>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: all eyes are on alabama today as voters choose their next senator in a special election. it was supposed to be a little- noticed race with no real competition. but as john yang reports, due to state politics and sexual misconduct claims, the race between republican roy moore and democrat doug jones has come down to the wire. >> yang: embattled republican senate candidate roy moore saddled up today, going on horseback to vote at the fire station in gallant. moore was asked if he had a message for the multiple women who have accused him of sexual misconduct when they were teenagers, moore replied: "tell the truth." he also had a message for alabamians. >> i think they oughta go out and vote their conscience and we have a tremendous turnout-- states, the nation is watching this. >> yang: if moore wins, republican senators have promised he'll face an ethics investigation. >> we'll take those problems up when we get to the senate when we win. >> yang: his opponent, doug jones, cast his ballot in a birmingham suburb. >> this is an important time in alabama's history and we feel very confident of where we are and how this is gonna turn out, but more important, we feel so good about what we've done and what we've said to the people of alabama and to the people of the united states. >> yang: jones hoped to win the votes of republicans, who've drawn the line at moore's alleged behavior with teenagers. >> i am being loyal, at its most courageous by saying i hold my party to higher standards than roy moore. >> yang: some moore supporters say they doubt his accusers. >> these are allegations. and in america, i believe it still holds true that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. >> yang: moore's campaign remained controversial to the very end-- his closing rally in midland city. former white house advisor steve bannon railed against republicans who'd distanced themselves from moore. >> there's a special place in hell for republicans who should know better. >> yang: that seemed aimed at ivanka trump, who's said there was a "special place in hell for people who prey on children" moore's wife tried to put down accusations of anti-semitism. >> fake news would tell you that we don't care for jews. i tell you all this because i've seen it all, so i just want to set the record straight while they're here. one of our attorneys is a jew. >> yang: the candidate himself made a final pitch: >> if you don't believe in my character, don't vote for me. >> yang: at his own final rally last night, jones called on voters to choose the "right path." >> i think we're going to see it tomorrow that the majority of the people of alabama say that it is time that we put our decency, our state, before political party. >> yang: in recent days, some alabamians answered their phones to hear the voice of president trump. >> roy moore is the guy we need to pass our make america great >> yang: others heard a robocall from president barack obama backing jones. his message: "this one's serious. you can't sit it out." for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. >> woodruff: now to two people who have been on the ground today, talking to alabamians about this contest: don dailey is news director at alabama public television, who's covered the state for three decades. and daniel bush, the newshour's own digital politics editor, who's been reporting in birmingham, and some smaller cities further north. it's good to see both of you. don dailey, i'm going to start with you. you have been talking to voters today at different polling placings. what are you seeing? >> i'm seeing a lot of enthusiasm. i think what was most noticeable to me at the polling places that i visited was the turnout was noticeably larger than it has been in both the primary and the run-off election. both of those saw turnout below 20%. we've seen a lot of action at polls today. we've actually seen lines, and that's something we didn't see in the republican run-off election, nor in the primaries. the secretary of state here is still sticking with his projection that we'll see up to 25%. that would obviously be a significant improvement, but still rather low considering all that's perceived to be at stake in this election. >> woodruff: and dan bush, you were out talking to voters across the state, specifically looking for republicans who had supported president trump. what were you hearing from them? >> that's right, judy. i spoke to a mix of republicans further north outside of birmingham, areas where donald trump won in 2016 by upward of 75 or more percent. some had fixed feelings about the allegations against roy moore. some said they believed him. some said they weren't sure. most said they can't bring themselves to vote for a democrat. they said that for them their priorities are social issues, abortion, same-sex marriage, and other issues, and ultimately that far outweighed the allegations against roy moore. >> woodruff: don dailey, how does that square with what you've been hearing from voters, especially today as they were having to make a decision? >> i spoke with a cross section of voters today, and they were pretty entrenched on one side, the roy moore supporters deeply behind him on some of the very issues dan mentioned. doug jones supporters by in large saying they're embarrassed by the allegations against roy moore and they would like to send someone to washington who they feel like wouldn't embarrass them, which has also been something that doug jones has been playing up in his campaign ads in alabama in the run-up to the election. he said, "i won't embarrass you, alabama." >> woodruff: and don, are you sensing that people have made up their minds mostly in the last few days? have they had their minds made up earlier? what did you see there in. >> some people we talked to as late as yesterday were telling us they were still on the fence on this issue. there were enough republicans who were rattled by the allegations who told us yesterday that they were going to have to make a last-minute decision when they went into the voting booth, but there were just as many who said they had their minds made up. there were some who have