geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett amna nawaz is away. on the “newshour” tonight, congress passes a temporary measure to keep the government funded and avoid a shutdown. the department of justice issues a scathing review of the police response to the 2022 uvalde,

texas school massacre, calling it a failure. and a doctor who worked in gaza details the increasingly dire humanitarian situation faced by civilians caught in the israel-hamas war. >> we cannot look away anymore, and there needs to be a sustained ceasefire in order for us to be able to provide basic human services and dignity to the people of gaza. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television. on a voyage with cunard, the world awaits. a world of flavor, diverse destinations, and immersive experiences. a world of leisure, and british style.

all with cunard's white star service. >> the kendeda fund, committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org. carnegie corporation of new york, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security, at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions.

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: welcome to the "newshour." congress has avoided a partial government shutdown with just one day to spare. the temporary funding bill passed with strong bipartisan support. but a long-term fix and tougher debates remain, including over ukraine funding and border security. lisa desjardins is here to explain what this means. sign of the times, congress makes headlines just for doing its job and keeping to government-funded. how did they do it? lisa: temporarily. this has overwhelmingly first in the senate and then any house in a matter of hours. why? because a snowstorm is approaching and lawmakers want to get out of town. but it is a sign of success for

the new speaker mike johnson, passing bipartisan bills that were important despite opposition from conservatives in his party. so the government will not shut down this month at least. this moves the deadline back to march where we are likely to be speaking about this again. but as you said there are still pressing concerns right now urgently over ukraine funding and also border security. i can report that the border security team says they are closing in on a deal, but those issues are now linked. they are trying to put text together not just for border security details but the amount of money for ukraine. one of the negotiators spoke about this complicated maneuver. >> so, we have to land two planes at once. one is the conversation we're having about changes in border policy. the other is the dollar amounts for the supplemental. and, you know, it's possible that that could be ready for next week, but there's still work to do. lisa: still work to do.

we are going to be watching this closely and we will see if we get anything this weekend were not. geoff: house republicans are working to advance proceedings against the homeland security secretary. lisa: there was an emotional hearing today that house republicans held. significant because it is probably the last hearing on this issue before the moved to articles of impeachment. they asked secretary mayorkas to appear and he said he had scheduling conflicts because a delegation from mexico is coming. they say he tried to reschedule but house republicans did not respond. in that hearing, republicans laid out their case that they think secretary mayorkas should be impeached. here is the chairman of the committee mark green. >> this is not a policy difference. the truth is secretary mayorkas has disregarded court orders. laws passed by the united states congress. and has lied to the american people. lisa: of course democrats decry

that and say that is misinformation. the lie republicans are talking about they say when secretary mayorkas say the border is under operational control. the secretary says you have to have a reasonable standard. he also needs more resources. they are doing more than ever have before in terms of larger numbers of deporting people, more fentanyl seizures than we have ever seen. but republicans brought a series of witnesses today that were emotional. one mother whose daughter was killed by an undocumented immigrant, another mother whose daughter died from a fentanyl overdose. democrats responded with sympathy of course. these were strong, tragic and powerful stories. but they are said this doesn't have to do with the impeachment of secretary mayorkas. >> you brought them here, unfortunately, where our solutions may not be the solutions that they seek. under the false pretense that

impeaching secretary mayorkas would in any way prevent what happened to their children from happening to someone else's. lisa: the timing of this come house republicans are on track i am told by sources to move on articles of impeachment likely the last week of the month. geoff: but do house republicans with the slim majority, do they have the votes to impeach him? lisa: a numbers question. an amazing time that we live in. let's look at the house right now. we have 220 republicans because we have two vacancies at the moment, over 213 democrats. however there are two republicans who are absent, one was in a car accident. that is close. but next week another republican will retire, so next week, 217 to 213. that is a one-vote margin because if you move two votes from republicans to democrats it is a tie, and ties fail.

