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. 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 north korea issued a new warning today to the United States. It came amid signs that the north might be getting ready for another nuclear test. The vice foreign minister charged that the Trump Administration is more vicious and more aggressive than president obamas. translated we are taking into account the most aggressive and dangerous option that the u. S. Might come up with, and we have also got our options, our countermeasures ready in our hands, which means well go to war if they choose. Woodruff theres rising speculation that pyongyang could carry out a nuclear or missile test tomorrow. Thats when the north marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of kim il sung, who founded the hardline communist state in 1948. Russia, syria and iran say they have sent a strong message to the u. S. Not to attack syria again. Their Foreign Ministers met in moscow today. They warned that another u. S. Military strike could have grave consequences for regional and global security. President trump ordered a Cruise Missile barrage in syria last week, after accusing its government of a poison gas attack. In turkey, voters headed toward a momentous decision whether to approve greatly expanded powers for president recep tayyip erdogan. Sundays referendum has sharply divided the country, and European Election observers say the government has tried to intimidate the opposition. Erdogan lashed out at them today. translated now they say if the result is yes, that means there are a lot of problems. Who are you . First of all, you should know your place. This is not your duty. You cant talk about what will happen if the result is yes or no. Woodruff erdogan has carried out a sweeping crackdown since an attempted coup last year. Back in this country, Death Penalty opponents rallied in little rock, arkansas, against plans to execute seven death row inmates by the end of the month. The protest featured celebrity speakers and hundreds of others. The first execution is scheduled for monday night. Arkansas has not put anyone to death since 2005, but Officials Say the States Supply of a lethal injection drug is about to pass its expiration date. A federal judge in San Francisco is being asked to block president trumps executive order on socalled sanctuary cities. It withholds federal funding from cities that wont cooperate on deporting undocumented immigrants. San francisco and santa clara counties argued today for a nationwide injunction against enforcing the funding ban. The Trump White House says it will not release logs of its visitors. Todays announcement was a break from president obamas practice, but Trump AdministrationOfficials Say it is in line with what previous president s did. They cite privacy and National Security concerns. And, christians around the world marked this good friday with solemn observances. Pope francis presided at the traditional way of the cross procession in rome, with thousands in attendance. And in this country, hundreds of people walked the Brooklyn Bridge in new york, behind a man carrying a cross. Still to come on the newshour what a massive bombing says about the u. S. Role in afghanistan; decades of sexual abuse uncovered at a top boarding school; preserving convents in southern spain, and much more. Woodruff the United States involvement in afghanistan was brought into stark relief yesterday with a massive airstrike in the countrys east. But after nearly 16 years, thousands of casualties and billions of dollars, where does the american effort stand . And is the country any closer to being stabilized . William brangham begins our coverage. Reporter the video shows a remote mountain valley, suddenly consumed by a blast equal to 11 tons of t. N. T. The weapon, called a Massive Ordnance Air burst or m. O. A. B. , was used for the first time on the battlefield yesterday, in this strike against Islamic State forces. This was the right weapon against this target. Reporter in kabul today, the top american commander in afghanistan, army general john nicholson, called its use a tactical decision, not a strategic change in policy. The enemy had created bunkers, tunnels and extensive minefields, and this weapon was used to reduce those obstacles so we can continue our offensive into southern nangarhar. Reporter the target area was a district in nangarhar province, where last weekend a u. S. Special forces soldier was killed. It, along with neighboring logar and kunar provinces, are rife with Islamic State activity. At the same time, the taliban also continues to control and contest broad swaths of the afghan countryside. The taliban and isis have claimed responsibility for a series of recent attacks in kabul that have shaken the capital. Afghan Officials Say thursdays blast killed 36 Islamic State militants, but no civilians. Isis denied anyone was killed. Afghans citizens appeared divided on using the bomb against isis, or daesh, as its also known. translated we are very happy, and these kinds of bombs should be used in future as well, so isis is rooted out from here. translated daesh is the enemy of afghanistan. I wish that america in reality targeted daesh in that area, but there are children there and they had casualties from this bombing. The whole world condemns this action. Reporter the u. S. Still has nearly 9,000 troops in afghanistan, and general nicholson has said the nato force there needs a few thousand more troops to train and advise afghan forces. Its those local forces who continue to take major