it was awesome. >> woodruff: plus, silicon valley turns its gaze to the stars. tech startups are working on commercial space flights, mining the moon, and more. >> we're trying to build the iphone of satellites. the beauty of this approach is that for less than the cost of a single imaging satellite in today's world we can launch a entire constellation of satellites. >> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: they searched for victims and tallied the damage today, after a barrage of tornadoes hit the midwest on sunday. at least eight people were killed, and scores more were hurt. the most powerful storm cut a path roughly an eighth of a mile wide, clear across one illinois town of 16,000 people. >> terrified townspeople watched and prayed as the giant funnel ripped through washington, illinois, sunday. winds of almost 200 miles per hour tore at trees and blasted homes to bits. >> this is what my house looks like after a tornado came through. >> in a matter of minutes it was all over. then residents surveyed the damage, up to 500 homes damaged or destroyed. and cars crushed into mangled metal. >> today an emotional mayor gary minere vowed his town will recover. >> that is what this community is about. we love our neighbors and we're going to bounce back from this. and i want to thank the surrounding communities that have reached out in droves of people. it looked like a parking lot last night so many people came into our community to help us. we had to finally shut the community down and say no more. we can't have if i more help. >> reporter: deadly storms from the same weather front raged across the midwest throughout the day on sunday. pulling trees out of the ground and flipping cars. >> it's hard. i couldn't even walk out here last night. i kept wanting to be inside. you get like a little depression mode. so i don't have that drive just of yet to let's go and rebuild again. >> illinois governor pat quinn ultimately declared disasters in seven counties. he too visited the town of washington today. >> it's very, very important that at this time we finish our search-and-rescue efforts all across our state to make sure there is no one in harm away. but upon completion of that, our mission now is to recover. and we will recover. we will prevail over-- these tornadoes. >> reporter: in addition to illinois twisters and damaging winds hit a dozen states. in this image from the national weather service, red dots symbolize more than 80 tornado reports across the region. the blue dots stand for high winds from thunderstorms. those storms knocked down power lines in town after town, at 800,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark this morning. forecasters have sounded an early alert but it was so highly unusual to see that many storms with that much power, this late in the year. with winter quickly approaching, the focus is now on cleaning up and making neighborhoods livable, as the mayor of washington pointed out. >> the fortunate thing is this thing hit in november. and november is not the construction season to that we build homes in this part of our state and part of our country. so it's going to be a longer process than if it happened in march. >> reporter: for now know police are keeping people out of the worst-hit areas until they are declared safe. the tragedy left many questions about the questions about the intensity and volume of the twisters, as well as the unusual timing. for answers, we turn to howard bluestein, a professor of meteorology at the university of oklahoma. you for joining us, professor. we just saw that map in which all of those reported tornadoes throughout the entire midwest. how unusual was it to see a wave of storms like this? >> well, it's very unusual to see a wave of storms like this this time of year. this is something that we expect might happen in march or april. but it's extremely unusual to have such a wide spread outbreak in the midwest in november. >> ifill: let's walk through some of the unusual features here. when was the time of day when these tornadoes struck? we're kind of used to hearing about late afternoon warnings that come, touchdowns of tornadoes. but not an early morning one. >> yes, this was extremely unusual. i believe the storms began around 9:00 in the morning. and usually we need to get the sun's heating during the day to get the storms going am but in this case, a very, very powerful storm system came through that lifted the air very, very early. and we didn't need to get to be very warm for the storms to be triggered. >> ifill: how about the time of year. we heard the mayor of washington, illinois, say it's not construction see son, it's not the time when they are usually building houses. in fact, we're on the lip of winter. how unusual was it for to us see tore tad-- tornadoes like this touchdown this time of year? >> i think this sets an illinois record for the number of tornadoes in november. this time of the year in mid-november, we expect to see snow starting to fall. but instead, very, very warm air came up from the gulf of mexico. the moisture came up from the gulf of mexico and this time of year, it usually doesn't make it that far north. >> ifill: so do we have any reason of understanding why it did this time? >> well, i think this may have been just one unusual event. a storm system came in on friday, an upper level storm system, moved in from canada into the pas civic northwest. it tracked across the country and just before it hit illinois when it was over iowa, it rapidly amplified and intensified. and so i think that was what was mainly responsible for producing this particular outbreak. >> ifill: i've seen reports of everything from a couple of dozen to 42, we just saw 80 reported tornadoes toching down in that region, all those dozen states. do we have a count? is there any way to know what the count is? >> we don't have a good count right now yet. there may have been 80 or more reports of tornadoes. but many of those reports were from the same tornado as it moved along a part. so i expect that the national weather service will probably go out and do damage