>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and b the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved econo ac performan financial literacy in the 21st century. >> carnegie corporation of new irk. supportiovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. carnegie.org. >> and with e ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting.ib and by conions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. re was a moret modest rally on wall street today, but it came in dramatic style. stocks were down sharply, but then clawed back in the last two hours of trading. the dow jones industrial averag0 gainedoints, after being 38.n 600, to close at 23 that's after yesterday's 1,000- point gain. the nasdaq rose 25 points, and the s&p 500 added 21. even so, the market is still on track for its worst december since the great depression. the rtial government shutdow is now guaranteed to extend into the new year. with no progress in sight, the senate recessed today until next wednesday. the new congress convenes the next day, with democrats taking over the house. president trump is demanding that $5 billion for a southern border wall be included in any governmentunding bill but democrats have rejected that demand. in indones, authorities are sounding new warnings about the volcano that triered saturday's deadly tsunami. it killed at least 430 people. the sunda strait region is now on higher alert as eruptions continue. officials are also urging people to stay away from the shore amid fears of another tsunami. >> ( translated ): we have done some evaluations and this morning we declared the alert level status raised to thehe second-h level. we also still anticipate further eruptions. we have set the safe zone to be three miles, while yesterday it was about a mile around the volcano. >> brangham: in the wake of that tsunami, nearly 160 pere still missing. saudi arabia's king salman overhauled his top government positions today, including naming a new foreign minister. this follows the international outrage over the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi, by saudi operatives. the u.s. senate has blamed then king's son, crince mohammad bin salman, for ordering the killing. but, today's changes appeared to rther consolidate the crown prince's grip on power. an israeli official has confirmed the israi air force carried out strikes inside syria on christmas night the bbc reported that missiles ofruck near damascus. the israelcials said they targeted iranian arms bound for the hezbollah militia. syria'russian allies said the syrians shot down most of the missiles, while the israelis said they hit all their targets. police in eastern congo used force today against a protest over the delay of sunday's presidentiallection. voting has been postponed in three towns where an ebola outbreak is ongoing. police in one town fired tear gas and live ammunition as demonstrators marched and burned tires. they claim the delay is an excuse to prevent opposition strongholds from having a voice. and, a man from portland, oregon has etched his name in the list of famous firsts. he did it on the day after christmas, at the very bottom of the world. with a final 32-hour, 80 mile push, colin o'brady became the first person to cross antarctica alone, without any assistance. the 33 year-old celebrated with : "ist on instagram, writi did it!" this was off on this brutal 930-mile tripup arrival, o'brady tearfully called his wife and expedition manager, jenna besaw. o'brady started the treacherous journey on november 3rd, at the ronne ice shelf on t continent's eastern side. he set off at the same time as 49-year-old louis ru, a british army captain who's also trying to make the historic ip. the two men raced each other for nearly t months, passing over mountains of ice and snow and across the south pole. then, o'brady made it to the finish: the leverett glacier ath ross ice shelf, where antarctica's land mass ends, and the ice sea begins. in 2016, british explonry worsley died attempting this same feat. others hadade the crossing before, but they had assistance with supplies or kites that helped pull them across the ice. o'brady had none of that help. most days, he trekked 12 hours, pulling roughly 400 pounds on his sleds. he climbed up ice ridges, pushed through blinding snow and 30- mile-an-hour headwinds and had to endure temperatures as low as minus-80 degrees farenheit. 11 days in, it was so cold his beard turned to an icicle. o'brady consumed around 7,000 calories a day to ensure he hadg enough efor the grueling trek. still, his legs were emaciated by the end. >> hi this is colin o'brady. i'm out to set out to a world- cord breaking adventure in antarctica, to hopefully be the first person in history to cross the entire continent on foot, solo and unsupported. >> brangham: before he began, o'brady invited studen teachers to tag along on his journey, virtually. he dubbed his attempt: "the impossible first," wt certainly would have seemed just a decade ago. that's when an accident burned nearly 25% of o'brady's body, primarily his legs and feet. doctors warned him he might never walk normally again. but after a lengthy rehab, he went on to become a professional triathlete, and eventually climbed mt. everest. now that he's set this record for crossing antarctica, o'brady is staying put. he's set up camp near the ross ice shelf where he says he'll wait for louis rudd to cross the finish line in a few days. still to come on the newshour: what to make of the polical statements the president made during his visit to iraq. a report from inside the last rebel holdout in syria as the u.s. withdraws its troops we look back at the cultural impact of the me-too movement in 2018, and much more. m: >> branghe president is back home in washington, after his surprise visit yesterday with american troops stationed i q. while the servicemembers clearly seemed happy with the co'sander in chiisit, others are raising questions about some of the president's political rhetoric on the trip. our white house rrespondent yamiche alcindor is