captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: the leader of the islamic state speaks for the first time since reports he might have been killed. as the u.s. debates its next plan of attack. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. also ahead this thursday, online giant amazon strikes a deal with publishing company hachette over the price of print and digital books. >> woodruff: alaska's push to keep teachers from leaving remote areas. >> ifill: plus, two unlikely heroes team up to make a teen zombie movie. >> it will be the greatest movie ever. >> why? >> it's going to be awesome.

>> because the movie has better action. better action, better sex, and better romance. >> woodruff: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> ifill: president obama and republicans in congress moved closer to confrontation today over immigration reform. there was word the president will issue an executive order as early as next week. "the new york times" reported he plans to shield up to five million undocumented immigrants from deportation. many could receive work permits. that drew fresh warnings from the top senate republican. >> the president has been told over and over again and we're telling again today: don't do this because his executive actions are not permanent changes. >> ifill: the top senate democrat, harry reid, said he urged the president not to act on immigration before congress approves spending bills to keep the government running. >> ifill: congress also moved closer to a crucial vote on the controversial keystone x.l.

oil pipline. house debate began today, with a final vote expected tomorrow. the legislation would approve construction of the massive pipeline, 875-miles of which would be in the u.s. proponents of the bill say it will create jobs, but opponents say >> ifill: the balance of power in the new congress will change, but the people at the very top, won't. senate republicans today re- elected mitch mcconnell as their new majority leader. and democrats chose harry reid to continue, this time as minority leader. in the house, speaker john boehner retained his position. next week, democrat nancy pelosi is expected to be returned to her post as minority leader. >> woodruff: the president of liberia lifted a state of emergency today, citing progress against ebola. the measure was imposed earlier this month. it banned large gatherings, closed schools and markets and restricted citizens' movement. the ebola outbreak has killed 5,100 people in west africa more than half of them in liberia. >> ifill: president obama urged

myanmar's government today not to backslide on reforms, after decades of military rule. he's in the former burma, for a pair of regional summits while there, he pressed president thein sein to improve treatment of minority muslims, and lift obstacles to fully free elections but he also offered support. >> we recognize that change is hard and it doesn't always move in a straight line. but i am optimistic about the possibilities of myanmar. all those who are sincere in pursuing reform will always have a strong ally in the united states of america and we look forward to working together. >> ifill: mr. obama holds talks tomorrow with opposition leader aung san suu kyi. under myanmar's current constitution, she is barred from running for president next year. >> woodruff: twelve nationalists were released today after being detained for an attack on three u.s. sailors in istanbul. footage posted to the turkish youth union's website showed the

assault yesterday. members of the group called the sailors "murderers," threw paint at them, and tried to put hoods over their heads. the suspects may yet face criminal charges. >> ifill: a doctor in india was under arrest today, in the deaths of 13 women he sterilized. doctor r.k. gupta acknowledged conducting 83 procedures in six hours on saturday. but he insisted he did nothing wrong, and suggested the women were given tainted medication. the sterilizations were part of a government effort to reduce india's birth rate. >> woodruff: back in this country, hundreds of federal contract workers walked off the job in washington, for one day. he is charged with conspiring to violate safety and health standards and to impede safety officials. >> ifill: an internal review

blames a major white house security breach on a series of failures. a man jumped the fence september 19 and made it deep inside the executive mansion. a "new york times" report says the review found secret service alarms and radios failed to work properly and an officer with an attack dog failed to react because he was in his van talking on his cell phone. >> woodruff: back in this country, hundreds of federal contract workers walked off the job in washington, for one day. u.s. capitol employees rallied forbetter benefits and a $15 federal minimum wage. employees from the smithsonian museums and the pentagon joined in. >> woodruff: wall street managed small gains today, on positive news about corporate earnings. the dow jones industrial average was up 40 points to close at 17,652; the nasdaq rose five points to close at 4,680; and the s&p 500 added a point, to finish at 2,039. on the oil market, the price of crude fell below $75 a barrel a new, four-year low.

>> woodruff: still to come on the newshour. should the u.s. change its strategy to combat the islamic state? complications for the space probe that landed on a comet. newly elected congress members move into their offices on capitol hill. amazon compromises in an e-book pricing dispute. alaska's push to retain more teachers. the hazards of earning a living on the slopes of mount everest. and, two unlikely heroes team up to make a zombie movie. >> ifill: now to the islamic state group, earlier today a defiant message from its leader was distributed, as lawmakers here in washington took aim at the president's strategy to take down the group. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner reports. >> warner: it's the first time

the islamic state leader has been heard from since iraqi officials claimed he'd been wounded or even killed in air strikes a week ago. the 17 minute recording exhorts his fight to the end and all but taunts the u.s. coalition. >> ( translated ): and soon the jews and crusaders will be forced to come down to the ground and send their ground forces to their deaths and destruction. here is obama who has ordered the deployment of 1,500 additional soldiers under the claim that they are advisors because the crusaders' airstrikes have not prevented the islamic state's advance, nor weakened its resolve. >> warner: it's unclear when the recording was made, but it appeared as pentagon leaders told a house hearing there's been steady and sustainable progress against the islamic state, also known as isil. defense secretary chuck hagel. >> this pressure is having an effect on potential isil recruits and collaborators, striking a blow to morale and recruitment.