surveys and after the damage surveys we should know how many tornadoes there actually were. >> ifill: in terms of intensity and speed and scope, how does this compare to other weather events like this we've seen, especially tornadoes in the midwest? >> well, this is not one of the most intense outbreaks we've ever seen. there were no ef-5 tornadoes as far as i know. although after the damage survey, it's possible that they may find some evidence of ef-5 damage. but one thing that was special about these particular tornadoes was that they were moving very quickly from southwest to northeast. and if they are moving at 50 miles an hour, that adds 50 miles an hour on to whatever speeds are of the tornado vortex. so that may have also contributed to the intensity of the tornadoes being relatively high. >> ifill: even though 8 people sadly died, there was a lot of damage. was there a lot of alerts that went out in advance that prevented this from having been worse? >> this particular event was extremely well forecast by the national weather service. the night before the national weather service issued a public statement warning the public of a possible severe weather outbreak. and early in the morning, very early in the morning, a high-risk of severe weather was issued. this is the highest level that can be forecast and issued. >> ifill: it's good that they had some warning, at least. professor howard bluestein of the university of oklahomaing thank you so much. >> you're well come >> ifill: there's word today that a new online calculator appears to greatly overestimate cholesterol risks. the new tech tool was unveiled last week by the american heart association and the american college of cardiology. but "the new york times" reported today the calculator can mistakenly suggest that millions of people take statin drugs, when they don't need them. the medical groups defended their overall guidelines and said they'll look into the calculator issue. workers began a major step toward a full cleanup of a ruined nuclear power plant at fukushima in japan. tokyo electric power company began removing radioactive fuel rods from a reactor damaged during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. to prevent overheating, the rods were placed in a steel cask before being lifted from a storage pool. the utility's president said the process is off to a good beginning. >> today we reached an important milestone at the fuch seema dai-ichi power station. i'm pleased to report to yo you -- has started on time. and progressed safely >> ifill: the operation involves moving more than 1,500 sets of fuel rods to a safer location. it's expected to last until the end of 2014. the man acquitted of killing florida teenager trayvon martin is in trouble with the law again. george zimmerman was charged today with assault and battery in apopka, florida. he'd been arrested at a home he shared with his girlfriend. last july, zimmerman was found not guilty in the martin shooting. since then, he's been stopped for driving violations, and had a domestic dispute with his estranged wife. nasa's latest mission to mars lifted off from cape canaveral this afternoon. the goal is to help explain why the martian climate evolved from warm and wet in its first billion years, to cold and dry today. as this nasa animation shows, the maven explorer is to enter the red planet's orbit in ten months' time, carrying eight scientific instruments to analyze mar's upper atmosphere. wall street passed a couple of milestones today, then retreated. the s&p 500 crossed 1800 at one point, before finishing the day with a loss. and the dow jones industrial average traded above 16,000 for the first time. but by day's end, it gained just 14 points to close at 15976. the nasdaq fell 39 points to close at 3949. it was led by sell-offs of facebook and twitter stock. still to come on the newshour: one family's long search for health insurance. relief difficulties continue in the philippines. silicon valley shoots for the moon. part two of our newsmaker interview with the new head of the a.t.f. and the screenwriter behind the film "12 years a slave," john ridley >> woodruff: the white house said today 20% of americans will still not be able to buy health insurance on the federal exchange website by the end of the month. instead, they'll need to sign up by phone or in person, in many cases because of the complexity of their situation. but in advance of a congressional hearing, a senior obama administration official was quoted as saying healthcare.gov is improving, and said they are working on making it easier for people to understand whether they are eligible for subsidies. that's been a problem for many up to now. it brings us to our series on reactions to the affordable care act. tonight, we hear from a couple in colorado who are finally able to insure their family with the help of a subsidy, through a tax credit. >> my name is joaquin montez. >> and my name is rosalee montez. >> we live in nevada, colorado and we have three kids. >> our oldest is a daughter, and she's in college. and we have a middle, he is a son and he's 13th and es 1/8 grader. our little one is four years old. we met in high school in the 9th grade i think was. and we've been together 24 years. >> 25. >> 25. >> i work in a warehouse and i do not get health benefits. >> i work in a warehouse as well doing commercial signage. and they don't offer any benefits. it's too small of a company. >> we haven't had insurance because it's pretty expensive for us. you know, even though we have a two-income household, it gets really expensive. >> its that's the water. >> we looked into health insurance before and it ranges from about 450 to $600 depending on who you go through and what kind of deductibles you have and stuff like that. so it's kind of expensive for us on top of a house payment, a car payment, as well as making sure our kids and fed and stuff like that. so normally what we do when our kid does get really, really, really sick, we take them to urgent care, you know, because we can't afford any hospital bills and stuff. and it's kind of a flat