AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

On the "News Hour" tonight: Firefighters in and around Los Angeles struggle to control multiple raging wildfires fueled by high winds enforcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.

AMNA NAWAZ: The United States announces another aid package to Ukraine as the war grinds on.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we speak with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about the outgoing Biden administration's efforts to improve the nation's infrastructure.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, U.S. Secretary of Transportation: The bottom line is that fixing America's transportation systems is the right thing to do.

We're doing it because it's the right thing to do.

And I think there will be more and more appreciation for that over time as well.

GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

Fast-moving wildfires in the Los Angeles area have created extreme conditions for millions of people and are being blamed for at least two deaths.

AMNA NAWAZ: As of this evening, there are about 400,000 homes without power and more than 100,000 people evacuated because of four different fires.

Stephanie Sy is there and has this report.

STEPHANIE SY: Across the Los Angeles region, the skies were covered in smoke as fast-growing wildfires spread from winds that gusted to nearly 100 miles per hour.

Pat and Cal (ph) Abe evacuated from their home in Santa Monica last night near where the Palisades Fire raged.

PAT ABE, California Resident: Definitely very scary, feeling ominous, and heard lots of explosions and flames up above us on the canyon wall.

It's just devastating.

STEPHANIE SY: This fire destroyed an estimated 1,000 structures, including a high school, as thousands of residents raced to escape amid heavy traffic.

Winds were so strong that firefighting aircraft had to be grounded on Tuesday night.

Earlier today, flights were back in the air as winds decreased, according to L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.

But gusty conditions are expected to resume, with a red flag warning in the region through tomorrow night.

Local officials said fires were responsible for at least two deaths and a high number of serious injuries.

And Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley warned that emergency services were stretched to the limit.

KRISTIN CROWLEY, Los Angeles City, California, Fire Chief: We are absolutely not out of danger yet.

With the strong winds that continue to push through the city and the county today, I will tell you that we are all committed to our first responders, our firefighters, who will remain focused on protecting lives and property.

STEPHANIE SY: The Palisades Fire is just one of several fires, mostly uncontained, in and around Los Angeles.

In all, they have prompted the evacuation of more than 100,000 residents, a number that has been growing all day.

PAT ABE: We're in Santa Monica right now at a friend's house.

And, certainly, as they started extending the evacuations down into Santa Monica, and then you have to start thinking, OK, well, where are we going to go now?

STEPHANIE SY: In the foothills of Northeast Los Angeles, near Pasadena, the Eaton Fire started Tuesday evening and grew quickly, prompting emergency evacuations.

Staff at one senior center had to push dozens of residents down the road to escape, and a nearby synagogue in Pasadena caught fire and was destroyed.

The Eaton Fire has now spread to more than 10,600 acres.

MAN: What we saw here in the last 24 hours is unprecedented.

STEPHANIE SY: President Joe Biden and California Governor Gavin Newsom received a briefing on the fires in Santa Monica and pledged additional Department of Defense resources to fight the fires.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: We're prepared to anything and everything as long as it takes to contain these fires and help reconstruct.

STEPHANIE SY: Governor Newsom said the state had received every resource it had asked for from the federal government, including a major disaster declaration.

GOV.

GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): We had prepositioned assets this weekend in anticipation of these weather events, the complexity of multiple fires, the likelihood these weather events, this wind event will continue over the course of the next many days.

STEPHANIE SY: President-elect Trump blamed Newsom's policies in a social media post, saying he prioritized a fish species over distributing more water, a claim that Governor Newsom's office called fiction and dismissed as politics.

As thousands of firefighters work to contain the places, county officials urge residents to conserve water for a system that they described as being pushed to the extreme.

There were also reports that firefighters had encountered dry fire hydrants.

JANISSE QUINONES, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power: And we're fighting a wildfire with urban water systems.

And that is really challenging.

STEPHANIE SY: Phil Brock's home is just across the street from the mandatory evacuation zone.

PHIL BROCK, California Resident: We see fires every year.

And you come to this spot to look and say, Jesus, another fire.

But I have never had anything where people have thought that this area would need to evacuate, the Santa Monica Canyon would need to evacuate.

That's incomprehensible to me.

STEPHANIE SY: Here in Altadena, the California sun has been blotted out by a field of gray that surrounds us.

We are in the fire evacuation warning zone.

There is a lot of activity around us, including fire engines that are going to attack the fire on the mountain.

And you can see behind me even a structure that's in flames.

I understand that structure has -- the fire there has been put out several times today, but there are embers flying all around us and it continues to reignite.

So this continues to be a dangerous situation and very personal for those of us who grew up in this area.

Almost everyone I have spoken to know somebody who is either evacuated or who has lost a home in this fire.

I just recently found out that a friend of mine lost their family home here in Altadena just minutes away, and they said their entire neighborhood is gone.

AMNA NAWAZ: Just devastating story after devastating story there.

Stephanie, we have heard from officials, as you reported, about how they're struggling to both slow and contain these fires.

What more have you learned about the strain on their resources?

STEPHANIE SY: Well, as they said in a news conference earlier today, emergency first responders are stretched to their capacity.

Then there's the issue of firefighting.

Even though Cal Fire is generally prepositioned in Southern California at this time of year, you have multiple active fires burning that are threatening life, limb and property.

