wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. thiss the way. the xfinity 10g network. made for streaming. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on the “newshour” tonight, how israel's decision to use artificial intelligence and loosen restrictions on civilian casualties has made its campaign in gaza so destructive. geoff: pressure rises on college

leaders after their widely criticized congressional testimonies about rising anti-semitism on campus. amna: and researchers gather growing evidence that climate change is already putting people's health at risk. >> there is a direct impact on health. heat waves will lead to heat illness and heat exhaustion and heat stroke. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions, and friends of the "newshour," including leonard and norma klorfine, and koo and patricia yuen.

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this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the "newshour." israeli officials today said they're prepared for a long fight in gaza, lasting months, or longer. this, as international criticism over israel's war with hamas grows. geoff: meantime, on the ground the heavy fighting continues, as nearly two million gazans await lifesaving aid. on the border between gaza and southern israel, hamas rockets meet the iron dome defense system. further north, some strikes slip through the net near tel aviv. as israeli defense forces push their ground offensive further south. today, the idf released video of a mosque in jabalia, where they say they found an explosives lab.

>> this is what is in the mosques here. geoff: the idf say they've forced hamas to the breaking point in northern gaza, and they say militants in the field must surrender or be killed. in a briefing today, the israeli defense minister said israel would not remain in gaza after the war. >> israel will take any measures in order to destroy hamas, but we have no intention to stay permanently in the gaza strip. we only take care of our security and the security of our citizens alongside the border with gaza and elsewhere. geoff: across gaza, a widening israeli offensive is leading to a growing humanitarian crisis. khan younis in the south has become the latest battlefield with displaced palestinians caught in the middle. >> the area was classified as safe, there was no announcement or declaration to leave the

area. geoff: in the maghazi refugee camp, palestinians dig out from the remnants of another air strike. >> we were sitting at home quietly and then we heard the sounds of intense bombing and the windows blew out on top of our heads and the doors came off their hinges and then we left the house and saw the bombed building. we came here and you see it, it's a massacre. geoff: at the al aqsa hospital, the doctors who remain in gaza treat survivors on the floor. aid trickles in through the rafah crossing with egypt, but it's not enough to meet the immense need. nearly 85% of gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced within gaza, where u.n. agencies say there is no safe place to flee. >> we packed our things and moved to khan younis. in khan younis we ran, left our things and stayed there for

around 15 days but then the israelis started dropping flyers telling us to go south, but where in the south are we supposed to go? geoff: tents have gone up at the border, and those in the camp face long lines for any basic necessities, leading to pleas for world leaders to take action. >> every time the security council takes a decision to stop the war, the united states stands against us, they veto the decision. we urge the united states to stand with us and end the war. three months are enough. we are tired, very tired. look at us with mercy, for our children, our women, our elderly. bring us back to our life. geoff: businesses are closed and streets are empty in the west bank. palestinians here and in jerusalem say they've gone on strike in solidarity with palestinians in the gaza strip. >> we are ready to strike every day to stand by our people in gaza, despite the financial conditions we are going through. we are with them with our hearts and our souls. geoff: as another night falls in gaza, the war moves on under the light of flares and rockets. israel has launched over 22,000

military strikes into gaza since the hamas terrorist attacks of october 7, with a death toll of more than 18,000. that's according to the gaza health ministry. a recent investigative report finds that israel is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in gaza with the goal of ramping up civilian pressure on hamas. that's one of the many takeaways in reporting by the independent, nonpartisan israeli publication +972 magazine and the hebrew language outlet local call. it also includes interviews with several current and former sources in israel's intelligence community. the lead reporter, investigative journalist yuval abraham, joins us now from jerusalem. thank you for being with us. your reporting focuses on how the idf selects military targets and how it determines the number of civilian deaths that are acceptable. what did you find? yuval: the military has this term called collateral damage degrees, which dictates how many

civilians it is allowing soldiers to kill per strike. so even if the civilians are not the targets, the amount that is allowed to be killed is known beforehand. and what i found is that according to sources in this operation, the military has largely abandoned previous protocols and now it is allowing soldiers, according to sources, to knowingly kill hundreds, several hundred palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate one senior hamas member. geoff: how has that changed post-october 7? similar process, a collateral damage estimate, and the laws of war dictate that the military advantage has to be proportionate to the civilian, the impact on civilian casualties. how does israel make that assessment, that determination? yuval: so in the past, according to sources, for a single assassination attempt, dozens of palestinian civilians would be allowed to be killed. this has become 10 times or 20 times the number that was