ratement you pay as you go. >> but it gets pretty pricey. our son plays football and has broken his collarbone twice, one right after the other, same spot. we had to go to urgent care both times. >> there was another time too where my oldest daughter had got real sick from something she had ate. and you know, there was really nothing we could do to help her out. we tried to wait it out as much as we could but she was really in pain. so we took her to the hospital. and it was pretty expensive. >> she got e coli. >> so i think that bill ended up being close to $17,000. >> how was your day today. >> i was always worried and anxious. i try to do the best i can when they are sick here to remedy them at home. but there are things you can't do. it's such a big load to carry because you're just on a daily basis you're wondering if your kids are healthyment and when they're not you're just trying to figure out different ways to get them healthy without the insurance. >> we first heard about the obamacare through a community outreach program. one of the guys that i talked mentioned to me that there were other people in the program that could help us out with obamacare. so we called the lady that worked there. and she didn't hesitate. i think two days later we actually met with her. got into her office. she sat us down. we filled out the applications and that's how we went about applying for it. >> we kind of got split up in our insurance. the kids are on chp and a government program that insurances children and they're separate from what we qualified for. we qualified for basic insurance. >> with ot bamacare the main cost will be $450 per month. obamacare, the tax credits will give us $287 a month to apply towards that bill so our final bill will be $155 a month. now that the tax cede sit helping us out, we're able to afford it. >> dear lord we thank you for blessing us with another day, father. >> knowing that we have that, and that we can qualify for something because there have been so many times we've been turned down to be qualified for anything, to have somebody actually say yes, you qualify this and this is what you are able to get, we could actually breathe now. you know, actually say we got insurance, you know. so it was awesome. >> woodruff: as we have throughout, we try to fill out the bigger picture. tonight, julie rovner of npr is back to help us out. >> thanks, judey. >> woodruff: so we just saw the story of the montez family in colorado. generally who is eligible to apply for and get a subsidy like the one they got? >> it's people who are in between 100% and 400%6 poverty. people don't realize there is actually a floor. if you earn under 100%6 poverty are you not eligible to purchase on the exchange it was assumed those people would be getting the expanded medicaid, in the states that are doing that they will, in the other half of the states they could fall between the cracks, but if you are up to 400% of poverty, that is about $46,000 for an individual, up to about $94,000, so well into the middle class for a family of four, you will be eligible for some subsidy. obviously the subsidies are larger the lower your income is and smaller as your income gets higher. >> if you are not clear about it, you go to the web site and you start to put in information, that's when you find out whether you are eligible. >> that's how it is supposed to work. and that's been a lot of where the problem has been is trying to figure out exactly how big your subsidy is. and there's this data hub that you are supposed to put in your income and it's supposed to go and look at your income from through the irs and figure out exactly what your subsidy is going to be and come back and tell you that. then it's supposed to show you these plans with your subsidy applied. so you are supposed to see how much it will cost you with that subsidy included. >> woodruff: so when it works correctly, and i hear you saying it hasn't always been working correctly what is supposed to happen? you go to the site or you're on the phone and what happens. >> you go to the site or you're on the phone. you're supposed to get qualified, basically, find out what kind of subsidy you are eligible for. and then you go and choose a plan and basically that discount, it becomes a discount. and so you pay as we just saw in the piece, the family is only going to pay the subsidized price. it's not like you have to ask for the tax credit at tax time. that tax credit get as plied on a month-to-month basis. then at tax time you reconcile f you have underpaid, you pay a little more. if you have overpaid you get a little bit of pun back. >> that was my question. this was in the form of it's not just that you pay a lower premium, it's that this literally comes off your income tax. >> that's right, it's a tax credit but it is what we call an advanceable, refundable tax credit so it gets applied to your monthly premium. but then when you file your taxes, you basically have to make sure that you got the right amount. >> woodruff: and again it's not this year, 2013, it will start to take effect in 2014 when they would start to pay the premium. >> that's right. and would you basically, so you will file it in april of 2015 when dow your 2014 taxes. >> so as people have tried this, what kinds of things have they run into as they've tried to apply for this. >> a lot of people have had trouble basically getting, you know, this estimate of what their subsidy will be. that was the biggest difficult for a lot of people was finding out what that subsidy is it's also the biggest difficulty in people outside trying to sign up. a lot of outside groups, the insurance companies, some outside private exchanges like e health insurance have wanted to sign up but they call the subsidy eligible people. there are a lot of them. they haven't been able to because the federal government hasn't been able to find a way to take these people, find out what they-- determine their subsidy and let them then go back to these outside places and sign up for these health insurance plans. so they have been basically stuck in the federal web site that