told us that they had their minds made up about roy moore even before the sexual misconduct allegation s that arose given past controversies that have followed him. >> woodruff: dan, part of the story has been the reaction of women voters in alabama, republican women in particular. what did you... what did you take away from talking to them? >> you know, it's interesting, judy, because there wasn't a very big difference between women republicans and men. the women that i spoke to basically all said that although they didn't condone roy moore's behavior, whether they believed it or not, they still ultimately felt that they had to vote for a republican, and it's notable, this election is showing how deep partnership runs in a race with a pretty stark choice. female voters who said they would be upset if those allegations were true still end up voting for roy moore on the issues alone. >> woodruff: all right. well, we're going to be talking to both of you as the night goes on, and tomorrow dan bush with the newshour, don dailey with alabama public television. thank you both. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, thousands of firefighters in southern california are racing against the clock to prevent a massive wildfire from spreading into nearby neighborhoods. the "thomas fire" has burned more than 234,000 acres in just over a week. but it's still only 20% contained. william brangham has our report. >> brangham: with flames hundreds of feet high, the "thomas fire" burned across coastal ridges near santa barbara. it's the ninth straight day this fire burned across california. overnight in the foothills, residents watched the blaze in awe and horror. >> we have a great view every day here of what's going on. it's creeping up, up, up, and today is the scariest day so far. >> brangham: now the fifth largest fire in the state's history, the "thomas fire" expanded northwest from ventura county to santa barbara. the fire continues to march deeper inside los padres national forest and up the coastline. on those hard-to-reach ridges, crews started their own controlled fires, burning dry grass in the hope that the larger blaze won't then be able to spread to the homes below. >> what the purpose of this is, is to burn off this whole bowl of vegetation and create a huge buffer between the east end of santa monica canyon and the west end of santa monica canyon. >> brangham: the challenge lies in finding safe footing on the deep canyon walls for firefighters to take a stand. below, ash covered plants looked like a fresh snowfall, while smoke suffocated neighborhoods. >> mandatory evacuations. >> brangham: tens of thousands of people remain evacuated across the affected counties. officials say the blaze has destroyed more than 680 homes, including arthur hurtz's, whose house, and everything around it, burned down to the ground. >> it's charred tree trunks. there is no vegetation, it's just dirt, it's like dirt it's just sand, it's like completely gone. >> brangham: this roaring blaze shows no sign of slowing, as warnings about the unpredictable santa ana winds and continued lack of moisture extend through the week. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham. >> woodruff: california officials estimate it's cost more than $48 million so far to battle the massive "thomas fire". federal terrorism charges were filed against the suspect in yesterday's failed new york city subway bombing. prosecutors said akayed ullah, an immigrant from bangladesh, wanted to set off a homemade bomb during the morning rush hour to "maximize destruction." meanwhile in washington, president trump again called on congress to overhaul the nation's immigration system, in the wake of a pair of terror incidents carried out by immigrants. >> there have now been two terrorist attacks in recent weeks, carried out by foreign nationals here on green cards. the first attacker came through the visa lottery and second through chain migration. we're gonna end both of them. the lottery system and chain migration, we're gonna end 'em, fast. >> woodruff: yesterday's blast happened less than two months after an immigrant from uzbekistan plowed his truck into a bike path near the world trade center. at least eight people were killed. president trump is facing a new wave of calls for a congressional investigation, after more than a dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct. our lisa desjardins has more on that, and the growing number of other sexual misconduct allegations that have recently come to light. >> desjardins: from democrats in congress, who pushed two of their own to resign last week, a turn to the president. >> mr. president, you don't live under a different set of rules. >> desjardins: today 54 democratic congresswomen called on the house oversight committee to investigate allegations president trump groped or otherwise sexually harassed women before he took office. >> sexual abuse will not be tolerated, whether it's by a hollywood producer, the chef of a restaurant, a member of congress or the president of the united states. no man or woman is above the law. >> desjardins: the president has denied all charges. but new york senator kirsten gillibrand, and five other senators, have said he should resign. in a tweet, the president swung back, writing that gillibrand previously came to him: "begging for campaign contributions," saying she "would do anything for them." that set off a reaction firestorm, from the senator herself. >> it was a sexist smear attempting to silence my voice. and i will not be silent on this issue. >> desjardins: and others on the left. connecticut senator richard blumenthal: >> the president's tweet this morning against senator gillibrand this morning was a disgraceful, sexist slur that has no place in american >> desjardins: white house press secretary sarah sanders said the president's tweet was in no way sexual. >> i think only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way. he's obviously talking about the political partisan games that people often play. >> desjardins: also on the hill today, a "new york times" report detailed the inner workings of republican representative blake farenthold's office, calling it a "hostile work environment, rife with sexual innuendo." the texas congressman used $84,000 of taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment claim with a former staffer three years ago. allegations of sexual assault also hit the sports world today. the nfl network suspended three of its analysts after a former stylist, jami cantor, accused them of inappropriate touching and showing her their private parts. cantor claims four additional employees also sexually harassed her. and a cbs news report chronicled recent sexual assault and harassment of female cadets at the u.s. air force academy, something the pentagon says has been on the rise since 2007. >> i was sexually assaulted my freshman year and the sexual harassment i endured eventually made me leave. >> desjardins: the women interviewed by cbs say the academy failed to report the attacks or reprimand their attackers. the head of the academy defended how they handle such cases but also said... >> i'm disgusted by those reports, just like you. >> desjardins: for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: the chairman of the senate judiciary committee is speaking out against two of president trump's most controversial judicial nominees. chuck grassley of iowa told cnn he's advised the white house to "reconsider" the nominations of jeff mateer who was tapped to become a federal judge in texas, and brett talley who was selected to serve in alabama. both have faced scrutiny over controversial remarks they've made in the past. stocks were mixed on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average surged 118 points to close at 24,504, notching another record high. the nasdaq fell more than 12 points, and the s&p 500 rose six. and a passing of note: san francisco mayor ed lee died unexpectedly overnight. the democrat and former civil rights lawyer became the first asian-american to lead the city in 2011. lee oversaw a technology-driven economic boom, and worked to create more affordable housing. he was also a staunch defender of san francisco's "sanctuary city" policy toward immigrants. ed lee was 65 years old. still to come on the newshour: five years after the sandy hook shooting, schools identify students who could pose a threat. the global consequences of recognizing jerusalem as israel's capital. on the ground with agents enforcing an immigration crackdown. a new book on nelson mandela's presidential years, and much more. >> woodruff: this thursday, the federal communications commission, or f.c.c., is expected to take a vote that could have significant implications for americans' access to the internet. the f.c.c. is expected to roll back rules imposed to protect what's called net neutrality, regulations passed during the obama administration. the idea was to ensure that internet providers, including big companies like verizon, comcast and at&t, treat all content on the web equally; that they provide a kind of open highway and are not allowed to charge more, or even block your ability to see content from other companies, like netflix, facebook and google. the f.c.c. chairman ajit pai is pushing to kill the obama-era rules, saying they actually aren't helping consumers. he argues the web needs less regulation. we interviewed pai when he first released the proposal. tonight, we hear from a democrat on the commission, mignon clyburn, who is opposed to the move. commissioner clyburn, thank you for being with us. so what is it about chairman pai's move that you object to? >> it leaves the consumer in a regulatory free zone. no one is looking out for their best interest. the question is simple: do you as a consumer control your experiences online, or will it be that multibillion dollar internet service provide? it's very simple? >> woodruff: well, he has argued and you know this very well. he says what we have now thanks to the obama administration are heavy-handed government regulations. he says they discourage innovation, that investment in these companies is down as a result of these regulations. >> there are no credible studies that show that an investment is down. the internet rules that we have in place, the open internet rules that we passed in 2015, they, 000 -- they threw away over 700 rulings and 25 positions that we governed ourselves back in the old telecom era. so the rules are light touch, forward looking, and they take into account that the internet today is different than it was even ten years ago. internet service providers are sometimes in the content business. some of them own their own media companies. so the question is: will they have the incentive to advantage, to promote, to give favor to their own content? or will there be an even playing field? and that's the question. and that is at risk. >> woodruff: again, i know you're familiar with mr. piezoelectric's -- mr. pai's pubback. he's saying we have had heavy regulation and we need to go back the light-touch regulatory environment like what we had from the late '90s through 2015 when the obama administration imposed these new rules. >> well, my answer is this: these rules that we have today were built on an era that started back in 2005 when there were internet principles put in place, because there were issues, and the fcc back in 2005 said, we need an agreement. internet service providers, you need to treat applications and services and access over the internet equally. they said that. but the voluntary posts they create back then because of the numbers of complaints we had, it was obvious it did not work. we needed to codify or put those rules on paper in place. and that's what we have today. and the internet has thrived. and our individual experiences, they have just ballooned because of the certainty we have that we no protections are in place that no one can favor or block traffic when it comes to my experiences over the internet. so that is at risk coming thursday. >> woodruff: commissioner, you've been openly saying you're concerned about what this could mean for communities of color. what are you saying there? >> we would have never heard about ferguson, missouri, if not for the internet. people on the ground were telling the story, and then and only then did the rest of the ecosystem