>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the u.s. navy tested the waters in part of the south china sea, and touched off verbal combat with china. an american destroyer sailed within 12 nautical miles of a chinese-built island in disputed waters. it's part of the spratly islands, where vietnam and the philippines also have claims. beijing rejects those claims, and it roundly criticized the u.s. action. >> ( translated ): if any country has any illusions about carrying out any actions to interfere in or obstruct china's legal, reasonable and fair activities on our territory, i urge those countries to abandon these illusions. it may make china come to the inevitable conclusion that maybe we do have to strengthen and quicken the building up of our capacities. >> woodruff: in washington, the state department said the u.s. has a right to freedom of navigation in the area. the defense department has awarded northrop grumman its biggest contract in more than a decade, for the next generation long-range bomber. the announcement late today involves a potential 100 stealth bombers, at a cost of up to $80 billion. >> ifill: pentagon leaders called today for stepping up the campaign against islamic state forces. at a senate hearing, they talked of new moves in the middle east, involving both air and ground components. >> ifill: defense secretary ashton carter told senators this morning the shift in strategy would involve a beefed-up u.s. air campaign and, possibly, frontline combat support. >> we won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against isil or conducting such missions directly. whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground. >> ifill: the new chair of the joint chiefs of staff, marine general joseph dunford, agreed it may be time to put american combat boots on the ground. >> if it had operational or strategic impact and we could reinforce success, that would be the basic framework within which i'd make a recommendation for additional forces to be co- located with iraqi units. >> ifill: the two leaders said they hope to target two key locations: raqqa, the islamic state's self-declared capital in syria, and the militant stronghold ramadi, the capital of anbar province in western iraq. the new approach comes as the obama administration deals with the failures, so far, of its campaign against isil. in particular: the u.s. military had hoped to train 5,400 moderate fighters in syria, but actually fielded only a few dozen. the focus now is on supporting kurdish militias and others, and on ramping up air strikes. carter said that effort will intensify despite russia's new air campaign, in support of syrian president assad. >> we are not cooperating with russia and we're not letting russia impact the pace or scope of our campaign against isil in iraq and syria. >> ifill: but several republican senators -- including presidential hopeful lindsay graham -- argued it's too little, too late. >> what you've done gentlemen, along with the president, is you've turned syria over to russia and iran. this is a sad day for america, and the region will pay hell for this because the arabs are not going to accept it. the people in syria are not going to accept this. this is a half-assed strategy at best. >> ifill: any changes in u.s. strategy still need president obama's formal approval. indications are, that could come as early as this week. >> ifill: separately, russia announced it has invited iran to join international talks on syria's future. they are scheduled in vienna, later this week. >> woodruff: the earthquake death toll in afghanistan and pakistan climbed today to nearly 380. the quake was centered deep under the hindu kush mountain range, near the afghan city of fayzabad. rescuers struggled today to reach the hardest-hit areas, and teams went out on foot to assess damage and casualties. pakistani helicopters ferried out some of the injured, but supply drops may not begin for some days. >> ifill: back in this country, the f.b.i. has opened a civil rights investigation into a sheriff's deputy who tossed a high school girl from her desk at a south carolina school. officials say the girl disrupted class, and refused an order to leave. with that, the white deputy is seen flipping the black teen and dragging her away. another student recorded the scene. the incident drew nationwide condemnation today, and the chair of the local school district trustees joined it. >> i repeat that what happened yesterday, what we all watched on that shamefully shocking video is reprehensible, unforgivable and inconsistent with everything this district stands for, what we work for and what we aspire to be. >> ifill: black parents in the school district said there's a long history or discrimination. the girl was charged with disturbing school and released to her family. the deputy has been placed on leave. >> woodruff: president obama defended police today, as officers come under scrutiny for law enforcement practices in minority communities. he spoke to a meeting of the international association of chiefs of police, in his hometown of chicago. >> too often law enforcement gets scape-goated for the broader failures of society and our criminal justice system. and i know you do your jobs with distinction no matter the challenges you face, that's part of wearing the badge. but we can't expect you to contain and control problems that the rest of us aren't willing to face or do anything about. >> woodruff: the president spoke as the justice department reported that ambush attacks on