doesn't work that well wansd remind us why did the obama administration feel the need to do these subsidies in the first place? >> well, basically, the basic part of this was the individual health insurance system didn't work. it kept a lot of people with preexisting health conditions out so the first thing was to let everybody who wanted insurance to get in. of course if you have sick people in this pool, now you want to have a lot more healthy people in the pool. in order to get healthy people in the pool, you basically had to require a lot of people in the pool. if you are going to require people in there, what were you going to do about people who couldn't afford it well, you were going to have to give them help. that is what the subsidies are for. there to get people in who otherwise couldn't afford it. >> woodruff: and do we know just quickly, julie, what percentage or how many people they believe are eligible for the subsidies? >> well, the estimates vary but the congressional budget office and others have estimated that somewhere between 18 and 20 million people total, this is over the next several years will be eligible for some sort of financial help inside the exchanges. >> woodruff: and just finally, broaden it out, to the overall problems, the administration has been having. they've been giving daily updates, reports on how it's going. what are they saying right now? >> they keep saying it's getting better. that the error rates are going down, people are getting on faster. that they're having an easier time. for instance, determining what kind of subsidy they're eligible for. they're still working what they say on the back end of the exchange which is getting people actually enrolled in plants and giving out information to the insurance plan. they still say they're aiming to have this all working well at the end of the month. but they do keep redefine wraing working well at the end of the month actually means. there is going to be a big crunch because there are a lot of people who will want to sign up, as they've been waiting for the end of the month, by december 15th, the date you need to be signed up in order to have coverage start january 1st. >> woodruff: starting january 1. and that is just days away. >> certainly will be by the end of the month. >> woodruff: julie rovner of npr, thank you. >> you're welcome. >> ifill: there were some slow signs of recovery in the typhoon ravaged philippines today, as some markets and gas stations reopened. but u.n. officials warned some islands still haven't even been reached. we have a report from angus walker of independent television news. >> they're living with the dead. they found sanctuary in a cemetery. sleeping on top of tomb. these crypts are now homes for nine families, tess tate tells me she used to live in scotland, her british husband died 11 years ago. she returned to the philippines. now she's lost everything. she sees the bodies recovered from the typhoon being brought in for burial. >> nothing we can do. >> reporter: in two of the fresh graves, christian age 7 and jim philip, four years old. the boys had been told they'd be safer in this car before the typhoon hit. in all, eight children and two adults squeezed inside. only one child survived. their nine-year-old brother. their father tell its me believes it was god's will that he lost two of his three sons. a new life, a week old, her family living hand-to-mouth in the ruins of their house they now share with homeless neighbors. among them, imelda, a mother of seven, her husband was killed. >> really difficult. i miss him very much. >> reporter: in a city of death, signs of life return every day. survival goes on o searching for things to sell. market stalls getting stock, repairs and recovery now clearly under way. for decades when americans have talked about exploring space, the government agency nasa has been front and center in every conversation. nasa, in fact, launched its latest mission to mars just today. but the private sector is stepping up to the plate too, increasingly in california's prosperous silicon valley. kqed in san francisco narrates our report. >> reporter: 100 miles north of los angeles in the dusty desert town of mojave the world's first commercial rocket ship is gearing up to launch at tro naughts to the edge of space. no, this isn't a movie, it's real. >> for 50 years space has been the domain of professionals, right? nasa astronauts, russian astronaut, chinese astronauts. and so what we want to do is to make space available and open to other people. >> reporter: but to experience the thrill of a few minutes of weightlessness you'll have to pay virgin galactic $250,000 for a two and a half hour ride 60 or so miles above earth. sure, it's a luxury but virgin galactic c.e.o. george whiteside thinks that price will fall eventually. >> long term, you know, i think the price can come down. zurnd an suv price point, you know, where you get down to that level. it's still expensive but i think a lot of people would be willing to do this, sort of once in their lives. >> since billionaire tycoon richard branson founded virgin galactic in 2005 more than 600 people have placed deposits for the first commercial supersonic flights. they're scheduled to lift off in 2014. today dozens of companies are launching new commercial space ventures ranging from space tourism to mining the moon, fueled by the risk-taking start-up culture of silicon valley. bob richards is the c.e.o. of moon express, a start-up in mountain view. he and his team of young engineers are planning an unmanned mission to the moon at a cost of 50 to $100 million. >> so in getting to the moon like any business, it's really about balancing risk and cost. this is a supercomputer in my pocket. a billion times more powerful than what nasa designed to land the first landers on the moon. we can use that technology today. and we can use technology largely for the commercial sector. >> reporter: sure a privately funded mission to the moon sounds risky, but richard thinks it's a gold mine of a business opportunity. >> reporter: moon express is a hundreddar