>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> 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. >> brown: the decision is in, in the tamir rice killing. a case that's roiled cleveland and riveted the country. a grand jury will not indict a white officer for killing the black 12-year-old. the county prosecutor announced today: "the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct." we'll have this story in full, and more on new killings in chicago, after the news summary. in iraq, government troops have recaptured the center of ramadi from islamic state fighters. the military trumpeted its success today, even as pockets of resistance persisted. we have a report from juliet bremner of independent television news. >> reporter: the iraqi flag once again flys over ramadi, but this is victory at a terrible cost. homes and businesses are reduced to lit moral than rubble in what seems to be a ghost town. initial claims of victory came on state television this monk, as soldiers took control of the key government complex. the jihadi who took ramadi in may used propaganda pictures to demonstrate their welcome. in truth, many sunnis who lived here have more sympathy with i.s. than the shia directed iraqi army. regaining control of the streets of ramadi is a significant victory, depriving the militants of one of their greatist prizes, the capital of anbar province an hour and a half's drive away from baghdad. there was a warning to leave ramadi before the final assault. now a war-weary population must be encouraged to return. >> brown: meanwhile, in afghanistan, a taliban suicide bomber killed at least one person today and wounded 33, many of them children. the attack struck near a school close to the kabul airport and damaged shops, homes and vehicles in the mostly civilian area. >> ( translated ): i was standing near my shop when suddenly i heard a huge explosion and everything became dark around me, shuttered pieces of iron came over to me. i was some three meters away from this explosion. i saw a teenager boy was killed on the ground, it was really terrible. >> brown: the taliban said the target was a convoy of foreign forces passing through the area. the islamist militants of boko haram launched attacks across two cities in nigeria today, leaving 80 people dead. suicide bombers struck in maidugori, killing 30 people overnight. 20 more died in an explosion outside a mosque at dawn. nearly 100 miles away, the town of madagali was rocked by twin suicide bombings, killing 30 people there. just last week, nigeria's president claimed boko haram is no longer capable of such attacks. south korea and japan reached a landmark agreement today in a long-standing dispute over so- called "comfort women". they were koreans used as sex slaves for japanese soldiers during world war two. the new agreement includes an apology from japan and a promise of more than $8 million. japanese prime minister shinzo abe said he hopes it ends decades of animosity over the issue. >> ( translated ): from today, japan and south korea will enter into a new era. i hope this agreement will serve as a momentum for japan and south korea to put their hands together and open up the new era. >> brown: only 46 of the "comfort women" still survive, many now in their 80's and 90's. some said today they support the south korean government's efforts. others complained the money will create a foundation for the victims, but will not be paid directly to them as formal compensation. back in this country, the incidence of asthma in children appears to be declining for the first time in decades. that finding, by the national centers for health statistics, appears in the journal "pediatrics". the study covered 2001 to 2013, asthma rates began to fall toward the end of that period. researchers suggest declines in air pollution could be a factor. wall street dipped today after a new drop in oil prices hurt energy stocks. the dow jones industrial average lost about 24 points to close at 17,528. the nasdaq fell seven points, and the s&p 500 slipped four. and the man who was "clown prince" of the harlem globetrotters has died. meadowlark lemon passed away sunday in scottsdale, arizona. he spent nearly 25 years with the globetrotters, entertaining crowds with his non-stop comic chatter, trick plays and antics on the court. in his prime, he was one of the most popular athletes in the world. meadowlark lemon was 83 years old. >> brown: still to come on the newshour: no charges in cleveland for the killing of tamir rice. extreme weather ravages the south and midwest. how people with gluten allergies can check their food on the fly. and much more. >> brown: a pair of cases involving police shootings is again focusing much attention on the way law enforcement responds to calls or threats in african- american communities, and whether justice is being served. william brangham begins our report with the latest from cleveland. >> based on the evidence they heard, and the law as it applies to police use of deadly force, the grand jury declined to bring criminal charges. >> brangham: the announcement today came from cuyahoga county prosecutor timothy mcginty: that the officers involved in the shooting death of tamir rice won't be charged with any crime. back in 2014, police officers crossed paths with rice, a black 12-year-old boy, while responding to 9-1-1 calls of a man with a gun in a public park, reports that later proved to be inaccurate. mcginty said that as officers arrived at the scene, rice reached for something that looked like a gun. one officer jumped out of the car and shot the boy. it turned out rice had a toy gun. his death sparked local and national protests. but today, prosecutor mcginty said he agreed with the decision not to indict the police. >> given this perfect storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police. >> brangham: the cleveland decision follows yet another weekend of tension over police shootings in another midwestern city: chicago. yesterday, friends and family of two black chicago residents killed early saturday morning gathered to voice their grief in song. ♪ they huddled outside the chicago home where the shootings occurred. chicago police say they were responding to a domestic disturbance report called in by the father of one of those killed: 19-year-old quintonio le-grier. police said the officers fired at le-grier after they were, quote, "confronted by a combative subject." le-grier, who was holding a baseball bat at the time, died at the scene. but so did 55-year-old bettie jones, who lived on the home's ground floor and had just finished hosting family for the holiday. police said jones, who was known in her neighborhood for working to curb violence, was "accidentally struck." for jones' family and friends, the big question was how a woman who was essentially a bystander, ended up being killed. >> why you got to shoot first and ask questions later? it's ridiculous. somebody got to do something about this. >> on christmas night -- this is a loving family. everybody was playing spades, drinking, having fun. celebrating christmas. like many chicago families, across the country. she should not have to come outside, open her door and be shot down by a police officer. >> brangham: and for le-grier's mother, the question was why lethal force was used against her son. >> what happened to tasers? seven times my son was shot. something just needs to be done. i use to watch the news daily and i would grieve for other mothers and now today, i'm grieving myself. >> brangham: chicago police haven't identified the officers involved. but, as part of a new departmental policy, they'll be put on desk duty for 30 days. this weekend's killings are yet another black eye for a department that's already at the center of a city-wide uproar, and whose practices are currently under federal investigation. protests have occurred regularly since last month, when the city released video of the 2014 police shooting death of 17- year-old laquan mcdonald. since then, the officer in that case, jason van dyke, was charged with first-degree murder. the city's police commissioner, garry mccarthy, resigned. and pressure has mounted on mayor rahm emanuel to resign as well. back in cleveland, that city's mayor frank jackson called for calm as news spread about the decision in the tamir rice case. rice's family called for calm as well. they said they were saddened about the outcome but not surprised and accused prosecutor mcginty of abusing and manipulating the grand jury process to orchestrate a vote against indictment. let's get a pair of reports from both cities about the latest starting with the tamer tamir rn cleveland. i spoke with kris wernowsky who has been following the case and the community reaction. he's with cleveland.com part of the northeast ohio media group and the cleveland plain dealer. kris, thanks for joining us. can you tell me what has been the initial reaction to this decision not to indict the officers? >> i think you're seeing a lot of outrage on social media right now. i think twitter and facebook have blown up, i think, from a national perspective. things in the city are pretty quiet. there is a march going on right now from the kuddo rec regulational center where tamir was shot, to the justice center which houses the courthouse and jail. >> brangham: prosecutor mcginty said in his comments today the video evidence proved indisputably in his mind that a crime had not been committed. obviously, the family doesn't seem to see it the same way. >> yeah, you're right. i think that it's -- i think that the family is still grief-stricken and still upset and, frankly, i don't think there is much anybody could say that would convince the family that this was the right decision to make. >> brangham: on that video, i know there was some question about how long the officers actually had to warn tamir to put the gun down, before they opened fire. has that been part of the discussion you have been hearing in cleveland? >> i think there is a lot of dispute over the warning that the police department said that officer loehmann had given to tamir. i think people have done their own counting to see if it's possible to give so many warnings as they were speeding up to the scene where the young boy was shot. so, you know, i hesitate to speculate because it's difficult to say exactly what happened because there is no audio on the video. i think that's a missing component that i think would have helped clarify a lot of the things that are still lingering as questions. >> brangham: prosecutor mcginty has been criticized throughout the process of this grand jury for putting out dribs and drabs of the evidence that seems to bolster the case not to indict the officers. do you think today's decision is going to quell any of those criticisms? >> no, i think he's going to carry this criticism with him -- i mean, he's got an election coming up and i think, you know -- i think he's going to feel this for a long time and, you know, i think decision for him to put out the information in bits and pieces i think was a response to how the ferguson grand jury was handled, and i believe that -- i mean, it's unusual. it's not something you see every day in the criminal justice system, and i think part of the reason is the sort of response you're seeing today. you know, we're not seeing a lot of uproar right now, and i think that it sort of helped ease people into what, you know, a lot of people already knew the decision was going to be. >> brangham: kris wernowsky, thank you very much for joining us. now let's go back to chicago where the conduct of its department remains front and center. eddie aruzza of pbs station wttw and the news program "chicago tonight" spoke with us earlier. eddie, can you give us a sense -- this is a lot of protest we have been seeing in chicago and now another tragic shooting happening over the weekend. what's the community reaction been like? >> well, william, so