allowed in the past after october 7. also, with regards to a particular category of targets that are called power targets, that's according to sources in the past, as you've said in the introduction, were bombed in order to create this civilian pressure on hamas. nine power targets were bombed in 2021. and in this operation, we know that more than 1000 power targets were already bombed. so we are seeing a lot of criteria that was already in place in previous operations dramatically changing. geoff: you also report extensively about the role of artificial intelligence in all of this, that the idf has an ai target creation platform called the gospel, which has significantly accelerated the identification of military targets. how does it work and what's the impact on the ground? yuval: now, sources have described the gospel as essentially a target machine. so while a human is in the loop somewhere, they are spending much less time per target actually analyzing the target.

one source, for example, told me that they were being judged not by the quality of the targets they were creating, but by the quantity of the targets that were being created using these ai-powered systems and this process of automation. the result is that according to military sources, israel has bombed really an unprecedented amount of targets in gaza. and i think we are seeing the results on the ground in gaza. geoff: the idf did not immediately respond to our request for comment. does the idf deny or dispute anything in your reporting? yuval: not directly. i mean, we asked a lot of questions and we didn't get specific responses. the idf said that it is abiding by international law, that it is doing everything in its power to protect palestinian civilians in gaza. again, according to sources from within the military, from within the intelligence community, this is just not true. they've spoken about completely disproportionate strikes, knowingly killing hundreds of civilians, a general atmosphere

that they felt was partially motivated by revenge for the horrors of october 7. as a matter of fact, one source said that the only thing that he felt was actually limiting the death of civilians in gaza was international pressure, and specifically u.s. pressure. geoff: give us a sense, without obviously revealing your sources, who did you talk to in this reporting and walk us through the process of how you pieced all of this together. yuval: yeah, so the investigation is based on conversations i've had with seven sources from israel's intelligence community. some of them are current sources that are still actively taking part in this operation. some of them former sources that have taken part in previous operations. these are whistleblowers. so essentially, they're not going to be willing to reveal their identities. i feel part of the reason why some of them spoke was that they were shocked by some of the things that they were asked to do.

one source described how previously, for example, protocols in the military would say that before carrying out a strike, you would have to have a very precise pinpointing of where the target is. after october 7, the source said they were actually carrying out strikes based on a wide approximation and they bombed a very wide radius, again, knowingly killing civilians. these are sources that are in the military. they obviously care about the security of israelis, but they felt that what was going on was unjustifiable in gaza. and i think this is part of the reason why they were willing to speak out against it. geoff: investigative journalist yuval abraham, thank you for sharing your reporting with us. yuval: thank you very much. ♪ amna: in the day's other headlines, the u.s. supreme court has agreed to rule quickly on former president trump's claim of legal immunity. that came after the special

counsel jack smith said it was of imperative public importance that claims of immunity be resolved and that trial proceed as promptly as possible. mr. trump argues he is shielded from charges of trying to subvert the 2020 election results. the court ordered trump's lawyers to respond by december 20. smith hopes to keep a march 4 trial date. also today, mr. trump opted not to return to the witness stand in the civil fraud trial against his family business. he had already testified in his own defense in early november. the trial is set to wrap up in a few days, with a decision expected in january. trial began today on how much rudy giuliani must pay two georgia election workers for falsely accusing them of fraud in the 2020 election. giuliani arrived at the federal courthouse in washington this morning. the former trump lawyer has already been found liable for defamation. plaintiffs wandrea "shaye" moss and her mother ruby freeman were threatened and harassed over false claims by trump allies.

on ukraine, president volodymyr zelenskyy appealed today for an end to the stalemate over american aid. he spoke in washington, where a battle over border security and immigration policy has blocked action on $61 billion. pres. zelenskyy: the whole world is watching us, observing what destiny other free nations could face, to live freely or to be subjugated. you can count on ukraine, we hope just as much to be able to count on you. amna: zelenskyy will make his case directly to president biden, and members of congress, tomorrow. meantime, in kyiv, debris from russian missiles destroyed homes and left craters in a pre-dawn attack. it was part of a stepped-up aerial assault as winter sets in. the jailed russian opposition leader alexei navalny is missing. a spokeswoman says he's been transferred to a special security prison and has not been in touch for six days.