resources company that means we will eventually be mining the moon. asteroids have been bombarding both the earth and moon for billions of years and every asteroid contains billions or maybe trillionses of dollars worth of valuable resources. metals, gold, silver. >> reporter: but before moon express can mine the moon, it has to get there. which it's trying to do with a lunar landing being tested and developed inside a hangar at nasa aims research center. >> let me show you the test from this morning. this is kind of like drivers ed for the spacecraft. we're teaching it over and over how to land safely. >> the lander is scheduled to launch in 2015 with later commissions to prospect and eventually mine the moon. but can a company even legally do that? the law isn't entirely clear, according to aviation and space flight attorney douglas griffith. >> the outer space training of 1967 is addressed to nations. it is as that nations cannot own the moon it doesn't say anything about whether private companies can settle on the moon or extract the moon's resources because people just weren't thinking about that back then. >> one minute 35 seconds. >> reporter: the for-profit space ventures of today are a far cry from the big government lead efforts that thrust a nation to exceptional moon -- >> the eagle has landed. >> during the space raise nasa as a government entity would farm out projects to many companies, it may be a single use mission to the moon, and they would fund it. in the new model companies look for business opportunities. >> reporter: steve is a venture capitalist whose firm has invested tens of millions of dollars in space x, a california rocket maker, and provider of launch services founded by tech entrepreneur elion mosk. nasa is paying space x a billion dollars to reply-- resupply missions to the international space station. in may 2012 space x became the first private company to launch a mission to the space station. the milestone proved the company could build and launch rockets reliably and cheaply. >> and capture is con termed of this dragon spacecraft. >> many of these new space companies are being built by software engineers. and folks at space x didn't come from aerospace, these are computer scientists by training. time and time again it has prove ten is the hot bed of prn entrepreneurship. it invents new industries and part of it is the culture, willing to take risk. >> reporter: part of it may also be a high-tech approach to innovate industries as dan berkenstock and its team are trying to do with satellites. >> a typical imaging satellite today costs between half a billion and $1 billion with a b. they're about the size of a suburban and they take five to eight years roughly to build. we're trying to build the iphone of satellites. we take-- off the shelf so we can fly the ratest-- latest and greatest components in space that are available in the commercial marketplace. the beauty of this approach is that for less than the cost of a single imaging satellite in today's world, we can launch an entire constellation of satellites. what excites us is really taking that very good foundation of the mapping industry of today and helping to turn that into the monitoring industry of tomorrow where we're not just getting that picture once a year, once every couple of years, we're getting that picture every day, multiple times per day. >> the satellites we build at skybox are about the size of a dorm room refrigerator, they bea about a hundred kilograms and we've tried to pack as much high performance into the smallest box possible. >> with the first skybox satellite scheduled to launch in late 2013 the start-up founders think there's a big market for rapid on demand earth monitoring. >> i think over san francisco this would be awesome. >> we would be able to see the bay bridge, the golden gate bridge, you know, how is your commute to work, all of the shipping traffic throughout the channel. >> sure. >> all the various ports throughout the bay. >> but big, bold ideas carry risk, especially in the high stakes unforgiving frontier of space. >> and there were times when this nation took some risks flying humans in orbit. but we all know in our heart failure has to be an option. we can't innovate if failure is not an option. how much risk do you want to take to push the ball forward. >> in the digital age that push may be a leap that radically expands our presence in space. >> woodruff: to hear more from these new space entrepreneurs, you can watch kqed's entire documentary, "silicon valley goes to space," at kqed.org/science. >> woodruff: now to part two of our newsmaker interview with b. todd jones, the new director of the federal bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives. the first half of our conversation focused on the agency's responsibility for keeping track of the nation's 300 million firearms. tonight, we discuss urban violence, "fast and furious," and illegal cigarette profits going to terrorists. we talked late last week at the bureau's headquarters here in washington. >> todd jones, the director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms an explosives, thank you for talking with us. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: so how do you describe what the priorities are today, 2013, for this agency? >> well, i think really it's digested down to three things for me. one is to get the organization healthy. both from a morale standpoint, from a human resources standpoint, from a policies and procedure os standpoint. we need to get healthier. we're about to lose a generation of agents and that's creating some challenges for us in terms of that knowledge transfer that we're going to need. second is to implement our new business practices which is really driven around risk management and intelligence. we're to the big enough to be everywhere and do everything well. and so this business model that we're implementing really allows us to focus in on the worst of the worst on the regulatory front and assisting our state local and federal partners on identifying those trigger pullers and traffickers around the