far, there haven't been any kind of demonstrations like the kind we've seen in the wake of the laquan mcdonald video. so far, it has been very peaceful. the only show of force, show of support that has happened so far has been a community gathering outside the house where this latest shooting took place. among the community leaders and activists was the reverend jesse jackson, sr. so, right now, it's been pretty calm in the wake of that, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of anger and frustration in the community with this latest shooting. >shooting. >> brangham: i mean, obviously, there was the one, the tragedy of what seemed to be a bystander being killed by police bullets, but then apparently the shooting of this young man who reportedly had some mental problems, and i understand in the wake of this most recent event, there is been talk of changes police procedures as to how police deal with someone with mental problems. what has been that discussion? >> well, that's right. in the wake of this shooting, the police department admitted that one of the victims was accidentally shot. now, the circumstances surrounding the shooting of 19-year-old quinntonio lagreer are murky but the mayor ordered a review of crisis intervention training that deals with how officers deal with calls surrounding mental health crisis issues. whether this young man was suffering from come some sort of mental illness, his father reported he was irate. his mother said he had lingering issues from his youth when he was in th foster care for a whi. the situation is not clear. nevertheless, the mayor called for a review of the procedures in handling these kind of calls. >> brangham: was there a sense of whether police had been told this was someone who might have emotional problems or this was just a domestic disturbance complaint? >> we heard what they responded to was a call of domestic disturbance and that's what we've gotten so far. when they arrived we are told this young man allegedly came down the stairs from a second floor apartment and he was holding a baseball bat and presumably the officers felt threatened and presumably that is why they opened fire, at least one officer opened fire, from what we have been told so far, but we still don't have any clear answers. >> brangham: obviously, this comes after long protests in chicago after other police protest actions. since then you have a new police chief, the new head to have the review board but there are still calls for the mayor to step down. are those continuing after this weekend? >> they are. there are a number of petitions asking for his resignation. we do not have recall petitions available here in illinois yet, although that law has been proposed in springfield. but there is still a lot of frustration and anger at how the mayor and his administration have handled first the laquan mcdonald incident and that video, and now the mayor is out of the country. he's vacationing in cuba. we have been told he is cutting that vacation short, that he will be returning to chicago tomorrow, although we really don't know how long the va vacan was supposed to last or when he left because city hall has not give unus that information. but there is a lot of frustration. it should be pointed out the head of the police department now is only the interim head and the head of the police review board also is only there in an interim capacity. so these individuals are tasked with heading these organizations at a very rough time. whether they will remain in those positions remains to be seen. but, yes, there remains a lot of frustration. >> brangham:, eddie aruzza of wttw. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> brown: the death toll rose to 44 today from violent weather that's battered the south and midwest with tornadoes and floods, since wednesday. some of the worst came saturday, in texas, in a barrage of deadly storms. where there had been homes, shattered piles of sticks stretched across the north texas landscape today. and survivors were still trying to tally their losses. >> brown: at least nine tornadoes swept through communities around dallas on saturday. they blasted some neighborhoods with winds of about 200 miles an hour, and damaged or destroyed nearly 1,500 homes. >> we all ran into the rooms, get into the closet, everything, and next thing i know lights went out, then the ceiling come off the house. woosh, ceiling come off. and then it was gone. i mean, just like that. just went through, tore up everything, went through. >> brown: in neighboring oklahoma, snow and ice punished the western and central parts of the state over the weekend, and up to a foot of rain hit the east. in all, some 175,000 customers lost power. farther north, heavy rain triggered deadly flooding in missouri. the victims included four soldiers from other countries, temporarily stationed at a u.s. army base. they died when they drove into a flooded roadway. >> it's a small dark highway, it was raining very hard, it was 8:22, it was dark at night time, they probably don't know what hit them until they hit the water. >> brown: in southern illinois, five more people drowned late saturday when their car was swept away in a rain-swollen creek. the same storm system that generated that deadly weather kept moving today, eastward across the nation's midsection. it brought snow and ice in parts of 11 states and more rain in places already waterlogged. the system forced more than 1,400 flight cancellations and another 2,600 delays. extreme storms in the south and the midwest, while the east has been enjoying a practically tropical christmas. bob henson is a meteorologist and blogger with "weather underground," an online weather service owned by weather.com. bob, start with the tornados, if you would. how unusual either in terms of the time of year or the number of them or the severity, what are you seeing? >> well, it's not uncommon to get tornadoes in the south, including texas, all through the