the spokeswoman posted today on social media, saying quote, where they have taken him, they refuse to say. local elections in hong kong have wiped away the last vestige of democratic rule. mainland china loyalists dominated sunday's races after opposition candidates were barred. only about 27% of 4.3 million registered voters cast ballots. that's down from 71% in the last such elections, in 2019. the un's cop28 climate summit neared its climax today in dubai, as criticism mounted that a draft agreement is too weak. the proposal sidestepped calls to phase out fossil fuels. the european commissioner for climate action was among those voicing frustration. >> the text as it now stands is disappointing. it is lengthy.

we're still looking into all the various elements. and yes there are a couple of good things in there. but overall it is clearly insufficient and not adequate to addressing the problem. amna: the summit is scheduled to end tomorrow. back in this country, a pregnant woman has left texas for an abortion after challenging the state's near-total ban. kate cox says her fetus has a likely fatal condition that could jeopardize her own health. she is now 20 weeks pregnant, and her lawyers said today she can't wait longer for the state supreme court to rule. her legal challenge will continue. and on wall street, stocks advanced to open the week. the dow jones industrial average gained 157 points to close at 36,405. the nasdaq rose 28 points. the s&p 500 added 18. still to come on the "newshour," ethnic minorities in russia are disproportionately conscripted for the war in ukraine. tamara keith and amy walter break down the latest political headlines. director baz luhrmann on remaking one of his movies into a tv miniseries. plus much more.

>> this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: the president of harvard university is still in her job at this hour. but there's been real debate about whether she should be allowed to stay. there are dueling letters from harvard's broader community, one calling on the university's governing board to force her out, and one asking the university to support her. one of those governing boards has reportedly been meeting about that today. it comes in response to last week's congressional hearing about a rise in antisemitism on some college campuses. laura barron-lopez has the latest. laura: at harvard university,

turmoil over the fate of the school's president, claudine gay. gay, mit president sally kornbluth, and now outgoing university of pennsylvania president liz magill came under fire last week for their testimony in a house hearing on rising anti-semitism on their campuses. on friday, gay apologized for her remarks to the harvard crimson, saying calls for violence or genocide against the jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at harvard, and those who threaten our jewish students will be held to account. the flash-point of last tuesday's hearing, a heated line of questioning from republican representative elise stefanik, who herself has been criticized for not calling out antisemitism in her own party. >> doctor gay, at harvard, does calling for the genocide of jews violate harvard's rules of bullying and harassment, yes or no? >> it can be, depending on the context. laura: stefanik was referring to slogans that have been chanted at pro-palestinian rallies on campus, such as from the river to the sea, palestine will be free. that phrase, adopted by hamas, is seen by some as a call for the destruction israel and the killing of jewish people. others say it's a decades-old

rallying call for a state where all palestinians can live freely alongside israelis. >> i will ask you one more time. does calling for the genocide of jews violate harvard's rules of bullying and harassment? yes or no? >> anti-semitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct and we do take action. >> so the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of jews violates harvard code of conduct, correct? >> again, it depends on the context. laura: the day after the hearing, rabbi david wolpe stepped down from the university's antisemitism advisory committee. >> i felt as though there was a profound disconnect.

between the attitude of the president's and my perception of the seriousness of the situation. laura: wolpe, a visiting scholar at harvard's divinity school, resigned dover what he considers inaction by the university to confront antisemitism. >> some of the things that it seemed to me harvard needed to do almost immediately were to enforce the existing rules against harassment and bullying and so on more expeditiously. that is, more immediately that they were doing it, to undertake a major education campaign about judaism, anti-semitism, jewish history. laura: even as pressure mounts for gay's resignation, more than 600 faculty signed a letter saying harvard should not cave to political pressure. steven pinker, a professor of psychology, didn't sign the letter but said gay's firing would not solve the problem. >> the reason that i don't think should be called on to resign is that i think the problems run much deeper and they should be addressed directly rather than through a sacrificial scapegoat.

i think that harvard and american universities in general need a clear and conspicuous policy on free speech so they don't selectively squelch speech. reprehensible speech should be answered by more speech, by being refuted, not by crime being criminalized. laura: at university of pennsylvania, the consequences were swift. on saturday, university president liz magill announced her resignation after donors, politicians, and some students called for her ouster. days before, she issued a public apology. >> i want to be clear, a call for genocide of jewish people is threatening, deeply so. in my view, it would be harassment or intimidation. laura: magill's testimony last week was similar to gay's. claire finkelstine is a professor of law and philosophy at u-penn. he said while magill is a brilliant person, her testimony was disastrous. >> i'm not calling for a restriction of criticisms of israel or criticisms of hamas or