weigh in and cover it. so you have communities that no one else is listening to. they're telling their own stories. they're promoting their own products. their services are now part of the lexicon of the american experience. but if you go back to the days where there are no protection, where internet service providers can suppress your experience, can favor someone else's traffic, cannot tell your story, then so many communities of color, poor, rural communities, we would not hear about them. that would not be on a media map, and that would be a shame if you go back to the day where you have gatekeepers. >> woodruff: >> specifically, what are you worried a verizon or a comcast could do. >> if verizon has a competing business with mignon clyburn dot com, they would favor that experience or the trapping that would promote their company or their business interest over mine. so it is about an even playing field. it is about small start-ups being able to compete if they have a superior product. >> woodruff: so just yesterday in an apparent attempt to address some of these issues, chairman pai said there has been a agreement whereby once this takes effect, the ftc is going to be given the responsibility of going after these internet providers. >> the ftc is an agency that has absolutely no experience when it comes to net neutrality protections. the ftc is an agency that does not play in this space when it comes to utility or telecommunications providers. these are the same providers that give us internet access. if you don't have any experience or if you don't have the authority, which the ftc does not i believe, then who is there to protect you. and so that memorandum or understanding that agreement was an afterthought. >> woodruff: finally, this vote is expected the happen on thursday, it's expected the chairman is going to prevail, he's got the majority. but once that happens, they're going to be court challenges. do you expect this is going to go on for some time? >> i do, which will create uncertainty in the market. we have a system that is the envy of every other country in the world. why break it? why cause disruption? why? >> woodruff: fcc commissioner mignon clyburn, thank you very much. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: this week marks a somber anniversary: the mass shooting at an elementary school in newtown, connecticut. in the five years since, many of the parents who lost their children that day have been pushing to reduce gun violence. one group, sandy hook promise, has taken that effort right into the schools. special correspondent lisa stark, of our partner "education week," traveled to miami to visit the first school district to implement the program. it's part of our weekly segment "making the grade." >> reporter: miami's john ferguson high school spills over with more than 4,000 students, the largest school in the district. >> there's a lot of isolation around. >> especially in a school this big. >> because it's hard for some students to fit in. >> reporter: these students are working to change that. >> we just want to make sure that everybody knows they're not alone. >> reporter: their motivation? a tragedy that happened five years ago and nearly 1,400 miles away. the horrific shooting at sandy hook elementary in newtown, connecticut. 20 children-- six and seven- year-olds, and six educators gunned down by a troubled 20- year-old. >> no one should ever lose a child in these sorts of circumstances, especially when it's preventable. >> reporter: nicole hockley's six year old son dylan died in his first grade classroom. her grief magnified by what she found out afterwards. >> i had always assumed that our shooter had snapped. and it was a moment of furious clarity for me to find out that he had exhibited signs and signals throughout his life, and that this was a very typical mass shooting. >> reporter: hockley's mission now: >> we want to prevent other tragedies from happening by teaching people to know the signs of violence. >> reporter: she and other newtown parents started sandy hook promise and enlist students in their fight. their free training has been used in 4,000 schools and youth organizations. it includes start with hello, an activity which encourages students to interact. and a program called say something, teaching students to tell an adult if they see signs someone may be a threat to themselves or others. >> this isn't about snitching or being a tattletale. this isn't about getting someone in trouble. this is about getting them help. >> reporter: the nation's 4th largest school district, miami- dade, has signed on. sandy hook promise trainers have visited more than more than 100 schools here. >> a lot of atrocities in schools, school shootings and such, stem from students who were either bullied or isolated. and so by dealing with this problem we're hoping that we can minimize anything coming up in the future. >> reporter: dewey cornell, who has analyzed school violence for decades, says that is precisely the point. >> you don't prevent a forest fire by waiting until all the trees are ablaze, you pay attention to all the campfires and make sure all the campfires are taken care of. we had incidents of bullying all the time in our schools. the more we can do to deal with these minor conflicts before they escalate into more serious ones, the better off we'll be. >> reporter: reducing violence in schools isn't just about reaching students. experts who have studied the issue say it's also important that teachers and administrators react sensibly to any safety concerns. >> is the student posing a threat, is the student on a path toward an attack? >> reporter: a team from every school in miami-dade is learning how to identify, evaluate and handle possible threats. they're taught to take threats seriously, but not to overreact. >> if a child has a pop tart that they chewed into the shape of a gun, we're not going to >> reporter: cornell, who developed this threat assessment training after the columbine school shooting in 1999, believes districts that use zero tolerance policies make their schools less safe-- students less likely to report concerns. >> if a threat is vague or someone is clearly angry, you