wintertime, it's certainly possible. the strength of the tornado that hit in the dallas area saturday was unusual. it was the strongest tornado over to hit texas in december. there have been tornadoes that strong in other parts of texas in the south in december. it was unusual because it hit the eastern part of the dallas-fort worth metro area. forecasters are worried what would happen if a tornado hit d.f.w. hit on. this was a glancing blow but still pretty catastrophic. >> brown: are we better at predicting or forecasting them? >> this was better on the watches as the storms moved in, so we're certainly better at capturing those. indicative of that is something like 1,000 structures were damaged or destroyed but the first number of deaths was relatively small although any is too many. >> brown: a lot of crazy records. the warm weather is said to have come from a variety of factors. tell us about what we know is going on. >> it is a mix. one factor going on is el niño which tends to redistribute heat around the globe. it adds heat to the atmosphere but spreading more water over the east tropical ocean and the heat gets moved and shuffled around the globe but there is a rearrange mefnt of weather patterns an sometimes that leads to warm weather especially in the midwest and northeast in the wirntdtimenned and december in strong el niños is known to have this effect. the whole month of december has been amazingly mild. central has yet to get below 32 degrees. it's the warmest on record, in some cases going back to late 1800. the mild, warm air mass fueled tornadoes in texas and the midwest. >> brown: what do we know about the interaction on the climate change and el niño. >> el niño doesn't seem to be affected greatly by climate change but w we know in a warmig atmosphere, the peaks of the warming get expressed through ill niños. el niños warm it for a year or two and laniño cool it. so when you get a warm year with the greenhouse gases, you can expect the warmest years to be the el niño years. we have the strongest going on in decades now. it's not a total surprise we're getting this record warmth not only in the u.s. but australia and england is having its warmest december in 350 years so pretty expressive. >> brown: what are you looking for in the next couple of days continuing severe weather in parts of the country? >> eth going to be settling down in the next few days and we'll see a bit of a realignment with warmer weather, milder weather across a lot of the west up into western canada and perhaps cold in the east through and into parts of january, but el niño does tend to force a lot of warmth across eastern canada and northeastern u.s. so i wouldn't be surprised if it's overall a pretty mild winter over the north america but we always turn to the cold and the last several winters have been pretty sharp in the north, so still trying to figure those out. >> brown: bob henson, weather underground. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> brown: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: memorable moments from the campaign trail this year. the debate over a retiring fleet of nuclear-armed submarines. and a loss for the arts. saying goodbye to a cinematographer, and an abstract artist. but first, there's a growing number of people in the u.s. suffering from severe food allergies, and many more are avoiding certain foods for other health reasons. often, those individuals have a hard time navigating food choices when they are out at restaurants and social events. special correspondent cat wise reports from san francisco on a startup that aims to improve food transparency for consumers, starting with gluten, a mixture of two proteins found in wheat and other grains. it's the latest in our "breakthroughs" series on invention and innovation. >> reporter: 31-year-old shireen yates loves dining out with friends, but when she's ordering, it's often a stressful experience. >> i would love the empanadas and black beans and plantains. those are gluten free right? >> yes, everything is gluten free. >> reporter: yates says she suffers from severe gluten sensitivities, and she also has problems with soy, dairy and egg. despite her best efforts to avoid those foods, she often finds herself in situations where she doesn't know -- or trust what she's told -- is in the food. if she ingests even the smallest amount of the foods she has issues with, her health can be impacted for days. while in graduate school at m.i.t., yates attended a friend's wedding and had an unpleasant dining experience that sparked an idea. >> this waitress comes by with these delicious looking appetizers, and i asked her are these appetizers gluten free, and she said, "how allergic are you?" i was really angry, you know, just like starving, and i was like "why can't i just test this?" and that was that ah-ha moment, i said, well, why not, how hard could that be? it's hard. >> reporter: three years later, after teaming up with scott sundvor, a fellow m.i.t grad, who also has to avoid gluten due to a health condition, yates is on the verge of turning that idea into a reality. with this small portable gluten detecting device called the nima. nima means "fair" and "equitable" in farsi, yates' family's native language. >> so this is the nima... >> reporter: in the kitchen of their small san francisco startup, yates gave us a demo on some fresh, supposedly gluten free, waffles that had just been delivered from a local restaurant. >> so what we would do, is we would take a sample of food, and we put it in this little capsule, and then were going to take the top, the action of closing this will grind the food. i'm just going to put it in the sensor right now, and then were going to start it. >> reporter: it takes about two minutes for the results to come back. during that time, the device uses a sophisticated antibody the company developed to test if gluten is present. they are testing to levels set by the food and drug administration for what constitutes