what have you, political speech and the ability to engage in it. but what has gotten out of hand is the idea that free speech on campus has to include such a level of openness to any kind of speech that even the worst threats and harassment should be protected. laura: before magill's resignation, more than 70 members of congress, all but three of whom were republican, signed a letter demanding the three presidents step aside. they said the testimony lacked moral clarity and illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of jewish communities. meanwhile, some progressive members, including the only palestinian american in congress, rashida tlaib, say allegations of anti-semitism are being weaponized to silence legitimate criticisms of israel. >> americans have a right to speak up, americans have a right to the institutions they work at

or the people that represent them to say, look, this is my opinion, i believe you should support x, y, and z. laura: house republicans have opened an investigation into the three universities and more than a dozen democratic lawmakers asked schools to review and update their policies. and at mit, president sally kornbluth has not apologized, receiving support from her university's governing board. for the "pbs newshour," i'm laura barron-lopez. ♪ amna: in the nearly two years since russia invaded ukraine, 300,000 russian soldiers have died or been injured, many of them conscripts. and as nick schifrin and producer sarah cutler report, for soldiers from siberia and russia's far east, which is home to many ethnic minorities, the price has been overwhelming. nick: in russia's far east, the

funerals are all too common. the widows are so distraught, they have to be carried by an honor guard. and the cemeteries are filled with soldiers, many of their graves freshly dug. men from this part of russia, remote, poor, and home to many of the country's mortar order groups -- minority groups, have borne the brunt of the war and died disproportionately. >> a lot of people have been sent there. it looks like russia is trying to eliminate our russian groups. nick: 31-year-old alex is from an area the size of india, many of whose one million residents are ethnically turkic. >> it seemed as though they were officially mobilizing only our ethnic peoples and sending them to war as though they were trying to kill some people. nick: his social media shows a

normal life. a day on the job posing with a new ride, spending time with loved ones. his world was lost when he was suddenly conscripted last september during a wave of mobilization and flown from his hometown to a military base a few hours away. he was shocked by what he saw. >> normally their informational stains to show who is on duty but this time there were only photos of dead ukrainian soldiers and the inscription was they should be killed. in this way i believe they were preparing us for what would happen. >> it is easier to take those who know less. usually these are in remote places. nick: natalia is the founder and president of the free russia's foundation. they consider ethnic minorities with lesser education cannon fodder. >> the less information they can

get, the less human rights organizations are working with them and advocating for their rights. nick: six of the 10 russian regions with the highest mortality rates in ukraine are located in siberia and the far east. here, they are 75 times more likely to die than men from moscow. >> when putin's russia attacked ukraine, it was definitely a genocide of ukrainians. simultaneously inside russia there is an ethanol side. nick: minority recruitment is a crescendo of decades of discrimination. >> it was impossible to learn my own language in school. i could afford to allow -- it was very dangerous. that is why i can relate to all of these ethnic minority groups saying it is not our war.

you are not treating us as normal citizens of russia. we cannot even be safe in the capital of our country. nick: a handful have risked certain arrest to protest. new advocacy groups are holding men from community centers avoid the draft board leave the country. >> indigenous peoples are needed for only one purpose, to die for the sake of the empire. vladimir putin has acted very consistently in this regard. nick: the founder of the foundation which receives daily calls and texts from new conscripts and their families. >> someone i know was mobilized two weeks ago and tricked into signing a contract for a year. >> my son is writing a letter to officials refusing to serve but we are both afraid they will deny them. nick: what will happen to immobilized person on leave if he does not return to ukraine? >> we explained to military

personnel how to terminate their contracts. we are doing what the kremlin considers most dangerous. we explained to people what their rights are. one of the official reasons for russia's invasion of ukraine, the kremlin cited the denazification of ukraine. but we have repeatedly encountered racism and xenophobia in russia itself. nick: this year moscow introduced new laws to expand their pool of recruits, meeting -- raising the maximum age and more. and the government launched a campaign to try and convince more russians to sign up including ads on tv that suggest soldiers, not civilians, are real men. moscow increased pay, often appealing to russian minorities. as for alex, days after he was mobilized and arrived on base, he crawled under a whole and a fence and into a taxi.

