They were on a patrol and colton was shot by a taliban sniper, and he sort of fell where he was standing. And the dogs reaction was to climb on top of him, on his fallen body, and protect him. Woodruff those are some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by at bae systems, our pride and dedication show in everything we do; from Electronics Systems to intelligence analysis and cyber operations; from combat vehicles and weapons to the maintenance and modernization of ships, aircraft, and critical infrastructure. Knowing our work makes a difference inspires us everyday. Thats bae systems. Thats inspired work. Lincoln financial committed to helping you take charge of your life and become youre own chief life officer. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Ifill it turns out the summer surge of Economic Growth was Even Stronger than first thought. Revised figures today showed the best performance since 2003. The government said the economy expanded at an annual rate of 5 from july through september. That was even better than the 4. 6 showing during the spring months. Well take a closer look at whats behind the numbers in just a few minutes, after the news summary. Woodruff wall street took the Economic Data as a reason to keep buying. The Dow Jones Industrial average closed above 18,000 for the first time, with a gain of 64 points. The s p 500 added 3, to finish at 2,082. The nasdaq fell 16 points, due to a drop in the biotechnology sector, to close at 4,765. Ifill protesters in new york plan to go ahead tonight with demonstrations against police use of force. Theyve rejected mayor bill de blasios plea to suspend protests out of respect for the families of two murdered police officers. Rafael ramos and wenjian liu were killed saturday by a gunman who later took his own life. De blasio and his wife laid flowers today at an impromptu memorial to the policemen. The mayor also led a moment of silence at the exact time of the shooting, and he appealed for understanding. We have to put divisions of the past behind us. They were left to all of us in this generation and we have to overcome them. We need to protect and respect our police, just as our Police Protect and respect our communities. We can strike that balance, we must. Ifill new yorks Police Commissioner said today its unfortunate that protest organizers are ignoring the mayors call to suspend their activities. Woodruff the Obama Administration is touting new enrollment numbers for the federally run Health Insurance site. Officials reported nearly 6. 4 million americans have signed up. Of those, 1. 9 million are new customers. The rest were automatically re enrolled. Ifill new york congressman Michael Grimm pleaded guilty today in a federal tax evasion case. The Staten Island republican was accused of hiding more than 1 million in sales and wages at a healthfood restaurant. He entered a guilty plea to a single count of aiding in filing a false tax return. Last month, grimm won re election to a third term. He would not say today if hell resign. Woodruff House Republicans have charged for more than a year that the Internal Revenue service improperly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny. But an official report today, from the House Oversight committee, found no evidence that the white house was involved. Committee democrats say the report cherrypicked facts to fit a political narrative. Ifill in ukraine, parliament moved today to abandon the countrys nonaligned status, possibly leading to eventual nato membership. The proposal passed with an overwhelming vote of 303 to nine. Supporters insisted that ukraine pivot toward the west in its confrontation with russia. translated we cannot afford the luxury to have non aligned status. We have no time and no money to waste and need urgently to build the Ukrainian Army in order to defend our homeland. We need to become part of the collective system of defence which is nato. Ukraines place is in europe, ukraines place is in nato. Ifill russia called the move counterproductive, and said it will only worsen relations between moscow and kiev. Woodruff theres word that hundreds of libyans have died in the fighting thats gripped their country since late august. The United Nations warned today of a humanitarian crisis. It said at least 120,000 people have fled their homes. At the same time, a u. N. Envoy said rival factions have agreed to hold new peace talks next month. Ifill Amnesty International accused Islamic State fighters today of forcing hundreds of iraqi women and girls into sexual slavery. The victims belonged to the yazidi religious minority. They were captured in august when the militants overran the town of sinjar near the syrian border. Amnesty says girls as young as ten faced torture, rape and forced marriages. Woodruff an Islamic State ally blamed for beheading a french hiker in algeria, has been killed. The algerian military announced today that troops ambushed and killed Abdelmalek Gouri last night, after a threemonth manhunt. He had been a top alqaeda commander before forming his own group. Ifill 2014 was another deadly year for journalists. The committee to protect journalists says at least 60 reporters, photographers and others were killed, nearly a third of them in syria. The total is down from 70 last year, but all told, the past three years are the deadliest on record for news professionals. Ifill still to come on the newshour new figures show record growth for the us economy, but can the recovery sustain itself in the new year . Whos really behind the sony hacking attack . Not everyone blames north korea. Archaeologists trying to protect some of the western hemispheres oldest treasures from