gluten free, 20 gluten protein parts per million. a smiley face means no gluten at those levels, a frown means gluten is present. so we got a smiley face, so what does that mean? >> that means i feel a lot better about eating my waffle. >> reporter: could some other part of this waffle have gluten in it? >> yeah, that is absolutely a possibility. but what we are doing is giving you that extra piece of data to really improve your odds of staying your healthiest self when you're eating out, and actively trying to avoid certain foods. >> reporter: those trying to avoid gluten is a big market, about one in five americans these days. a team of engineers and scientists who are part of the company now called 6sensorlabs, are making final tweaks to the nima before the company begins shipping it out to customers next summer. it will cost about $250 and each disposable capsule will be $4 to $5 depending on the quantity ordered. testing foods for gluten isn't new of course. it's often done in clinical labs, and there are some home testing kits out there. but many are time-consuming and require multiple steps to get results. that presented the team with a design challenge. >> this is a consumer product, it's not a medical device. and because of that, it has to be something that's really easy to use. it has to be fast, it has to be discreet. >> reporter: the company is aiming for 99.5% accuracy and they're comparing their results with the results of other independent gluten testing labs. what they have found so far is about a quarter of the foods they've tested, labeled "gluten- free," have in fact had some gluten in them. yates says that doesn't surprise her. >> i don't know if you've ever worked in a kitchen, but it's chaos. and so the idea of getting your order in, making sure it was heard correctly, getting it to the chef, making sure everything was prepared in the right way, getting the dish, and putting it back in front of that consumer that has that real sensitivity, there's a lot that can go wrong." >> reporter: the nima currently tests only for gluten, but the company is planning to eventually test for other allergens like dairy and peanuts. but that's proving harder to do. >> there hasn't been a clear guideline regarding what level do you have to detect to make sure people aren't getting sick at those levels. >> reporter: jingqing zhang is the company's lead scientist. she says unlike for gluten, the food and drug administration doesn't have a set standard for what constitutes dairy-free or peanut-free. >> a big challenge for us to understand and potentially work with these regulatory agencies to figure out what level we need to bring it down to. the second challenge is we need to be detecting these proteins at very sensitive levels. >> reporter: while 6sensorlabs is focused on getting their product to market quickly, their competition is heating up. several other companies are developing different food testing technologies, including the use of smartphones. all are attempting to capitalize on the growing number of americans who are food focused, especially when it comes to gluten. it's a trend that has more than a few skeptics. but for the estimated three million americans who suffer from celiac disease, an inflammation of the intestines, there's no disputing that gluten ingestion is a serious health problem. >> there's some studies that suggest that as little as 50 to 100 milligrams is enough to activate an immune response. to put that into perspective, a slice of bread has 5,000 milligrams. so it really doesn't take a lot. >> reporter: dr. nielsen fernandez-becker is the director of the celiac management clinic at stanford university hospital. she says that products like the nima could be helpful, but they shouldn't be a crutch for patients. >> i think it would be valuable. but i think it's only one tool in the arsenal. i hope what it doesn't do is that it makes patients more complacent. if you have a piece of steak and you sample one side, could we be missing gluten in some other side. >> reporter: the nima team is now developing an app that will allow users to share information about the tests they've done on foods, and where gluten-free is truly gluten free. for shireen yates, that kind of knowledge can make or break her meal out. after getting the smiley face sign she was hoping for, she dived right into her gluten free empanadas. for the pbs newshour, i'm cat wise in san francisco. today, back to the campaign trail and for us a chance for an individual look at what's been a most surprising race for the white house. for that with we're joined by the "politics monday" team, amy walter, and tamera keith. hello on monday on this christmas weekend. we know it has been a crazy race. unexpected in many ways. but start with the republicans. do you remember a moment along the way where you said to yourself, this is not what i was expecting? >> there have been so many of those moments, jeffery, but i think it's when scott walker dropped out of the race because it made me realize everything i assumed about what this election was going to shape up to be was not working out that way. scott walker on paper looked like the perfect bridge candidate. for him to drop out this early... and that combined with bush's struggles really said to me that, boy, the biggest surprise in this race is not the rise of the outsiders but the real vacuum on the establishment side and how incredibly inefficient and ineffective the establishment has been in sort of making themselves important in this race. >> brown: tamara, what were your moments? >> my moment happened at an ice cream stand in burlington, vermont. >> brown: had to be. after bernie sanders announced he was running for president but before he had had any of those really big well-attended rallies and, at the time, the conventional wisdom was really bernie sanders is running to push his gander and to -- push his gande agendad hillary clinton to the left. well, i was interviewing one of