police held steady between 1999 and 2013, at about 200 a year. there have been questions about whether such attacks are now on the rise. >> ifill: c.i.a. director john brennan says he was outraged when he learned his personal e-mail account had been hacked. word of the hacking emerged last week. i asked brennan about it today at a forum co-sponsored by george washington university and the c.i.a. >> i certainly was concerned about what people might try to do with that information. i also dismayed by how some of the media handled it. the implication from some of the reporting was that i was doing something inappropriate or wrong, or a violation of security responsibilities, which was certainly not the case. >> ifill: the hacked data included brennan's contact list and his wife's social security number. >> woodruff: for americans under the age of 75, there's good news today about life, and death. the american cancer society reports the death rate in that age group, from all causes, fell more than 40% between 1969 and 2013. the research found deaths from strokes dropped by 77% during that period. at the same time, heart disease fatalities were down nearly 70%. the study also said deaths from unintended injury fell by 40%. >> ifill: on wall street, stocks skidded after crude oil hit two-month lows. the dow jones industrial average lost more than 40 points to close at 17,580. the nasdaq fell four points, and the s&p 500 slipped five. >> woodruff: and abby wambach, the all-time leading goal scorer in international soccer history, is retiring. wambach announced her decision today, after president obama honored the u.s. women's team at the white house for winning the women's world cup in july. wambach's final game will be december 16. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour: a budget deal to avert a fiscal crisis; dueling realities clash in syria: inside the rubble, and resorts; ted koppel warns of a cyber attack on the electrical grid, and much more. >> woodruff: the gridlock in washington seems to be easing this week. deals are being made, votes cast and the speaker of the house is trying to clear the deck for his replacement waiting in the wings. political director lisa desjardins reports. >> having listened to our members and listened to the american people we have a budget agreement. >> reporter: the outgoing speaker of the house, john boehner, used one of his final news conferences to make the announcement. >> the agreement is not perfect by any means. but the alternative was a clean debt ceiling increase without any additional support for our troops and without any entitlement reforms. >> reporter: the deal would increase spending by $80 billion over the next two years, boosting both defense and domestic programs. it would also lift the federal debt ceiling through the spring of 2017. within the divided house republican conference, the tentative agreement drew backing from boehner supporters. >> like all these things you wish you were negotiating with yourselves, but you're not. i think it will pass. i think it ought to pass. again, it's fair enough to be critical of it. but if you're going to do that, you have to lay out what you would do. >> i'm encouraged by the fact we're doing something that looks like a budget with the budget with the president. >> reporter: but the most conservative republicans -- members of the freedom caucus, who helped drive boehner to retire -- were not on board. >> i will not be voting for it. because in my view, it's financially irresponsible. >> this is a very complex deal. this thing must have taken weeks, probably months, to negotiate and it was dropped on us in less than 48 hours. >> this is our problem with speaker boehner. he has been speaker of the united states, not speaker of the house of representatives. >> reporter: wisconsin republican paul ryan, the man likely to become speaker, said the closed-door process of getting the deal "stinks", and he declined to say how he'd vote. boehner said he agrees about the process, but he argued the deal deserves support. >> listen, when you've got bipartisan agreement in a town that is not known for bi-partisanship, you're going to see a lot of bricks flying from those that don't like the fact that there's a bipartisan agreement. >> reporter: this afternoon, senate leaders on both sides added their support. >> this agreement is a victory over the loudest, most extreme voices in the republican party. passing it into law would be a victory for common sense and middle class. >> i am hopeful and optimistic that that bill will come over to the senate and when it does, we will take it up. >> reporter: the house could vote tomorrow, with a goal of final congressional passage by next week's debt ceiling deadline. >> woodruff: later, president obama welcomed word of the agreement, and urged quick action. lisa joins us now from capitol hill with the latest. so, lisa, hello. it is not quite a done deal, but, as we heard, the democrats are celebrating, already. >> yeah, democrats are celebrating in the senate. some top democrats sat down with reporters and said they feel this is an incredible deal. this is a done deal in terms of a final offer from leaders in the house and senate. but the voting matters. looks like there is a vote in the house and senate largely because of those democrats. >> woodruff: what were the tradeoffs? we know both sides had to tried. what happened? >> there were immense politics involved, and depends on who you talked to. everyone will claim one thing or another. if you step