we know that. our intelligence is very clear on that. and as iraqi forces build strength, the tempo and intensity of our coalition's air campaign will accelerate in tandem. >> warner: california democrat loretta sanchez complained that's the vital flaw in the plan. she argued to general martin dempsey, chair of the joint chiefs, that past attempts to train iraqi forces were failures. >> what are you doing to change that so that these men actually do take the fight to isil and our men and women don't have boots on the ground? >> one of the important assumptions about this campaign is that the iraqi government does establish its intent to create a government of national unity. i can predict for you right now, if that doesn't happen, then the iraqi security forces will not hold together. >> warner: dempsey left open the possibility that in special circumstances american troops might yet be called upon to do

more than train and advise the iraqis. >> there are some places along the path that i think will be fairly complex terrain for them, including, for example, mosul and eventually as they need to restore the border between iraq and syria. i'm not predicting at this point that i would recommend that those forces in mosul and along the border would need to be accompanied by u.s. forces but we're certainly considering it. >> warner: the hearing also focused on the dispute over u.s. strategy in syria. turkey and others in the region have criticized training moderate syrian rebels to fight islamic state forces but not to take on president bashar al- assad. they say that policy is not realistic, and some republican critics in congress have agreed. but secretary hagel warned today that removing assad from power would do nothing to roll back islamic state gains.

>> when you look at what isil dominates now, the swath of the control they have, eastern syria, much of north and western iraq, you could change assad today and that's not going to change all the dynamics quickly, certainly in syria. >> warner: syrian rebel leaders reported the islamic state and al-qaida's branch in syria, the al-nusra front, have agreed to stop fighting each other, and work together. >> ifill: now, for a closer look at the administration's strategy to defeat the i.s. group inside syria, we turn to former u.s. ambassador to iraq james jeffrey. he's now a distinguished fellow at the washington institute for near east policy. and phyllis bennis, director of the new internationalism project at the institute for policy studies. ambassador jeffrey, is our strategy, such as we understand it to be, the same for deeffect the islamic state as as our

strategy in syria? >> no, it's quite different. as both secretary hagel and general dempsey said we have an iraq-first strategy but importantly dempsey underlined it is not an iraq-only strategy. we have put considerable resources into stopping isis in the syrian kurdish town of kobani. nonetheless, deal with assad is very, very difficult because he's entrenched in power. he's one of the generators of this entire conflict and the growth of isis. yes, we don't have any capable allies as we do, to some degree at least, in iraq. thus, we're starting in iraq trying to push against isis, and there's been several offenses to the north of baghdad and sothe south as well, that have been pretty successful. so i think that this is a smart approach to first start in iraq, and then we'll see how the situation develops in syria where we have multiple enemies.

>> ifill: phyllis bennis, is our strategy correct in that respect? >> no, i don't think it's correct. it's correct to not be trying again to carry out regime change in a country where we are not appreciated, where we are not being asked for regime change by everybody. there are some, clearly, who are asking for direct u.s. military engagement, but if we look at our history of regime change in that region, it's not a model that i think anybody's going to want. do people want to end up like the situation now in libya or in iraq? where you end up after regime change with more violence, more chaos, more extremism, not less. so that part i think is true, is correct. i just don't think that we should be saying that that's the next stage. i don't think the military approach here is going to work at all in either iraq or syria. >> ifill: well let me ask ambassador jeffrey about that. is there a bad track record for the u.s. in engagement in the kind of countries that phyllis bennis mentions?