here. hi, yamiche. >> hi. so last night, when we knew about the president's trilkp, we a little bit about the geopolitical implications of the trip and how irais rebuilding. we wanted to talk about the politics because the president tisank a pretty part par litical tone with the troops. can you tell us what he said? >> this was essentially a trump 2020 campaign rally held in n front of the troops in iraq. the president was attacking democrats, accusing them of notr wanting der securities and wanting open borders. the president called out nancy pelosi, likely going to be a speaker of the house andmo atic controlled house in 2019, and the president accused immigrants of being criminal, he said they would be bringing drugs nd human trafficking into the united states. i want to play video thatat encapsulates whe president's political message waso the troops. >> when you think about , you're fighting for borders in other countries. and they don't want to fight. the democrats, for the border offour country. esn't make a lot of sense. i don't know if you folks are aware of what's happening. weant to have strong borders in the united states. the democrats don't want to let us have strboonders only for one reason. you know why? because i want it. >> brangham: is it unusual for a president to te such a political tone when they're standing in front of american servicemen and women? >> it's very unusual.t presidump did something very different from his predecessors. one, he nt to the troops in iraq a lot later in his presidency than other presidents have in the pa, and this is usually mutual territory. this is not where you bring up litical party differences. usually presidents talked about thanking the troops and the american mission as a whole. president obama had gone to both iraq and afghanistan within the first two years of his presidency. ident george w. bush also went to iraq pretty early in his presidency. so the president here was again, his schedule was different from other presidents but also his tone and mesge were different. >> the troops clearly seem to love having theresident ther but it's hard to overlook the fact this is coming amidst the shutdown of the government and the controversial resignation his defense secretary jim mattis. so what does the president see as the upide of this trip for him? >> the political side is the optics are good for the president and first lady. this is a president dealing with an ongoing government shutdown, the defense cretary leaving, t also a revolving door at the white house with all sorts ofng people inclu the chief of staff leaving. the president is also dealing with the mueller investigation. in 2019, likely robert mueller will be issuing a rort tht will likely change his presidency and impact how he can governorern in the country. with all that going on, theupn wants to be ss the commander in charge, supporting the troops and him saying america is great in iraq is great for him. >> brangham: he talked about the pay raises they'dn given. >> you just got one of the biggest payu raises yo've ever received, unless you don't want it. does anybodyre -- (cheering) is anydyere willing to give up the big pay raise you just got? raise your hand, please. oh, don't see too many hands up. don't give it up. it's great. you know what? nos dy deser more. you haven't gotten one in more than ten years.te more thayears, and we got you a big one. i got you a big one. i got you a big on. (cheering) >> brangham: how true is that? the president is not telling the truth there. two things. the president is saying it's been over a decade since servicemembers and troops have gotten a pay raise. that's not true. the servicemembers and troopsn have begetting pay raises once a year the last decade. the president is also saying they're going to be getting a 10% raise. reporting says it's a 2.6% raise, about% difference there. so the president is misstating the troop. this is a patte for the president. when he gets in front of big crowds, he likes to tell falsehoods and exaggerate and hes he'doing just that. >> brangham: yamiche alcindor, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> brangham: as we repord, it looks like 2018 will come to a close without a deal to end the government shutdown. our lisa desjardins has been following it all and is here with the latest update. s hi, lisa. >> hi. >> brangham: seems like we have a much better understanding now of how long this is going to >> we do. late today, the leaders in congress made some decisions. they anunced that the house will not retwen over thekend and the senate is not expected to vote until next wednesday at the earliest, as we rept ted, re's why that's so significant. of course, obviously, wednesday is the last day of this 115t the next day is when democrats take over the house. s yearse talked about thi before. what's important is now they have made that decision and given up on trying to reach a deal over the weekend, monday, tuesday or wednesday, and it looks like they are punting this tntire issue to the nex onngress, which is tough for republicanhe hill who realize they have less leverage than now wedneay wons the democrats take over the house. >> brangham: and the president on iraq and twitter still holding tight on i wt $5 billion to build the wall and not budging. what is the other side thinkinga >> dem say, no, we responded and rejected your offer entirely. nancy pelosi is starting to signal she doesn't w fund any money for the wall, not just $1.3 billion but going back to zero, so the two sides are getting farther apart. >> brangham: all week long you have been reaching out to federal employees who are out of work and not sure about their paychecks. can yoyotell us about what have been hearing? >> one story, i spoke to a woman or e-mailed a woman from s ssachusetts today who she is delaying surgery because she's worried about having money for a co-pay. if her husband's salary doesn't come full, they don't think sheb wiable to afford her surgery so she's delaying it till the end of nua because she's not sure they'll be abled to aff. >> brangham: amazing reporting. lisa, thank you so much. ha >> bra in september, russia and turkey signed an agreement calling for a ceasefire in idlib pro in northern syria. both countries were supposed to guaran idlib were avoided.de there million people there, but they're living without even the most basic services. and, as correspondent nick schifrin reports, the people on the ground are still facing attacks. >> schifrin: just like any one- year-old, omar al-gheem loves his father's motorbike, even if he needs his older brothers' help. these days, he needs more lp than ever. he needs his father's help to carry him. last month omar lost his left leg wh his family home was hit by a government airstrike. a syrian jet targeted their village. it killed omar's mother, seven months pregnant with a boy. also killed that day, another woman, and sev students at a primary school. and just as white helm volunteers were rescuing the wounded, they were also another airstrike. today, al-dagheem is gratefulve his son is a but he al-dagheem misses his wife, and is worried about his omar's future. >> ( translated ): i look at omar and i see he is missingli everything i: the love of a mother, for him to go out and play with his brothers. his brothers will be playing and he tries to get up so he can play with them. >> schifrin: docalrs at maaret -numan central hospital in idlib province are caring for omar. he is just like so many victims in this war. but last month he was supposed to be safe. omar and his family were living in jarjanaz, in idlib province. in september, turkey and russia agreed to create aemilitarized buffer zone that includes jarjanaz, remove heavy weaponryi and rebeters, and halt military operations. but the agreemenhas loopholes, says the middle east institute's charles lister. >> being that jihadist groups linked to al qaeda are not paren of that agrewhich in the regimes eyes explains why they have continued some level of military action. so in a way it's really just a regime ploy to keep pressure on the area. >> schifrin: keep pressure on the province that is the rebel's final stronghold. no one rebel group is in control, but the most dominant is hayat tahrir al-sham, known as h.t.s., a sub-branch of al- qaeda. the militas' presence provides the syrian government an excuse to continue targeting. that targeting looks like this. hallowed buildings, body bags, and thousands fleeing an onslaught that the buffer zone was supposed to prevent. idlib is home to three million people, many of wh are internally-displaced. esndreds of thousands live without basic servin overcrowded camps or in the remnants of bombed-out buildings. meriam al-dawoeem works at a n's center. she fled the bombing in jarjanaz, and says she's a long way from going back. >> (anslated ): as long as the regime forces remain at the front lines and the shelling continueits impossible to return, because the situation is not sure at all, anytime we think of coming back the shelng and bombardment start again. >> schifrin: the only reason the bombing isn't worse, is that syrian ally russia is reluctant to launch a full-on offensive. and the syrian regime can't move forward without russia's support. >> retaking idlib would be a huge military challenge. and most of the onus of responsibility for a successful campaign would fall on russia. herussia's patience i thin is key. and at least for now russia's patience is translating into regime patience. >> schifrin: turkey is also resisting a full-scale idlib onslaught.tr turkisps monitor the buffer zone. and turkey is hoping to prevent more syrian refugees from joining the already three million refugees in turkey. >> a major escalation in idlib l erally turkey's worst case scenario. and so turkey is expending a huge amount of energy a lot under the surface and behind the scenes to convince the whole read of armed groups just to eysustain this deal for tu >> schifrin: and so that means most of the countries operating in syria want to see political progress. this month the foreign ministers ir iran, russia and turkey met in geneva with rg u.n. envoy steffan de mistura. russian foreign minister sergey lavrov said the countries were determined to set up a committee to re-write syria's constitution. the u.s. has tried to pressure cossia and the syrian regime by withholding truction aid and blocking refugee repatriation, as top u.s. eny mes jeffrey confirmed earlier this month. >> none of those things are happening, and they're not going to happen until the political process makes progress, as far as can see. and i don't see a change in that, and i think that's dawning on at least the russians. schifrin: but there is still no political progress. and until there is the residents of idlib will likely ce to be targeted, despite the de- escalation zone. >> ( translated ): for us, nothing has really changed. for usthere is no difference in the end. life has not become better, quite the opposite! now, tension has increased. we feel that there is literay no one left in jarganaz. the town is completely demolished. >> schifri residents with no where else to flee, have little optimism. we asked miriam al-dagheemsh whethehad any hope for the future. >> ( translated ): no, as long i the situation continues like this, itossible to have hope. >> schifrin: just befo the rstrike, omar's family took this video: he had just learned to walk. today, omar's best hope is to make it to turkey to receive a prosthetic leg. his missing limb another sign the heavy price paid in thisy war, is paidvilians. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin. >> brangham: stay wion us, coming uhe newshour: how one american city is working to decrease infant mortaty rates. making sense of the economics and psychology of altruism. and iraqi-american poet discusses the plight of women enslaved by isis. this was a year where the me too movement, and the consequences surrounding it, captivated much attention once again. whether it was in entertainment and media, business or the general workplace, women came rward about what they ha faced. tonigh we wanted to put more of a focus on what survivors and victims have been through, and what the reactions and consequences of this past year have meant to them. amna nawaz has our conversation. >> the cultural shift is palpable. in just the past year, sevesal stave introduced legislation to deal with sexual harassment in the work congress finally moved to change a system for reporting harassment on capitol hill and, of cour, some of the most powerful and notable men in hollywood and media have been forced out of their jobs. we're croind joind now by three women who came forward by the own experiences. all have appeared on our program before. katherine kendall was the first to break the silence around harvey weinstein's behavior and abuse. she alleges weinstein invited her to his new york apartment en she was 23 years old, took off his clothes, asked for a massage, chased her and refused to let her leave the room. lily bernard is one of 60 women who said bill cosby sexually assaulted them. after appearing on one of his shows in the '90s, she said cosby drugged and raped her she attended his trial on sexual assault this year. and abby bolt was raped on assignment in 2012 by another firefighter. she reported the incident to police but said she feared retaliation inside the forest service. the "newshour" published tensive reports about ay and other women looking at sexual harassment and assault. thank you for ing here. lily, i want to start with you. this year marked an incredible shift. just howe talkout these things captured under this#m oo umbrella. what has it been through over the past year, as you went from someone who wasn't believed to where we are now. >> it was an amazing year, 201 and it really began a couple of years before. several of my survivor sisters and i worked together, campaigned and lobbied and abolished the statute ofs limitati the state of california. the law went into effect januar. the same week my rapist was incarcerated, we hada supreme court justice nominee,ug kava face to face in a hearing with an accuser, a man, you know, dr. christined blasey fving accused him of sexual assaulting her. that happened in the same week. unfortunately, kavanaugh was ill nominated. an amazing set of occurrences. >> kathleen kendall, raises an interesting point, for all the progress that's been made and the conversations we're having now, there's sll progress to be made. what's theast year been like for you? >> she brought up a great point. it's fits and bursts, and i think, like anythin you know, growth is like that. it's confusing because there are these huge celebrations, and then these painful setbacks.k but i the good thing that happened with the kavanaugh hearingsis that more women came forward, more women were able to mber things that traumatized them and, you know, with trauma, we put tngs away and kind of let it -- we don't even know it's there. we have the ability to kind of forget. then it's healthy for it to come out and have a chance to get resolved. >> ay, your experience reminds us the appalling statistics driving these nversations don't really happen arounle ities, it's people we know -- n, intimate partners, in many cases. tell me what's changed in yo can circles in the past year. >> i represent a different side of things. i'm a feeederal emplnd i'm a firefighter, and that's a whole other different type of a world with a male-dominated career, and i realize you know, ever since i have been in this almost 22 years, and i have been black listed by people since my very first year since i wasrs 19 yea old and all i did was bring forward that things needed to improve, and at a very low level. from that time on, i've had somebody who reached out and made sure to ruin career moves and jobs for me. so that's been going on for a really long time. but the more i've come out about this, the more -- just the social media groups i've had, wildfire women and other employee groups, and now i'm hearing from people across the country, just in the hollywood whworld knowing peoplare living a silent night mayor and they just want to get by and provide for their family, they're terrified to speak out. i'm amazed how many are coming forward andfeeling strong enough to stick up for themselves, even if they don't do anything officially, they're standing up for themselves and others. bystanders are standing up for other people. more strength is coming out.es that taky breath away every time. >> tell me more. since you decidepeak out, have you heard from other women. who they couldn't for so long and now feel they can? >> both. i hear from women who feel like they couldn't o long. just this last week, two different women in to completely different states reach out looking for help ian advocate. all i can do is a silentde round support and advocacy, helping viem nate the situation one has 30 years in firefighting, the other one eer very first year, both are lost in the sym. it's not just in fire for us. it's in all disciplin of federal agency, and i worked mostly with the land management ones, ese male-dominated agencies out there and they're struggling and it'not just the women. we're talking about the #metoo and sexual harassment, but i'm standing up for anybody who is either underreprented or undersupported, and they just want to stand up for the right thing,hether it's f themselves or someone else may work with and finding them more support. >> you mentioned at one point getting hate mai you still get pushback? >> oh, yes, i get hate mail often ani also was attacked in person at the cosby -- at the cosby first trial in 2 the retrial and the sentencing hearing, both in 2018, and, you know, we have very good reason to believe thathese were actual hired people of bill cosby's camp who wattacking us physically andy. verba there was foot only of that. when i attended the cosby retrial in april 2018, one to have the big differences that helped to render a guilty verdict as opposed to a hung jury of the previous year, the very first witness the prosecution brought on was a forensic psychtrist, a specialty witness, and she educated the jy that the majority of