back, democrats got something they want very much which is a rollback of steep spending cuts that will go in place for domestic non-defense programs next year. republicans got the same thing for defense programs they like. the pentagon said it is going to feel the cuts next year. it is easily divided how they'd roll back the cuts. that's something some republicans sea wasn't fair because they have more votes, thethey wanted to only save the fence. but democrats were able to come away with some money for other domestic programs. this bill is full of many other aspects. one thing i wanted to point out, judy, there are changes in obamacarecare, for example a requirement on large employers that would automatically enroll their employees in healthcare, that would be frozen here. that's a gain for republicans. there is a lot for everyone. one thing republicans did not get is any savings on the debt. this deal in some ways will increase the deficit, depending on how you look at it. >> woodruff: what about the so-called entitlement programs -- medicare, social security -- are they afcted by this? >> they are. there is important news here. some medicare recipients were facing a very serious increase in premiums next year. that is going to be frozen and spread out so those payments will go up in later years rather than next year. social security was facing perhaps the biggest crisis of any entitlement program next year. disability insurance was facing a cut in benefits, running out of money next year. now that program will gain another six years of life, go through 2022. >> woodruff: is speaker boehner prepared psh this through even without the conservative republicans, in other words with the votes of democrats in the house? >> i think that's one of the important things here, that might be the biggest important thing. what happened is speaker boehner and mitch mcconnell got together with their counterparts and decided they will govern, even if it took a combination of democratic votes, maybe more than republican votes, yes, speaker boehner is ready to pass this. amazing to think about, one month and ten days ago, we were talking about speaker boehner having just resigned and the house in disarray. but speaker boehner saw an opportunity to get through these crises and govern. it was basically the four leaders, democrat and republican, against the house conservatives and the leaders showing this is how they want to govern. >> woodruff: in so many words he said he would not do it without democrats. >> but he's doing it. >> woodruff: thank you. p >> woodruff: a look inside syria. "frontline"'s martin smith visited the war-torn country this summary after securing a rare government visa to report on the ground. he witnessed evidence of a country at war, but also captured an alternate view of life there. for tonight's documentary inside assad's syria. in the following excerpt, smith visits a new resort development with syria's tourism minister located just outside the bombed city. >> during my visit i meet the man in charge of the campaign. syria's minister of tourism. >> how do you do? fine. nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you. the minister is still very upbeat about his mission. >> reporter: the minister is here in homs to see one other project. so we follow him and the governor through the bombed-out remains of central homs to this place five miles east of the city. the resort isn't fully open yet, just the pool and public areas. everyone seems excited. the minister's visit attracts ten local reporters, and the resort is already taking reservations. the official opening is just a month away. >> just ten miles from rebel lines, the animals look as stunned as i am. we drive back to the reality of homs. this city is going to need a lot more than a new resort. i talk to some high school students who make that clear. syria has little to offer them. they face military conscription when they finish school or a car bomb tomorrow. what do you worry about? >> i worry about my friends. i worry about these explosions that happen in our neighborhood. there is so many. >> reporter: who is doing the explosions? >> terrorists. >> reporter: terrorists. and where are they from? what group? >> the terrorists have destroyed my future. i don't have any future now in syria. they destroyed our life. we were happy people because we live in a safe place. now we can't. we're afraid of every car could bomb in us. >> reporter: are we safe here? >> no place in syria is safe. no place. because the american government has given the rebels long-range rockets. they can destroy any place in syria. we're not safe in our homes. >> ifill: joining me to talk about his trip and tonight's documentary is "frontline's" martin smith. >> martin, first of all, the practicality of this, how did you get in? >> well, i worked for more than a year, trying various avenues to get in. some reporters can get in and they get short-term visas, maybe one week, maybe a couple days' extension, but i needed more time if i was going to put togeta documentary on this. then i got a phone call. somebody offered me access to a trove of footage taken by a young journalist, maybe more than a thousand hours over the last four and a half years, and asked if i was interested in looking at it. i said, sure, but i would like to come and look at it. then the project became more ambitious after that. i stayed on and we planned travel together, and i was able to make this trip. and one of the things about the trip, we didn't have a time limit. i