and should we be thinking of a ditch approach? is that what the white house is doing now? >> absolute, she's absolutely right, and i've been involved in some of those bad approaches. but that doesn't mean you simply sit back and walk this thing. secretary hagel said today there is no purely military approach. i would add a corollary to that-- there is no political approach at this point with a foe like isis that doesn't have a military opponent. >> ifill: and a foe like assad? >> and a foe like assad you also need a military component but somewhat differently. the president's mission is to destroy isis. he hasn't given the same mission to destroy assad. we need to provide credible support toon opposition which is not some people in syria. it's basically the entire sunni population with a few exceptions, to stop assad from winning this thing. if you can generate a stalemate, then we can get back to geneva where we failed twice and get some kind of political resolution. i think that's goal he's looking

for. >> ifill: phyllis bennis, you can respond to that and i have another question for you. >> sure. i think the question of negotiations is crucial. there was a failure twice in a row in geneva, but the failure had everything to do with the restrictions that were put on the nature of these talks. when we have talks that start with "iran can't be at the table," we're guaranteeing failure because iran is a major player, whether we like them or not. when we start with a countryitary that says everyone at the table has to start by acknowledging that assad must go, that says that russia and iran are not going to be there, let alone the regime itself. so whatever is agreed to is only going to be agreed to by one side. >> ifill: except allies like turkey, sometimes allies like turkey, asking for no-fly zones, seem to be quite unhappy with our current policy. >> they are. in fact the russians did show up in geneva, but the question whether iran should show up or not is a very tough one because of exactly what you said-- that is, the sunni arab states in the region and turkey see iran as much of a threat as they do

isis. so, therefore, again, we have multiple enemies in the syrian front. >> this is not an enemy. if we're serious about diplomacy-- and i think we have to be-- number one, every bomb that we drop drives some people into the arms of isis. when we look at iraq, if we're talking about the ambassador-- the ambassador mentioned the need for an inclusive government, the new prime minister is saying some of the right things, but who does he appoint as the minister of interior? the head one most sectarian shi'a militias in recent iraqi history. that was not a good message to the sunnis of iraq. so that's one part of it. the the other part of it is we're looking at a scenario where we have to be serious about diplomacy, not as a subset of the military but instead of the military. if we really want to solve the problem, we can't bomb extremism. we dom bombcities. we bomb people. we kill people. we don't bomb scream exrooemism. sometimes we hit extremists, sometimes we don't.

>> ifill: this seems to be a unique set of circumstances. we're not talking about one country where we're talking about a regime change. we're talking about a region and allies who are not necessarily on the board in the way they have been in past incursions. i wonder if you had to give the administration advice about the one thing they should be reconsidering at this stage, what would it be? >> it would be move a bit faster on putting advisory teams out with these iraqi unit. i think they're going to need them, from my experience there. again, the administration is not just looking to the military, as, again, hagel and dempsey point out today. they have a broad program, and they understand you can't defeat extremism with bombs. but you can defeat people in gun trucks and in tanks and artillery with bombs. >> ifill: briefly. >> but i think that we can't expect that this is going to work. if we are serious, we have to do diplomacy that is not bound up with the military. we heard about $5.6 billion more to pay for the military. we didn't hear about any additional funding to pay for

more diplomacy. that's what we need. >> ifill: phyllis bennis of the institute for policy studies and ambassador james jeffrey for the institute for near east study, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: there's a lot of talk once again today about the rosetta spacecraft and its philae lander that descended onto a comet yesterday. it turns out it was a bumpier ride than initially thought and now there are questions about what it may mean for the lander's mission. we begin with this report by alok jha of independent television news. >> reporter: unsecured, positioned precariously, but communicating-- the philae lander sent pictures today of its new home on a comet 500 million kilometers from earth. one of its features in the corner here, in shadow, philae is surrounded by what looked like shisheer worky cliffs. this was taken less than a minute before it touched down.

here we see the lander dwarfed by the comet. philae ended bup a kilometer from its intended target. the cross is where it was meant to land. the box is where it is now. >> it's just something emotional within the context of having some manmade feature in the foreground of some alien landscape. and that really gets you. that's what is getting people now. this is where the emotion is. this is a massive technological feat. >> reporter: philae landed just before 4:00 p.m. yesterday but the equipment designed to answer it failed causing the lander to bounce back up off the surface of the comet by a kilometer. then, after about two hours, it came back down on to the comet again. but once again tpounceed off, eventually settling back on to the surface five minutes later. scientists now know that philae is lying on its side, two of its feet on the ground, one pointing into space. >> we don't know very well where

it is on the surface of the comet but we have no doubt it is on the surface. it is working marvelously, transmitting data continuously. we don't lose data. it's doing all the operations we command it to do, so it's perfectly working. ( applause ) >> reporter: the man who codiscovered the comet 45 years ago came along to congratulate the mission scientists. >> it is a great, great win and we're happy. happy. >> reporter: philae's arrival at the comet has been a hair-raising imperfect adventure, but it's in one expees can now start its scientific work. >> woodruff: let's talk a little bit more now about the scientific work and the >> woodruff: let's talk a bit more now about that scientific work and the complications ahead given the position of the lander. newshour science correspondent miles o'brien joins us again tonight from mountain view, california. so, miles, what is it that the lander that this rosetta lander is supposed to be doing while it's on the comet? >> well, philae is actually