country who are creating havoc in our community. and lastly, to bring aff-- atf fully into the department of justice. it's only been in the department for ten years, with five acting directors in the last seven years. it hasn't been a consistent implementation to make sure that we are completely in sync both operationally and procedurally with our brother and sister agencies at the fbi, the dea and the marshal service. >> woodruff: you mentioned trigger pullers and traffickers. what does that mean? what does that focus mean? >> well, there are pockets of violence around this country that continue to exist and are tragedies, tragedies on a bailey basis. a lot of the coverage is on the mass shootings. and those are tragedies too. but to a certain degree there's slow motion mass shootings happening in urban areas, in particular around this country that are equal tragedies. young folks killing young folks, people in the crossfire of getting hurt. and so what that means for us is working with state local and federal colleagues, we are doing what we do best in terms of identifying trafficking patterns, and identifying the worst trigger pullers, arm career criminals wrecking havoc in those communities and bringing them into federal court. >> woodruff: and yet i read that even though one of the mandates is to inspect gun dealer its at least once every five years, that more than half the gun dealers in this country don't get that kind of an inspection within every five years. why is that? >> well, one of it is a resource issue. we have about 7, 800 investigators on our regulatory side. they literally have tens of thousands of ffls that they have to inspect. but what we have done-- federally firearms licensees that they are required to inspect. and i think that's one of the stats. but you know, 9% of ffls around this country are doing business lawfully, are paying attention to who they're doing business with. and quite frankly, require less attention from us as regulators. and so our challenge has been to identify through our tracing mechanism and other tools that we have, where are those federal firearms licensees who continue to dump firearms into that illegal crime gun pool. where are they. are they obeying with the regs and if they're not, to pull their licence. and that's where our focus should be given its resources that we have. >> woodruff: you have a large mandate here. one of the-- one of it has-- the mandates has to do with tobacco. reporting recently having to do with cigarette smuggling, makes it clear that's another headache for you. and we read that in the past few years smugglers with ties to terrorist groups have acquired millions of dollars from illegal cigarette sales. they funnel that cash. reportedly to al qaeda, to hezbollah. how big a concern is this? >> well, tobacco smuggling an tobacco trafficking cases that have a terrorist hook or involved organized crime or something that we do pay attention to. again, there's only so much we can do. >> woodruff: is this an area that you're beefing up or feeling that you need to pass and let other agencies worry more? >> when it comes to terrorism or organized crime involved in cigarette trafficking, we will work with our colleagues in other law enforcement agencies including the fbi to do some of those investigations. >> we know that the bureau has had some high profile controversies in recent years, most notably fast and furious. this exercise where atf agents in effect were standing by while drug cartels were taking trafficking in guns and moving them across the border. cigarette smuggling ring we mentioned, other problems. how confident are you that this kind of thing is now a part of the past of the bureau and not the future? >> again, i've been a trial lawyer most of my life and a prosecutor and i've learned never say never. because we operate in a business that is chock full of risk. but what i do have a high level of confidence in given some of the fixes that we put in, the leadership team we have in place, and our institutionalization of really the flaws as to what happened on the southwest border, i have a higher level of confidence now 24 months on the job than i did when i came to this organization for the first time in september of 2011. we have done a fair amount of work to make sure that cases are monitored. that there's appropriate leadership involved in decision-making. and that the communications between what's happening out in the field and what the knowledge of headquarters here in washington d.c. knows, is much, much better than it was when i arrived here. >> todd jones, the director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosive, thank you very much. >> thank you >> ifill: a recently released movie about "the peculiar institution" of slavery in america is drawing attention and praise for an emotional and brutal portrayal largely unseen in hollywood. "12 years a slave," directed by steve mcqueen, is based on an 1853 autobiography of free man turned slave solomon northup. jeffrey brown has our conversation with one of the filmmakers. >> brown: when we first meet northup, he's a well-educated carpenter and musician living with his wife and children in saratoga springs, new york. the film follows as he's kidnapped and sold into slavery, experiencing all its brutality and forced to hide his identity and education for fear of punishment or death. in this scene, he encounters the wife of a cruel louisiana plantation owner. >> this is a list of goods-- goods and sundries, will you take it to be filled and return immediately. take 9 tag. tell him to add it to our debt. >> yes, missus. >> where you from? >> i told you. >> tell me again. >> washington. >> who were your master. >> master freeman. >> was he a learned man? >> i suppose so. >> he learn to you read? >> a word here or there. but i no understanding the written text. >> don't trouble yourself with it. same with the rest. the master brought you here to work, that's all. any more will earn you a hundred lashes. >> brown: john ridley wrote the screenplay for "12 years a slave". he's also written for television, authored