stayed a full three weeks, could have stayed longer, and we didn't have the usual minder from the ministry of information, from the foreign media department that a lot of journalists are saddled with. >> well, i want to ask you about the surprises and the surprises for me would be whether anybody would feel free to speak to you, a western journalist, and actually criticize assad. >> no. i mean, that is a red line for them. they are not going to criticize assad directly because they risk a beating or worse. so people generally will say very kind things, enthusiastic, patriotic things about assad. but one of the things you learn over time is if you listen to people and ask them about assad, often they will just go on and talk about the syrian nation, the syrian state. what they are most concerned about is not assad and his future, they're concerned about their future, they're concerned about the services the state provides, whether water, electricity, sewer, schools, hospitals. they saw what happened in iraq, in libya when those dictators were deposed. they don't want that to happen to them. ifill: did you see any sign of a proxy war heating up in syria involving moscow and washington? >> well, it's been a proxy war for some time. the russians have been in there, the iranians have been in there, the chinese have been in there on the side. of course, now you're referring to the fact that the russians are directly involved in running air campaign and launching missiles into syria. there was, while we were there, we saw there were russian officers in the central market. i didn't know what they were doing there. there was activity in the alawite heartland against the mediterranean of an expansion of an air base, but it didn't happen till after i left that the russians directly entered the war and, of course, last week assad traveled to mots cow to strategize with putin. >> ifill: so how do the people you spoke to view the u.s.'s involvement especially the islamic state? >> it's interesting. a number of people pulled me aside and said who do you think supports i.s.i.s.? i would say, well, that's a complicated question. i know their roots. they would say, well, it's the u.s. i would say, well, how do you make that argument? they would say, well, if you look at their humvees, vehicles, weapons, all comes from the united states, so the united states is supporting them. and i said, well, no, the united states' weapons were stolen from mosul when they took over mosul in northern iraq, but their idea of the united states is extremely distrustful and, you know, this is a part of the world where conspiraciys -- where lack of education, in many cases, lead to wild conspiracy theories. so there is a belief -- and they also conflate their enemies. the fact the united states supports western-backed, so-called moderate rebels and i.s.i.s. on the other end of the spectrum, they conflate that and call everybody, as in the school clip you ran, terrorists. they're all terrorists, in their view. >> ifill: you spent more time on the ground than most of us get to and came away with a whole lot of conflicting images we just saw outside of homs. is it possible to narrow it down to the most surreal experience you had when you were there? >> there are a number of them. the new resort being opened just a few miles from the absolutely devastated center of homs city. the fact that while rebels were raining mortars on damascus and the government was responding with a bombing campaign on one of the suburbs, i was invited to go to the syrian national symphony where they played a beautiful rendition of one of brahms hungarian dances. there was a beach resort i visited. at the same time there were people who were emotionally suffering from the war, women extremely angry about what they were facing. so a little of both. >> ifill: martin smith, we'll be watching tonight on most pbs stations for inside assad's syria on "frontline." thank you for giving us a preview. >> gwen, thank you very much. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: the steep costs of dementia; engineering jump-starts a dying italian town; and a cyber-attack that could leave millions without electricity. ted koppel investigates in "lights out." but first, the dalai lama was supposed to arrive in the u.s. yesterday. he didn't, because doctors at the mayo clinic advised him to rest. but advice flows both ways in the relationship between the buddhist leader and his personal physician. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro reports on how the dalai lama inspired the california native to move half way across the world and bring compasssion back into a medical care system dominated by technology. the report is part of fred's ongoing series, agents for change. >> reporter: he never dreamed it would lead to a pro-bono house- calls practice conducted mostly in tibet's main dialect. >> i keep pinching myself, fred. i don't know. >> reporter: he first arrived here after hearing that the dalai lama had wanted a western physician to train traditional tibetan doctors in modern research methods. >> we did a research study to train the tibetan medicine doctors in how to do the research. and then, i got more involved with buddhism, already i'd been interested in it. i got more involved in meditation study and i ended up extending my stay and that's happened again and again and here i am. 27 years! >> reporter: he came to india from a life punctuated by pain and loss: at 11, a near fatal brain abscess that required extensive surgery and left a