rapes, over 85% of them, according to federal statistics, are perpetrated by people whom you know. r since mopes are perpetrated by people we know, that really complicates coming out even more because you have this cognitive dissidence. you want to make it right. you tent to want to protect the perpetrator and, t therefore, tt lends only 2% of rapists ever seeing a day behind pri walls. the fact bill cosby, america's dad, is now behind the walls of a stise penitentiary astronomical because it's less than 2% of rareists a ever convicted, and now we've got ones that are protected by their fame and fortune who are actually being held accountable. that just shows there has been this tremendous shift icultur towards finally believing women. >> katherine, i want i want to ask you and remind people you are one of the first to share k ur stories, sput about harvey weinstein, a very powerful man. i wonder if you can tell us about what it took to come to that place and also if there's ever been a moment u've regretted doing that is this. >> i can say i have not regretted it for one second. but a year and a half ago, righe bei met owed jody cantor and was going to tell my story, i sat and thought hard about it. it was not an easthing to do. it was unthinkable at first. and to put myself out there, to speak about a powerful man in such a way, to have my name put into social media in a way that people could just rake me through the coals and say whatever they wanted, i knew we were in a culture tt didn't support what i was going to be hlking about. otherwise, i woue talked about it a long time ago. so that makes me think too, what a miracle it is that we are as far as w e are rightw. i never thought i would see the day. >> katherine, tell me more about that. we're obviously at the end of the year where there have been headline after headline about the change that's happened and acknowledgments of change still ot to come, where are yu personally? are you hopeful about what the future holdss this. >> i'm hopeful. i'm taking a stand on the hopeful side because i see -- because i see how farvee' come, and i believe that, you ow, there was no road before, there was no path. we are making one now. > what about you? do you share thpe? >> i do. i also want to say what katherine said aut, you know, the impact that we have upon the general public or even our mily and friends in terms of speaking out is really critical. this crosses socioeconomic uresdaries and cult i've had white men in england sending email saying how i helped empower them come up against the priests who sodomized them when they were so that's an important and powerful thing we're doing as well as changing law. but i hopeful. you have to keep persevering and speaking out. >> abby, what do you make of this? >> constantly, i'm heariho from peopleare saying reporting, it doesn't work, or i've gone down this road and what we've done in the past won't work in the future. like they were saying, i very positive and, you know, i was terrified to speak out about my assault, terrified because i didn't want to hurt a group of other people. firefighting is kind of like the movie industry, we'ren a different parallel, it's a very small world. and once i came t, all the people i was working with that i ors terrified would judge me would doubt me, all reached out to me with support. and unlike a lot of people, like these two ladies here o have really gotten knocked downey because e speaking out, i have found so much support from colleagues and the puic, and i really appreciate that. if i had known that many people were going to stand next to me when i spoke out, i think i probably wouldave done it a lot sooner. but definitely as far as the support from the agency, the lack i'm getting and the harassment i've seen, that's discouraging. f i'm getting om peers and supporters. the federal agencies don't know what to do on the inside. when you guys found me and i trusted you, i was terrified because i was afraid the agency would reach out to me and lanch a full investigation and at least want answers or find out t o it was that assaulted me and actually they weefnlt my agency never, once they saw me on national news, say that i had been raped. they never even reached out to me to ask me if i'm okay. and that still scares the hecke. out of so i know there needs to be changes, but i am really positive about them. >> a lot of work yet to be done. katherine kendall, lily bernard and abby bolt, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. >> thank you. >> brangm: even with advances in medical technology and living standards, the united states the bottom of the world's wealthiest nations in infant mortality,enhich is chilying before their first birthday. john yang reports on efforts to address the problem in cincinnati, which has one of the highest rates in the nation. >> ready to put your shoes on, int to put them on the right >> yang: in cincti's avondale neighborhood, it's a typical morninfor ashantti davis, getting fouyear-old royal ready for day care. while also tending to kingadam, who was born in october. driving to lend a hand an offer advice: fellow avondale resident tina brown. >> hello miss brown. >> you been keeping the baby in the crib? you haven't been sleepinwith the baby >> no. >> because i don't want to roll over on him, and sids and stuff. >> keeping him safe. >> yang: and she has a tip on a hospital job for currently works for the cincinnati parks department. >> a worker readiness progg:m? >> yuring both pregnancies, davis had gestational diabetes.ga but with km, she had brown er her side, counseling her on diet, going witho doctor's appointments, reminding her to take her medications. >> with this pregnancy it was easier, u know, me knowing that i had somebody to help me out and uff like that. every week she came by with some type of resources to help me out. >> yang: tina brown is part of a brd effort shaped by mothe and focused on mothers to cut the rate of infant mortality across cincinnati. as recently as 2011, this cound e second-highest rate in the nation. and, despite a 