campus early this holiday season after a number of u.s. universities and colleges are advising them that the incoming trump administration may make it more difficult for them to return, later. lisa desjardins explains. lisa: the universities are considering two factors that president-elect trump campaigned on again closing the u.s. to citizens of some muslim majority countries, and that his 2017 travel ban came during his first week, sparking a logistics nightmare for some students and faculty trying to re-enter the country then. more than a dozen universities including harvard, cornell, university of massachusetts, and the university of southern california are now warning students to return before january 20. that is to say before the first week of trump's new term. ted mitchell is the president of the american council on education, which represents more than 1600 colleges and universities.

ted: that there is expectation i think we share it, that there will be some kind of travel ban early in the administration, maybe as early as the first week , through executive order. campuses are suggesting that students return early so that they won't be wrapped up either in the travel ban, specifically, or in just the general chaos that we saw that happened the last time we had travel bans. lisa: for more i'm joined by dan berger, immigration attorney and academic fellow at cornell law school. dan, president-elect trump has in fact said that he is thinking of bringing back a travel ban. he has named a few muslim majority countries but other , than that, we don't have really details or anything on timing or how much of a priority this is, but how widespread is concern among schools? dan: thanks, lisa. i think schools are nervous and international students and scholars are nervous because during the previous trump administration, we were, we were surprised sometimes at what

would happen. new policies tended to drop at 5:00 p.m. on friday and often without a notice. so i think schools are nervous and they're probably going to be nervous, not just in the first week, but for the next few years. lisa: so now he's at the white house during the 5:00 policy drop on that first ban that the president put in place, but we have a million students from around the world who come here to be educated. my question to you, even though a smaller portion of them are from muslim majority countries. how is this going to affect their lives either right now in thinking about a potential ban or those who may be thinking about enrolling here in the future? dan: so for those students, i think there are, there are two things to think about, the ones who are out of the u.s. are

nervous about getting in, those who are applying or who've been accepted recently. and then those who are here are nervous about being able to travel, whether it's for study abroad or to see their family or for research or other, other activities. it really makes it difficult and what we found last time was that quite a few students from muslim majority countries were spending their time here and not traveling. lisa: do you know of any students now who have changed their plans either not left or coming back early? dan: everybody has a different story. i just got a question earlier today about somebody who was planning to fly in at 8:30 in the morning on january 20, and wanted to know if that was ok. i think people are moving their plans earlier to get here a couple days before the inauguration, just to be in the united states and see what happens and work through it all together. lisa: that is so fascinating. 8:30 east coast, that's just a , few hours before that constitutional noon swearing in of the new president. let's talk also about the wider community.

communities here and universities and university towns really depend on students from all around the world as well as from their own community. i want to play more of what ted mitchell told us about some of the potential effects here. ted: the u.s. has about one million foreign students on our campuses a year, and so any significant elimination of those students a reduction in those students will be reduction in the diversity of experience on our campuses, reduction in tuition revenue on our campuses. i will say we do not think a lot about it, but all of those students buy shoes, go to restaurants, rent apartments, and so it's not just the institutions and the students who are going to lose out here, but it's the communities and the retailers, etc., who have a lot at stake in the spending power of our international student population. lisa: our viewers are good students as well. they love numbers in perspective. we've got about 18 million or 19 million university students total, 1 million international students that's clearly far from

, the majority of them, but what is the concern about college towns potentially if there's an issue here? dan: well, i think, i think as ted said, there's an issue to the fact that students are part of the economic and social life of these towns. it will affect the economies of these towns but it also affects laboratories and, and student newspapers and activities they're involved in. lisa: from the trump team perspective, he has campaigned on this idea that he would like to limit travel out of a national security concern and i know from speaking to that somebody says voters feel that way. they're concerned about national security as a rarity. how do you see that balance? it's a classic debate between america as a land of opportunity for the rest of the world and the idea that during this time where we see multiple crises around the world, america needs to worry more about its own security and how does that play in here? dan: absolutely. immigration is a balance between

security and opportunity. international students are very heavily regulated. they go to a u.s. consulate abroad, the biometrics are taken, they are screened. they do go through security checks. some are delayed before they get here because of those security checks. and then once they're here, they are tracked by a computer tracking system that's run by ice called sivis, which has been around since the post 9/11 era. i know the system is not perfect and we should look very carefully at security, but i think there are already very significant security provisions in place. lisa: are you saying a blanket ban is not the way to go, that maybe there should be an exception for students? dan: yes in my own opinion, i , would say that that a blanket band of people from certain countries does not make sense. having individual security checks, which is what happens now for students and doing background checks and delaying students' entry if there's a concern, does make sense, and that's been the policy for years.