So, the first priority for those firefighters is going to be to preserve life.

But things got so bad last night here in Altadena as the Eaton Fire, which I'm close to, flared up, that they put out a call on social media for off-duty firefighters in the Los Angeles area to report to duty.

Then there is the issue of water capacity.

And we have all heard by now reports of firefighters going to hook up to fire hydrants that went dry.

They said at the press conference that at least in the Palisades Fire case, they just ran out of water to address the demand and were not able to recharge quickly enough.

But those questions will be important to be asked in the next couple of days.

AMNA NAWAZ: Stephanie, as you well know, California is no stranger to bad wildfires but the conditions around these fires and the start of the Palisades Fire seem unexpectedly bad.

Tell us more about that.

STEPHANIE SY: Well, as somebody who grew up here, it is not unusual to see fires in Malibu every several years.

There was a major fire there in 2018.

It has to do with the topography, as well as the Santa Ana winds, which do gust up to 50 miles per hour typically at this time of year.

What is unusual is how severe that wind event has been.

I had family and friends that were reporting 80-mile-per-hour winds, up to 100 mile-per-hour gusts.

That is highly unusual.

It makes it very difficult for them to fight these fires, because the fires themselves are blown by the Santa Anas, and then they can't get aircraft and air tankers to attack the fires from the sky.

That part seems unusual.

The other thing we're talking about is over a hundred homes in Altadena here that have been burned.

So, they're highly populated areas in the San Gabriel Valley.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's Stephanie Sy reporting from Altadena, California, tonight.

Stephanie, thank you to you and the team.

Please stay safe.

STEPHANIE SY: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's turn now to Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin.

Thanks for being with us.

And we should say that you are primarily focused on fighting the Eaton Fire.

What's the situation the ground?

CHAD AUGUSTIN, Pasadena, California, Fire Chief: Yes, the last about 18 hours have been really dynamic.

We were preparing for a widespread wind event, but the devastating wildfires that broke out last night were incredible.

And we had really a wind-driven fire with 70-to-80-mile-an-hour wind gusts with spotting embers two-plus miles ahead of the fire.

And we quickly were losing potentially hundreds of homes and thousands of acres were burning.

So it was a really busy night for crews.

GEOFF BENNETT: Is there enough water to fight these fires?

As I understand it, the water systems weren't designed to sustain the kind of usage that's required at the moment.

CHAD AUGUSTIN: Yes, that's a great question.

And so a lot of our water systems are old, up to 100 years older or more.

And a lot of them rely on gravity feed.

We did have a short period of time last night when we had a loss of power, which did impact our water supply.

But that was quickly resolved.

And, really, we could have had almost unlimited water.

With 70-mile-an-hour wind gusts and amber spotting ember casts two to three miles, we just -- like, you had fires on multiple blocks ahead of where there was dirt and buildings on fire.

So it's such a challenge for our firefighting crews.

GEOFF BENNETT: And how are those wind gusts limiting the air resources available to fight those fires.

CHAD AUGUSTIN: Thank goodness, this morning -- throughout the day, actually, they have been continually to settle down.

And so we have been able to put air aircraft, both helicopters and airplanes, in the air and doing water drops over the last two to three hours.

GEOFF BENNETT: You have got four fires burning all at once.

All of L.A. County is under threat.

How do you decide to deploy already strained resources?

CHAD AUGUSTIN: Yes, the great thing about California is our mass mutual aid system.

And we are sharing resources up and down the state really all summer and all fall.

And in this instance, we have about a dozen agencies just within L.A. County assisting each other.

And then we ordered up 60 strike teams from all up and down the state and even Arizona, because we recognize that none of us has enough resources.

GEOFF BENNETT: What more resources do you need?

CHAD AUGUSTIN: What we needed yesterday was many more fire engines.

And what will be helpful today is, as we're getting up to about 10 aircraft overhead doing water drops, retardant, and then we can use hand crews and fire engines to really get a containment line, and we can stop the forward progress of this fire.

And then equally important is, as that wind starts to die down, we have way less erratic fire behavior and we can actually predict where that fire is going to be spreading.

GEOFF BENNETT: Have you ever seen a fire this bad in your career?

CHAD AUGUSTIN: This is as bad as I have ever seen.

And, of course, as a fire chief, right, I have the responsibility of overseeing public safety for such a beautiful town.

Just a week ago, right, we were celebrating the parade and the Rose Bowl game.

And so while there was such pride in the city, here we are a week later with mass devastation, so really tough for myself and our -- your city leadership, but also proud of the hard work of -- that everybody has come together to do.

And there was -- last night, there was some really heroic efforts by our law enforcement and firefighters as they were pulling people out of burning buildings and rescuing them.

And those are the things that really -- we lost a lot of buildings, but a lot of lives were saved last night.

GEOFF BENNETT: What's the best-case scenario in terms of getting these fires contained?

CHAD AUGUSTIN: Yes, the best-case scenario is, over the next 24 to 48 hours, the winds continue to die down and we get more aircraft in here and more fire crews.

And then we get a good scratch perimeter all around this fire, we contain it and then we start really getting down the hot spots.

And then we're in a much better position.

But those erratic winds really made a bad situation worse last night with a wind-driven fire.

