This show is a place, has been one of americas most consistent sources of good things for 40 years. I feel like its imperative that it continue. Woodruff all that and more on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. Lincoln financial committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. The ford foundation. Working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. 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 president ial campaigns focused on states most up for grabs today, with Republican Donald Trump promising no regrets in the remaining weeks of his campaign. It was a battle of the battleground states today. In 18 days, we are gonna win North Carolina. Hello ohio woodruff donald trump campaigned in the tar heel state, where he went after Hillary Clinton for a paid speech she made to a brazilian bank. It was revealed through hacked emails. Speaking in secret to a foreign bank, Hillary Clinton said her dream is for totally open trade. There goes your business. And totally open borders. There goes your country. There goes your country, oh, we love wikileaks. Woodruff then, he was off to pennsylvania for two more rallies. Clintons battleground stop was in neighboring ohio, in cleveland. On wednesday night, donald trump did something no other president ial nominee has ever done. He refused to say that he would respect the results of this election. audience booing now, make no mistake by doing that, he is threatening our democracy. Woodruff last night, the rivals sat practically sideby side, at the alfred e. Smith dinner in new york. The fundraiser for Catholic Charities is traditionally a place for political roasts. Neither candidate held their punches, and one was booed. Weve learned so much from wikileaks. For example, hillary believes that it is vital to deceive the people by having one Public Policy and a totally different policy in private. Donald wanted me drug tested before last nights debate. And look, i am so flattered that donald thought i used some sort of performance enhancer. Now, actually i did. Its called preparation. Woodruff the clinton campaign, out with an ad featuring khizr kahn, a Muslim American whose son died while serving in the u. S. Army in iraq. I want to ask mr. Trump would my son have a place in your america . Woodruff the ad will air in key battleground states. In New Hampshire, where trump is lagging, conservatives turned their focus to the senate. No matter who the next president is, New Hampshire needs a strong voice in the u. S. Senate. That senator kelly ayotte. Woodruff ayotte faces a difficult reelection bid, and hers is one the tossup seats that could determine control of the senate, in just 18 days. Well hear more about those downballot senate and house races after the news summary. In the days other news, russia extended a pause in fighting in aleppo, syria, for a third day, to allow people to receive aid. That after the u. N. Said planned evacuations of the rebelheld east were halted, due to a lack of security guarantees from the warring sides. Meanwhile, addressing a meeting in geneva, the u. N. s high commissioner for human rights again denounced russian and syrian airstrikes. Indiscriminate air strikes across the eastern part of the city by Government Forces and their allies are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties, and these violations constitute war crimes, and if knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against civilians, they constitute crimes against humanity. Woodruff separately, the United Nations set up a special inquiry today to investigate alleged human rights abuses in aleppo. In iraq, Islamic State militants launched attacks today in and around the Northern City of kirkuk. Suicide bombers stormed a power plant, killing 13 workers, including four iranians. Explosions and gunfire echoed throughout that area for hours. The assault was apparently aimed at diverting iraqi and Kurdish Forces away from their massive offensive in isisheld mosul. A passenger train derailed in the Central African country of cameroon today, killing at least 55 people and injuring nearly 600 more. Some 1,300 people were on board, more than twice the normal load. First responders struggled to pull mudsoaked victims from the wreckage. Heavy rains had caused several roads in the area to collapse. Back in this country, a series of c attacks made dozens of popular websites inaccessible today, from twitter to the music streaming site spotify. The hack targeted the New Hampshirebased internet Infrastructure Provider dyn. The attacks were launched from devices infected with malware, from millions of i. P. Addresses around the world. The f. B. I. Is still working to determine whos behind the hack. The president of the philippines has clarified comments he made yesterday about a separation from the United States. Rodrigo duterte says hes not cutting ties with the u. S. , but rather meant the philippines need not dovetail the Foreign Policy of america. In washington, white house spokesman josh earnest voiced concern about the leaders recent pronouncements. Weve seen too many troubling public statements from president duterte over the last several months. And the frequency of that rhetoric has added an element of unnecessary uncertainty into our relationship that doesnt advance the interests of either country. Woodruff the u. S. And the philippines have been allies for 70 years. A u. S. Navy warship sailed near disputed islands in the South China Sea today, drawing a stern rebuke from china. The u. S. S. Decatur drew close to the paracel islands, one of the territories contested by china and its neighbors, before two chinese ships warned it to leave. Chinas Defense Ministry called the move illegal and provocative. And stocks were mixed on wall street today. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 16 points to close at 18,145. The nasdaq rose 15 points, and the s p 500 slipped a fraction of a point. For the week, all three indexes gained a fraction of a percent. Still to come on the newshour, the road to the white house and the likelihood democrats could take back the senate. A former n. S. A. Contractor to be charged with espionage after a massive data breech. Mark shields and david brooks take on the weeks political news, and much more. Woodruff we return to the president ial election. Now for a look at where the race stands, what each nominees path to victory is and how down ballot races are shaking out this year, we are joined by our own correspondent Lisa Desjardins and nathan gonzales, editor of the Rothenberg Gonzales political report and elections editor for roll call. And hello to both of you. So nathan, lets start with you. The electoral vote map has shifted a little. Tell us what things look like now. Secretary clinton has had the advantage both in the National Vote and also the Electoral College for quite some time. Now there are a couple of states, florida and North Carolina, just moved from tossup to tilting democratic, and that just adds to the 270 electoral votes. Right now on our map we have over 323 electoral votes. The two tossups that are remaining, i think, are iowa and ohio. If you told republicans you would win iowa or ohio, a state president obama won twice, i think they would be ecstatic. But florida, wisconsin, North Carolina, nevada, all these other states are in poor shape and a soft underbelly of traditionally republican states trump is risking losing as well. Woodruff lisa, given that, what is is Donald Trumps path forward . Dont you wonder . This is where i get to say lets look at the map. I think the best way to think of it is he needs to win 64 more electoral votes than mitt romney did in 2012. The simplest way is the big three states, thats pennsylvania, ohio and florida. Problem there, pennsylvania, donald trump has not won a poll in pennsylvania since june, since before his convention. So lets imagine pennsylvania is off the plate. Lets also imagine we dont know if this will happen that florida and ohio for the sake of argument go trump, thats what hes hoping for. What then . Look at the remaining swing states we have across the country. Donald trump now has to win two or three of these in order to become president. These are states like colorado, wisconsin, michigan, virginia, where they have in common, as you just heard from nathan, theyve all been moving in Hillary Clintons direction strongly. Just iowa remains as a swing state in that group and as nathan said, he has problems on home turf like arizona, places moving away from him, and North Carolina that he needs to keep. Woodruff those are tough gets for donald trump, arent they . Yes, and this is going to be tough for any republican nominee. There were four tossups coming into the election, ohio, florida, colorado and virginia. Once we saw colorado and virginia moving toward Hillary Clinton, it had to be pennsylvania or another a big state and its not coming poght. Woodruff lisa, youve looked at the polls and why it is that Hillary Clinton has moved up, and i think its interesting these results. A lot of people might think women are shifting. No, the polls in these key states moving the most, its men who are changing. When you look at polls out of nevada, monmouth polls this month versus last month show men under 50 years old voting 53 for Hillary Clinton right now, but a month ago 29 an unbelievable shift of 24 points in a month and you see this in other states and nationally. It seems men are moving away from donald trump right now. Woodruff there are stories all over the map. Nathan, lets talk about the senate seats. Right now, it is very much in republican hands. Republicans seem to be holding on to that majority till recently, but now with this shift at the president ial level, whats happening . Sure. Democrats need to gain four seats in order to get to 50. Vice president tim kaine will be the tie breaker. Four is the magic number. For most of the cycle, republican candidates were resilient based on donald trump at the ticket. But then the access hollywood tape, second debate and now a steep decline in trumps numbers. The president ial race has always had an impact on senate races, but as his hole gets deeper that increases the number of ticket splitters these members need to survive. Woodruff what are democratic chances to survive in the senate . This is a case where republicans walked in with a disadvantage. If you look at all the seats that are tossups this year, about eight of them well put on this map, the vast majority are red, held by republicans. There is one nevada that democrats are defending. If you take these seats, seems the most vulnerable for republicans are wisconsin and illinois. So lets imagine they go democratic. Thats two of the four nathan says democrats need. Then weve got six remaining swing states that, of those, democrats need to win three. So is that maybe a win in pennsylvania and New Hampshire where kelly ayote was doing well and now having a problem, same thing in pennsylvania where we see the incumbent senator toomey is also having a problem. They were outperforming trump a month ago. Now theyre on the ropes. Democrats need to just pick up three of this group of six swing senate seats. Its getting more and more within their reach. Woodruff nathan, if things look better for the democrats in the senate, what about the house . Thats been a reach. What about now . Democrats need 30 seats to gain 30 seats. 