want to err on the side of caution. >> reporter: this training includes exercises-- what should a school do if a student threatens to beat up another, what if a teen has a hit list? >> i see the escalation. >> reporter: the goal: not to automatically expel the student, but to try to address the underlying problem. >> what i'm taking away today is not everything can be solved with a suspension. it takes really bringing those students together, letting the victim feel heard, letting the one who did the bullying understand what he or she did. it's really changing our mindset. >> reporter: advocates say this can be more effective than turning schools into fortresses because most school shootings are carried out not by an outsider but by a student. >> we've done a series of controlled studies over the past 15 years showing that when schools use our model, their suspension rates go down, their bullying goes down, and the threats aren't carried out. >> reporter: the sandy hook training isn't one and done. schools pledge to keep awareness high. at ferguson, the psychology honor society sponsors numerous events. you've heard of speed-dating? the students here have a new version: speed-friending. >> we got people from different grades and we put them all in the gymnasium and each of them had two minute conversations. and then you can see that people were laughing, people who had never met each other before, people were having full on conversations. >> reporter: an effort they believe has paid off. >> in one of the speed- friendings, there was a student that was having a problem and he opened up to it. so we brought the attention to one of his teachers and that really helped him to cope with his problems and talk about them more. >> reporter: other activities include encouraging students to join someone eating alone, and >> reporter: ferguson high school psychology teacher michelle vigoa-suarez heads up the ongoing activities inspired by sandy hook promise. >> before they came, i didn't really value what i could do. i thought of it as "well it's a societal problem, and let's just pray" but when sandy hook came, they gave us the power to say "wait a minute, we can stop this. why are we going to sit back and say we'll react when it happens?" >> reporter: it's hard to measure how much of a difference all this really makes. sharon krantz oversees the effort in the miami dade schools. >> you know, this is prevention, so you don't really know what you prevented, but i know that we are making it okay to speak up, we are making it okay to include people and we're making it okay to talk as teams in >> reporter: nicole hockley points to anecdotal reports indicating their say something training has stopped suicides and possible shootings. in california, students reported a classmate's threatening online post. in ohio, students overheard shooting threats, and alerted school officials. how does that make you feel? >> sometimes it takes me out at the knees, if i'm honest with you. because it's incredibly elating to know that we've just been able to help someone else, but it's never going to be enough. >> reporter: hockley says it only encourages her to take her message to more schools, to redouble her efforts. for "education week" and the pbs newshour, i'm lisa stark in miami, florida. >> woodruff: last week, president trump declared jerusalem the capital of israel and promised to move the u.s. embassy, currently in tel aviv, to the holy city. the announcement overturned decades of u.s. policy, but it was met with less outrage than many feared. now, how the decision may echo in the region and beyond, and to special correspondent nick schifrin. >> judy, the president's announcement was dramatic, but the immediate response has been relatively muted. that doesn't mean there aren't longer-term strategic consequences. to consider that i'm joined in the studio by paul salem, the senior vice president for policy analysis and research at the middle east institute, and ryan crocker, who served as ambassador to six countries across the middle east and south asia. he joins joins us now. paul, it seems there are a couple reasons we haven't seen more violence. one is that all politics are local, in this region, as well, and maybe it's in the a surprise that the u.s. supports israel, right? >> first of all, it wouldn't be correct to measure the long-term impact by the aim of protests and violence. in the palestinian communities in gaza and the west bank, palestinians are exhausted. they have been dispirited for a long time. they had very little hopes that there was a peace process. this was very aggravating for them but doesn't come as a big surprise. many of them don't think having another violent intifada will get them any further. in the arab world, there's a lot of sympathy for the republicanon cause and this issue of jerusalem that sparks a lot of emotions and protest, but most arabs are also mired in their own domestic politics, the big uprisings of 2011 were really about domestic issues, so people care, but they don't want to have a revolution or ruin their own country because of it. the final part is iran and its allies, hezbollah, who have been organizes protests, also don't want them to get out of hand and turn violent, because they are happy with the way things are. >> ambassador crocker, palestinian fatigue, but perhaps regional fatigue in. >> these things can take a long time to manifest themselves. i would not immediately rush to the conclusion that, well, this issue is no longer significant, there wasn't any violence. think that significance may be clear in the months ahead. i think we're talking about the longer-term strategic impacts. >> paul salem, one of them seems to be on the peace process. it's not just the peace process. it's about the impact to the larger region. >> the impact on the peace process, the peace process wasn't going anywhere most probably, but this really maybe puts an end to even the semblance of having a peace process. it also in the palestinian context weakens president abbas, who would have been a partner even for stabilization and weakens president abbas. in the wider middle east, it undermines the u.s.'s partner, egypt, bahrain, and