15% drop over the past five years, it still ranks in the top 10%. the arrival of kingadam didn't signal the departure of brown from davis' life. on this day, brown went with her to get clothes for both children at a pantry run by carmel presbyterian church. >> i call her every day, she how she doing. just kind of see what ki i of mood she we've got a close bond, me and ashantti, have a real close bond. >> yang: a year ago, the women we total strangers. brown was matched with davis as her advisor and advocate-- what called a "health champion"-- by the community bu development company that owns the building where davis lives. brown is oe of nine health champions the company employs. c altogether, thrently counsel 64 families with either a pregnant mother or a child six or younger. >> through housing we have a unique access point to reach our residents. >> yang: the deloper is considering expanding the program to its affordable housing properties nationwide. jodi cunningham is the avondale project manager. >> it's really great having actual neighbors leading this. it's a different connection that they can have with moms. b it's easier ld trust with our residents it's easier toll know what wiork. and they really are the experts on avondale. >> yang: the predominantly african-american neighborhood has historically had one the city's highest rates of infant mortality. 's also home to cincinna children's hospital medical center, which houses cradle cincinnati, a campaign to reduce infant mortality countywide. >> the most important part of our work has notng at all to do with the doctor's office. >> yang: cradle cincinnati executive director ryan adcock says listening to women is essential. >> these moms live and breathe in their neighborhoods and therefore they're experts when it comes to the place that is influencing their health. say it's almost daily when i talk to moms that they teach me thing that's going to be instrumental for the change that we're trying to make. >> yang: and it's not juston physical condithat influence their health. in cincinnati, and nationwide, high infant mortality is driven by the fact that black infants elare more than twice as lto die as white babies, regardless of the mother's income and education. >> an african-american mother reth a master's degree is likely to lose her child than a white mom who never graduated from high school. and so it asks us-- it forces us to ask question like what is erent about the black experience in america that is leading to these poor outcomes. and we do think it has to do with bias, we think it has to do with racism. we think these things lead to very real stress that does impact pregnancies and impacts the outcome. >> yang: racism in day-to-day life, including, black women say, at doctors' offices.>> ell a story about when you realized race matters. >> yang: at a recent gathering of cradle cincinnati's mom's advisory board, women prepared their experiences face- to-face with medical professionals. lavenia jones a new mom. >> you'll hear doctors and nurses, 'oh, they're just exaggerating because they're a black person.' but if it's a white person, it's just like, 'oh, my god, this is seriou' they have these preconceived notirs, like "if i give this medication, they'll sell it," like, the preconceived don't do that to our white counterparts. >> yang: meredith shockley- n ith, cradle cincinnati's director of inclusd community strategies, says physicians and nurses welcome the feedback. >> 'surprised' is very often a response. 'why are you afraid of me? why do you feel like this is not stsafe place?' i think there's need for education and training and they are asking f that. >> yang: advisory board member jera boyd, a singesongwriter, lost a baby in 2013 after only four months of pregnancy. >> it was a very traumatic experience, i felt lost.lt i iscouraged. in yang: had there been wa signs before? >> there were no warning signs, but i was under a great-- i would say a great level of stress, which i feel incorporated, you know, added to what ended up happening. >> yang: s says the stress came from an unhealthy relationship, which she did not feel comfortable discussing with her obstetrician, who was white. >> i don't rlly feel like the environment was that serene and comfortable for me to open up and express myself. i really felt like i was just another patient at that time. and that's not a good feeling when your life is at stake. >> yang: in september 2017, boyd gave birtho her daughter, mphony. she had sought out a different doctor, who is black.a >> it watally different helationship from the one i experienced in t past. ultimately she came out a happy and healthy baby. and she's just full of life d excitement. mo yang: boyd and the othe on cradle cincinnati's advisory board share their stories in the belief that interactions outside of doctors offices will help produce more outcomes as happy and healthy as this. for the pbs newshour, i' john yang in cincinnati. >> brangham: now: the power of altruism, not just for those on the receiving end, but also how it provides physical and emotional benefits to the giver. economics correspondent paul tlman has our encore look the joy of giving. it's part of our weekly segment "making sense," which airs every thursday on the "newshour." >> i want you to meet my friend monkey. hello! do you want to say hello? >> reporter: it is better to give than to receive. ouu may have heard it when were about this age or even in the last few weeks, when you stbought out the entire chs list. >> look - monkey has a bowl just like you.yo don't have any treats and neither does monkey. >> reporter: but better for whom? a behavioral economics experiment has come up with a provocative answer. >> i'm goingo give them all to you. >> reporter: psychology professor elizabeth dunn designed this test to see if even very young kids could be happier giving than receiving. >> we worked with kind of the toddler equivalent of gold, namely goldfish crackers. we gave them a bunch goldfish for themselv, and then we gave them the chance to give some of these goldfish away