he got on the first flight he could to kazakhstan, week -- where he still lives today. he lives incognito with a russian criminal case for desertion hanging over his head. >> i don't do anything. i don't have official employment right now. there are 17 people like me with criminal cases opened. all of us were just hoping some countries would give us asylum. nick: until then, he waits, knowing he has at least avoided the fate of so many fellow minorities who fought in ukraine. for the "pbs newshour," i'm nick schifrin. ♪ geoff: as republican presidential contenders courted early-state voters and wall street donors, we learned today that one candidate faced threats of violence. lisa desjardins has more. >> this goes to the core of my

candidacy. lisa: in new hampshire, troubling signs as vivek ramaswamy's campaign announced police arrested a man for making specific death threats at the candidate and supporters. those threats mentioned an event that was held today. in a statement, the campaign blamed the left as demonizing republicans. police have not disclosed any motive for the suspect. this, after a busy campaign weekend. swanky jazz played at a saturday's young republican gala in manhattan, a room filled with former president donald trump's staunchest supporters. >> this campaign is a righteous crusade to rescue our nation from a very corrupt political class. lisa: trump doubled down on comments he made last week about taking on a dictator role if re-elected. >> i didn't say that. i said i want to be a dictator for one day. but the new york times said -- and you know why i wanted to be a dictator? because i want a wall, i want a wall, and i want to drill, drill, drill.

lisa: despite his legal troubles, a new iowa poll shows trump is gaining support there, now the top pick for president for 51% of republican caucus goers, up from 43% in october. that means, in iowa, republicans who aren't trump are fighting for second place. >> what a great crowd we have. lisa: at a town hall event on sunday, former south carolina governor nikki haley carefully contrasted herself with trump, warning voters of a tumultuous future if they choose him. >> i think president trump was the right president at the right time. but rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him, chaos follows him. you know i'm right. and we can't have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. we won't survive it. lisa: florida governor ron desantis, who has a slight lead over haley in the state,

stressed his commitment to religious freedom at a faith and family forum in rural northwest iowa. >> in florida, we believe as the founding fathers believed, your right to practice your faith is not something given to you by government, it is something that has been granted to you by god. government cannot infringe your free exercise. lisa: a right to practice, but the largely evangelical crowd raised questions about voting for someone -- vivek ramaswamy -- of hindu faith. >> i'm not running for pastor, i wouldn't be qualified to be pastor, but i am running to be the commander in chief and to be president. lisa: the candidates were cordial and poised on stage, but campaigns know time is running out to make the gop race competitive. for the "pbs newshour" i'm lisa desjardins. geoff: for more on the presidential race and president zelenskyy's trip to washington, it's time for politics monday with amy walter of the cook political report with amy walter, and tamara keith of npr. hello, hello. donald trump's support now tops

50% in iowa. tam, you were just in new hampshire. dean phillips with his longshot primary challenge is now saying that joe biden presents a threat to democracy. what is that all about? tamara: the threat he says joe biden presents is that joe biden could lose to donald trump. and he says that trump is a uniquely dangerous figure in our history. so it is a secondary argument. or, two steps removed kind of argument. phillips is saying basically joe biden's poll numbers are not great, which is a true fact. and that somehow he is the solution. what he says is that in polling, donald trump versus a generic democrat performs -- the generic democrat performs better than joe biden. and dean phillips then says you

can call me generic if you want to. so his argument is basically that in a race between a ham sandwich and donald trump a ham sandwich do quite well and he is happy to be the ham sandwich. but it is really not clear that that is an argument that would hold up going beyond new hampshire. the thing with new hampshire is joe biden is not on the ballot in new hampshire. on election night when the results come in, dean phillips, his whole theory is that he will win new hampshire. but what is winning if the incumbent president is not on the ballot? i asked him, what do you expect the headline to be. he said, wow. geoff: meantime, president biden is increasingly calling out donald trump by name. i'm told by democratic officials we should expect more of that, that president biden should not just target donald trump by name but he will also point to what

he sees as extremist policies on abortion, for instance. amy: it is true that joe biden is in a world of hurt for an incumbent president going into a presidential year. opinions about his handling of the presidency, very low. lower than i think even where donald trump was at this point going into 2020. opinions about the economy. all of those are terrible numbers for the incumbent. he cannot afford this to be a race that right now is about him. it has to be about what is at stake if donald trump is elected. at the same time, before i got here i was looking through the new wall street journal paul which asked, did you think the policies of trump or biden made you better off? for trump by a 12 point margin people said they were better off with trump policies.