lisa: so given all of this, how would you advise international students and their families right now for what is ahead? dan: well, i think part of it is risk tolerance. some students are are asking me simple questions like, can i go visit my family next summer? or can i study abroad next fall? and, you know, i have to say there is uncertainty. we will look and see what happens the first week, but we will also wonder what's going to happen over the next year, and students are going to have to balance the importance of what they're doing, whether it's to uh to visit a sick family member or to do an important bit of research for a phd versus the risk of possibly being stuck outside the country and different students have different risk tolerances, and these are conversations that are happening on campuses between the students and their foreign student advisors every day now. lisa: dan berger, thank you so much for joining us. dan: thank you, lisa. ♪

william: we return to a dark chapter in u.s. history. more than 3,000 native american children died in the custody of the u.s. government, after being forced to attend so-called indian boarding schools -- that's according to a new investigation by the washington post. that is three times the number of lives lost that the government documented in its own investigation released earlier this year. and the real death toll could be much higher. we're joined now by the washington post's dana hedgpeth, she's one the lead reporters on this series, and is also an enrolled member of the haliwa-saponi tribe of north carolina. welcome back to the "newshour." dana: thank you. william: the u.s. government from the 1800s to the 1960's randy schools. why did the government set the schools up in the first place and the kind of children who ended up there? dana: thank you so much for

having me. let's step back and think about the times the schools were set up. in the 1800s they were created by the u.s. government and run in partnership with churches, religious groups with one goal -- to take children from their home in the name of assimilating them into white society and that was the purpose of them. the idea was to take the children away from their communities and strip them of their language, their culture, their ways, their customs and keep them in assimilation. to call them schools, they really were not schools, they were camps. children spent half the day in school learning reading, writing and arithmetic and the other half in workshops, manual labor. the idea was not to train them to be doctors or lawyers but to do manual labor jobs. william: as your reporting shows

there was another motive that if you strip native culture from these children, maybe their families might be more compliant to give up their land to settlers. dana: at the time of this policy being implemented it was the end of the indian wars. gone where the buffalo from indian tribes in the west. they would push to reservations. you are talking about as brenda child said, one of the lowest points in native american culture. then to take their children, it gives me shutters. when you go after their children you are talking about trying to break a people. the u.s. government decided the indian wars were too expensive and it was cheaper to "educate" native american children rather than to fight them. this was all in the name of a land-grant. native americans lost one billion acres of land.

pushed to reservations, they were bored -- they were wards of the state. william: as i mentioned there was an incredible discrepancy in the number of children whose lives were lost. in your reporting compared to what the u.s. department of interior put out in its findings earlier this summer, how do you explain that discrepancy? dana: very good question and thank you for asking. the federal government for the first time under the first native american cabinet secretary, the first person to ever step back, take a hard look and scrutinize her department, which implemented this policy and carried it out. that was a huge step and kudos to her department. they had a lot of findings that turn the spotlight on themselves. they looked exclusively at federal records. limited in scope. it was an undercount.