loaded with science, 10 experiments in all, and it can do a chunk of the experiments. those that work is already under way. as a matter of fact, one of the items on it is to determine the magnetic field of the comet, and that device, that scientific instrument, was able to determine that as it was in the midst of its bouncing-- once, twice, and finally landing-- it did a pirouette at one point. that's kind of interesting right on its own right. it's able to send radio waves through the comet which would be received on the other side by the orbiting rosetta and be able to detect some key features of the surfar, the constituency and makeup of the surface of the comet. the big one, though, the drill, that's an open question right now, because they don't-- they assume, i should say, that when you drill in to the surface without being anchored, there could be trouble. >> woodruff: remind us, miles, why they want to get inside this comet. what is it about the comet that is important for all of us to understand?

>> well, it's basically-- if you think about you and i having a conversation, we probably owe it all to comets. coaments are what scientists believe seeded our solar system with life, with water, with some of the key ingredients of life-- organic compounds, amino acids. it's now believed widely that these comets were going around, hitting impacts in the early days of the solar system, creating the oceans that we have, and, thus, creating the cushy birth for life that we have. so if you want to find out a little bit of how life began, whether we're alone in the universe, and really what was going on 4.5 billion years ago when the solar system was being formed, a comet is a perfect place to go. >> woodruff: how big a disappointment is it, then, to go all the way out there, 300 million miles, and not to be able to get that? >> well, you know, you want to get it all, but, boy, it's pretty darn cool what they've accomplished, isn't it? they're on a comet.

they've landed in a very difficult landing environment, 1/1000 the gravity he withv on earth. when the harpoons didn't deploy, that was a problem. this is a craft that spent 10 years flying through space and noeverything worked. you can focus on, that or you can take a look at those pictures and go, wow. this is amazing we're here. whatever science we're able to get say bonus. and i suspect that scientists toward the end of the 60-hour battery life might very well try to drill in and see what happens. what do they have to lose? >> woodruff: and you mention the battery, which is only, what, a few days-- it's supposed to last only a few days. is that right? >> yes, it does have solar panels and a rechargeable capability, and they were hoping to extend the mission for quite sometime, but that's unclear right now because it's apparently at an odd angle in its landing position, and it's also shielded from the sun by,

apparently, a cliff. so it only gets about 90 minutes of sunlight per day, and so that's going to limit the ability of those solar arrays to recharge and provide an extended mission. so they're pretty frantic right now trying to get as much science as they can. >> woodruff: but as you say, exciting, because it would be the first time to land on a comet, first time to go around the sun, i gather. >> yeah, you know, to have spacecraft in formation, full, with a comet, as it heads towards the sun, as comets gets getcloser to the sun and the temperature heat up, things get really exciting. there's a lot of gas that comes off of it, and it spiewz. a comet's tail, after all, is the ice sublimating into space as the comet gets closer to the sun. and so, it's going to be action packed as it gets closer to the sun. let's hope these instruments are able to survive and phone home. >> woodruff: and there's even some sound associated with all this. we'll urge everybody to go online to look for that.

miles o'brien, we thank you. >> you're welcome, jied. >> ifill: congress returned to washington yesterday along with a few dozen newly elected members. the newshour's domenico montanaro spoke with some of the newcomers as they learned how to navigate life on capitol hill. >> reporter: while the new congress doesn't start until january, its newest members are in town this week for orientation, a kind of lawmaker boot camp. it's a time of transition on capitol hill. one in eight congressional offices is getting a new boss with a total of seventy new members coming in. most of them are staying here in the capitol hill hotel. for members of both parties, it's a hectic time. >> it's been a whirlwind so far new member mimi walters arrived tuesday night and already has a long to-do list. >> there's so many people we have to meet, so many things we have to get done, hire staff,

find offices, find a place to live and get oriented with washington d.c. >> hi! how are you, sweetie? >> reporter: the california republican was elected from a district some 2,600 miles away. we caught up with her while she was taking a look at potential office space. >> my gosh these offices are so small. >> reporter: but even small offices can have hidden perks. >> this is cool. >> reporter: some come with makeshift balconies like this one, with room enough for a barbecue grill, at least a tiny one. >> i'm tired, but i'm very excited. >> reporter: another incoming congressman who traveled a long way to washington is miami native carlos curbelo. he's one of the fifteen republicans who beat out a democratic incumbent, helping expand the republican majority in the house. he got through a tough campaign, but on a 65-degree day, he's facing another challenge. >> this is cold by our

standards, this isn't cool like i was told on the plane. it's cold. it's too windy. we'll be making use of the tunnels down here under the capitol. >> reporter: while new members are trying to figure out office space and the weather. those at the top levels in the capitol are busy with something else. reshaping the political landscape. >> that's what this week is all about. trying to listen to the caucus, try and figure out what exactly they want to do during the lame duck and what exactly is going to have to be punted until next year. >> reporter: before retiring in 2010, jim manley worked on the hill for two decades, including six years for democratic majority leader harry reid. >> there's a whole bunch of people that are getting ready to move from the minority to the majority who are anxious to try to execute the levers of power to the extent they can. >> reporter: and right now, that's republicans, fresh off their big wins on election night chief among them, taking control of the senate.