his best friends at the ice cream stand and he said, no, bernie sanders is running for real, bernie sanders is in it to win, not to push a message. it's really proven to be true. he's out there and pushing to win. just one other moment was a town hall meeting hillary clinton had in keen, new hampshire, and she asked everyone in the room if you've had a connection to substance abuse, raise your hands, and almost everyone in the room raised their hands. it was really this remarkable moment. it's a reflection, this is a presidential campaign where almost every candidate is talking about addiction and drug abuse and heroin because new hampshire is a big state and it's an issue there and that encapsulated it. >> brown: it's not just where are the candidates but -- >> who is driving campaign. we have been used to the paw we are of the e-- the power of the elites who could ultimately shape the campaign, especially on the republican side in this case. they've had little to no impact. it doesn't mean as we move forward that they won't, but it's clear the super pac spending certainly hasn't helped jeb bush. the attacks by elite conservative media haven't done anything to stop donald trump. when you look at the overall polling, the number of people in the republican primary who say we want somebody who has zero experience in governing is over 50%. >> brown: is there anyone on the republican side -- look at scott walker, what happened to him. is there anybody on your side that doesn't get much attention that you keep wondering why? >> on the democratic side covering the democrats, there was a time when you really thought martin o'malley would catch fire, and he just never has. he stayed in the low single digits the whole time, the former maryland governor, and on paper he has incredibly low name i.d. and is still working hard and not really getting anywhere. and it's kind of surprising. >> brown: so fast forward. now we have to look ahead a little bit. iowa is about a month away. do you still think, as we sit here now, that these first primaries are -- well, how important are they? >> they are still very important. >> brown: very important. i still think they are going to winnow the field down. we're not going to have all these 13 on the republican side and we may lose martin o'malley, too, but i think the real question is going to be what does donald trump do, if he does not win one of those early states. our assumptions about this race have always center around donald trump, where is he? is he first? is he going to be, you know, running as an independent candidate? what is his message? how are the candidates reacting to him? if he does not win in iowa or in new hampshire, the entire premise of his campaign is now collapsed, right? the entire premise of his campaign is i'm a winner, you're all losers, i'm in first, you are not. what he decides to do is also going to have an impact on what happens to the rest of these candidates. >> brown: what do you see happening? >> my crystal ball is fuzzy... >> brown: come on, how many of these faces? (laughter) >> i think amy is right, there will be far fewer faces after iowa and new hampshire and i think super tuesday is heavily weighted toward southern states and is going to change the dynamic. and it's hard to campaign in all those states. it takes money and hard money, not just super pac money. >> and what we know from the past campaigns, and i know they haven't been a good guide in this election, because everything we've seen last time isn't happening. i can admit where i was not so clear on my crystal ball. but we know the events that start to happen when voters start voting really accelerates the process. all the polls that we've had up until now, all the assumptions we've had up until now can changeover night when voters cast ballots. >> brown: we'll be back next week, new year, happy new year. amy walter, tamera keith, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> brown: during the 1980s and 90s, the u.s. navy built a fleet of nuclear armed submarines. their mission: deter an attack against the united states. and if that failed, fight a nuclear war. they're now approaching the end of their lifespans. the navy plans to build replacements, but there's growing debate over how many are needed and how to pay for them. veteran pentagon reporter jamie mcintyre, now national security correspondent for al jazeera america, reported this story earlier this year while he was on special assignment for the newshour. it was produced in partnership with the pulitzer center on crisis reporting. >> man battle stations, missile. spin up all missiles. >> sound the general alarm. >> reporter: if america's strategy of nuclear deterrence ever fails, the beginning of the end might look something like this. the u.s. navy's ballistic missile submarines are all part of the ohio class, named for the first submarine of the design, the u.s.s. ohio. they have only one mission: to lurk silently, deep beneath the ocean, ready to rain nuclear devastation on virtually any target, anywhere, any time on orders of the president. submerged just off the coast of hawaii, the 180-man crew of the u.s.s. pennsylvania demonstrated for the pbs newshour an abridged version of what it practices every week the sub is at sea. the submarine's video screens display only unclassified data. >> we have a verified and correct launch order directing the launch of missiles seven, three and five. >> reporter: the navy reviewed our footage to ensure nothing was compromised. what we saw was a mock doomsday scenario. >> this is the captain. this is an exercise. >> reporter: the launching of three nuclear-tipped missiles, enough to destroy several major cities and kill millions of people. it's a drill where there can be no questioning of orders, no consideration of consequences, no second thoughts. lieutenant a.j. walker is the triggerman, whose job is to what's euphemistically termed "close the circuit." this is the missile compartment. it