essentially the new speaker can only lose one vote on any issue and have it pass with only republicans. it does seem they are generally unified on this impeachment idea, and there may even be democratic support. so by the narrowest of margins of look that they have support. geoff: house republicans have their hands full with these investigations because they are now also trying to further their investigation of hunter biden. but there was a vote to hold him in contempt. where does that stand? lisa: hunter biden has agreed just tonight to give testimony behind closed doors. that was the contempt issue. we expect that testimony february 8. for the moment contempt is off the table and hunter biden will be speaking to investigators next month. geoff: as always, thank you so much. lisa: you are welcome. ♪ geoff: in the day's other

headlines, israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu dismissed any talk of palestinian statehood after the gaza war ends. that laid bare a deep division with u.s. policy, but the prime minister said he's made his stance clear to washington. >> in any future arrangement, israel needs security control over all territory west of the jordan. i tell this truth to our american friends, the prime minister needs to be capable of saying no to our friends, saying no when necessary, and saying yes when possible. geoff: in response, the state department underscored the u.s. stance, that post-war planning must include a state for palestinians. >> there is no way to solve their long-term challenges, to provide lasting security, and there is no way to solve the short-term challenges of rebuilding gaza and establishing governance in gaza and providing security for gaza without the establishment of a palestinian state. geoff: netanyahu also insisted

again today the fighting will continue until there is a decisive victory over hamas. in gaza, the hamas-run health ministry reported the palestinian death toll has passed 24,600. and palestinian medics said an israeli missile destroyed a home in rafah today, killing 16 people. half of them were said to be children. on the israeli side, the family of the youngest hostage still in gaza marked his first birthday. they've had no word of him since his abduction. the u.s. military has hit houthi rebels in yemen for the fifth time, knocking out two anti-ship missiles. that comes after the rebels, backed by iran, staged another drone attack on a u.s. commercial vessel. president biden acknowledged today the houthis seem undeterred, but he said the retaliation will continue. pakistan struck back at iran today, with air strikes that killed at least nine people. it came two days after iranian strikes inside pakistan.

cell phone video today showed a large crater after a pakistani strike on an iranian village. the pakistanis said they targeted separatists hiding along the border. >> this morning's action was taken in light of credible intelligence of impending large-scale terrorist activities against pakistan by these terrorists. acts like the one which took place a couple of nights ago create difficulties. geoff: iran says its air strikes earlier this week also targeted separatists on the pakistani side of the border. back in this country, this week's winter storms are now blamed for at least two dozen deaths. the latest victims were in portland, oregon. three people were apparently electrocuted wednesday after a live power line fell on their suv. a baby inside was rescued. yet another round of freezing rain is expected in the pacific northwest tonight. in georgia, a judge will hear allegations against the district attorney who accused former president trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election

results. a defense lawyer alleges fani willis had an affair with her special prosecutor and profited financially from the case. the motion seeks to toss the indictment. willis has not directly addressed the allegations but has defended her staff and her decision-making. the hearing will be next month. severe drought in panama is forcing authorities to cut shipping traffic through the panama canal by 36%. low water levels, going back to last fall, have caused traffic jams for the 50-mile waterway. it's one of the world's most vital routes for international trade. canal administrators say they hope conditions will improve when the rainy season starts in may. and on wall street, stocks recouped some losses, with big tech leading the way. the dow jones industrial average gained 202 points to close at 37,468. the nasdaq also added 200 points, more than 1%. the s&p 500 rose 41. and spelman college in atlanta has received the largest single gift ever made to a historically

black college. a billionaire couple, ronda stryker and william johnston, announced today they're donating $100 million to the women's school. most of the money will endow scholarships. still to come on the "newshour," a bipartisan deal would expand the child tax credit to provide relief to struggling families. the biden administration considers whether to ban menthol cigarettes. the demand for women-focused tourism rises as more women take solo trips abroad. and author michele norris discusses her new book on how americans see their race and identity. >> 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 justice department released a withering report today on how law enforcement failed in its response to the 2022 shooting attack at robb elementary school in uvalde, texas. it's the most comprehensive assessment of what happened

during the shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers. the nearly 600-page report lays out a series of, quote, cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy, and training. attorney general merrick garland said law enforcement officers demonstrated no urgency as they waited out the shooter. >> officials on scene transitioned from treating the scene as an active shooter situation to treating the shooter as a barricaded subject. this was the most significant failure. that failure meant that law enforcement officials prioritize the protracted evacuation of students and teachers in other classrooms instead of immediately rescuing the victims trapped with the active shooter. it meant that officials spent time trying to negotiate with a subject instead of entering the room and confronting him. geoff: tony plohetski is an investigative reporter for the