permanent lump on his skull. his mother died young and a few years later so did his wife-- only in her mid 30s, both from cancer. buddhism became a sanctuary under the tutelage of the dalai lama, who told him to stay connected to the world. >> he always encouraged me to keep my credentials and to keep practicing medicine. "don't just do the wisdom, also do the love and the compassion. in fact, do them 50-50, you know." those were his words. >> reporter: scholarship in buddhism led to his ordination as a monk while meditation has been a path to inner peace and happiness. and that's translated into empathy. >> it's moved me along, slowly moved me along to be more compassionate, to learn how to do that, be less selfish. i don't get angry very much any more. i used to be highly competitive, still somewhat but more now personal, competitive, to better myself. not at the expense of somebody else. i think it's the combination of meditation and also as his holiness calls it, emotional hygiene. >> reporter: kerzin, who now serves as a personal physician to the dalai lama, has taken the spiritual leader's gospel of emotional hygiene and compassion to medical practitioners around the world. >> he is my messenger. go to japan, go to mongolia... and, full circle, to america. >> it's lovely to be in stanford. >> reporter: a few years ago, a prestigious grand rounds lecture at a top u.s. medical school would not have been given by a man who left american medicine-- and many stunned colleagues-- for a very different world, where, for example, he doesn't own a house, car or refrigerator. >> i think initially they thought i went off the deep end. what are you doing living in india, come on! you could have a very good life. you could have a very good academic life in medicine. you could have a comfortable economic life. it's ridiculous what you're doing. >> let's meditate. >> reporter: but on this day, they were listening, even meditating, with him. kerzin says meditation helps one focus on the "now," the present. you tune out the past, and all your regrets. tune out planning and worry about the future. it's taken years, he says, but gotten results, scientifically measured results. >> this is in madison, the university of wisconsin, and they're researching my brain. >> reporter: kerzin has been part of a series of studies into the impact of meditation on the brain. >> what they found were changes in the pre-frontal cortex. this area is called the executive function area, and it helps with things like planning, reasoning, imagination, empathy, to feel like another person is feeling. so, these areas were enhanced, both anatomically and functionally in long term meditators. >> reporter: kerzin's host at stanford said there's an epidemic of dissatisfaction among american doctors today, which likely makes them more receptive to a message like kerzin's. >> 50% of them, they say in some studies, that they are unhappy. that tells you this is not an individual problem, this is a systemic problem. >> reporter: dr. abraham verghese, a best-selling author and professor at stanford, says technology, for all it's benefits, leaves doctors little time for the empathy that drew most of them to medicine. >> there was a chilling paper from the journal emergency medicine titled "4,000 clicks," suggesting an emergency medicine physician does 4,000 clicks a day and spends the great majority of their time on the computer, very little percentage of the time actually with patients. and similar studies on that area coming out suggesting the same about residents, and medical students physicians of other specialties. >> reporter: kerzin says he wants to make compassion as integral to medical education as physiology or biochemistry, building more partnerships between scientists and buddhist scholars-- a reconciliation of very different perspectives on life that he said he's made internally. >> i used to say i wear two hats. so, sometimes this is the medical hat, this is the buddhist hat. but i don't say that any more. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, this is fred de sam lazaro in dharmsala, india. >> ifill: now, a new study spotlights the soaring financial and emotional burden that many families are coping with from dementia and alzheimer's disease. the cost of care-giving for those patients is now some of the highest of any illness. william brangham has the story. >> brangham: researchers at mt. sinai have just published a study showing that caring for patients with dementia and alzheimer's disease is far more expensive than caring for those with illnesses like cancer or heart disease. according to the study, which looked at patients within the last five years of their lives, the total cost of caring for someone with dementia costs 57% more than those with other illnesses. and dementia patients and their families also pay 81% more in out-of-pocket expenses than other patients. this year alone, dementia will cost the nation $226 billion. joining me now is dr. diane meier from the icahn school of medicine at mt. sinai. she wasn't an author of this particular study, but she's one of the nation's leaders in improving care for the elderly. so, dr. meier, what is it that most jumped out at you about this study? >> i think what most jumped out at me, and i hope to the general public about this study, is the realization that so much of healthcare is not covered by medicare or regular insurance and that a great deal of the needs of ol'er adults who need help during the day, particularly those who have memory problems, come