GEOFF BENNETT: Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin, thanks for making time to join us.

And our best to you, your crew and all the folks in the affected area.

CHAD AUGUSTIN: Thank you so much.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we start today's other headlines with president-elect Donald Trump's latest legal battles with just days to go before his inauguration.

The Department of Justice says it plans to release special counsel Jack Smith's findings on Mr. Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

It's unclear exactly when.

But the DOJ says Smith's report on the classified documents case will remain under wraps for now.

Separately, Mr. Trump is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to call off his sentencing by Judge Juan Merchan in his New York hush money case set for this Friday.

It's his third attempt this week to delay sentencing.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

There's been international pushback over president-elect Trump's recent comments about taking control of Greenland.

Speaking to the press yesterday, Mr. Trump said he would not rule out using military force to take over the Arctic island, which is rich in natural resources.

During his first term, Mr. Trump pressed his aides to explore ways to buy Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark.

Today, Greenland's finance minister met with his Danish counterpart in Copenhagen, where he pushed back on such an idea.

ERIK JENSEN, Finance Minister of Greenland : Greenland is not for sale.

We have said that, all of us, and it will never be for sale.

And I can reiterate that it will never be up for discussion.

GEOFF BENNETT: Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also dismissed the idea today while speaking in Paris alongside the French foreign minister.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. Secretary of State: The idea expressed about Greenland is obviously not a good one, but, maybe more important, it's obviously one that's not going to happen.

So we probably shouldn't waste a lot of time talking about it.

GEOFF BENNETT: Denmark is a long time ally of the U.S. and a founding member of NATO.

And Greenland itself is home to a large U.S. military base.

The Israeli military says it's recovered the body of a hostage inside an underground tunnel in Gaza.

Yosef AlZayadni was taken, along with three of his 19 children, when Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023.

Two of them were later released.

The discovery of the 53-year-old's body comes as Israel and Hamas are considering a cease-fire deal that would free the remaining 100 or so hostages and stop the fighting in Gaza.

Israeli officials are investigating whether the remains of a second body recovered today are that of AlZayadni's son Hamzah.

An Italian journalist who was detained in Iran for three weeks was freed today.

Cecilia Sala arrived back in Rome this afternoon, where she was greeted by her boyfriend and reunited with her parents.

The 29-year-old was accused of violating laws of the Islamic Republic while visiting on a journalist visa last month.

Italian commentators have speculated that her detainment could have been related to the arrest of an Iranian businessman just days earlier.

He allegedly supplied drone technology to Iran that was used to kill three U.S. service members last year and remains in Italian custody.

Extremely cold weather is gripping much of the country, with temperatures dipping below 30 in places as far south as Atlanta and El Paso.

Some areas further north saw single digits.

And there's another winter storm brewing that's due to sweep from Texas to the Carolinas in the days ahead.

More than 40 million people are under some form of winter weather alert.

Dallas, Texas, is bracing for several inches of snow, more than it typically sees in a whole year.

The state's governor warned people to stay safe, especially on the roads.

GOV.

GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): I cannot emphasize enough to my fellow Texans, listen, we're not used to driving on ice and snow.

We're not used to driving in conditions like this.

Be careful.

Be cautious.

Make sure that you're protecting your own life.

If you do get on the road, drive safely.

GEOFF BENNETT: Earlier this week, dangerous driving conditions caused by the last winter storm led to fatalities in multiple states, including Virginia, North Carolina and Kansas.

On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed.

The Dow Jones industrial average added about 100 points.

The Nasdaq slipped 10 points, so little change on the day.

The S&P 500, meantime, managed a slight gain.

Still to come on the "News Hour": Syria's formerly empowered Alawite minority faces an uncertain future after the fall of Assad; and we look at whether U.S. foreign aid meant to improve health care is being used effectively.

AMNA NAWAZ: With less than two weeks left in office, the Biden administration is announcing its final shipment of weapons for Ukraine.

The administration believes nearly all of this $500 million worth of weapons will arrive before the inauguration of Donald Trump, whose Ukraine envoy today said they will aim to negotiate an end to the war within Trump's first 100 days in office.

Nick Schifrin is following all of this and joins us now.

So, Nick, tell us more about what exactly the Biden administration is sending in this latest round of aid.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The Biden administration announced today or is announcing its 56th weapons package for Ukraine worth about $500 million, as you said.

And among these weapons are some of the longer-range weapons that Ukraine has used inside Russia, you see right there, to hit key Russian infrastructure, as well as artillery shells.

Now, administration officials say this is the final money that Congress has appropriated for Ukraine for drawn-down U.S. stocks that can be replenished to the U.S. military.

And, frankly, Amna, as you know, Ukraine needs all the help it can get.

Just today in Zaporizhzhia, Russian missiles in an apartment complex, an industrial facility, and the debris hit a tram and a train, killing more than 13 and wounding more than 60.

AMNA NAWAZ: I mean, Nick, as you have been reporting, this war now grinds on into another year.

What exactly is the state of play on the front lines?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Administration officials who see this as a glass-half-full believe that Ukraine is holding the line and that Russia is making small gains, but at great cost, more than 1,500 casualties every single day on the Russian side.

But analysts we talk to say -- or see a Ukraine that is barely holding on and that really faces fundamental problems for which there are no easy answers.