austin american-statesman, and a pulitzer prize finalist for his coverage of uvalde. tony, thank you for being with us. the doj is saying it was not one failure but many, and it was not not the absence of leadership, it was failed leadership. this report finds real fault with pete arredondo, the former school district police chief. tell us more about that, and then walk us through the top lines of this report. tony: geoff, it's the most comprehensive and broadest investigation that has been learned -- been released into the shooting. in many ways it continues to substantiate and confirm much of what the public has know this report is also striking in terms of its breadth in discussing the consequences of that and the aftermath of the shooting. for example, it describes that because there was a failure of leadership and no real incident commander, the time that should

have been spent putting together, for example, a way to triage the children and the patient's who were coming out of robb elementary school, that was not done. and a very jarring and difficult to hear example, we read about a teacher who was left on a sidewalk outside of the school not getting proper care and later died. so the report itself again really walked us through the failed response in those precious 77 minutes but also the consequences thereafter. geoff: let's talk more about the failed emergency response. because the report as you mention finds that medical teams were hampered from doing their jobs, law enforcement is moving injured kids in ways that were probably more helpful. several students with bullet wounds, grazes, and other injuries were directed on buses to a civic center without having been brought to the attention of medics. how did the ease -- the ems

response add to what the doj calls this cascade of failures? tony: one of the things as you mentioned, there were blood supplies for example were brought to the scene but were not used on the patients. i think also as part of this conversation as well it was also striking that there was no way for ambulances to come in an emergency fashion, enter the campus because law enforcement officers who descended block to the entrances to the school. so a question was asked to the attorney general point blank today, could more people have survived had they been able to reach the very urgent medical care? and his answer was a resounding yes. geoff: how are the families reacting to this? tony: well you know geoff, the families of the 19 children and two teachers really do not speak

with a collective voice, as you can imagine. they are all processing this in very different ways. but to be clear the information that they received today is very difficult to hear. i think in many ways it absolutely confirms their worst suspicion and worst nightmare. but now the conversation continues to focus, as it has since may of 2022, on accountability. and whether or not those families will ever see any sort of satisfying accountability in the aftermath. geoff: what does accountability look like now? does the release of this report change that in any significant way? tony: federal officials took great pains today to say that the scope of this investigation was not about identifying potential criminal liability. that that was outside the scope of what they were doing. and as a matter of fact, did not find any federal crimes that

could be federally prosecuted. that means that accountability has to be done with regard to criminal charges at the local level. and we know that for many months, really since the onset of these calls for accountability, that the district attorney has said she is actively investigating. but as you can imagine on the ground among those families, there is a push for something more timely and a more timely result for an investigation. i also do want to point out, they are continue to be administrative investigations inside some of the law enforcement agencies whose officers responded that day. but there he point -- but the report actually points out the fact that these kind of administrative investigations regarding whether or not law enforcement officers violated their own department policies, those similarly according to the report much -- must to be done at a much faster pace in order to provide the public and in particular the families of those victims much more timely

information. geoff: tony plohetski with the austin american-statesman, thank you so much for joining us this evening. tony: thank you. ♪ geoff: the federal child tax credit may soon be expanded as part of an effort by some lawmakers to ensure that more american families can access the benefit. if the proposal becomes law, it would gradually increase the credit from $1600 to $2000 per child in 2025, and allow lower-income families to receive a refundable tax credit for each child. right now many only earn one tax credit for all of their children combine. it also would adjust the credits for inflation and increase what's available to those who pay little to no income tax. sharon parrott is the president of the center on budget and policy priorities, that's a progressive think tank that studied this deal. thank you so much for coming in. this new agreement would provide

smaller benefits than the monthly payments that some americans received under president biden's covid relief plan, but you still support this proposal. why? sharon: that's right. the rescue plan act had a very large expansion in the child tax credit. it made the entire credit available to low income families regardless of their earnings. it increased the amount of the credit for all families. and it provided the credit on a monthly basis. and that is a very strong policy that lifted millions of people out of poverty. and this is smaller than that, no question, but it is still helping 16 million children who now don't get a full child tax credit because their families incomes are too low. and it will lift about 500,000, half a million children out of poverty in 2025 when it is fully in effect. so it's an important and meaningful step forward that provides real help to families today. yes, we should continue to work