what makes this submarine such a fearsome weapon, 24 missile tubes, each one capable of holding a trident missile with multiple independently targeted warheads. that means this single ship could deliver massive destructive power to multiple targets around the globe. to critics back in washington, that raises an obvious question: if one submarine can bring on armageddon, how many does the u.s. really need? joseph cirincione is president of the ploughshares fund, a foundation that supports eliminating nuclear weapons. >> one sub carries at its minimum the equivalent of 600 hiroshimas. if they launched those missiles, if they launch those warheads, it would be a destructive event beyond history. >> reporter: it's not just an academic argument. the military commander of america's nuclear arsenal, admiral cecil haney, wants to upgrade the aging fleet of 14 ohio class ballistic missile subs in the coming decades by building 12 new next-generation subs. >> replacing the ohio class submarine is one of my top priorities. >> reporter: each submarine has a price tag of upwards of $5 billion, although, when you count research and development, the total price climbs to over $100 billion, according to the congressional budget office. >> however you want to calculate it, this fleet is a bargain. >> reporter: vice admiral mike connor commands the navy submarine forces. at his headquarters in norfolk, virginia, he makes the case for an almost one-for-one replacement of the current fleet, arguing the cost is just 1% of the overall defense budget, while the benefit is incalculable, measured, he says, in wars that never start. >> the truth is that we use them every day to deter a major power war. >> reporter: the ballistic missile submarine is an awesome war machine. at 560 feet, it is as long as the washington monument is high, yet nearly invisible to enemy eyes when slinking silently deep beneath the waves, which makes it the most survivable leg of america's nuclear triad of subs, bombers, and land-based missiles. >> and what would happen if they did attempt a massive strike, no matter how massive that strike was, the submarine force that is at sea would survive and be in a position to retaliate. >> reporter: as the u.s. cuts the number of nuclear weapons in the latest round of reductions negotiated with the russians, submarines will play an outsized role in the deterrence mission, carrying 70% of america's active nuclear arsenal. still, critics like ploughshares' joe cirincione argue building enough new subs to destroy the world a dozen times over is expensive overkill. >> if you just need this to be a deterrent force, to respond in case someone is crazy enough to actually attack the united states and thereby deter them from ever doing that, well, you really could be talking about four, five, six nuclear submarines, each of which would have 16 missile tubes, each of which would carry five or six warheads. that's a lot of nuclear weapons. >> reporter: but, as admiral connor war-games various worst- case scenarios, involving russia, china, and north korea, he insists the psychological calculus of deterrence can't be reduced to a simple math problem. >> so you think about an intelligent adversary, and our adversaries, in a peer competitor situation, they are intelligent, they are thinking adversaries, you wouldn't want to have a situation where there is an incentive where they say, you know, if we strike on this day or when this ship is being repaired or when they're just leaving port and the other one is just coming in, that maybe the balance of force would change in our favor. >> reporter: but, ultimately, it could be money, not strategy, that torpedoes the navy's pricey plan to design and build a state-of-the-art sub to replace the current 14. >> the cost of that program has been estimated in the range of $100 billion. the navy has said that it cannot pay for it out of its navy budget. >> reporter: at his senate hearing to be confirmed as joint chiefs chairman, general joseph dunford agreed paying for a whole new fleet of subs out of the regular ship building account would bust the navy's budget. >> and what i can tell you with a degree of surety is that, were we to fund the ohio class replacement out of the department of the navy, it would have a pretty adverse effect on the rest of the ship building plan, and the estimates are between two-and-a-half and three ships a year. >> the cost is, some people would say "outrageous." i just say it's tremendous. >> reporter: naval historian and consultant norman polmar says, either way you fund the plan, through the normal budget or a special account, it's unaffordable, and unworkable. >> if congress were to fund the navy strategic submarines out of a separate fund, tomorrow afternoon, the air force would come in and say, hey, congress has approved a new bomber; we want that funded out of a separate strategic fund. >> reporter: polmar says there are smarter, cheaper ways to buy the same level of nuclear deterrence. modifying smaller attack submarines already in service, he argues, would allow the navy to buy fewer of the bigger ballistic missile subs. >> today, every attack submarine can carry tomahawk land attack conventional missiles. most of our submarines have vertical launch tubes for 12 of these tomahawk missiles. those missiles tomorrow or, say, a couple of years could have nuclear warheads. >> reporter: but the navy counters, the smaller attack subs don't have the endurance of the bigger boomers, and that their cruise missiles don't have the intercontinental range, nor carry multiple warheads that can destroy different targets. and advocates for far deeper weapons cuts say the whole debate underscores the folly of expensive new nuclear weapons that would only be used if a war were essentially already lost. this plaque shows the u.s.s. pennsylvania was launched in april of 1988. that makes it over a quarter- century old. it, like other submarines of its class, was designed for 30 years