30 when competitive is tough. They basically have to run the table. So far we havent seen a uniform drop in republican candidate support across the country. There are vulnerable districts out there, but i think the margin is closer to 10, 15 seats, 20 seats rather than 30. Because trump is getting destroyed in the suburbs. He is causing suburban republican incumbents to be vulnerable in the suburbs. But hes going well in rural michigan. Michigans first district, a seattimes have to win, but trumps performance is actually helping republicans keep that seat. So republicans losing some seats but not anywhere near enough to lose the majority . Right now, doesnt look like the majority is in danger. Two weeks can be a lot of time in the house races are the latest ones to develop. Woodruff two and a half weeks to go. Nathan gonzales, Lisa Desjardins, thank you. Thanks. Woodruff next, a judge ruled today that a maryland man accused of stealing massive amounts of information from the National Security agency was a flight risk and will remain in federal custody. William brangham has the story. Brangham this past august, Harold Martin iii was arrested at his home in the maryland suburbs of washington d. C. In his house, investigators discovered the equivalent of half a billion pages of documents and electronic data, some allegedly taken from the n. S. A. s headquarters at nearby fort meade. Among the documents were marked top secret and according to reports, some also included code used by the n. S. A. To hack into the Computer Networks of foreign governments. Joining me now for more on this case is matt apuzzo, whos been covering this story for the New York Times. Matt apuzzo, welcome. I wonder if you would start off by laying out the case against this gentleman, and what is his defense . Well, what is fascinating is there is the case thats been brought and its, as you said, is this guy had terabytes, billions of pages of documents in his house, shed, in the back seat of his car, in the trunk of his car and, obviously, youre not supposed to do that. So there is that case. But then there is this other case thats kind of looming over all this, and the question is, is he the guy who, not too long ago, facilitated the release of n. S. A. Documents basically for ransom, put them up for sale online . These were hacking tools, the way the United States government hacks into other countries an businesses and whatnot. So thats really whats going on here. He mishandled classified information, basically admitted that, but is he part of some network thats putting information up for sale . Brangham this originally came about as a group called the shadow brokers who were auctioning off this software. Is it correct that investigators who were looking into that release and that case, thats how they discovered martin . Yeah. What were told here is that martin sort of popped up on the radar screen during the early parts of the investigation into the shadow brokers release and using some clever forensics and oldfashioned investigative skills, were able to identify martin, and then when they raided his house, i think they were stunned to find as much stuff as they found. Were talking about 20 years of classified information, a catalog of how the n. S. A. Stored data. He has stuff on paper, c. D. S, thumb drives. It tells a story and its an archive of the n. S. A. Brangham what is martins defense . We havent heard a full defense. Our understanding of what hes told the f. B. I. Is he acknowledges that he took the stuff and he wasnt supposed to take it, but there seems to be a little bit of, well, i was taking this stuff home to study it to become better at my job, to become a better patriot, to be a better n. S. A. Contractor. Unlike somebody like edward snowden, who had, you know, a privacy, a libertarian bend, what were hearing about martin is he was very rahrah for the n. S. A. And its programs and believed he was a patriot. Brangham has the government indicated what they think his motive might be . Why would he have these tools in his house . Great question. More so, hes been doing it 20 years, why if he was doing it 20 years, but why would he start now . I think if the government would have known it, we would have seen it in the Court Documents and in court. A lot of federal investigators are scratching their heads saying we know we have a big case and a lot of smoke, but can we link him to the leaked documents and to a Foreign Intelligence Service . So far, that isnt materialized in a provable way. Brangham more broadly, can we talk about how damaging this might be for the n. S. A. . This is a second instance where an n. S. A. Contractor has walked out the door with truckloads of incredibly valuable data. What is the impact on the n. S. A. From this kind of a thing . Sure. I think one of the things, the damage and Risk Assessment is going on, and one of the questions they will have to face is, if they cant figure out if any of the data has been compromised, do they have to assume that its all been compromised . And does that mean you have to start shutting down programs . But from a practical standpoint, it really does boggle the mind, that you can, for 20 years, just walk out of the building with papers and thumb drives and c. D. S and whatnot. It certainly does make you wonder how that happens, and you can bet that thats going to be something they will be looking awfully hard at. After edward snowden, too, that were still having this discussion, it does bog the mind. A case for all of us to keep watching as it goes forward. Matt apuzzo with the