kentucky senator mitch mcconnell, the man who will lead the new senate starting in january is already rallying his troops. >> last week, the american people sent a strong message to washington. they voted for a new direction. they called for change in way the we do things here in the senate. and they sent a new team to carry out those wishes forward. and we plan to do just that. >> reporter: for new members, the lowest on the totem pole in a place dominated by seniority, they, too, are ready to get to work. but they will have to wait at least a few more weeks before that can happen. domenico montanaro, pbs newshour on capitol hill >> ifill: you can find a breakdown by the numbers of the incoming congressional class on our website. >> woodruff: after a bitter seven month stand-off, the world's largest online retailer and a big player in the publishing industry reach an agreement. jeffrey brown has the story. >> woodruff: it was a fight over

who sets the price for e-books and how the money from those sales should be divided. it pit two big players against one another: online retailing giant amazon vs. major publishing house, hachette and it got plenty public and even nasty. here to tell us about today's development is jeffry trachtenberg of the "wall street journal." thanks for joining us. remind us first what was the heart of this dispute, and today, how was it resolved? >> so what happened was, amazon and the big publisher hachette had a disagreement over ebooks. how would the ebook pie be split and how would ebooks be priced? and this disagreement had fundamental repercussions for the rest of the publishing industry, and it dragged on and into on. it started in may and it's only been resolved now. it seems like both sides conceded a little to each other, but neither side has declared victory. >> brown: it looks like hachette will set the prices and

amazon will get a higher percentage of the revenues. >> that's a very good point. we don't know what percentage of revenue amazon is going to be getting. the new ebook agreement which goes in effect early in 2015, will allow hachette to set its digital prices. >> brown: how much did the push-back from writers hurt amazon and possibly lead to this agreement? >> i think it dinged amazon. i think that amazon has always considered itself an author-friendly company, and i think it wounded them to see authors whose careers had it helped create and promote and provide for attacking them as being harmful to their writing years. and in my mind, the group dubbed authors writing group. >> brown: douglas preston lead the octoberors' group against

amazon in the fight. but after the announcement he said he was glad about the agreement but, "if anyone thinks this is over they're deluding themselves." he said amazon covets market share the way napoleon coveted territory. that does not sound like he sees a happy conclusion here. >> i think one thing the dispute displayed prominently and how important and powerful amazon has become on the book publishing landscape. amazon has emerged as the premiere book retailer, and it gives them a lot of clout, and i think what doug is addressing is the fact amazon is going to continue to negotiate as hard as it can for as favorable terms as it can get, and i think that's where he's sort of pointing. >> brown: at the same time, there was also pressure on hachette, too, right, from its authors. >>, of course,. >> brown: especially i guess with the big holiday season coming. >> , of course. it was terrible, i did speak to one author, george pelanaconos,

a crime writer and he's relieved. he has a book being published in january. amazon has emerged as the premiere online book seller. their careers were in many cases being hurt because consumers couldn't preorder their titles, or you'd try to buy a book and amazon would say it's not going to ship for three or four weeks, and it would discourage you from perhaps buying that title and maybe you'd look for another book, and amazon decide not to discount many of the hachette titles. all of that together created a lot of pressure on hachette. >> brown: in what way, if at all, does this impact the rest of us, the consumers? where are we in all of this? >> i think that's sort of a longer term battle that will have to unfold as we see how consumer e-book prices fluctuate. but i would say for the present, for consumers, this is a good deal that allows them to go back to ordering and receiving the hachette titles from authors

they like and admire in a regular way. >> brown: jeffry trachtenberg of the "wall street journal." thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: over the last few years, a number of academic gains have been made by historically disadvantaged students, including african- americans and latinos. but native american students have lost ground since 2008 with only about half earning a diploma. in alaska, an effort is underway to turn that around by creating more teachers within the native community. the newshour's april brown reports as part of our "american graduate series. >> reporter: alaska is often called the last frontier. a phrase that seems fitting for the town of dillingham which sits on a remote inlet near bristol bay. for thousands of years, the area has been a hub for the yup'ik people. today, more than 50% of the roughly 2,000 residents are