for biden, it was -30. so people feel as if life was better when donald trump was president for them. the challenge for biden and his campaign is to make the case that actually things were not that great. remember the chaos when he was president? also they are not going to be any better because, as you point out on issues like abortion, that was not on the ballot in 2020 but it is now. january 6 had not happened. this is going to beat the seminal issue in 2024. about things that are happening to people right now they feel upset out which they will blame the president for, or is it about things they think will happen in the future with a donald trump that has already been president and they know about but he is not in front of their face every moment. geoff: looking ahead to new hampshire because president

biden has decided to skip new hampshire's first in the nation primary. his name is not on the ballot, which means there is a grassroots effort to mount a write-in campaign. how is that going? tamara: there is a dispute between the democratic national committee and the state. in the end, joe biden is not on the ballot. but there is this write-in campaign. and it is extremely grassroots. i was on izumi call with a county democratic party group that was talking to one of the organizers of this grassroots efforts. they are looking for volunteers to go stand outside of every single polling place with a sign that says write in biden. there are 21 candidates for the democratic nomination in new hampshire because new hampshire is quirky. and ballot access is pretty easy. so they have to not only convince people even though the president is not on the ballot, you should vote.

also you should look past all 21 people, find the empty bubble, then right joe biden. the thing they have going for them is joe biden is easy to spell. amy: although his campaign cannot do this work. tamara: his campaign is very much not involved in this. they are very happy continuing to keep new hampshire not in the conversation. it is like the establishment, the democratic establishment of the establishment who feel snubbed. they are out to prove new hampshire's value and also prove that joe biden does have enthusiasm. if he were to lose or not perform well than all of the stuff amy just talked about, the narrative if you will, -- geoff: ever since president biden said last week he would

not be sure if he was running if donald trump were not also in the race. let's say donald trump's candidacy collapses for whatever reason, and president biden decides to hang up his cleats. i'm going to pass the torch. what would that do to the democratic nominating process? amy: that is an excellent question. right now so any deadlines have passed to get on the ballot in certain states. i guess you could really move some of the filing guidelines, get people on the ballot. a lot depends on the hypothetical when he makes the decision. at the end of the day it is the delegates at the convention. it is the convention that ultimately nominates the president and vice president. if it were to come down to that point. but i think we are getting to the place now where if you were the democratic party, new hampshire will be a test case, the opportunity to say if you

don't really want to see biden on the ticket, which democratic voters have been saying they would like a different candidate. are they going to pick somebody they don't really know very well, don't know much about, to send a message? and if so, will that message be received by joe biden? new hampshire has been notorious for taking incumbent presidents and embarrassing them. george h.w. bush being the most recent with the challenge against that candidacy from pat buchanan. and obviously lyndon johnson, who soon after he almost lost the primary ended up announcing he was not running for reelection. geoff: thank you for indulging that thought experiment. we will have extension -- good to see you both. ♪

amna: as the u.n. climate conference nears its end, there's growing concern over whether countries can or will meet their prior pledges to hold down global temperatures. if temperatures continue to climb, the impact on human health could be profound, and some doctors say their profession is not prepared. william brangham has the story in collaboration with the global health reporting center, with support from the pulitzer center. william: on a chilly fall day in cambridge, massachusetts, the conversation here at harvard is about extreme heat, and how in south asia alone, it kills tens of thousands of people every year. >> the water, the portable water, becomes so hot, they can't drink it. william: dr. satchit balsari is an e.r. doctor and co-director of the crisisready initiative at harvard. he's part of a movement to get doctors focused on how climate change impacts human health, and how to respond. you're an emergency room physician. how is it that you are talking so much about climate change?

>> i mean, there is a direct impact on health. heat waves will lead to heat illness and heat exhaustion and heat stroke. people present to the emergency room when there are wildfires and there is smoke and there's more particulate matter in the air. but there is also a persistent tale of morbidity and mortality that these extreme weather events are resulting in this day and age, even in the developed world. >> the rickshaw pullers are the first victims of temperature increase. william: today, he and his colleagues are working on a project to try and understand and hopefully mitigate some of the impacts of extreme heat in places where millions of the world's poorest people live and work. in india, balsari's team partnered with the self-employed women's association, a union that represents small-scale, independent workers who make up the vast bulk of india's population.