casualties in the fight against the insurgents. That ongoing fight will surely be on the agenda when president trumps National Security advisor h. R. Mcmaster visits kabul in the weeks ahead. For the pbs newshour, im william brangham. Woodruff for more on all of this, we turn to Pamela Constable, the Washington Post bureau chief in kabul and islamabad. Were catching her on one of her trips home. To talk about the developments of the last few days, but also to take a look at the Bigger Picture in afghanistan. First of all, kabul. Capital city. How stable is it, what does it feel like . Well, you know, its a contradiction. Its a very busy, active city. If you walked around it in the middle of the day you would think you were in the middle of any other big poor but busy city. But theres a great feeling of uncertainty and tension at this time. Theres been a series of very bad suicide bombings, most recently the one at the Military Hospital last month which was extremely shocking, i think, to kabul residents who had gotten used to a certain sense of stability and security, and i think a lot of that is gone now. Its also a city that really shows the difficulties afghanistans having economically. The streets are full of beggars, full of drug addicts, full of people who are really struggling and looking for jobs, so its a bit of a sad picture. Woodruff what do you attribute it to . Oh, thats a big question. Woodruff thats a big question. Many things. I think, first and foremost, has to be security. You have a very sophisticated taliban insurgency with which is doing lots and lots of attacks across the country as well in the capital. Woodruff and getting stronger. Well, certainly holding its own. Certainly able to carry out very frightening and persistent attacks, certainly not close to winning but theyre certainly doing pretty well. Then you have i. S. I. S. Which is known there as daesh, which is a whole other can of worms as they say, a very different sort of enemy, more ruthless, less interested in winning hears and minds, more foreignbased, more extreme compared to the taliban and, obviously, of greater concern to the neighbors, russia, for example, is very concerned about i. S. I. S. And less so about the taliban which they appear to be reaching out to in many ways. So thats number one. Following that is a long list. Theres corruption, theres poverty, there is tribal and regional problems, and theres the persistent divisions within the government itself. So people are quite frustrated and i think very disillusioned by the lack of progress on a lot of fronts. Woodruff where do many people place the blame there . Do they blame the u. S. For not keeping more troops on the ground . Do they blame the Afghan Government . I mean theres a tendency to always blame the guy in charge and, of course, thats president ghani. He deserves some of the blame. I think he probably took on more than he could chew. I think he aimed very, very high. I think he created Unrealistic Expectations of what was possible, given all the obstacles. I think hes made a goodfaith effort. I think hes done a lot, but hes also been really bombarded by so many problems, corruption being a major one, administrative lack of capacity, and these terrible struggles that have gone on within the government because as you know iit wasnt an elected governmen, it was a forged or forced power share government thats not gone well and i think hampered them. Woodruff today in the Washington Post one of your colleagues has a piece about the growing involvement of russia and iran, you mentioned it a moment ago. Right. Woodruff how is that all affecting the stability there . The interest of iran is an old one. Iran is a neighbor with lots of trade and traffic back and fovrmt its obviously shiite. There are many, many, many Shiite Muslims in afghanistan. So its a neighbor, but its always been a neighbor hat that had lots of political interest in having influence of all kinds, thats not new. Whats relatively new is russia, which obviously is a much more powerful country, not a neighbor but close enough, thats showing every sign of wanting to get involved for the First Time Since the 80s when, obviously, they backed the government there. Woodruff so you now have the u. S. Commander reportedly asking for thousands more u. S. Troops to go in there. Is there a sense that that could make a difference . I dont know the answer to that. I think it certainly would make an important psychological difference. You asked a minute ago about what afghans want. They are very ambivalent. The Afghan Administration both military and civilian very much wants more American Military support. Particularly what they want is air combat support, not necessarily ground troops. They say that, if they had better better combat air support from n. A. T. O. , from the u. S. , they could handle things on the ground. Anyway, they certainly want more help. The Afghan People are rather ambivalent. Theres a real sort of leftover bitterness and resentment and sort of complicated legacy of the western involvement there militarily, so the jury is still out. Woodruff after 16 years, it doesnt get any simpler. No, it doesnt. Woodruff Pamela Constable of the Washington Post. Thank you very much. Very glad to be here. Woodruff now, an investigation that uncovered decades of sexual abuse at one of the nations elite prep schools, and the extent to which the school hushed it up. Hari sreenivasan has that story, from our new york studios. Sreenivasan the report, released last night, focused on a dozen former teachers at the prestigious