other who have worked with the u.s. and were hopeful there would be a peace plans they could be part of. it weakens and undermines them. the ones who are happiest, other than the israeli government itself, are iran and its allies and russia's president putin. we saw president putin immediately take a victory lap visiting syria, egypt, and turkey all in one day, denouncing the jerusalem decision while also declaring victory in other places, and it's been a great gift to iran and hezbollah, who have wanted to change the narrative from the carnage of syria, which they've been embroiled in, to reviving the issue of jerusalem, which is a very evocative issue, and pose as the champions of jerusalem some they're in a middle of a rebranding. this couldn't have come at a better time for this. >> ambassador crocker, is that right? does this help russia? does this help iran? does this make it more difficult for the sunni arab states in the region who president trump has wanted to ally with to ally with him in the future? >> i'm not sure it will have that much impact. jordan and egypt, the two arab states with peace agreements with israel, have survived worse shocks than this. i would watch saudi arabia, though. i do not expect to see significant criticism coming out of the kingdom of saudi arabia, again for the reasons paul is talking about. they have other more immediate issues that concern them, like where the kingdom is going in general. yemen, iran, these are tissues that are occupying the bandwidth. >> i think it's important to also broaden out the discussion and ask whether the impact will actually be felt beyond the region. on friday the united nations security council held an extraordinary session in which they actually called an emergency session because of something the united states has done. let's listen to matthew rycroft, the british permanent representative to the u.n. criticizing president trump and the united states. >> we disagree with the u.s. decision to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel and the begin preparations to move the american embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. it is not in line with security council resolutions, and it is unhelpful in terms of prospects for peace in the region. >> so paul salem, is one of the long term impacts request on the region and more the u.s. relationship with the rest of the world? >> i do think so. i think it's in line with a set of policy decisions that president trump has taken to kind of dismantle american global leadership, whether by design or by instinct, on issues of climate change, a pacific trade agreement. and this decision violates decades of u.s. policy, violates u.n. security council resolution, violates international law in the sense that he's recognizing at least in east jerusalem a territory occupied by force in 1967, and doing it in a way that clearly flawrpts any idea of consultation beforehand or working with allies. it seems to be part of how president trump and system of his advisers seem to view america's role in the world. >> ambassador, lack of u.s. leadership and other countries step entering a vacuum? >> clearly the u.s. has been backing away from its traditional will leadership role. i'd have to point out, though, it didn't start with president trump. it started with president obama. so we kind of... we saw that most clearly i think with the refugee crisis with we were just not a player. so, yeah, the backing away is real. and it's potentially quite significant. and i'm sure that the french and the british will try to step into this, but there's another bigger question there: can they do it. and i would have to suggest that neither britain nor france nor the two together can be an adequate substitute for the role. there are voices now coming out of the region saying, okay, we get it. no more two-state, two-capital solutions. it will be one state, one capital, with guaranteed equal rights for all of its people. but i think you may see some fairly dramatic things said in the months ahead. >> ambassador ryan crocker joining us from princeton jowfort and paul salem from the middle east institute. thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: earlier this year, president trump signed an executive order giving immigration and customs enforcement officers greater flexibility in arresting undocumented immigrants. the order also ended the obama- era policy of prioritizing violent criminals and gang members for deportation. last week, the agency credited the changes with a sharp drop in apprehensions at the u.s./mexico border and a surge in arrests of undocumented immigrants already living in the united states. as p.j. tobia reports, critics say those arrests are creating fear in immigrant communities but agents say they are simply enforcing the law. >> we got three targets today. we're going to start in order a, b, then c. >> reporter: just before 5:00 a.m., a dozen immigration and customs enforcement agents gather in a strip mall parking lot, reviewing their targets for the day. >> surveillance shows an individual fitting this description leaves at 5:00 >> reporter: these men and women enforce president trump's promise to crackdown on illegal immigration. ice asked that their officer's faces be obscured for security reasons. the agents roll out. their unmarked s.u.v.'s turn into a virginia neighborhood. >> it might be this house here. >> we will identify all the individuals in the house and anybody that's in there of interest to us either criminal history, is in the country illegally, public safety threat, we will make those arrests. >> reporter: agents are staking out the home of a bolivian man with two d.u.i.'s and two misdemeanors. they're eventually let into the house. the man they're looking for isn't there, but one arrest is made. while investigating the whereabouts of their target, ice agents discover a different undocumented man. >> watch your head. >> reporter: collateral arrests, like this one, have become more common under president trump. under obama, he may not have been arrested at all, to the frustration of some agents. matthew munroe is an assistant field director for immigration and customs enforcement. he's