alaska natives. who continue to survive on subsistence traditions like fishing that have been passed down through the generations for food. home addresses are not a must here because everyone picks up their mail at the post office. and when school begins in the fall, finding alaska native students who have graduation rates that hover around 50% statewide can be a challenge. >> sometimes families go moose hunting in the fall right when school starts and families will take their kids and go to moose camp for a week so they'll miss a whole week of school. >> reporter: alaska native ina bouker has been a teacher in dillingham's schools for more than 30 years and she's well aware of the challenges and the legacy of mistrust that exists around education here. bouker was raised in the nearby village of manakotak at a time when american indians and alaska natives were still being educated by mostly white teachers and told to shed their

cultural identities. bouker remembers well that if any students were caught speaking yup'ik. >> then we had a ruler slapped to our hand like this not real hard but you know enough of a slap to make us scared and remember not to speak yup'ik. >> reporter: but even after three decades bouker remains a rarity here. only five percent of the state's teachers are alaska natives and some towns and villages lose nearly a-third of their teaching staff every year. >> some teachers, brand new teachers cannot handle it and some of them leave even after five days, two weeks, two months, six months, by christmas most leave within a year or two. across alaska, roughly three out of four teachers are from out of state, and studies have shown that those teachers stay for shorter periods of time than teachers born and raised here. this, bouker says, has had a

crippling effect on students. >> some of our students start feeling like well why should i work hard for you? why should i do that assignment because you are not going to be here anyway next year. >> reporter: there's only two real ways to get to dillingham, either by boat or by plane. most people come by air and when you get here gas is about $7 a gallon and there are no movie theatres or big box stores and those are some of the reasons it's hard to keep teachers around. >> to tell a funny story a teacher got off the plane looked around and got right back on the plane and flew home. so that's happened here. >> reporter: william schwan is the principal of dillingham's middle & high school which serves about 270 kids, he says that high teacher turnover is not his only problem. according to schwan, schools like his need teachers who know or are willing to learn about the yup'ik culture and way of life, but they've been difficult to find. >> very few native candidates i mean very few. and so im not going to say i always look at them first but you know in the last couple of years there just hasn't been you

know a long line waiting to get into dillingham with folks who are from the native culture or yup'ik culture. >> reporter: that's precisely what ina bouker has been trying to change, in 2007, shortly after being named alaska teacher of the year bouker began writing a curriculum for a statewide program known as the future educators of alaska. since then the program has received state and federal grants of more than $5.5 million to encourage local and alaska native students to consider careers in education, and then work in small towns and village schools where they're desperately needed. >> we wanted to have the kids explore all the different jobs within a school. many, many areas not only teaching but cooks, janitors, classroom aides, bus drivers and i mean the list goes on and on. that list also includes administrators, who having grown up here, would likely be more

sensitive to the needs of the community and more willing to stay. ricky lind junior is now one of them, currently dean of students he went to dillingham's schools, graduated from college and first came back to teach music. >> i've seen five principals so i felt that with the administration turnover, i wanted to help my school on a different level, there ae things i wanted to do that i couldn't do as a music director so i thought this was the best way to help on a larger scale. >> reporter: now the effort to grow their own educators starts early with kindergartners in part by incorporating lessons on native customs and culture in the classroom. that, curriculum bouker says, also has the added benefit of making school more relevant to everyday life. >> you are going to write about something you have done within

subsistence the last month. that is a motivation because they are the expert in that particular topic not the first year teacher who doesn't know anything about hunting moose. >> reporter: current students in the program, including dillingham senior sassa williams earn both high school and college credit accepted by alaska's public universities. >> williams helps her grandpa throw fish into back of truck sassa and her family are yup'ik and like their forefathers rely heavily upon fishing, hunting and picking berries for food. >> reporter: ina bouker has been sassa's teacher on and off since kindergarten. >> it is definitely nice having that teacher you've grown up with and being able to talk to them about things other than school. i can go up to ina and tell her i'm having problems with this and this and be totally comfortable about it and then there are some teachers in the school who i never in a million years you know tell them about my problems, so its really nice having that relationship with

her. she is actually one of the reasons im thinking about becoming a teacher. >> reporter: lorrene chiklak was also mentored by bouker in dillingham. she graduated from high-school last year and is studying elementary education at the university of alaska-anchorage. now a sophomore, chiklak says there were times in high school that she struggled academically and calls bouker a hero for getting her to graduation and where she is today. she now wants to become a teacher for one simple reason. >> when you see a child struggling to understand something and to really teach them to understand it and then they finally get it the look on the face is priceless like whoa i finally understand something that i did not understand before. >> reporter: on a larger scale, the problems around boosting academic performance and graduation rates among american indians and native alaskans remain numerous and complex. but ahniwake rose, the executive director for the national indian education association in washington d.c., says the effort to grow native teachers is a good start. >> you know it's time for us to really stand up and say you know what we're going to take back the inherent right that we have