destruction. The f. D. A. Recommends lifting its ban on gay blood donors. Hope for opening the door to a cuban import that may give Major League Baseball a lift. And, meet the war dogs who join soldiers in some of the worlds most dangerous places. Woodruff lets take a closer look at what was behind todays strong numbers on the economy and impressive recent growth. For that, we turn to Nariman Behravesh, he is the chief economist at i. H. S. , an Economic Forecasting and research firm. Nariman behravesh, thank you very much. So whats behind this . Whats driving this . Well, the good news is its fairly broadbased. The revision that we saw today was mostly due to two factors, Consumer Spending which is revised up in large part because of reestimates of higher spending on healthcare. But that wasnt the only thing. Capital spending was also revised up quite considerably. So its a fairly broadbased upward revision in gdp. The goods in, as you said at the outset of the program, is theres a lot of momentum in the u. S. Economy and that will keep us going for a while. Woodruff seems like just yesterday we were being told that the economy was not picking up. So does this represent a sudden turnaround or were the fundamentals there all along . No, the fundamentals were definitely there all along. Lets just look at the consumer for the moment. If you look at things like employment growth, the strongest in over ten years, consistently throughout 2014. Consumer finances in great shape. Consumer debt levels relative to take holm pay the lowest since 2002. The big drop in gasoline prices like an 80 billion to 100 billion tax cut to consumers, thats money right into their pockets. So alof this is good news and fundamental changes. These are sustainable changes that will keep Consumer Spending growth going for some time soivment weve also been reporting regularly for some time probably all this year that even though were starting to see some good Economic Statistics out there, most people arent feeling it, and thats, in large part, due to the fact wages have been stagnant. What do you see on the pay front front . Youre absolutely right. Certainly the employment recovery has been there, but the wage recovery has not. Until recently, i should say. The most recent numbers, the november numbers, for example, on wages, did show an upward movement. The income data that came out today suggested doesnt growth in terms of wages and salaries. So we may actually be seeing the beginnings of a recovery on the wage front. But as you say, the fact that that hasnt, until just very recently, recovered, makes people feel like what recovery . Theyre not seeing it in any meaningful way in terms of their salaries and what theyre taking home. Woodruff is there an explanation for why wages are starting to go up . Well, theres been a variety of explanations as to what has been going on and why thats changing now. Certainly one of them is, until very recently, theres been a lot of slack, if you will, in the labor market, and thats beginning to disappear, in the sense that the labor market is beginning to tighten. And that inevitably results in high wage growth and were in the early stages of that here in 2014, and i think well see more wage growth in 2015. Which is good for the economy. Means the consumers will have more to spend and the recovery will be sustained for a while longer. Woodruff so what is the outlook for 2015 . What are you seeing . Well, the way to say it is that the underlying growth rate of the u. S. Economy now is around 3 . You know, well get quarters of 5 , we may get quarters a little less than that, but the average is going to come out around 3 , which is very solid. So thats the kind of number were seeing for 2015. Again, quarter by quarter, its going to bump up and down. It will depend on the weather maybe, some special factors, but solid 3 average in 2015. Woodruff and you and other folks who watch this feel confident about that . Well, anything can happen, obviously. Theres the unknown unknowns, if you want to say it that way, or, you know, the stuff that could happen that you cant even begin to predict. But if we dont get a bad shock, if you will, then certainly i think its easily going to be that 3 . And all the foundations of growth are there, especially in terms of Consumer Spending and capital spending. So barring some horrible shock, yes, i think were pretty confident well see that 3 . Woodruff the only other question i have Nariman Behravesh is how long will this last . At least a couple of years, in the sense that inflation is not a problem, and usually that leads to some you know, aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve which we dont see for the next couple of years. So 3 plus or minus growth through 2016 i think is quite achievable. Woodruff Nariman Behravesh, great to have good news for a change. Thank you. Ifill Sony Pictures entertainment revived plans today to release its comedy about a plot to kill north koreas leader. It was the latest twist in a saga thats played out in hollywood, pyongyang and washington. Todays announcement means the interview will begin showing christmas day, the original release date, at potentially hundreds of independent theaters around the country. In a statement, the studios c. E. O. Michael lynton said sony had always intended to release it sony yanked the film last week, after major theater chains refused to screen it, in the face of threatened violence by a hackers group. The same group had already carried out a massive hacking of sonys computer system. On friday, president obama and the f. B. I. Formally blamed north korea. We will respond proportionally, and well respond in a place and time and manner