worked in immigration enforcement for more than two decades. >> the target wasn't here at this point, but there were a number of other individuals in the house that we conducted consensual interviews with, and one of them was identified as an individual who was in the country illegally. >> reporter: at the processing center, the man undergoes questioning. they discover he's a nicaraguan national who entered the u.s. illegally in 1988. since president trump took office, immigration arrests are up 42%. ice estimates nationwide they make 400 arrests a day. ice has arrested 37,000 undocumented immigrants without criminal records. that's a 145% increase over fiscal year 2016. >> there have been times in the past that policies have been such that we have been focused on just certain classes of illegal aliens or people in the country who are subject to removal. nowadays, it is anybody who is in the country illegally is subject to arrest. >> reporter: how is this a different environment than at any other time in your career? >> we are enforcing the laws that we were sworn to uphold, and that's what we're doing nowadays. >> reporter: anyone held in ice custody eventually makes their way to an immigration detention center, like this one in farmville, virginia. everyday, ice holds between 30 to 40,000 immigrants nationwide. next year, the white house is aiming to increase that number by 20%. once they arrive at the detention center, they're separated based on factors like immigration and criminal history. detainees can meet with a deportation officer to answer questions. often, they'll act as translators for one another. but the one question they won't get answered is when they might be deported. the agency says that information is a security risk. macario diaz morales was held in the farmville detention center for a month and a half. he was released on bond in early november. we met his wife, areli vea reyna, a few days later at their lawyers' office, the legal aid justice center. immigration raids in their community made the family too scared to speak to newshour in their neighborhood, our cameras might draw unwanted attention. areli says she was getting in her car to leave for work one morning when an ice agent approached her in the driveway asking for her husband. >> ( translated ): i'd like to speak with him. ok, i told him, he's asleep. and i left, opened the door and went inside. i closed the door, but didn't close it well. it was a bit open. after i called him, i went back and they were already inside. >> reporter: macario illegally crossed the border into the u.s. from mexico in 2006. that same year he met areli. she had also come from mexico, but had been in the u.s. since 1996. they have five kids, three from her previous marriage. before he was detained by ice, macario supported the family. areli now works construction to make ends meet. she says that first night after ice detained her husband was the hardest. >> ( translated ): it was the first night in 12 years. i had never been apart from him. nor had he been apart from the kids. as i told you, it wasn't easy because i had to work and help them move forward, pay for what needed to be paid. and when he spoke to me, he told me not to let him go, not to let him die alone. it's hard. >> reporter: according to ice, macario was picked up as part of a targeted enforcement operation, like the one we rode along with. a misdemeanor arrest in july flagged him for deportation. >> they have the potential to be arrested and removed from the united states. that is the fact. that's the laws that are on the books. it's the mission that we've been charged with enforcing from the president, to the secretary, to the director of ice, this is what we're going to do. >> reporter: as for macario and his family, he is waiting for approval to join a non-immigrant u-visa his wife has. areli is waiting to hear back on her own green card application. >> ( translated ): i understand that the country has its rules, has its laws. and maybe we have broken that law of coming illegally. one comes for work, because of necessity, to move the family forward. and i think, i hope he doesn't go back to mexico and that he stays with the family. >> reporter: what happens next depends, in part, on what the court decides. they'll find out if macario can stay lawfully in the united states or if he'll be deported back to mexico. a life changing decision, out of their hands, made by a system that's playing by new rules. for the pbs newshour, i'm p.j. tobia in washington. >> woodruff: now, a possible turning point in south africa. its ruling party, the african national congress, is expected to replace its leader, jacob zuma this weekend. whoever is chosen could also replace zuma as the country's president in the 2019 general election. but as zuma and his party have been marred by accusations of corruption, some south africans are re-evaluating the legacy of the party's most famous member, nelson mandela. with the recent release of a book on the life and words of mandela, jeffrey brown has a special edition of the newshour bookshelf from johannesburg, south africa. >> brown: four years after his death, nelson mandela remains the larger-than-life symbol of historic change in south africa, the man who led a liberation movement against the white apartheid regime from prison before being released in 1990. now comes a new look at the political struggle that followed and mandela's five years as president of a newly democratic nation. >> i took on the project because i believed in the man, number one and i respected him, but much more importantly i felt that his words needed to be heard far and wide. >> brown: mandla langa, best known in south africa as a novelist, worked from drafts mandela himself wrote toward a never-finished memoir of his presidential years. the result is "dare not linger"" partly mandela's words, partly langa's, presented as a sequel to mandela's 1995 memoir "long walk to freedom," which sold some 14 million worldwide. for mandla langa, this was personal: an activist in an anti-apartheid struggle, he was arrested in 1976 and spent years in exile. >> those years were rough and those years were also full of despair. mandela