So let's look at the front, specifically in the east in the Donbass.

Russia has made recent gains around the city of Pokrovsk.

You see that there.

And analysts have feared Pokrovsk's fall for months and that it could have a knock-on effect across the Donbass.

So far, Ukraine's lines are holding, but Ukraine does not have answers to fundamental questions that really surround a shortage of manpower, says retired Colonel Robert Hamilton of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

COL. ROBERT HAMILTON (RET.

), Foreign Policy Research Institute: They are losing ground, hundreds of meters to several square kilometers or more a day.

That's been going on for about a year.

And the main reason is, they're just outmanned on the front lines.

The second part of it is the training.

It's not long enough and it's not intense enough.

And then the third problem is what we would call force employment, like how they're using these newly mobilized soldiers.

What they're doing is, they're forming new brigades.

They're forming brand-new units.

They're giving them new equipment and then they're sending them into the front line.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And that means these newly mobilized brigades just aren't as effective, Amna, as they need to be.

Another part of the front that we should highlight is inside of Russia, and that is Kursk.

Ukraine invaded the territory in August.

It's been losing some of what it captured, but just this week beefed up its operations with the hope that it can hold on at least a part of Kursk in order to have it as a chip in future negotiations.

AMNA NAWAZ: So what about those negotiations?

We know president-elect Trump has promised to accelerate those.

What does the future of the U.S. policy in Ukraine look like?

NICK SCHIFRIN: As you said at the top, president-elect Trump's Ukraine envoy, retired General Keith Kellogg, said today that his goal was -- quote -- "a solid, sustainable solution to the war in Ukraine within a 100 days of inauguration."

Kellogg himself has called for Ukraine to receive some kind of security guarantees in the future in order to prevent Ukraine from being invaded again by Russia after whatever negotiation takes place.

But, yesterday, Trump suggested that he would reverse decades of U.S. policy that called for an open door to European countries to join NATO so long as they met NATO criteria when Trump suggested he would not let Ukraine join NATO, echoing the Russian argument for why Ukraine should not join.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. President-Elect: Russia has somebody right in their doorstep, and I could understand their feeling about that.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Bottom line is, the Trump team will have a choice.

If it wants Ukraine to have the most leverage at the negotiating table, it will have to increase weapons to Ukraine, as well as, most importantly, lift restrictions of how deep U.S. weapons can be fired into Ukraine, says Robert Hamilton.

COL. ROBERT HAMILTON (RET.

): It's not sufficient to change the outcome of the war, but I think it's necessary.

Unless Ukraine is allowed to do that, I think we're in a position where their position will continue to erode.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And that is what Ukraine is worried about, Amna, fighting this war of attrition with less U.S. support than it has now.

AMNA NAWAZ: We will see which choice the next administration makes.

Nick Schifrin, thank you very much.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: The tenure of Pete Buttigieg atop the Department of Transportation is coming to an end this month at a critical juncture for many of the industries the agency oversees.

The former presidential candidate and mayor of South Bend, Indiana, spent much of the Biden administration juggling crises in the rail and airline industries, navigating a high-stakes transition to electric vehicles, and overseeing the distribution of billions of dollars in funding from President Biden's infrastructure bill.

I spoke with him as he prepares to leave office.

Secretary Buttigieg, welcome back to the "News Hour."

PETE BUTTIGIEG, U.S. Secretary of Transportation: Thank you for having me on.

GEOFF BENNETT: You have spent your final weeks as transportation secretary touring the country, touting the Biden administration's policy achievements.

How do you see the infrastructure investments shaping the future of transportation in particular in this country?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think the bottom line is that we are leaving the condition of America's transportation systems much better than we found them.

And a big part of that is the projects that we're funding through President Biden's infrastructure package.

The number now stands at 66,000 and counting in terms of projects getting support.

More than 10,000 of those are complete.

Many more are just entering into construction.

So we're creating a lot of jobs while we're at it, making our transportation systems better, safer.

It's not happening overnight.

The better part of this decade will continue to unfold with improvements all made possible by the work that we did during our four years here.

GEOFF BENNETT: On that point, President Biden in a new interview with USA Today said that he regrets the slowness of the infrastructure rollout.

He said: "Historians will talk about how great the impact was, but it didn't have any immediate impact on people's lives."

He continues: "I think we would have been a hell of a lot better off had we have been able to go much harder at getting some of these projects in the ground quicker."

What do you make of that?

How does that strike you?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think what he's getting at is the nature of the beast here, where some of the most significant projects that are being funded, they're going to span multiple presidencies, and you don't always get the credit for that up front.

I think that we're already seeing some transformational effects, not just from the thousands of projects that are complete, but all of the jobs that have been created.

I was back in South Bend not long ago, where, when I was mayor, the number of people joining building trades, apprenticeships, getting jobs that we're seeing today would have been unthinkable.

But, of course, that's not the same as the project being complete.

That takes longer.

And we have faced a lot of structural factors that have made it hard to do projects as quickly as we have wanted.

We have made a lot of progress against that.

We have tripled the pace of getting grant agreements done as a department compared to the last administration.

We have cut the time for some of the most complicated environmental permitting processes.

By some measures, we have cut it in half.

But there is more to do to get these projects done and our country has more to do.