to educate our own citizens. we know that our students are going to do better when they have those faces and similar cultural experiences. that's not just in indian country though that's across the board right we've seen the same movement in african american communities, the same movements in latino communities. >> reporter: and for ina bouker, she says she's glad that students like sassa and lorrene are considering coming back to dillingham to continue the work she's started. >> i feel that i've completed my circle and im ready to pass the torch to someone else who will possibly do a way better job than me. >> woodruff: american graduate is a public media initiative funded by the corporation for public broadcasting. >> ifill: now, the risky business of working at the world's highest peak. hari sreenivasan revisits a

tragedy earlier this year on mount everest. >> sreenivasan: last month in the himalayan mountain a freak blizzard caught trekkers off guard, killing 40 people, half nepalese. and that disaster came what was already a terrible year for mountaineering in nepal. on april 18, 16 sherpas were killed in an avalanche on mount everest. it was the worst single loss of life in the mountain's history, and it shocked the climbing community. many are asking hard questions now about what sherpas do and how they're compensated for their work. the disaster and its aftermath are recounted in the "national geographic's" november edition in a story called, "sorrow on the mountain." here to tell us more is its author, chip brown. what happened on april 18? >> on april 18, around 6:45 in the morning, several-- as many as 100 sherpas were on their way

up to the khumbu icefall, where the trail goes near the side of this gorge, upwards of 30 million pounds of ice fell out of a hanging glacier, and 16 of them remember killed. >> sreenivasan: you said 100 of them. it's hard to imagine a traffic jam, a crowd of people. >> yeah, there was a very big traffic jam where they had to down-climb these ladders. going through the khumbu icefall says labyrinth of ice formations and crevasses. there are ladders that go up these cliffs that are sometimes as big as 10-story buildings. and they go across crevasses and they have to down-climb, so it can be a very elaborate trip. >> sreenivasan: most of these sherpas are carrying gear for the climbers. >> upwards of 100 found. >> sreenivasan: some of it is furniture, and epresso machines and heated carpets. >> in this case they were carrying dining tent, chairs,

cooking pots. i heard one story about a sherpa who was able to shelter himself from the ice behind a large momo pot, which is a pot they make sherpa dump lings in. they were carrying gear for their cleents and their own gear, also. >> sreenivasan: some people are going to listen to this story and say, well, there's always risk involved in mountaineering. why is it that this climb and this tragedy is sparking a conversation in the nepalese community, in the sherpa community? >> i think because so many people died at once. there have been only been three famous years where there were, like, group deaths, and none of them were bigger than last year. it's not unusual for one or two sherpas to die in the course of a climbing season. you have as many as 300 people going up the mount know in any one climbing season now. some westerners die. their bodies are still up there. sherpas are pretty good at taking care of themselves at high altitude but this is what they call-- the chum coup is what they call objective dangers

and there's nothing you can do. >> sreenivasan: do you think will change the climbing culture? you said in your reporting some of these sherpas were getting $415 from the nepalese government in compensation, barely enough to cover a funeral. >> that was the first offer from the nepal government, their emergency fund. they have increased their insurance expraets they're getting more money for insurance. sherpa compensation has gotten better over the years. ironically, it's the western-- most of the western guiding companies that pay more money than some of the locally owned companies. this is an immense amount of income for some people. it's their year's worth of income. it's hard to see them not going back. there are sherpas i talked to who said i'll never pout crampons again. that was-- they just have lost too many people. there are mothers that have lost more than one son. as somebody once said, no sherpa wife is comfortable when her husband is on the mountain."

but this is-- has brought an enormous wealth to the sherpa community. and that wealth has produced all kinds of ancillary benefits-- education, sending-- sherpas have migrated all over the world. one of the largest sherpa populations is in new york city. sherpas send their kids to boarding school. they take the risks basically to better themselves. there are not a lot of other economic opportunities in the khumbu where they live. >> brown: chip brown. the story is called "sor row on the mountain" in the november issue of "national geographic." thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: finally tonight, we highlight an ambitous new project with two unlikely heroes and zombies. the newshour's mike melia reports. >> do you like skateboarding? >> yes, i do. >> why? >> it represents my wild side.