boarding school in connecticut, Choate Rosemary hall. It recounts the experiences of 24 adult alumni who were allegedly abused between 1963 and 2010. Investigators said the offenses ranged from kissing to groping to rape. Choate hired a law firm with no previous ties to the school to lead the investigation. Jonathan saltzman was part of the Boston Globe Spotlight Team that helped break the story; and, paul mones is an attorney who has represented sexual abuse survivors at private schools and other institutions. He is not involved in any of the choate cases. Jonathan, i want to start with you. You and your team launched this series a while back about this happening at elite prep schools in the northeast. What did this report reveal to you . Well, we had reported on about 110 private schools in new england that had faced allegations of sexual abuse over the past 25 years, and we mentioned choate, but this report was initiated in response to that story, and it laid out in extremely graphic detail the accounts of about 24 survivors of abuse. As you said in your introduction, some of these are extraordinarily graphic descriptions of abuse, rape. To me, the most startling thing about the report is, first, the school named 12 teachers that they said had abused kids. Thats an extraordinary number, and we havent seen that before in other schools. Then what they also did was they, essentially, owned up to the fact that they had never reported these cases of abuse to Child Welfare authorities in connecticut, even though it had been required. Sreenivasan there is an incident mentioned in the report of what would likely qualify of at least attempted rape that happened in a Swimming Pool on a field trip in costa rica but the headmaster to the board of trustees labeled it heavy drink and inappropriate behavior, then we find out the teacher in question was still employed as a principal at a Different School until last week. Thats right. Choate got in touch with that Public School in litchfield, connecticut, very recently, and i spoke to a lawyer for that School District in litchfield last night, and they said that they had that when this teacher applied, he used a slight variation of his name and that he never mentioned that hed worked at choate, and thats a running theme that we found in a number of our stories. This whole passing the trash syndrome, which is that schools let teachers go quietly, they hush it up, and the teachers resurface somewhere else. Sreenivasan what i find particularly if i could just comment quickly particularly interesting is that the school only acted only acted after the boston globe story. They would have been comfortable sitting on their hands in the boston globe did not call this. This is typical of the behavior of large institutions wherein sexual abuse happens among their ranks, so they follow the same pattern as the Catholic Church. There is one interesting of the part of the report, in fact, where, in the summer of 2012 2002, im sorry, it was reported that they received reports a teacher molested a student. They called that teacher backto the school and basically let this teacher quietly leave and, in fact, even say, and im sure you remember this, where the teacher would then get a recommendation to go work at a boys school. You have to remember that the boston globe stories on the Catholic Church with this identical behavior was happening started the review of the criminal cases in january or february of 2002. So its not like this happened many years ago. Sometimes we say, oh, in the boy scout cases or the church cases, oh, it was the 60s, the 70s. These are, like, super smart people in an elite institution, and you have to believe they never read the New York Times or the boston globe or listened to the tv or had any knowledge whatsoever of sexual abuse to act in such a way to the welfare of children since 2002. Sreenivasan youve described child abuse as almost a perfect crime. Explain. Right, its a perfect crime because the victims remain silent. We underestimate the perpetrators because these are very smart people in. The cases of private schools, we know private schools survive or are best known for congeniality, con vivality, informing relationships, calling teachers by first names, coming over to the teachers house for studying and maybe for a glass of wine when the kid is 15 or 16 years old, so its this breeding ground. But these perpetrators are very smart and know how to take advantage of a place that doesnt have many boundaries. Sreenivasan jonathan saltzman, we asked choate if they would appear and they did not but sent a statement that said says we profoundly apologize, the conduct to have the adults violates the community, the students and adults in charge with their care and honor the survivors of the Sexual Assault that came forward. This is part of the statement. Since the report only goes to 2010, whats happening now and how are they trying to prevent it from happening again in the future . Its a good question. The school says that they have heightened awareness about this. In one of the cases they reported, there was one case they reported to Child Welfare authorities, and this was around in 2010. They discuss greater training, things like that. And i should point out that some other attorneys that i spoke to who said agree with paul that this is a litany of horribles, did give the School Credit for being as frank as they were in this report. I spoke also to one of the alumni, who is the only one identified as being abused because she came forward to us, and she gave them credit for being as fra