GEOFF BENNETT: Seven billion dollars being allocated for electric vehicle charging stations across the country.

Only 44 stations have been built nationwide so far; $42 billion dollars aimed at expanding broadband Internet service hasn't connected a single household.

Why not?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, the electric vehicle charger program was designed to put most chargers in 2026, 2027, but the first few are already up and running.

We're talking about a transformation to the way that American vehicles have been fueled and supported, the likes of which we haven't seen in 100 years.

And we made some specific intentional choices, like making sure that we did that with made-in-America chargers versus just getting the cheapest equipment available from China.

I think that was the right thing to do.

Over time, we will see that that number will continue.

We have already doubled to about 200,000 the number of publicly available chargers on President Biden's watch.

And I believe that we will meet or exceed President Biden's target of having half-a-million chargers up by the end of this decade.

GEOFF BENNETT: Big picture question, because we have seen Democrats expend significant political capital aimed at passing legislation to help middle-class Americans that hasn't yielded direct political benefit or electoral gains.

I mean, what does that say about the relationship between policy achievements and voter perception?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Sometimes, it takes time to get credit for good policy.

I think about, when I was first entering public life, the Affordable Care Act was something that was just killing us in 2010.

By the time I got here to Washington, it was something that even Republicans would say that they would try to protect.

Not sure whether I would believe them, but that's what they say.

It takes time sometimes for a policy achievement to be fully felt.

And that's especially true on something like infrastructure, where, again, some of the projects that we're working on are projects that will span multiple presidencies.

You think about the Hudson River Tunnel.

That's something that represents one of the biggest public works projects of our time in America, and will go well into the 2030s.

But, then again, we have thousands of projects that are already complete.

I think people are increasingly seeing the benefits of it.

One thing that I have noted is that even many legislators who voted against it among congressional Republicans are now trying to collect credit for the projects that are getting done.

That tells me that doing those good projects was good policy and good politics.

GEOFF BENNETT: Does it raise questions, though, about the political strategy behind pursuing these ambitious agendas if voters in real time don't seem to be responding to the programs and policies that are designed to help them?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, when there are hundreds of factors affecting a given political moment or election outcome, you don't want to overread one or another.

The bottom line is that fixing America's transportation systems is the right thing to do.

We're doing it because it's the right thing to do.

And I think there will be more and more appreciation for that over time as well.

GEOFF BENNETT: Why do you think Democrats struggled to gain traction in this last election?

And what more needs to be done to win back voters and to go on the offensive on the issues that seemingly propelled Donald Trump back into the White House?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, let me take care, according to campaign rules, that I can't get into campaigns and elections while I'm in a federal capacity today.

But what I will say is that, in addition to continuing to do good work, we have got to recognize that credit doesn't give itself out.

We need to continue making sure that we can connect the dots between a decision that was made in a big white building in Washington, D.C., and how your life is different, whether it's what you're paying for a dozen eggs or whether you have a safe way to get to work or what it's like to be an airline passenger.

We have made a lot of major improvements on all of those fronts.

I am certain that we are leaving every form of American transportation better than we found it.

But there's always more work to do.

And, look, we're in a -- just a radically different information environment than we were in just a few years ago.

We have never had more information coming at us.

And yet, in my lifetime, in many ways, we have never been less informed.

The editorial function of helping to separate fact from fiction, helping to establish one of the most important things that a citizen deserves to know, that function is on its back feet right now in a world where some guy on the Internet can be treated like they have just as much credibility as somebody who is holding themselves to the highest ethical standards of journalism.

Sorting through that, I think, in many ways will be the project of our time.

That matters not just politically, but societally, and certainly something that I hope to continue to be involved in, just as I have tried to use my time in this role not just to drive good policy work, but to help Americans understand what it means to them.

GEOFF BENNETT: What's the most surprising lesson you learned during your time in office?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, there are so many different ways to get results.

And while we knew that getting federal funding out was going to be a big part of how we could make people's lives better, I found there are a lot of other tools that have made a big difference too.

Take airline consumer protection.

Some of that, we were able to do with rules and enforcement, but a lot of what prompted the airlines to change the way they treat passengers was us doing a lot of work just around transparency, empowering people with more information on Web sites like flightrights.gov, so they knew what they could demand of an airline and what an airline was promising.

It's just one among many examples that I found about the different tools and levers that exist in a place like Washington to get results for people.

And the other thing that I would say I was really surprised by is that, even in a very divided and polarized country, in a divided and polarized Washington, it was possible to get a lot of good work done across the aisle.

GEOFF BENNETT: With your tenure as transportation secretary coming to a close, do you see yourself continuing in public service, perhaps another run for elected office?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: I don't know.

I know what I care about.

I care about things like making sure that infrastructure and technology make people better off.

I care about places like where I grew up in the Industrial Midwest continuing to grow economically and to thrive and find a new future in the 21st century.

I care about the condition of our democracy and what kind of society we live in.

And I care about it in a whole new way now that Chasten and I have 3-year-olds at home who have more at stake than any of us in what that future is like.

I don't know what it'll exactly look like to work on those things, whether that's in and out of -- in or out of public life or public office, but I will find a way to work on those things.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, you have certainly got your hands full with those 3-year-olds.

GEOFF BENNETT: Secretary Pete Buttigieg... PETE BUTTIGIEG: We do.