>> reporter: these young men have a story to tell. >> it's going to be like between horror and comedy, drama kind of thing. ♪ ♪ >> we have ever average, everyday teen drama, like heartbreaks or betrayals or people living-- >> or it could be a teenager's secret life. >> what i do to mattie si leave him behind. >> yeah >> and that is not cool. >> you can't leave a friend behind. >> reporter: sam and mattie are best friend. both have down syndrome. they first met at the special olympics when they were in grade school competin competing in trd field events. now, mattie is 19 and has finished high school. sam is 18 and a senior. they live in providence, rhode island. three years ago they had an idea-- let's make a teen zombie movie. and it stuck.

>> reporter: with the help of their families, sam and mattie turned to a relatively new source of funding for ideas to plac their dream a reality. in just five years, online crowdfunding sites like kickstarter, go fund me, or indy gogo, have helped raised billions of dollars for tens of thousands of projects. a campaign on indy gogo raised more than $700,000 in a month to give bus driver karen klein a vacation after video of her being bullied by students went viral. >> i had a lot of reservations s about putting it ounl. >> reporter: jealousy swruk man is sam's older brother. he put together their kickstarter campaign. >> i don't remember the first time they told me about it. it was something sam talked about a lot, but when we went on to year too 2 and he started talking about scenes and i

started asking more questions about it. and i kept hearing the same scenes come up. and i said, "do you have a plot for this worked out?" and he did. and i think i realize bferred we tried to do it in a d.i.y. way it might be best to start and go big. >> reporter: they were on a mission to raise $50,000 to fund the movie and a documentary of the making of the film. just today, they reached their goal, thanks to some help along the way. on halloween, kickstarter named sam and mattie their project of the day, and fellow rhode island film makers, the farrelly brothers, behind comedy hits like "dumb and dumber" and "something about mary "have shown support on twitter. when we visited sam's family's house, they took me to sam's room to show me the plot they have laid out and the storyboards they've drawn. >> my favorite is right here. "saves kid from bully." it's like, this kid is being bully, and mattie ride like a bike, and he-- skateboarders do

cool tricks like flips. >> it's goings to be a great movie. it really is. there is a college montage. we go to college and there's a huge scene where we're having a huge college frat party. >> reporter: it's projects like this that allow sam and mattie focus their ideas and their energy. it also offers their families a chance to connect with their creativity. >> it's been a way to focus everything that they like into one thing, and it started out sort of as a fantasy, but then it got very real. >> chris succman is sam's dad. >> sam and matthew are very honest people, and i think that's part of what makes this wonderful is that they're so honest and it's not contrived or pretentious. it's just really them. and it's obvious that they both have a developmental disability. they have down syndrome, but it just shows that that really doesn't matter. >> reporter: a variety of programs around the country offer people with developmental

disabilities opportunities to express themselves creatively. from music to painting to acting, a major generational shift from the opportunities of that the disabled faced just a few decades ago. >> sam has always inspired me not because of down syndrome at all. just because of who he is. and i think that's always been the thing that i've tried to convey to people is that it almost has nothing to do with it. sam is just a totally awesome dude, and it's not, you know, what's-- what's amazing about him is him and his ideas -- a lot of people are like, "your brother is so much cooler than you." and i'm like i know, and he always remind me of it, and he remind me that he's a better dancer. and i think all those things are true. i am his older brother but i have always been in awe of him. >> reporter: sam and mattie love the camera and aren't shy about their ambitions. >> i want to be famous because i want to be a d.j. >> i want to be famous because i love to sing. >> he has a good voice.

>> i'm a singer and i can rap, too. i'll do a little rap. >> reporter: i'd love to hear it. ♪ yoy, he's like a teenage, what's up. ♪ you can't see me i got swagger. ♪ yo, check it. ♪ yo, yeah >> they have a wish list of celebrity cameos they hope to include in their film from the rock to the "jersey shore's" d.j.pauley d., and they want many of the pop stars who line sam's walls. >> no bieber. >> no bieber. he's create crazyin the head. >> reporter: sam and mattie have lined up family friends to film and direct the film.

>> woodruff: wow. >> ifill: those kids are amazing. they say they have swagger. they really do. >> woodruff: they sure do. that's just-- just a great story. thank you, mike. >> woodruff: on our facebook page watch sam and mattie read an oscar-style list of all the people they don't want to forget if they become famous. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day, president obama and republicans in congress moved closer to confrontation over immigration reform. "the new york times" reported the president may act next week to shield up to five million people from deportation. and the "islamic state" leader, apparently alive and well, was heard from for the first time since iraq claimed he'd been killed in an air strike. he urged his followers to fight to the end. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, at the same time that globalization improves lives across the world, it carries certain risks to our health, climate and economy. and there's no way to mitigate those without national support

for intergovernmental organizations, argues ian goldin, author of "the butterfly defect." read his guest column on our making sense page. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on friday, we'll sit down with comedian jon stewart to discuss his new serious film. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. join us on-line and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

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