right out of the pockets of the patient and the family. >> brangham: so is that why we see the huge disparity, why people caring for people with dementia are paying so much of their own money to care for their loved ones? >> that is the reason. people with dementia, that disease is characterized by a progressive loss of ability to take care of yourself -- to dress yourself, bathe yourself, feed yourself, to have judgment to be safe. what that means is you can't leave a dementia patient alone. so families handle that either by having someone in the family give up their other responsibilities, give up their work in order to be with the person who has dementia, or by paying out of pocket to pay someone, an aide or companion, to be with their loved one who has dementia. either way, a huge cost to the family not covered by medicare. >> brangham: the study says the costs fall disproportionately on blacks and single people and people with less education. is that just a function of their relative financial situation? >> mostly a function of their relative financial situation. there are also some cultural differences in willingness to take care of vulnerable loved ones. some cultures are much more committed to providing family-level care and personal care to loved ones who are ill or disabled than others, and certainly the african-american community has a very strong history of taking care of their own. >> brangham: you've obviously spent a good deal of your own career caring for people at the end of their lives. have you heard stories from your own patients and their families that these costs have been onerous? >> i've had many families who bankrupted their parents' savings, completely spent down all their parents' savings and then ended up spending their own savings, their child's college savings account, for example, the money they had been saving for a mortgage had to be spent for the care of their parent who had alzheimer's disease. i remember one family in particular where one of the daughters had the responsibility for caring for the mom who had alzheimer's disease, and she provided wonderful care to her mother for more than 15 years, and when her mother finally died, this sister had no job, no visible means of support, no skills and was basically put on the welfare rolls becaus roll -s because she had no income to fall back on and had devoted most her life to the care of her mother. >> brangham: that's awful. put your policymaking hat on. if you were in the policymaking business, what would you do? >> well, when medicare laws were written, it said medicare should only pay for what is "medically necessary." at that tame, that was thought to be things like surgery or a hip replacement or treatment for a heart attack or visiting a doctor, but there wasn't a recognition at that time, because it hadn't yet happened, that old age was going to be very different in our era than it was back in the 1960s. old age in our era is chronic disease that goes on for many, many years, sometimes nor than decades, and is characterized by people needing help to get through the day and medicare does not pay for that. yet that is the dominant need of older adults and their families in our society. so i think we need to re-think how we pay for healthcare and pay for healthcare in a manner that actually meets people's needs. >> brangham: this study looks at financial costs but, obviously, caring for somebody with dementia comes at a huge emotional cost as well and that's not even factored into this study. >> correct. dementia is an extremely difficult and challenging serious illness. i think it is the hardest illness i've ever participated in caring for, worse for the patient and family than, for example, cancer or heart disease or many of the other dreaded illnesses because what happens is the person's mind begins to disappear while their body is still there. so there is this complicated situation of the person still being in front of you but they're not inside anymore. so the grieving and the loss begins many, many years before the perp'before -- before the ps death. and i think the suffering not only for the person living with the memory loss but also for the people who love that person is enormous. >> brangham: dr. diane meier, mt. sinai hospital, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: next, an italian hilltop town hovering between life and death, and the efforts being made to save it. jeffrey brown traveled there as part of our ongoing series, culture at risk. >> brown: each morning, as the sun rises on this medieval town seemingly plucked from a fairy tale, the narrow lanes of civita di bagnoregio are quiet. by the latest count, there are just seven year-round residents. (counting residents) and who knows how many cats. by mid-morning, though, the scene on this beautiful fall day has changed, as thousands of tourists make the difficult hike up a long, steep footbridge. there are no cars allowed here. drawn by the beauty and peculiarity of this place, where staircases lead off cliffs and windows lead into the clouds. >> brown: in italian, it's la citta che muore, the dying city. dying because it's literally crumbling before our eyes. now a mix a geological engineering and tourism is giving this ancient city new life. claudio margottini, with italy's geological survey, has worked in civita for several decades. so here's part of the problem, right, buildings falling down. >> brown: it's a problem that goes back centuries. the etruscans chose this site to build on in the sixth century