GEOFF BENNETT: ... thanks for joining us.

We appreciate it.

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Thanks.

Appreciate it.

AMNA NAWAZ: As Syria emerges from decades of dictatorship, Syrians in the Assad family's ancestral home of Latakia province are both overjoyed and anxious.

Assad and his family are Alawite, an offshoot of Shia Islam, and the people of his former region fear the new Sunni-controlled government will target them, both for their religious affiliation, as well as the region's historic support for the regime.

Leila Molana-Allen reports now from Qardaha, the Assads' hometown in Latakia and now a crumbling vestige of the regime.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Empty shoes and fallen pedestals, as Syria reels and rebuilds from the rapid fall of the family who ruled this country with an iron fist for half-a-century.

In Latakia, the homeland of the Assad's Alawi sect, the enormous statue of former President Hafez al-Assad that sternly watched over this central junction for decades has been cut off at the ankles.

Children shriek in delight at the heady, unfamiliar feeling of freedom on the streets, while their cautious elders wait nervously for what comes next.

As Bashar al-Assad's tightly controlled empire unravels, we're visiting the very heart of it, Qardaha, the Assads' family village.

Thrown open, the heavy iron gates of the family home.

Like their properties across the country, there are signs it was hastily abandoned, but the house isn't empty.

This is the once palatial garden of the house where Bashar al-Assad was born, and now people have realized he's not coming back, but they're making use of what the house has to give in terms of firewood.

A bitter winter is already under way.

In every room, locals have come to strip away whatever can be burned, the window frames, shutters, kitchen cupboards ripped to pieces and piled into a waiting taxi.

A young boy watches as his father and uncle hack branches off the leafy trees in the ruins of the garden.

This place has the air of martial law about it.

neighbors watch on curiously from the street as the now useless web of security cameras sits idle.

Down the road, the once illustrious tomb of Bashar's father is now a symbol of the rebel advance.

As they took Latakia, cheering rebel fighters set the tomb ablaze, graffitiing the names of their brigades across the walls and by the entrance a message damning Hafez al-Assad (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) to the trash pile of history.

A stronghold of a regime that once seemed undefeatable lies in ruins, but the legacy of their decades of misrule marks every aspect of daily life here.

As we drive along the coastal highway, the hollow boom of airstrikes.

The Israeli army is taking the opportunity to take out Syria's naval bases and coastal ports while no one's really in charge.

But while the world plays politics, residents here are more concerned with making it through the winter.

Samar Ahmed watched for years as a select few close to the Assads reveled in wealth and status, while the rest of her sect starved.

SAMAR AHMED, Alawite Latakia Resident (through translator): We hit rock bottom and no one cared about us or our needs.

Whenever we asked for help, the regime blamed U.S. sanctions.

But how did sanctions work?

Did they choose favorites?

Because we saw luxurious cars and people were living their lives to the fullest, while others were living the lowest of the low.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Samar believed in the revolution in the early days.

She wanted a free Syria for all.

After she criticized the regime for failing to provide bread and decent salaries, the authorities arrived at her door and quickly made her choice clear.

SAMAR AHMED (through translator): Everything we said was taken against us more than any other sect.

It was forbidden for us to say our opinion or criticize or even claim any of our rights.

And if we do so, we might just disappear one day.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Wrapped in a winter coat as she shivers in her unheated department, Samar spits the Assad name through gritted teeth.

SAMAR AHMED (through translator): This is what we never dared to say out loud.

They're a mafia.

Why did he sacrifice the lives of all those innocent people for 14 years?

He couldn't even protect himself and betrayed us all.

How was he going to protect us?

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: For decades, Alawites here formed the backbone of the Assads' military and political control.

This minority of around 2.5 million Syrians filled two-thirds of the army's senior ranks after Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1971.

As the civil war spiraled, his son Bashar increasingly dictated their support with threats, rather than enticements: Back me, or the country's Sunni Muslims, all of whom the regime labeled terrorists, will slaughter you.

As a result, many thought Alawites were protected and enriched by the regime.

The residential backstreets here tell a different story, one of entrenched poverty, neglect and control through fear.

Samar hopes the new government will be good for everyone, but even within her own family, they disagree.

Many young Alawite men here tried to flee forced conscription.

But Samar's son Ahmed fought for years as a first lieutenant in the Eastern Syrian desert of Deir ez-Zor against militants from ISIS, al-Qaida and Jabhat al-Nusra, the precursor group to Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham.

Some of those same fighters will now be leading the new government.

He fears retribution.

AHMED NIZAR ALI, Alawite Latakia Resident (through translator): It's a terrorist organization.

Now they're called HTS.

And they just changed into civilian clothes.

We're afraid of their ideology.

Are they extremists?

We have started to fear these people didn't come just to destroy the Assad regime, but also to destroy us.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Twenty-seven-year-old Ahmed has spent half his life hiding his views to protect his family, as he watched other young men imprisoned, tortured and killed around him.

Now he fears new oppressors under a different name.

AHMED NIZAR ALI (through translator): We learned to be silent.

We're not used to talking about politics.

Even when we saw things that were wrong, we kept quiet.

We don't want to be under another dictator's rule or another terrorist organization.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: I ask him what he thinks about HTS' guarantees that army conscripts will have full amnesty as they build a state with rights for all Syrians.