by giving them tiny, wearable temperature sensors, they found the women were often experiencing heat extremes well beyond what was officially recorded. >> so this is madhuben's house. madhuben works from home. she's a weaver. i'll just show you a couple of graphs. this one for example, the green dots are the satellite observations. so that's nasa power data. william: but the gold shows the readings from the sensors in the women's homes. >> so there is a 10 degree difference between the temperature outside and the temperature in the house. william: so the cruder temperature data might tell you, oh, it's actually not so bad because it's cooling at night. >> yes. william: but when you actually look at what her lived experience is, it's much more unpleasant. >> it has completely different ramifications, right? william: living and working in 45 degrees celsius, 113 degrees fahrenheit, is more than unpleasant, it's dangerous. >> i think this has massive ramifications for workplace safety as well. to be able to say that when it is only 40 degrees outside, we know that these kinds of workshops actually are at 45 or 48 degrees. william: this kind of

fine-grained data points to problems, and solutions, which are barely on people's radar now. >> if we had better information about local climates, you could change school timings, for example. there were a bunch of children of workers that we were working with who stopped going to school because it would get so hot in the afternoon that their feet would burn when they would step on the asphalt. and so they just stopped going to school. and unless you're on the field studying this, it wouldn't really occur to any of us that school dropouts is because it's too hot to walk back from school. >> trying to do better models, using microclimate variation. william: balsari's partner in this work is dr. caroline buckee, a harvard professor of epidemiology. >> a lot of the ways that we are conceiving of the issues of climate change are from large global models, remote sensing data from satellites and things like this.

and the scale of which we're talking about the problem is often too large. so we don't have that granular human scale data to understand the impacts of climate change. william: getting better data is critical. knowing who is most affected could trigger insurance payments, disaster declarations, and more. for balsari, hurricane maria, the storm which devastated puerto rico in 2017, was a crystal clear example of a climate-driven disaster impacting human health. >> caroline buckee and i were involved in a study. while the initial government estimates were that about 64 people had died, the study suggested that the true mortality was closer to about 4000. they didn't die on the day of the landfall. they died for months of disruption to other aspects of their lives. william: disruptions like power outages, shortages of medicine, and a loss of access to regular medical care. >> so i can talk pretty loud, but i can't probably talk that

loud. william: so how can the medical community help prevent these kinds of deadly disruptions? in a first of its kind program run by the university of colorado school of medicine, that's a main focus. these doctors and nurses are working towards a diploma in climate medicine. it involves five separate courses, from making hospitals more environmentally friendly, to this training session, at the aptly named disaster city, at the texas a&m engineering and extension service. >> the 911 center will send a liaison. william: dr. terry o'connor from the university of colorado is one of the course directors. >> some of these events are coming more and more with less pre-notification, they are amplifying faster than ever before. william: the damage caused by weather disasters is on the rise, not just because of a warming world, but also because more people are moving into vulnerable areas. >> when we inquire within our own hospital systems or within our medical staff, we find ourselves still pretty

unprepared for the scope and scale of these events. william: jason moats, who is helping to teach the disaster prep course, says america's medical infrastructure is woefully unprepared. take what happened to a major houston hospital during hurricane harvey in 2017. >> they had put their generator in the basement of the parking garage. and, ok, there's not a lot of action down there. people won't mess with it. it's secure. but it's also very vulnerable to the flood water seeping in. well, yeah, it knocked the generator out. they lost power. william: they run through tabletop simulations, how to respond to floods or fires, how to deal with extreme cold or extreme heat. >> when you lose power, do not automatically -- does not every hospital automatically decide to evacuate? >> no, because you may not have a place to evacuate to. you may not have -- if there's flooding, how are you going to

move your patients if you can't move the vehicles? william: the students come from all over the country, wilderness medicine experts, oncologists, and everything in between. >> there are people who are from the emergency room, family medicine, there are nurses. it makes it a lot more fun to have different perspectives, it really does broaden the experience for us. >> an experience like, this course, will allow me to help serve my patients and my community better. william: since 2019, the number of u.s. medical schools requiring coursework on the effects of climate change has more than doubled. >> we have a storm on the horizon that's coming in, and if we don't do what we can to avoid that problem, we're in for a world of hurt. to put it bluntly, it's giving these providers hope. that's probably the most important thing. william: o'connor says doctors have to take up the burden together, to forge a community,

and a sense of mission. for the "pbs newshour," i'm william brangham. ♪ geoff: the new hulu miniseries, "faraway downs," is set in australia's far north on the cusp of world war ii and features the star power of nicole kidman and hugh jackman. it's also an unusual instance of one of the world's leading film directors getting a re-do, reworking his own earlier material into something new. jeffrey brown speaks with australian director baz luhrmann for our arts and culture series, "canvas." jeffrey: in the 2008 film, "australia," nicole kidman plays an english aristocrat who goes down under to sell a ranch she owns, but falls in love with the