b.c., prizing its hilltop location. but this is a "tuff town," that's t-u-f-f, common in this region, such as in the much better-known city of orvieto, built upon layers of volcanic rock known as "tuff" that sit over a bedrock of soft clay. daniele baffo is a local engineer . it's been going on for 2,500 years. helped by wind, rain, periodic earthquakes -- including a massive one in 1695 -- and all too frequent landslides. >> brown: walls, gardens and homes have simply fallen off, including that of civita's most famous son, the 13th century saint bonaventure, who was born here. american architect tony heywood came to civita in the 1960s with his wife, astra zarina, also an architect and a professor at the university of washington. >> the area was greatly depressed, and families were leaving. and the ones that stayed are like me, i guess. they liked it here and they didn't want to leave. >> brown: zarina, who died in 2008, is credited with raising civita's international profile, through her writings and teaching, including bringing u.s. students here to study. that spurred renovations for many of its medieval-era buildings. >> gradually things got better. at the end of the 1970s and 80s. they finally got a tractor that would bring the materials up. >> brown: but the structural problems remained. and in 1997, the government began reinforcing the foundation with concrete shafts, essentially anchoring the unstable sections to the town's solid base. >> brown: but you're hoping that this will hold this side of the town together. >> exactly. >> brown: you're smiling as you say it, you're not sure. >> brown: the immediate threat is at the bottom of the town, where a landslide occurred earlier this year. it forced the closure of this restaurant, and endangered the footbridge that serves as the lifeline to the outside world. >> brown: is there enough money to do the kind of engineering work you need? >> brown: and yet, there's a lot cooking in this 'dying' town, including here in the kitchen of the "alma civita" restaurant, opened in 2011 by maurizio rocchi, who traces his family history here back 400 years. >> brown: a 40-year-old native who left home, with few opportunities for a young person, maurizio has come back as a leader of its revival. >> brown: new life that is almost overwhelming at times. in the last five years, the influx has risen from 40,000 a year to 500,000. over a glass of wine at his son's restaurant, sandro rocchi told me he has mixed feelings. >> ( translated ): for me, it's too much. it was much nicer when it was more peaceful. one could talk to each other, be in the streets. now it's impossible. >> brown: still, father and son are counting on the new attention to save the town. >> brown: for outsiders, of course, part of the thrill is to see civita before it's gone. for geologist claudio margottini, though, there's a very practical reason to care. >> brown: a technical laboratory. but as the bell tolled at seven o'clock and the streets emptied again, civita di bagnoregio returned to the tranquility its remaining residents cherish. from central italy, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. >> ifill: now, another addition to the newshour bookshelf. it's a warning about the vulnerability of the country's power grid. and it comes from ted koppel, the veteran newsman and former anchor of abc's 'nightline." i talked with him recently about his new book, "lights out: a cyber-attack, a nation unprepared, surviving the aftermath". ted koppel, welcome. >> thank you. >> ifill: you have written a book about the next big threat. we always talk about cyber threats, hacking. but you're talking about the electrical grid. >> we are accustomed to cyber attacks that result in grand larceny. we are accustomed to cyber attacks that amount to huge, vacuuming of intelligence information. what we've never had is a cyber attack that amounts to a weapon of mass destruction, and my point is that, if someone succeeds in taking down one of our power grids -- and the russians and the cheese can do it and maybe the iranians and the north koreans -- it would be devastating. >> ifill: what got your interest to start writing about this particular topic? >> for about three years, now, a number of our top leaders, including the president -- the president has twice mentioned it in successive state of the union addresses, just a little paragraph warning that there are those who are trying to get into our infrastructure, especially the power grid. the secretary of defense at the time, leon panetta, called the threat of a cyber attack on the power grid potentially a cyber pearl harbor. that's pretty huge, and nobody was paying any attention to it. so i wondered, a, are these people just exaggerating for reasons i don't quite understand and, b, if they're not, what is the government doing to prepare for it and to prepare the public for it? and my instinct told me the answer was going to be not much. not much is an exaggeration. nothing is closer to the truth. >> ifill: you have talked to so many people, including the last four heads of the department of homeland security and the department of defense, and did you get a sense, after talking to them, that any one of them knows what to do if this were to happen? >> probably not. several of them know that the likelihood of it happening is great. when i spoke to janet napolitano just after she left as secretary of homeland security, and she had been on the job for five years, i said to her, what do you think the chances are of a cyber attack on the