towards a more robust child tax credit that can do even more to lift kids out of property. -- poverty. geoff: the wall street journal op-ed boards of the package would undermine parent's incentives to work to receive the credit, since they would not have to earn as much income to qualify. do you see it that way? sharon: let's be clear about what this proposal does. it says to a mom with a couple of kids who is working as a food server that they will be able to get a little bit more in their child tax credit. they are going to be able to get maybe $1000 more than they get under current law. that is money that she can use to pay her utility bill, to fix her car so she can keep going to work, to buy diapers, to buy food. this is providing meaningful help to working families that right now are shut out of the full child tax credit because their earnings are too low. we have an upside down policy right now where we give the least help to the families who

need it the most. now let's be clear, under this package families still have to have earnings in order to qualify for the credit. and the credit unfortunately still phases in as earnings rise. so families with some of the lowest incomes will either not call -- either not qualify at all or qualify for a small credit. but it is providing meaningful help. geoff: the proposal was praised for finding offsets to help pay for it, but it could still set the stage for substantially more debt over time, that is a direct quote. there is the thought that given the popularity of this proposal that could become permanent and cost billions of dollars and add billions of dollars to the federal deficit over time. sharon: let's be clear about what this proposal does. there is a series of corporate tax breaks and it is paired with this modest but important expansion in the child tax credit. the provisions in this package

are temporary and are fully paid for. it kind of comes -- if congress comes back to make them permanent, of course it would cost more. and at that point congress should pay for them, it should find offsets. that is absently possible. if we ask i am come -- if we ask high income people and corporations to pay a fair amount of tax, we can invest in low income kids in ways that pay out for them, their families, and the country as a whole. geoff: sharon parrott, president of the center on budget priorities, thank you for your insights. we appreciate it. sharon: thank you. ♪ geoff: activists and health advocates are ramping up efforts to get the biden administration to ban menthol cigarettes ahead of an fda deadline this weekend. this afternoon, community leaders and public health advocates marched toward the white house and staged a homegoing mock funeral for the 45,000 black lives lost to

tobacco-related illnesses every year. but there's been a battle over whether the administration should finally enact a ban. stephanie sy has the latest. stephanie: the decision on the ban has already been delayed after it was expected to go through last summer. white house officials are reportedly at odds over the political implications. but public health officials in the fda say a ban would save hundreds of thousands of lives. menthol cigarettes are a leading cause of death among black americans. 81% of black smokers use menthols compared to 34% of white smokers. and there is a reason for that, author of the book pushing cool, big tobacco, racial marketing, and the untold story of the menthol cigarette. thank you for joining the "newshour." start by giving us a sense of how great a toll menthol cigarettes have had on black communities. >> the toll is incalculable.

that is to say smoking itself has exacted in a norm is toll in terms of lung cancer cardiovascular disease and a large range of other ailments across america. the menthol cigarette in the way in which the menthol industry has pitched the cigarette over decades to the black community has also resulted in generations of smokers initiated into smoking who otherwise would not have been. so the menthol cigarette is a key tool in the recruitment of smokers over the course of generations. this is really a moment that has been long in the making. stephanie: but the idea of a ban has come up for years. why does it keep getting delayed? keith: this moment has been a long time in the making. and the story really starts in 2009, when the food and drug administration was given authority for the first time in the nation's history for regulating tobacco products.

imagine that, only 15 years ago the fda was granted jurisdiction over these kind of products. in that legislation side by -- signed by president obama, flavored cigarettes were banned as illegitimate enticements, particularly because they were seen as important to youth initiation. but menthols were exempted. and the question was kicked over to the food and drug administration. and in some ways what we are dealing with is the aftermath of that decision. the fda has tried twice before to move. so in some ways we are really at the cusp of a story that has been playing out very slowly. stephanie: in the background, isn't there a lot of lobbying going on as well that may because for delay? keith: that is true. part of the tobacco industry's playbook has always been to, in some ways, latch onto contemporary hot button political issue in order to rally the public against most

public health advocates and most citizens, frankly, see as common sense tobacco regulation. stephanie: there is an argument on the other side of the break, including from prominent black leaders, who say and menthol cigarette ban could lead to more criminalization of black people. how do you respond to that? keith: i think the argument finds a legitimate concern, police targeting of black people, and they try to wrap menthol cigarettes around it. i really regard this argument as insincere and deceitful for a couple of reasons. one, we have examples of entire states like california and massachusetts that have banned menthol cigarettes and flavored cigarettes, and nothing like this has resulted. so this is part of the big tobacco playbook, to take a legitimate issue around which there is fear, mistrust, and concern, and try and connected somehow to what the industry sees as a lucrative but deadly