they found 973 children died during a 150-year period. hundreds of thousands of records from the national archives and researchers who had done the work and brought it altogether to give the most complete accounting look at the systematic effort of 400 schools across the country to wipe out native american culture. william: i used the language of these children died in the schools and i feel like that is almost a little bit of a sterile way of describing it. can you talk about the condition these children endured and how they came to the end of their lives? dana: you are absolutely right. these conditions were horrific. there were two government reports done in the 1920's that called these substandard. they were grossly inadequate. to call i education is not fair. the children were mistreated,

severely punished, whipped, beaten, starved of food. we found dozens of children who died trying to run away from the schools. a young navajo boy froze while trying to run away from the school. children died of suicide. we found indications of abuse that likely led to students' death. these are not the schools that children in modern times would be subjected to. as a very wise woman from an indian reservation said to me, what schools have cemeteries? just sit with that. schools should not have cemeteries. so many of these schools did. we found 881 students who died and were buried on school grounds. that is so very, very wrong. this was a systematic policy to try to eradicate a people. william: your reporting shows how many of these children are still buried on the sides of these former schools. you tell the story of a young

woman and her family's attempt to bring her remains home. dana: she was part of a group of 22 students that came in 1890 from a reservation. we were honored to go on a journey to see 19 of her tribal members watch her remains be exhumed and travel with them 2000 miles back to montana where she was reburied on her tribal homeland. it was a powerful and emotional trip. a lot of mixed emotions. it symbolized the loss of culture and the language that so many people felt over generations. william: dana hedgpeth, this is such a tremendous piece of reporting. thank you so much. dana: thank you for having me. ♪ william: claressa shields is one the biggest names in women's

boxing, and her fame will likely grow wider, now that she's the subject of a new biographical film. senior arts correspondent jeffrey brown has the story from los angeles. it's part of our arts and culture series, canvas. >> i am here to pay my mom's bill. . >> you are the boxer? jeffrey: the new film tells the story of claressa shields. she grew up in flint, michigan with family trauma and economic hardship. >> what do you think about girls boxing? >> i don't see a reason why she can't. she has hands. jeffrey: at age 11, first hesitant to take on a young girl. she began to box her way to championships. a big story but not one that ever reached the wider culture.

even for sports lovers like the director. >> i wanted>> to tell this story because i did not know it.pi cot know it. i follow sports, i played sports. i felt like claressa's story is so inspiring. i was shocked and appalled. her story is not as visible and her voice is not as -- jeffrey: self-described arts nonsports kid, entering a whole new world. >> it is so different from anything i have ever done. i knew i would have to push myself in a way i never had before. that in itself was very scary. also having to play a person that is still here, still alive. i knew it she did not love that she could fight me. [laughter] jeffrey: yes, claressa shields could fight, all right, and she would definitely win. two gold medals, the first in

2012 at age 17. in 2016, a documentary. every professional match she has fought for world titles in five different weight categories. she proclaims she is the g.o.a.t., boxing's greatest woman of all time. how did she feel about a feature film about her life? claressa: interesting. >> interesting? claressa: i have this thing my life is the movie and i am the writer. i have seen the movie seven times. every time i see it, i cry just the same. i think about my upbringing and how hard it was. we did not have food to eat. i find myself being grateful because of all the things i have and everything i have been able to do. all of my traumas, i have turned my pain into power. jeffrey: how to bring out the

inner drive in a film that featured plenty of boxing action? >> that was a big obstacle for me. i look at claressa as a superhuman. i do not think a lot of people can relate to her self-confidence. it is like no other. jeffrey: it comes from a deep -- >> it comes from a deep place. jeffrey: this is the directing debut for rachel morrison. she is known as a cinematographer. she became the first woman nominated for an oscar in a category. she captured the fire inside on film. >> we are always with claressa. it feels internal, from a visual perspective. it was prioritizing the humanity of it. the internal experience of the 16, 17-year-old girl going through all these things. jeffrey: this is the

cinematographer in you. >> yes. jeffrey: framing the emotional life. >> yes. it is the storyteller in me. really wants to build empathy through the work. that is not by being objective. it is by being subjective. >> all of these other people are getting endorsements and sponsorships. jeffrey: what makes this story different from sports films is its twist on success. she wins her first olympics but in a real sense she also loses as none of the attention or financial gain she hoped for follows. she puts it this way. >> you think every olympic gold medalist, you get all this money and these endorsements. i got nothing but my gold medal. to win the olympics and not give any endorsements, sponsorships, magazine covers, it was very hurtful. it was discouraging.