He's not convinced.

AHMED NIZAR ALI (through translator): We're afraid of what might happen in the future.

Now all the cameras are focused on Syria, but it will be forgotten in a few months.

We need international supervision to make sure.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Ahmed's fears have proved justified.

Attacks in Latakia and surrounding villages have left dozens dead and injured and neighborhoods in pieces.

The memory of years of atrocities runs deep here.

With Bashar and his family safe in Moscow, those seen as aiding his reign are bearing the brunt.

This area is an example of Syria's pluralism.

This road links Alawite and Sunni neighborhoods living side by side, more crumbling walls and bitter cold in these damp shacks, the legacy of decades of living without.

Madiha hasn't seen her four children in a decade.

They stole across the border to Turkey early on in the civil war for safety and to try to find work.

MADIHA AL SALEH, Sunni Latakia Resident (through translator): I suffered a lot after they left.

My husband is sick and there's no one to help him or get medications.

Our life was tragic.

Even now, there's so much poverty.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Hisham and Madiha have carried the legacy of the Assads' cruelty their entire lives.

As a young lieutenant in the army in the 80s, Hisham was accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, they believe, because he's Sunni,arrested and brutally tortured in Hafez's dungeons.

The harassment didn't stop under Bashar, but now their abusers wore different uniforms.

MADIHA AL SALEH (through translator): The Russian army was walking in the streets terrifying everyone.

People were hiding their children from them.

No one dared to go out.

They invaded our house several times at 3:00 a.m.

They stole everything and turned the house upside down.

They took my husband and put a gun to his chest.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Hisham and Madiha miss their kids terribly, but they're glad they left.

They couldn't bear for them to endure what they have in these difficult years.

MADIHA AL SALEH (through translator): My kids want to come back now, but they can't afford to.

Whenever they can, they send us money.

Working in Turkey is hard and they barely have enough for themselves.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: There's hope for the first time in decades, but in the face of so much hardship, the harsh reality is, it could take years for daily life here to improve.

As we leave, a crowd of children runs into our path, a fierce game of soccer under way with their latest prize, the toppled statue's gold-plated head now rolling in the dirt, a lowly end for the family that reduced their country to dust and despair.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Leila Molana-Allen in Latakia, Syria.

GEOFF BENNETT: The vast majority of foreign aid that's administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development goes through middlemen, international aid agencies or U.S.-based private companies, that then distribute the assistance.

Critics say the system leaves out many deserving locally led start-ups and nongovernment groups.

In the second of three reports now, Fred de Sam Lazaro explores the field of health care.

It's part of his ongoing series Agents for Change.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: For most people in Africa, getting medical care is a nightmare.

It takes hours, even days, to reach a clinic or hospital.

So, many people must rely on pharmacies, most of them small and family-owned, like the one Kingsley Wills runs in the small Ghanaian town of Tafo Akyem.

So, you're running out of things?

KINGSLEY WILLS, Business Owner: Yes, we are running out of things.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: For years, it was a struggle for him too.

Inventory wasn't moving and when vendors came to collect payment, he had special instructions to staff.

KINGSLEY WILLS: When they come, tell them I'm not around.

(LAUGHTER) FRED DE SAM LAZARO: You had to hide from your suppliers.

KINGSLEY WILLS: Yes, from your suppliers, because there's no money to pay.

GREGORY ROCKSON, Founder, mPharma: This was completely empty.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Then he was alerted to a company called mPharma started by Gregory Rockson, which has an unusual offer to pharmacies.It stocks their shelves and owns the entire inventory.

GREGORY ROCKSON: Think of it as we -- they're leasing their shelf spaces to mPharma.

We make money if you make money.

If you don't make money, we don't make money.

The software tracks.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Thirty-three-year-old Rockson returned to his native Ghana 10 years ago and decided to put his education in America and Denmark to use improving health care and technology to carefully stock the small drug stores.

GREGORY ROCKSON: We built a team of data scientists and analysts that could actually take consumption data from these pharmacies in order to be able to do better planning.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: MPharma now has a network of some 850 affiliated pharmacies in nine African countries.

It's software monitors what's moving or what's needed in any store and can quickly deliver from warehouses like the one in Ghana's capital, Accra.

Beyond pharmaceuticals, mPharma added services, creating health centers, with nurses on staff and doctors on standby.

So, when Rosemary Hammond (ph) came in with a splitting headache one recent morning, nurse Patience Ayitey (ph) checked her vitals and saw fit to double-check with one of the 30 mPharma doctors available online.

So far, there's no added cost for the clinical services, which are covered by revenues from drug sales.

GREGORY ROCKSON: It costs us $350 a month, including the salary we pay for the nurse, the fractional cost of the doctor, because the doctor doesn't have to be physically located at the site.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: He says his costs are a fraction of those at the extensive government-built network of community health facilities.

These so-called CHPS compounds, many built with USAID funds, have struggled, barely operational for a lack of resources, staff and volunteers, says Rockson.

GREGORY ROCKSON: There was no business model that would allow these CHPS compounds to actually stand on their own.

And in an era where government budgets, because of massive debt burdens, are already under pressure, the first things to get cut are social services.