land. and with the man, the rough-living cattle drover played by hugh jackman. it was epic melodrama, nearly three hours long, a big hit in australia and europe, but not so much with critics and not at all at the box office in the u.s. in 2020, when the pandemic shut down production of his film "elvis," director baz luhrmann decided to go back at his old "australia" footage, so much of it left on the cutting room floor, to see if he could re-fashion it in a new format. baz: i knew that i had all this material. and as i looked at the material, i realized that episodic storytelling really suited the epic nature of it. and i just thought about, i could really lean into the idea, particularly from the indigenous child's point of view, from his telling. jeffrey: the result is "faraway downs," now a miniseries that unfolds over nearly four hours in six separate episodes, with

new scenes, even -- spoiler alert -- a completely new ending. baz: it isn't really just "australia" with a bit of extra seasoning. jeffrey: what is it? baz: i think it's of the same story, but there are different plot points. jeffrey: most important, luhrmann says, a greater focus on the indigenous, through new music composed and performed by contemporary musicians, and a storyline centered on the then-official government policy of separating biracial children like nullah, played by brandon walters, from their indigenous families. the practice, impacting what came to be known as the stolen generations, ended only in the 1970's. baz: my idea was to take a very old melodrama form, you know, and put in the middle of this kind of old-fashioned movie-telling style, this extremely horrendous and ugly chapter in australian history. jeffrey: a serious subject but,

as he says, wrapped within broad strokes, even high comedy, as in a scene left over from "australia" in which kidman watches the well-muscled jackman have an outdoor rinse. luhrmann, who got his start in theater and opera, loves both high and low in art. baz: shakespeare would use broad comedy to get you kind of discombobulated and then hit you with, you know, the meaty issue. and i do that in "faraway downs" and "australia." now, whether it works or not or whether people buy into it, that's up to the audience. but the idea is to sort of disarm with, you know, like katherine hepburn, spencer tracy, kind of broad comedy, and then suddenly, you know, a child is grabbed by the cops and stolen. jeffrey: as much as any director working today, luhrmann has developed a storytelling, visual, and aural style all his own, instantly recognizable. playing with the bard himself in his version of "romeo + juliet," with a young leonardo dicaprio and claire danes.

the over-the-top spectacle and thrilling energy of "moulin rouge," also featuring kidman. "the great gatsby." note the hip hop music grafted around jazz-era scenes. another luhrmann signature mash-up, in this case, created with jay-z. baz: it's a way of letting you feel the modernness of it. that's an access issue. jeffrey: most recently, the not-your-ordinary bio-pic, "elvis." always, luhrmann says, the look, sound, and substance are conceived as one whole. baz: in terms of design, development, script development, i do all three -- the text or written word, the visual language, musical language. simultaneously. so it's extremely well involved.

jeffrey: they have to work together. baz: yeah, they're like three scripts, and then i bring them together. jeffrey: you're orchestrating the three scripts. baz: yeah, orchestrating is a good way of thinking of it. they've got to work in concert, but the music metaphor is a good one because they -- i don't look at the visual language as a background issue, or the music as a background issue. they are a language. and i think when you say i have a style, probably a way of saying it is, i have a particular cinematic language that i work in. it's a way of telling. jeffrey: he sees "faraway downs" as an experiment, big screen movie house creation, small screen episodic experience, now existing side by side. you still love the big theater experience. baz: oh, i'm devoted to it. i'm devoted to the cinema. and the bigger, the better. jeffrey: but you're open to, clearly in this case, an episodic, i can sit at home and

watch. baz: yeah. i look at storytelling architecturally, for the big screen it's horizontal. it's like a, b, c, it's flat, horizontal. but in streaming, you can go like this, then go vertical, come back to horizontal. vertical, come back. so i just, i'm not scared of form. but i am experimenting. i'm not constrained by anything except, do i think that is a legitimate way to tell something? jeffrey: in fact, baz luhrmann is so excited by his "faraway downs" experiment, he's already considering an episodic re-working of "elvis" next. for the "pbs newshour," i'm jeffrey brown in new york. geoff: join us here again tomorrow night for analysis of ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy's visit to washington with additional funding for that country now stalled in congress.

and that's the "newshour" for tonight. pam. on behalf of the entire "newshour" team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. >> architect. beekeeper. mentor. a raymondjames financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well-planned. >> the kendeda fund, committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions.

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hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. a dire situation in gaza as a humanitarian crisis worsens and israeli strikes intensify. the deadliest month for journalists in 30 years. i speak to dylan collins