that we choose. Ifill but the president today applauded sonys latest move. Yesterday, north korea was hit by an internet shutdown that continued sporadically today. But the state department refused to confirm or deny any u. S. Role in the outage. The president has spoken to what our potential response is, separate and apart from what weve seen over the last 24 hours might be. And i leave it to the North Koreans to talk about if their internet was up, if it wasnt and why. Ifill almost all of north koreas web links pass through china, but beijing flatly denied it had any role in the cyber attack. When president obama laid blame for the sony hack squarely at north koreas door, some Cyber Security experts were skeptical, and remain so. The debate continues in journals, blogs and here tonight, with two experts from Cyber Security companies who have tracked breaches around the world. Marc rogers is principal security researcher at cloudflare, and, joining us again, Dmitri Alperovitch, co founder and chief Technology Officer at crowdstrike. Dmitri alperovitch, you came on the program last week and made the case that the president was correct and that the f. B. I. Was correct and this was definitely, definitely north korea. Why so certain . Remind people why are we so certain of that . I cant speak for the f. B. I. Or u. S. Government who are very certain but i can speak for crowdstrike who has done independent analysis and we have tracked it to a group active since 2006, primarily south korea, u. S. Forces korea are looking for military planning, exercises observe the peninsula, things of natural concern and importance to north korea. Weve seen them engage in destructive attacks like the sony attacks in colluding use of same infrastructure, some i. P. Addresses used in the attack on sony were used in some of the past attacks and part of the malware, the code used in sewny, has been shared across some of the previous attacks, so weve seen them attack south korea in 2009, 2011, 2013, so we have a tremendous amount of visibility into this group. Ifill sounds persuasive, marc rogers. Whats your problem with that . The biggest problem is a lot of this information is based on evidence that isnt accessible to a lot of folks. So if you look at the evidence that the f. B. I. Passed out in its notice, on its own, its largely speculative and its not backed up by any really solid evidence. There are hints, however, that there may be things like signals intelligence and other information they cant disclose for National Security purposes. Unfortunately, without having that information theres no way for other Security Experts to really validate that. My colleague dmitri has access to channels other folks dont have, so to me its interesting to hear the stuff hes talking about. But until i see tangible stuff myself, seems more than just correlations between certain pieces of malware, im going to remain skeptical. Ifill lets break it down a little bit, Dmitri Alperovitch. Lets talk just about the i. P. Address issue which the American Government is making the case were familiar with these i. P. Addresses, that they have been used in other hacks. Is that part of the evidence youre talking about . Well, what theyre actually saying is something different. There are certain i. P. Addresses used in the attack directly on sony. What the f. B. I. Said is they have observed presumably through signals intelligence that those machines were actually contacting north korean structure. They were going through proxies but they were able to observe the connections between the proxies and the north korean structure used in past attacks. Ifill proxies is different than saying north korea itself is involved. Its saying somebody else was doing it on their behalf . I mean the machines, not necessarily the people. You dont attack directly through a country. You go through servers in germany or thailand. Ifill does that sound reasonable to you that maybe its not the north korean government as a state actor but the north korean government going through proxies . Its certainly plausible. Ive said all i long you cant rule out north korea as being behind this, but we need evidence that ties into it. The proxies dmitri mentioned are fairly well known. If you look up i. P. Addresses looking at representation ace long line, you will see they involve malware campaigns and used by other cybercriminals, so no surprise to see someone else is using those, and the North Koreans. To say bad guys are in the neighborhood doesnt tell me who they are. Ifill is this something you would know . As you suggested ukes the federal government, the f. B. I. Maybe has information that backs this up that you wouldnt have . Thats entirely possible but its difficult to be swayed by an argument where somebody says we have absolute proof because we have signals intelligence that tells us this is it but we dont county tell yount ate. When it comes to laying blame at a foreign government, we have to be pretty careful. Im no fan to have the north korean regime and, to be honest, if they are responsible, i hope this gets hung around their neck, but we have to make sure that we have absolute solid evidence, and i believe the evidence should be dealt with in a transparent way as possible. Obviously, we dont want the n. S. A. To destroy leaks or sources they use, but, at the same time, we would give a certain amount of evidence before convicting a person of a crime. Why doesnt a country deserve the same level of evidence . One of the piece of evidence we cant ignore is the statements from north korea themselves. They came out in the summer long before the movie was released saying the release of this movie would be an act of w