was the person that we looked to even when we were in the camps in angola when we were in the most horrific places, this was one name that made us to keep the faith. >> brown: when you took on this project was it frightening? or daunting? >> i had a dream and in the dream it was as if mandela was telling me that i must not write nonsense. i must write his words as it were in the most correct form. >> brown: so he's admonishing you? >> he was admonishing me. >> the promotion of the spirit of reconciliation is something that we should all united and try and achieve in our country. >> brown: mandela sometimes faced infighting among black african factions, and continued resistance from some white afrikaners used to wielding power. he spoke to the newshour's charlayne hunter-gault in 1994 on the eve of his election to the presidency. >> the problem that we face today is that we are dealing with a group of men and women who are produced by apartheid, who can talk about democracy in a way different from what you and i understand by democracy. we also had another tendency from the liberation movement of people who want to continue resisting, even at a time when we are preparing to govern. we have to reconcile those two tendencies. >> brown: the new book captures mandela addressing internal problems while regularly meeting other leaders on the world stage. langa came to see mandela, the political leader, as a strong, forceful presence. >> there has been now and then that kind of imputation that he was just a figurehead. he was very, very hands on at the very beginning. he was alive to the fact that he needed to exert his own authority on the situation. when he dealt with the afrikaner generals he knew that this was a gamble because on the one hand there was this crisis of expectation from the black people that he has come out he has got to lead us, and he must not sell us out. >> brown: and everything was going to get better quickly. >> quickly, yes. >> brown: years later it's clear that while things got better for many, an economic apartheid persists for millions of blacks, and south africa is regularly cited as one of the world's most unequal nations. the new book comes out amid a renewed national debate over the nation's progress since its turn to democracy. some we spoke to questioned whether mandela's commitment to reconciliation came at too great a cost and see an unfulfilled legacy. >> i think a lot was given away and i think too much was given away. >> brown: wits university lecturer mpho matsipa. >> i think many south africans, including myself, imagined that the future would be one that is more just where there isn't so much inequality, where inequality doesn't continue to be so racialized and gendered. i think the current material realities are in themselves a testament to or they are a challenge to that legacy. >> brown: but another view sees enormous progress against all odds, and the mandela legacy fully intact. albie sachs, a leading figure in the anti-apartheid struggle, helped write the country's new constitution and was appointed by mandela to serve as a justice on the nation's highest court. >> the institutions of democracy are functioning now. and they give the new generation, who are impatient with what they see as the slowness, the tardiness of change, who are demanding more rapid transformation. they've got the weapons and instruments to do that. so i think that i would give three cheers, not one, not two, maximum cheers to mandela and his generation for fulfilling their life's mission, which was to tear down apartheid and install democracy. >> brown: amid this debate, author mandla langa thinks the timing is right for the new book on mandela's years as president. >> we are living in the most confusing time as south africans, and i believe that that we need to look back on where we were, what we were, and how we were, and i think that those moment, that past, which made us the kind of people we are, to be a symbol of that past, was nelson mandela. >> brown: with "dare not linger," langa hopes mandela's words and deeds can continue to guide his country today. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in johannesburg, south africa. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, science correspondent miles o'brien explains the effect climate change has on california's wildfires. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. >> 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 sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org wes: we're the history detectives, and we're going to investigate some untold stories from america's past. in this episode, we discover if this beautiful old spyglass once belonged to the "prince of pirates." so it is possible that this spyglass was owned by jean lafitte? very possible. fits right into that period designwise. elyse: we find out if a family-run printing firm printed currency that funded the mexican revolution. i would like to know whether my company, maverick clarke lithographing, at the time produced these beautiful notes. gwen: and we use scientific techniques

Related Keywords

Jerusalem , Israel General , Israel , Alabama , United States , United Kingdom , West Bank , Tel Aviv , California , Yemen , Angola , Syria , Russia , Bahrain , Connecticut , San Francisco , Mexico , Egypt , Iowa , Miami , Florida , New York , Missouri , Texas , Iran , Washington , Bolivia , South Africa , Virginia , Togo , Be Court , Nord Pas De Calais , France , Johannesburg , Gauteng , Jordan , Sandyhook , Santa Monica Canyon , Bangladesh , Gaza , Saudi Arabia , Sandy Hook , Ohio , America , Mexican , South Africans , Britain , Bolivian , French , British , Israeli , Palestinian , Matthew Rycroft , Moore Yang , Sarah Sanders , Santa Barbara , Jew Yang , Don Dailey , Africa Brown , Nelson Mandela Brown , John Yang , Chuck Grassley , Albie Sachs , Roy Moore , Mandla Langa , Dewey Cornell , Jeffrey Brown , Nicole Hockley , Dan Bush , Doug Jones , Daniel Bush , Paul Salem , Lisa Desjardins , States Yang , Jami Cantor , Judy Woodruff , Worldstage Langa , Africa Woodruff , Roy Moore Woodruff , Lisa Desjardins Woodruff , Brett Talley , Diaz Morales , Nelson Mandela , Sharon Krantz ,