to a puppet named monkey. >> will you ve one to monkey? >> yeah. >> reporter: dunn recordedki dozens o doing this, then had students who knew nothing wout the experiment compare the facial expression receiving... and when giving. whenere they happiest? >> and, what we see is that the toddlers are happier when th're getting the chance t give the goldfish away as compared to when they're getting the goldfish for themselves. >> reporter: much happier. so it's no surprise that, with fellow happiness scholar michael norton, dunn has written a book:"happy money: the science of happier spending." it features five key takeaways.a >> if yo to use money to buy happiness, we suggest you should buy experiences; you should buy time; you should make it a treat; you should pay now and consume later; and, you should invest in others.or >> repr: invest in others: the most surprising finding of the five. and one which regularly elicits skepticism, says business school professor norton. o >> a lpeople, when we talk about the fact that giving makes you happy and you're better off giving than spending money on yourself, will argue back, first off, that we're crazy and secondly, that that can't be utue because i don't really know what you like, b definitely know what i like. and so, just bdefinition, i'm better at spending my money on appinessnd getting than you because i don't know everything about you. >> can panda have one? can one go in his bowl? >> it's just not what we see in this study. so, even with these toddle who are two years old, even if it's the case that their parents aree makinggive in order to be a nice person, they're smiling. and, smiling is something that just comes out. it's not something thacan control very well. >> reporter: and it's not just toddrs. dunn also designed an experiment for grownups. >> we went out on r campus at the university of british columbia and just walked up to peoplen the morning and handed them either a five- or a 20- dollar bill, which we asked them to spend by the end of the day. there was a catch. we told some people they had to spend the moy on themselves. we told some people they had to spend the money on somebody else. what we found was that people who'd been randomly assigned to spend this money on somebodyel felt better by the end of the day than people who'd been assigned to spend that same small amount of money on themselves. >> reporter: a small experiment: small money, small number of subjects. and canadians are unusually nice, eh? >> so then, we conductedxp paralleliments in canada, uganda, south africa, as well aa collecting coronal data from around the world. and what we saw was that in poor and rich countries ali, people felt happier when they had the chance to spend money on others rather than themselves.ep >>ter: best of all, though, is the chance to spend it on others you can actually see. >> a lot of the charitable giving that lot of us do, we write a check and it goes somewhere. and, we can show that that does make you happier, but think of the difference between the check goes into the ether and you don't know what happened with the money compared to you really tangibly see the impact that your money had on another person. >> reporter: or even just the imaginary effect on a stuffie. >> can you give one to giraffe? >> reporter: but are all kids equally altruistic? is there a normal distribution a kind of bell curve some give a lot and are really hsome are not happy at all, most in the middle? >> it's actually surprisingly consistent. so, most of the toddlers are happier when they're giving than when they're getting the treats or themselves. >> reporter: so what's that red spot on the brain? >> the red mark in the brain is a mark of functional activation in the region called the amygdala. >> reporter: georgetow university psychology professor abigail marsh measures the brain activity of what she terms extraordinary altruists, people who donated a kidney to a total stranger. t amygdala is part of what's called the mammalian brain-- it's involved with emotions like fear and social ocesses like, to some extent, love and caring. this is an image from a brain scan we did looking at differences in amygdala activation in people who had donated a kidney to a stranger relative to people who have not. sa reporter: her research, she , was unequivocal: the altruistic amygdalas were about 8% larger than normal. >> altruistic kidneyonors showed increased activation in the amygdala when they saw somebody in distress, whicis the opposite of people at the other end of the compassion spectrum, psychopath show reduced activation in the amygdala when they see somebody in distress. a >> reporte in one study of psychopaths' brains... >> their amgydalas istudy were shown to be 17 to 18 percent smaller than controls, so this also seems to be related to havinlower levels of ncern or compassion for other people. >> reporter: so dr. seuss was right, the grinch's heart was too small? >> yes, i use that analogy sometimes, in fact, maybe it was his amygdala that was too small. >> reporter: so when people find gianng is more gratifying th receiving, what's going on? >> everything we've learned from our research is consistent with the idea that it is a good thing and beneficial for a person to be giving and generous to other people.