power grid? she said very, very high, 80 to 90%. it seems to me inevitable. we have to deal with this. but maybe because we don't know what the answer is, we have not even begun to do so. >> ifill: we talked to jeh johnson who currently runs homeland security. he was trying to be optimistic and sounds like the conversation did not go well. >> it did not because he thought the likelihood is great and on the other hand they said what's the plan, you're the secretary of homeland security. he sort of dismissed it and said, well, you know, as long as you have a radio with extra batteries... but you have a radio and the power goes out and you turn the radio on, what are you going to tell people? and doesn't it seem a little strange that we're going to defer telling people what the plan is until after the electricity goes out and communication is far more difficult than it needs to be? >> ifill: so it's easy to see there is not a plan, but what would you say the plan ought to be? massive evacuations from places like manhattan? >> can't do it. too many people, no place to put them. the only thing, and i don't want to be in a position of even sounding as though i have the answers, but i spent three chapters of the book dealing with the moments, and the reason i focused on the mormons have, after 200 years, been driven from pillar to post, have learned how to survive in difficult situations, and they are probably about as well prepared as any large group in the country. so the one thing that the mormons do that i would recommend to americans in general to do is to have a three to six months' supply of good and water. >> ifill: so this is not a government responsibility? we're not talking about state actors all the time? >> it may be. it may be their responsibility since they haven't taken that responsibility very seriously or at least have not come up with a solution. i'm saying to those people who can afford it, and i fully appreciate that there are tens of millions of people in this country who can barely afford to put food on the table every day, let alone get a supply of three to six months, but if those who can afford it do it, and if the government has a backlog of freeze-dried food which lasts up to 25 years, we can probably survive something like this. if we don't do that, there will be thousands of fatalities. >> ifill: you say quite provocatively toward the end of the book that the internet is our weapon of mass destruction. >> in addition to all the wonderful things that it does, it can be used as a weapon of mass destruction, and the dangerous then, gwen, is it doesn't require a government to do it, it doesn't require anyone with a ton of money to do it. someone sufficiently skilled in cyber warfare using an individual laptop can inflict enormous damage. i have been told by a man who is a former chief scientist for the n.s.a., the national security agency, that he how believes that there are individual groups and possibly a group like yietszi.s.i.s., for example, whs about $2 billion that they could buy the expertise and that the equipment they need is available off the shelf. that's a pretty scary prospect. >> ifill: are you worried you will be dismissed as a dooms dayer? >> i would be more worried if after the fact people had found out i discovered what i had discovered and not said anything about it. that would be the greater ill. >> ifill: ted koppel, author of "lights out: a cyberattack, a nation unprepared, surviving the aftermath." thank you. >> thank you, gwen. >> woodruff: on the newshour online: since the world health organization's announcement on its guidelines to be careful about processed and red meat, there's been a lot of confusion on what kinds of meat carry a higher cancer risk, and how much red meat is safe to eat. we turned to the research to answer the most pressing questions; you can find that report on our home page. and join us tomorrow for a live q&a session on twitter-- we asked experts to answer more of your questions. those details are also in our report. all that is on our web site, www.pbs.org/newshour >> ifill: as it happens, i have a lot of questions. tune in tonight: on "charlie rose," director david holbrooke on "the diplomat," his biographical film on the life of his father, ambassador richard holbrooke. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, my conversation with treasury secretary jack lew, as congress and the white house work out a budget deal. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. join us on-line, 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: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> support also comes from carnegie corporation of new education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org this is "nightly business report." with tyler mathisen and sue herara. >> iphone sales surge and that's exactly what investors wanted to see in apple's results. sending shares initially higher. >> not your corner pharmacy. late news tonight, two of the nation's largest drugstore chains will merge. turn up the heat as the temperature drops because this is winter, it may not cost as much. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for tuesday, october 27th. >> good evening, everyone. welcome. apple may be asking what global slowdown? the world's most valuable company reported strong demand for iphones over in china, and a sharp rise in profits and revenue overall. for the quarter, the dow component earned $1.96 a share, and that was eig

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