also, you know how something makes you mad and you are like, you know what? i'm about to prove a lot of people wrong. jeffrey: wrong gender, wrong background, wrong sport. she overcame it all. helping usher in a new era of women in sports. for rachel morrison, this was another way into the film. >> i think at its high, 6% have female scimitar differs. i am very used to being an exception to the rule. people want to throw various perceptions. how do you carry yourself? can you carry a heavy camera? jeffrey: you take it personally? >> i did find it personal.

the sad reality is it is probably applicable to a lot of different crafts, sports, jobs. >> nobody can beat me. jeffrey: there is a different kind of personal aspect. the same age and growing up in detroit and from the same area as shields. >> that was a very easy connection. i wanted to make sure we got certain things right. when people are watching it from our hometown, they would definitely call it out if they did not feel genuine. jeffrey: claressa shields said things have improved for women in boxing from when she first considered going pro. she has earned $1 million paychecks for several fights. >> we are way further than what we were. jeffrey: she is still very much in the arena. >> i am very much not retired. jeffrey: the story is not done. >> the story is not done.

will probably have the fire inside 2. [laughter] jeffrey: claressa shields'a next fight is in her hometown in flint. the movie is in theaters. for the pbs "newshour," i am jeffrey brown in los angeles. ♪ william: the arctic is one of the fastest warming places on earth. another symptom of global climate change. since the 1980's, temperatures there have risen at nearly triple the global rate. this past summer was the wettest on record. a heat wave in august set temperature records in several alaskan and canadian communities. as our digital producer explains, this warming is falling most severely on those to call the arctic home. >> this summer in the arctic was the wettest on record and the

second warmest in more than a century. these dramatic changes marked by the 2024 arctic report card from the national oceanic and atmospheric administration present significant challenges for indigenous people. >> this report card serves as an early warning sign for america as a nation that alaska and the arctic are getting hit worse and worse. as a nation we need to be prepared. >> noaa found the arctic now emits more carbon than it stores. that is due to increased wildfires and melting permafrost , which both release climate warming carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. that shift will make climate change worse. for native alaskans, a change in climate means a changing way of life, says the director of climate initiatives at a tribal health consortium. >> we have committees that rely

on subsistence, foods that come from nature. that economy is not equated into dollars. if it goes away it is a huge part of how people survive in the arctic. we have communities that rely up to 80% on those food resources. they are organic, natural food resources being affected by climate change. >> arctic ice in the sea continues to shrink after being on the decline for decades. september's sea ice level was the sixth lowest on record. caribou have declined by more than 60%. the report and native communities say it is crucial for indigenous groups and scientists to work together to manage climate change as it affects the arctic. >> caribou in my region is the number one meat source we have from land animals.

therefore it is our life source. it is no different than someone who raises chickens, killing all their chickens. >> she said the caribou are one symptom of a greater illness threatening the arctic and the planet. >> when you look at one species like caribou, the protection of them tell a story of the ecosystem. because they are reliant, which has a definite connection to the underlying permafrost, which is the cooling system for the entire planet, when you look at the planetary system as a whole is -- it is telling a story. >> he says the 2024 arctic report card sound the alarm for a potentially dangerous and expensive future. >> it really screams to take action. there are solutions that are viable. >> they say federal funding for

places facing melting permafrost and improved disaster coordination are some of the measures that could help native communities adapt to the changing arctic landscape. ♪ william: finally tonight, a "newshour" tradition. each year we ask a distribution service to produce a holiday song for us performed by american service members. on this second night of hanukkah we presented encore performance. it was written by a composer and singer. it was originally written in judeo spanish and is performed in that language here. ♪

[singing in judeo spanish] ♪ ♪ [singing in judeo spanish] ♪ ♪ [singing in judeo spanish] ♪ ♪ [singing in judeo spanish] ♪

♪

♪ [singing in judeo spanish] ♪ william: on tomorrow's "newshour ," we take a look back at 2024

through the photographers that captured the year in images. that is the "newshour" for tonight. i am william brangham. on behalf of the "newshour" team, thank you for joining us. >> funding has been provided by. ♪ the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the "newshour," including leonard and norma. the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. ♪ and friends of the "newshour." ♪ 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.] ♪ >>

♪ -"cook's country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table. we're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes. we go inside kitchens in every corner of the country