several novels, and directed two films of his own. tell us about soloman northup and the book this is based on. what was your experience of first reading it? >> solomon is a truly remarkable individual. and one of the interesting things is after he was freed from slavery for 12 years, his story, his memoir called "12 years a slave" was really quite well known here in america it sold nearly 30,000 copies. he toured. he talked about it. many abolitionists credit his story with helping drive their movement. and then it really, it disappeared from the cultural consciousness. steve mcqueen and i, the director of the film, we sat down about four or five years ago and had breakfast. talked about many things. and in the course of the of this discussion he stumbled upon the book. he gave it to me. i read it and thought it was a really singular document in how evocative it was, how the clarity of how solomon tacked about his experience, and we both decided that this story in particular was worth telling and in a way that really introduced in some ways america to slavery in the sense that it had not been excavated the way that steve in particular wanted to do with this film, and the story. >> well, tell us a little bit more about that. because what were you after in telling the story. what kind of portrait that you felt needed to be told? >> for me as a writer there was an emotional honesty and emotional vel os wits solomon and his story. you have to understand that at that time, for a lot of people of color, particularly slaves, as you saw in that clip to read and write was a death sentence. so comparatively there were very few first person narratives waf what it was like to live through and to survive slavery. i think for steve as a filmmaker, he wanted to render these images, the beautiful ones, the difficult ones, with a level of authenticity that for a lot of people has not been seen in film or in television. for most people their visual experiences with slavery were "gone with the wind", things like that, or django which may be an entertaining film. but it was a different mind-set. for us we wanted an emotional honesty and that's what we tried to achieve in every step of the way with the look, with the performances and certainly for me with the script. >> you mentioned something like "gone with the wind". a lot of people have noted there is a long history here, tradition of looking at the civil war and slavery in particular. were you consciously working for it again in some case or against that portrayal in others? >> for me it was trying to be honest to the source material. but since the film has started to roll out and we're just reaching a national density at this point, one of the things that really surprised me, and this is not for any kind of person in particular or any race of people, but i was shocked at how many people really didn't understand how brutal the system of slavery was, how pervasive it was in its indoctrination of all individuals. and i think that's because here in hollywood we've done a really poor job of representing the facts of slavery. so yeah, you go to big costume dramas like gone with the wind that over the decades has really reached a point that that is folk's reference force slavery. slavery was not a bad thing on the job it was not your boss yelling at you. it was not hard work for little pay. this was a full system of human sub jugation and to do that you have to get everyone to be complicity. and look, we're not prisoners to the past but when you see where we are in 2013 and why some of our views about race are so calcified, you have to understand that the indoctrination of slavery in this country for such a long time, it's the reason we are, unfortunately, still where we are about race relations. >> brown: having seened the film, i know that you do not spare the audience. to you do not spare us much of the-- it's the daily violence, the whippings, the rape, they were almost routine. i wonder were there discussions among you and steve mcqueen and others about how far to go? i mean you're trying to be realistic but you also, it's a film that people are going to see. >> yeah, i think in some ways you have to compare where the language is, we just come out of the summer see con and i don't say this in an overly disparraging way but where entire cities were torn down and people just shrugged because of the level of violence and the scale of destruction and within that language of cinema. with this phil am, i think it's because you care about the people and because we take so much time to show these lives and show these individuals as humans that on the occasion, and really when you break down the fill tlm are three or four moments that are very difficult, it means that much more because we see these individuals as people. and we never wanted to flinch from these moments either. the beauty, the humanity, the family nature that is going on here, or things that are difficult, by the way, that aren't very barbaric. in terms of the physicality. but when you see a mother being torn away from their children an someone's response is have a meal and you'll forget about them. that hurts because we care. that was our objective and every moment to humanize these very dehumanizing moments in the history of slavery. >> in the last 30 secretaries here, what i am wondering given the response to it, the very positive response, do you think this signals a new openness to looking at difficult parts of our history? >> i think it's an openness to look at our history and looking at history as not just being african-american history or white american history, this is our history. and to move forward in it we've got to learn and grow. i'm very gratified that people are willing to sit and learn. >> john ridley is screenwriter of 12 years a slave. thanks so much. >> thank you for having me. >> woodruff: finally tonight, an encore from our occasional series on poets and poetry. naomi shihab nye is author of more than 25 volumes and winner of numerous awards. she is a member of the board of chancellors of the academy of american poets, and as we will