product. stephanie: there is also, though, a poll making the rounds that suggests banning menthols could hurt president biden's reelection campaign during a contentious election year. and ultimately, the decision will be up to biden. a democratic pollster who worked for president obama. >> there is some issue where african-american voters, particularly african-american voters in that space, look at the ban particularly on menthols, which they use disproportionately, and go, why are we being singled out and targeted in this way? there is a segment of the african-american community who thinks this could -- prohibition could cause more harm than benefit. stephanie: we should note that the poll was reportedly commissioned by a world tobacco giant, as you know.

but can you see political considerations influencing president biden's decision on this ban? keith: one would hope that ultimately science and public health considerations will play the majority of a role in the administration's decision. that said, i'm skeptical about whether the political considerations that come by way of that tobacco funded poll that suggests there may be a split within the black community, and there may be political consequences, i am skeptical of those findings. partly because this is how the industry has worked historically with regard specifically to social science experts, psychologists, pollsters, who help the industry figure out the best way to pitch an issue, to politicize it, in order to protect a threatened and lucrative market.

stephanie: do you have a prediction, professor, for how you see things going from here? do you think a ban will be enacted under the biden administration? keith: i think all of the scientific, public health, and political argument is in favor of the biden administration following through. i think the focus on how smokers will respond is only one part of the story. it's really about moves that you make like banning television ads, or banning billboards, or banning joe camel cartoon ads. this is another chapter in a long-standing story to try and safeguard the health and well-being of the american public. stephanie: keith wailoo, author of pushing kool, thank you so much for joining the newshour with your insights, professor. keith: thank you. ♪

geoff: more than 60,000 palestinians have been wounded during the israeli air and ground campaigns. in a moment, nick schifrin speaks with an american doctor who's just returned from gaza, but first he looks at the state of medical care there. and a warning, some of the following images and descriptions are disturbing. nick: in gaza's hospitals today, suffering too terrible to name. the mother hoping to find her son. has just found him in a white body bag. they pray for him at the european hospital in the southern city of khan younis, three days after he left his home looking for food never to return. she was told her son was killed in an israeli airstrike. he was buried so quickly, his gravestone is a cinderblock. >> i am hurting like a burning blaze. i told my husband, let's pray

for him, he will come back. but it was my last goodbye for him. may his soul rest in peace. nick: the wounded are rushed in, and there are scenes of desperation. this man, wounded, was brought into a hospital where triage is on the floor and treatment is often without anesthetic. none of gaza's 36 hospitals are fully functional, and fewer than half are even operating. now is the area outside this hospital back in the south where fighting today and over the last week forced the displaced to shelter at the hospital grounds to flee. it's operating at double capacity, but israel said hamas used the hospital grounds this week to fire mortars at israeli soldiers. israel accuses hamas of systematically using hospitals to hide. israeli commanders have shown journalists miles of tunnels

underneath hospitals. last week, an israeli animation of an indonesian hospital showed what israel called a network of hamas tunnels underneath. and just next to the hospital, cars taken by hamas militants from israel on october 7. >> we are finding other routes that go north from the hospital, so after the attack or they do something, they can go through the tunnel in the city. >> no network, nothing. nick: but gazan patients inside the hospitals are often powerless. last week, their generators ran out of fuel and incubators ran only on battery. there are only three doctors left after they evacuated staff because of nearby fighting. one of those evacuated was dr. seema jilani of the international rescue committee. >> that was very close. there is no morphine left.