And that's what we are seeing.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It's one example critics cite of how the system of U.S. foreign aid favors international aid contractors, mainly U.S.-based private companies, which have scant knowledge of local conditions and little collaboration with local groups.

EUGENE BOADU, Corporate Affairs Director, mPedigree: So much aid has been poured into developing countries like Ghana and most African countries, with little to account for.

I think if you talk to the average Ghanaian, I think they do not know that the American people are sending them anything.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Eugene Boadu works for a Ghanaian start-up called mPedigree, which is tackling another of the continent's major health care problems, counterfeit drugs.

EUGENE BOADU: Some of the estimates of the U.N. statistics show that it is more profitable to counterfeit medicine than it is to sell narcotic drugs.

So, we are talking about really significant margins here.

NARRATOR: It's important to report all side effects.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: To combat this, he says, most international donors have paid to set up hot lines Ghanaians can call if they have had adverse reactions to drugs they have purchased.

The problem with this approach, Boadu says, few African consumers use mobile apps or call centers, and it's too late.

The product is already circulating in the market, much harder and much more expensive to track down.

EUGENE BOADU: That's trying to solve a problem in the most -- in the most inefficient and the most ridiculous of ways.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: His company devised a simpler solution, preventing fake products from entering the supply chain in the first place.

It produces unique one-time-use codes slapped on every product when it leaves the factory.

A customer scratches off the code at the point of purchase and texts it to a toll-free number.

In seconds, manufacturer and production date confirm the product is legit, and the whole transaction leaves a digital footprint.

They know exactly where you are and how to reach you.

EUGENE BOADU: Exactly.

Exactly.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Useful in case of a recall due to a manufacturing defect, for example; mPedigree has expanded to 12 African countries.

Nigeria, perhaps the worst affected by fake drugs, mandates the system, which is paid for by a small fee imposed on the drug companies.

EUGENE BOADU: Nigeria has brought down its counterfeiting problem from somewhere around a staggering 65 percent to 70 percent, depending on the data you're looking at, to, last we checked, under 10 percent.

And we think that should be the paradigm.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: A paradigm that could scale enormously, he says, if his company had access to some of those international aid dollars.

but he and mPharma's Rockson complain they're shut out.

GREGORY ROCKSON: It is pretty hard for a local organization like mPharma to bid and win any USAID projects.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Those grant applications are hundreds of pages' long, with contracts tens to hundreds of million dollars in scope, and local start-ups aren't staffed to deal with the exhaustive accounting and reporting requirements.

That leaves some-90-plus percent of all USAID grants off-limits to anyone outside a small circle of contractors, many based in Washington.

J. BRIAN ATWOOD, Former USAID Administrator: The U.S. Congress, the General Accountability Office, the OMB, inspectors general.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Brian Atwood is a former USAID administrator.

He says a lot of people are looking over the agency's shoulder for every cent of the 30-plus billion dollars it disburses each year.

J. BRIAN ATWOOD: And it is taxpayers money that you're using.

So you have to be very careful.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: This is fear of corruption?

J. BRIAN ATWOOD: Fear of corruption, no question.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: He says a chronically understaffed agency is forced to outsource to contractors familiar with the complex process.

But mPharma's Rockson sees corruption in a status quo, where large private contractors work mostly within inefficient government systems in countries targeted for help.

So, the American taxpayer, you have said, is abetting a lot of corruption.

GREGORY ROCKSON: Exactly.

You have people that move from USAID with the inside knowledge to join these big development contractors with the inside knowledge on how you win these bids.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: USAID Administrator Samantha Power declined our invitation to appear in this report.

In 2021, when she took office, she pledged to increase the number of dollars that would go to locally led efforts to 25 percent by 2025 and 50 percent by 2030.

Nearly four years on, that percentage has barely reached double digits.

The agency has moved to simplify the application process and build capacity in local groups so they can apply for its grants, and that has so far made discernible progress in Central America, says Atwood.

J. BRIAN ATWOOD: Something like 1,800 direct assistance grants have been offered to local organizations.

And as a direct consequence of that investment, the migration from those countries has gone down considerably.

That investment has really paid off.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Whether such initiatives continue in the new Trump administration is unknown at this point, but, significantly, Atwood says, the effort in Central America had the support of Senator Marco Rubio, nominated to be the next secretary of state.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Fred de Sam Lazaro in Washington.

GEOFF BENNETT: Fred's reporting is a partnership with the Under-Told Stories Project at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

AMNA NAWAZ: Americans lined up at the U.S. Capitol today to pay their respects to former President Jimmy Carter.

The 39th president lay in state at the Capitol Rotunda for a second day ahead of his state funeral tomorrow.

GEOFF BENNETT: The service will take place in the morning at the Washington National Cathedral.

And we will be here with live coverage.

NARRATOR: President Jimmy Carter is being remembered for what he accomplished as president, but also for what he achieved following his presidency.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: He was a statesman and a humanitarian.

NARRATOR: Many looked up to him.

WOMAN: Jimmy Carter has always been a hero of mine.

WOMAN: He was just a good man, a decent man.

MAN: He was a great humanitarian.

He set the example for all of us.

NARRATOR: A PBS News Special, "Remembering Jimmy Carter," Thursday, January 9, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

AMNA NAWAZ: And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

Have a good evening.