hear, regularly conducts writing workshops around the country for young people. >> my name is naomi shihab nye. i live in san antonio texas. i have been working with students of all ages for 38 years, encouraging them to write their own poems and stories and discover how much material they have. i took the title for my recent book "transfer" from an actual airline's baggage tag, but i was thinking about all the different kinds of transfer we make in our lives from one stage of our lives to another. my mother, miriam shihab, exposed her children to art and culture as much as she could, and our father, aziz shihab, was an immigrant from palestine, a refugee. i was lucky to be told stories as a little child. our father brought tales out of this palestinian background to our bedsides, and the minute i could write when i was six years old, i wanted to start writing little detailed stories, poems of my own. it seemed that telling a story helped us focus, helped us figure out who we were anyway, where were we in the world. "storyteller." where is the door to the story? is the door left open? when he sat by our beds, the days rushed past like water. driftwood, bricks, heavy cargoes disappearing downstream, no matter, no matter, even the trees outside our screens tipped their cooling leaves to listen. my father was very disappointed by war and fighting, and he thought language could help us out of cycles of revenge and animosity, and so as a journalist he always found himself asking lots of questions and trying to gather information. he was always very clear to underscore the fact that jewish people and arab people were brother and sister. that was in every story that he told. he would say this conflict came about because of political decisions or decisions made by powers in different countries, and it's not the fault of jewish people and arab people. he was convinced all through his life that resolution was possible. "many asked me not to forget them." where do you keep all these people? the shoemaker with his rumpled cough. the man who twisted straws into brooms. my teacher, oh my teacher. i will always cry when i think of my teacher. the olive farmer who lost every inch of ground, every tree, who sat with head in his hands in his son's living room for years after. in the poem "many asked me not to forget them," i found the line, that actual line in my fathers notebooks after he died, and then the poem i wrote came out in his voice. when he died and i really couldn't imagine how i would continue to live without this voice, until i realized i would always have that voice in my days. it was in my d.n.a., it was in my memory. i tucked them into my drawer with cuff links and bow ties. touched them each evening before i slept. wished them happiness and peace. peace in the heart. no wonder we all got heart trouble. >> you want to be carried away by. i do think that all of us think in poems. i think of a poem as being deeper than headline news. you know how they talk about breaking news all the time, that if too much breaking news... trying to absorb all the breaking news, you start feeling really broken and you need something that takes you to a place that's a little more timeless, that kind of gives you a place to stand, to look out at all these things otherwise you just feel assaulted by all of the tragedy in the world on a continual basis. ...we swam so easily to the stone village, women in thick dresses, men with smoky breath, we sat around the fire pitching in our own twigs, the world curled around us sizzled and popped. we dropped our troubles into the lap of the storyteller and they turned into someone else's. >> ifill: within you can wap an read more power did -- poem and read more on the sear on our poetry page. >> the major developments the death toll the death toll rose to eight in the barrage of tornadoes that blasted the midwest on sunday. the worst storm carved a path through the town of washington, illinois, damaging or destroying up to 500 homes. workers in japan began the delicate job of removing fuel rods from the ruined fukushima nuclear plant. the process could last more than a year. and the dow industrials traded above 16,000 for the first time before closing at 15,976. >> ifill: on the newshour online right now: this week, we reflect on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of president john f. kennedy. today, a look at some of the journalists whose careers were shaped by that day, including newshour founders jim lehrer and robert macneil. you can find that report on our homepage. plus, the oxford english dictionary has released its word of the year, and the winner is... you'll have to check the rundown at 7:00 p.m. eastern time. that's when the word will be revealed. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> what is the word. >> you have plenty of time to think about it, sequester. >> that is so boring. >> that is so boring. >> my-- is that kid. >> i like that one. i like that one. and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at the legacy of the gettysburg address, fourscore and 70 years after abraham lincoln delivered his most famous speech. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> this is "bbc world news america." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, newman's own foundation, giving all profits to charity and pursuing the common good for over 30 years, and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers work hard to know your business, offering specialized solutions in capital to help you meet your growth and objectives. we offer expertise and tailored solutions for small and businesses and major corporations. what can we do for you? >> and now, "bbc world news america." >> reporting from washington. libya faces a major crisis. two years after colonel qaddafi was ousted, violence in the capital. competing militias battle for control. sowhen colonel gaddafi went did all his institutions starting with the security forces. they had to rebuild from the bottom up. >> towns in the philippines planned by the typhoon received a visit from the president. who is to blame, t