i've always told myself there is not much we can do in medicine, but we can treat pain. and that is no longer true anymore. so, we cannot even offer any comfort here. there is no death with dignity when you are lying on the ground of an emergency room in gaza. nick: and dr. seema jilani now joins me from new york. dr. jelani, thank you so much. we just heard you say no death with dignity. what did you see that made you say that? dr. jilani: in my first three hours of working at al aqsa hospital, i treated a one-year-old boy with a bloody diaper, and his right arm and right leg had been blown off. there was no leg below the diaper. he was bleeding into his chest. he was -- i treated him on the ground because there were no stretchers and no beds available. and when the orthopedic surgeon came to wrap his stumps up to stop the bleeding, i would have imagined in the u.s., this would have been a straightforward case

that went immediately to the operating room because of the severity. as a stat case. and instead, the impossible choices inflicted on the doctors of gaza have made it such that he wasn't the emergency of the day. there was a waiting list, and the operating room was already full with other, more pressing cases. and so i ask myself, what's more pressing than a one-year-old without an arm, a leg, and he's bleeding into his chest and choking on his blood? and that will tell you a little bit about the scale of devastation that the people of gaza are suffering. nick: you're a pediatrician. what does it say that your expertise is needed at this moment in gaza? dr. jilani: i've worked in war zones for several years, if not decades. and i shouldn't be useful in a war zone, because i would expect that the injured and war wounded would be young men. instead, i am disturbed to tell you that i was extremely useful

in gaza. at one point, we were resuscitating five patients from the brink of death in the code room, and four of them were children under the age of 15. that shouldn't be the case in the war. i shouldn't be useful as a pediatrician. nick: what moment, which patient will you most remember? dr. jilani: there was an 11-year-old child who was brought in and she was burnt, so much that her face was charred and black. her arms were flexed and immobile, and we did not have any information or contact information for parents, whether they were alive or dead. the emergency room was permeated with the smell of burnt flesh. and i just kept thinking that this is one of so many of a generation of orphans that are going to be born into gaza,

burned and amputated, and with no life to speak of, no access to services, no family members. and it will stay with me for all my days. nick: while you were there, another of your audio recordings, you questioned whether you were making a difference. looking back, do you think that your time in gaza made a difference? dr. jilani: i do. i do think -- we were there to support the health care staff who's on the brink of collapse. the doctors were showing up, having been forcibly evacuated already, not once, not twice, but somewhere four to five times. so they're scavenging for food and water and shelter for their families and showing up the next day in scrubs and with a stethoscope in hand and valiantly, bravely seeing patients. and one day there was a gentleman quietly sobbing in the doctors area, and we asked what had happened. he pronounced a colleague dead overnight, and he -- i said, should we leave? and he said, no, please stay and just see the patients today. i can't face them. and so, i do think that us being

there shows a solidarity and a support of the palestinian staff. and they need a break, which we need a sustained ceasefire for this to be able to occur, for services to be able to be provided to people. we also saw many, many patients to try and empty the emergency room. the emergency rooms and hospitals have become de facto shelters. so, try to continue to increase patient flow. and at the end of the day, it's the intangible. it's holding hands with the dying patient. it's holding the mother whose legs give out when you tell her that she has to bury her child. that's what we're there for, to sort of serve people that are suffering. nick: you are back in the u.s., you are in new york. what do you want world leaders to know, whether they are in new york or washington, d.c.? dr. jilani: world leaders need to acknowledge the scale,

magnitude and severity of the human suffering that is happening on the ground. we cannot look away anymore, and there needs to be a sustained cease fire in order for us to be able to provide basic human services and dignity to the people of gaza. and they have a voice and they have power to make that happen. nick: israel says hamas uses hospitals as cover for tunnels. did you see any evidence of any kind of militant activity in or around the hospital? dr. jilani: i did not see any evidence to suggest that and the irc would never work in a hospital that would be used for those purposes and condones any violation of international humanitarian law. nick: what do you say to the gazan doctors you worked with who you mentioned before, who, of course, are not able to leave gaza? dr. jilani: my heart and my spirit remain with you. and i am doing everything i can to support your dignity and humanity, which we sadly have seem to lost somewhere along the way. nick: dr. sima jilani of the irc, the international rescue committee. thank you so much. dr. jilani: thank you. ♪

geoff: a majority of people traveling abroad alone these days are women, and demand for women-led tour groups is rising. stephanie sy is back with a closer look at the reasons why women are drawn to solo travel, and how the hospitality industry is taking notice. >> i want to go someplace where i can marvel at something. stephanie: middle-aged woman, liberated by divorce, jets out to explore the world, and find herself through travel. >> and i'm going to end the year in bali. stephanie: between 2010's "eat, pray, love" and the 2014 film adaptation of the memoir "wild." >> what have i done? stephanie: the solo female traveler has become a hollywood trope. but it's not just in books and films. more and more women prefer to explore the world solo.