of service, which means it would have been decommissioned in the next couple of years. but now, the navy says it's figured out how to keep those submarines running for an extra 12 years. commander john cage is captain of the u.s.s. pennsylvania. so, you have showed us around your boat. it looks great. everything looks like it's spit- polished and shiny. it looks like this boat could go on forever. >> she still has a lot of life left in her. but it's definitely getting on in the years. there's things that - we have a lot of redundant systems, that i find myself using those redundant systems a little bit more. certain components will fail. certain things are just starting to run past their lifetime. >> dive. dive. >> all vents open. >> reporter: but the sub's crew is still prepared to make the unthinkable reality. >> we do think about it. i mean, it's definitely not something we want to happen. nobody in the boat wants it to happen. >> reporter: how would you handle the crew on the boat after a launch like that, when no one would sort of know what - the fate of the world be hanging in the balance. how do you keep a crew together after? >> i will tell you, that would be difficult. one of the reasons why we train so frequently, the evolution you saw, we do time and time again, so it becomes something that we can execute immediately and quickly. but after that would be a very difficult time. >> reporter: for this submarine, a successful deployment is one where the only projectiles from the sea are the bottlenose dolphins who playfully surf the sub's bow as it prepares to dive. jamie mcintyre for the pbs newshour, aboard the u.s.s. pennsylvania, off the coast of hawaii. >> brown: finally tonight, we remember two major figures from the world of the arts who died this weekend: an oscar-winning cinematographer and a master of the abstract, modern art scene. haskell wexler was a pioneer in the world of cinematography in the 1960s and '70s, directing the photography and creating new looks for films like coming home -- >> and i wanted to be a war here o man, i wanted to go out and kill for my country! >> brown: -- in the heat of the night. >> why don't you tell me how you killed mr. colbert and you will feel better. >> brown: -- and one flew over the cuckoo's nest for which he received an oscar's nomination. >> they're all ganging up on me. is that news? >> brown: he won his first academy award in 1966 for who's afraid of virginia woolf. >> i hope we can use our art for peace and for love. thanks. >> martha, i warn you -- i stand warned! >> brown: that film used hand-held cameras to elevate the tension between the characters by elizabeth taylor and richard burton. wexler earned another oscar in 1976 for bound for glory, which told the story of woody guthrie who was the first film to use a steady cam shot. for medium cool in 1969, a film he wrote and directed, wexler blended real and fictional footage to cover the story of a tv reporter covering the tear r turmoil of the '68 democratic convention, and the style would influence many others. he was an outspoken liberalist and documentarian who used film to champion his causes. >> the only thing you can do and it's you or him. >> brown: he won an award in 1970 for failum about the u.s. massacre in vietnam. he continued working until recently. haskell wexler died yesterday. hhe was 93 years old. ellsworth kelly was one of america's leading 20th century abstract artists, becoming known for his geometric shapes and simple color schemes inspired by the world around him. stephanie baron is senior curator at the los angeles county museum of art. >> the humanity comes from his uncanny ability to distill the visual and the physical that he sees and whether it's a leaf or an awning or a rock, things that we might just walk right by, he would pick up and he would ponder and he would find the essence in them and distill it into a very simple form. >> brown: during world war ii, kelly painted camouflage patterns on military tank cutouts to fool german forces. after the war, he moved to paris to study art on the g.i. bill. he returned to the u.s. in the 1950s, his bold geometric paintings left some viewers wondering just where the art was, while others found themselves drawn in. >> i'm always stunned at how much it seems to affect people, and there is a strange ability that these works have to communicate to people who don't just walk by them, they're really drawn into it, and they're very con temp lative. >> brown: the work would make its way into leading museum here and abroad and in 2012 received the national medals from president obama. he died at home in upstate new york in his home at 92 years old. >> brown: on the newshour online: even if it has been unseasonably warm where you are you can still enjoy these stunning photographs of snowflakes taken by a russian photographer: ultra close-ups, from a point-and-shoot camera. a photo gallery of these images is on our home page, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm jeffrey brown. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by bnsf railway. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> 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 . >> announcer: this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen a where's santa? as investors wait on the rally to close on the year. so far it hasn't come. should investors be concerned? oil squeeze. saudi arabia posts a record budget deficit thanks to a dramatic fall in crude this year. could this further destabilize an already tumultuous middle east? and seeing stars. "star wars'" latest chapter is the fastest movie ever to rake in a billion dollars. why that juggernaut may be good news for other movies and good news for hollywood. all that and more on "nightly business report" for monday december 28th. good evening, everyone and welcome. tyler is off this evening. it is the final four days of 2015, and it's that

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