>> o you want to give the last treat to you or to monkey? >> reporter: one last experiment: the effect of giving on blood pressure. professor dunn gave adults over 65 with high blood pressure pill bottles filled with money. >> we asked them to take home these pill bottles and open them on specified days over the course of three weeks. heside each bottle was $20. and if you look atabel, there are instructions about what you should be doing with that mey. >> reporter: please spend this money on someone else by 4:30 p.m. on the date listed below. >> other people got pill bottles exthat looked very similarpt the instruction is a little bit different. >> reporter: please spend this money on yourself. >> everybody was pretty happy getting pill bottles filled with money. e t when we measure their blood pressure, both befd after the study, what we found waso that people t these pill bottles telling them to spend the money on somebody else showed a significant reduction in their blood pressure from the beginning to the end of the study. in contrast, people who got this topill bottle who were tol spend the money on themselves just showed no change from the beginning to thend. >> reporter: now dunn insists we issue this warning: no mter how generous the hypertense among you become after watching this story, please do not give up your blood pressure medication just yet. but if you want a quick ticket to happiness, it seems, whether your stash is gold or goldfish, give it away. you'll be happy you did. from washington, d.c. and boston, this is economics correspondent paul solman, happily sharing this news with you, the pbs newshour audience. >> brangham: fally tonight, we've been talking throughout this week about iraq and about isis. jeffrey brown brgs us a conversation with an iraqi- american poet and auth who has helped publicize the plight of the women who have been abducted and sold into slavery for years in her native country. >> brown: a crowded friday night at the ishtar restaurant in sterling heights, michigan, where dunya mikhail, her husband and friends often gathplan the activities of what thecall the "mesopotamian forum": iraqi- born americans putting o literary, musical and other events to help preserve their culture. but for several years, mikhail has been obsessed with events far away. in northern iraq, where in 2014 isis forces set about to destroy a people: the ethnically kurdish yazidi, members of an ancientct sehe islamic state considered heretics. an estimated 3000 or more men were killed, often in pits that n uld becomeass graves. and some 6000 wore taken captive, many sold in a market into sexuaaislavery. >> i "that's real? that can happen?" and you know, not only as a humabeing but as a woman i felt really so insulted to know that. so that's en first i was curious to know re. i feel that culture is an important part of language. >> brown: mikhail is a poet and former journalist, an american citizen who fled iraq in the 1990s after her writing landed her in danger duringegime of saddam hussein. learning of the yazidis awaken something personal. >> when i left, i left with one suitcase. so i felt that was not fair just to reduce my life to one suitcase. but now when this happened, it reminded me of how i left and how lucky i was that i was able to leave and with putting some stuff in the suitcase and while these people were just, some of them just leaving empty- handed and still these are luckier than the ones taken captive. >> brown: she began contacting nds in iraq to learn mor eventually finding her way to abdullah shrem, a beekeeper in sinjar devoting his life to rescuing enslafid women. t by phone, later in person in iraq, abdullah introduced mikhail to women who told her their ories of rape and murder. >> he said, "i want the world to know what happened here." he said, "try to get it m translated to y languages as you can." >> brown: the result is p"the bee", first-hand accounts of horrors endured, and acts of heroism by rescuers and the women themselvesha stories likeof maha, whose children were killed and buriete in a garden her first attempt at escape failed. >> she stayed there the garden and refused to move. she stayed like a stone or something. she was just turned into a stone. >> brown: what was it like to listeno these stories, the ones you heard in the camps, the >> i felt honored to be able, like they were telling me that, and they were trusting, they felt i will help them bear witness. >> brown: the world now knows a lot more about what happened. >> zahidi was just 17 when the militants came.sh brown: nr special correspondent jane ferguson reported on the trauma and shame women continue to live with, isng after isis was driven out. and thear's nobel peace prize recognized nadia murad, a yazidi woman who escaped captivity and became thete ational face and advocate for her people. when mikhail returned to iraq for the first time in more than 20 years to visit the camps, she was stunned and moved by theme women sh >> they were so resilient. i thought they would just tell me, that they would be telling me these horrible stories. ere kind of trying to console me. >> brown: they were trying to console you, even though they're telling you about horrific things that happened to them? >> yes. i felt they were trying to make me feel better. >> brown: day, dunya mikhail continues to teach arabic to young students aoakland university, a large public institution in southeast michigan. in her classes, she instills a sense of culture as well as language.co and inues to write her poetry, some of which also appears" "the beekeeper." in her new work, rather than translating her poetry from arabic to english as in the past, she's writing in both languages. a it kind of mirrors you,a writer, maybe as an exile, everything is dual. your life, you have ¡here' and the ¡there'. >> brown: dunya mikhail's next volume of poetry is due next summer. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in sterling heights, michigan. >> brangham: and that's the newshour for tonight.ia i'm wibrangham. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> kevin >> kevin! >> kevin. >> advice for life. life well-planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> and with the ongoing supportt se institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like u. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh acss.wgbh.org of our nation's most treasured recipes from coast to coast. join me in my kitchen as i tch you of our nation's most treasured recipes from coast to coast. the best techniques for making pies, om midwestern sour cherry pie to new england maple custard pie, baking iconic treats from mid-atlantic baltimore peach cake to pennsylvania dutch pumpkin whoopie pies. and all the secrets behind those show-stopping layer cakes on "martha bakes." 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