a few years ago, then-23-year-old molly furey explored new zealand alone. >> i got to go on an incredible boat ride through milford sound, i went whale watching in kaikoura, once in a lifetime kind of opportunity, went snowboarding in queenstown. so there were a lot of things happening that, you know, i'm not doing in my day-to-day life here in ireland. stephanie: yes, she returned with great adventures under her belt, but. >> i came back and i felt like people were expecting me to have something interesting to say about it. i was kind of struck by the fact i didn't have some big epiphany or big transformation or self-discovery to share. the things that actually matter to me that i actually learned from would never show up in a film. stephanie: she later wrote a piece for vogue titled i failed at solo female travel, noting that what she learned on the trip was more mundane, how to shop, get gas, and navigate a foreign country on her own. >> i was always afraid and

sometimes panic-stricken when i first started out. stephanie: barbara winard did what molly did in her 20's too, but at a time before solo female travel was as commonplace. her first solo trip was to europe in 1970. >> people would always ask me where my husband was. wasn't i afraid of traveling alone? how did my husband allow me to travel? and i didn't have a husband at the time, so i would make something up. stephanie: now 75, and married, she still takes solo trips, but with many female travelers doing the same, she's rarely alone. >> i may go places by myself, but i kind of have made a lot of friends who love to travel. so, i have alternatives now. when i first started traveling, no one wanted to go where i wanted to go or when i wanted to go, so i felt i had no choice. stephanie: one of the people winard met in her travels was patricia patton. as a young black pan-am flight attendant in 1970, she was already a pioneer. world travel pushed the frontier

even further. >> travel has been really helpful in supporting me and my desire to live into the fullness of who i am, to push into those margins and my boundaries. stephanie: she says it's become more and more socially acceptable for older women, married, divorced or otherwise, to travel solo. >> because so many of our mates have made other choices besides accompanying us on something that maybe we want to do, i think that women feel that they can relax, they can create the kind of memories that they want traveling solo, and that not disrupt the relationship. because that's an antiquated idea anyway. stephanie: and technology has only made solo travel easier, says university of florida tourism professor heather gibson, who began researching solo women travel in 1998. >> when we first started our solo women research back in the

late 1990's, there wasn't a mobile phone. and so, one of the things that many of the women spoke to us about was, you know, fleeting loneliness, for example, or, you know, needing to find a way to share their experiences back home. stephanie: smart mobile phones mean not only communications but maps, gps, booking accommodations are all at one's fingertips. and social media, of course. the solo female travel influencer has also become travel agent and tour guide, as in the case of nabila ismail. she's been to 63 countries, many of them alone. in 2022, she set off with the dose of travel club, planning group trips for mostly women of color travelers. their last major trip was to iraq. >> my idea is to go explore places that we have either heard about in a negative limelight in the media or while growing up, and just countries that people

kind of don't even have on their radar. stephanie: the 29-year-old content creator also uses social media to exchange travel advice with her over 100,000 followers. >> it's helped me make my friends while traveling and it's made solo travel that much more enjoyable. it also kind of fuels my travel addiction. there's always something new being added to my bucket list based on what i'm seeing online. stephanie: there's a growing market catering to solo female travelers like ismail and her followers. companies like air india, introducing rows reserved for solo women travelers, trafalgar introducing a women-only set of tours, or luxury hotel chains offering solo packages in addition to honeymoons -- or rather, "one-ymoons." and post pandemic, some travel companies reported that 85% of their solo travelers are women. >> i don't know if you've ever walked past a mirror and seen ur reflection and not recognized yourself, but often travel will give you that experience as well.

stephanie: for patricia patton, years of solo travel have helped form her identity. >> when i initially started to travel, i realized that not everybody lived the same and that i could decide, i personally could decide how i wanted to live. stephanie: but whether for adventure, well-being, or eat, pray, love-style epiphanies, it's clear women are more empowered than ever to travel solo. for the "pbs newshour," i'm stephanie sy. ♪ geoff: in 2010, award-winning journalist michele norris started the race card project, where she asked people around the world to send her a postcard, and in just six words, share their thoughts, questions, experiences, and aspirations about identity and race. the result was astonishing.

the responses were vulnerable, honest, and revealing. she compiled many of the postcards into a new book called, our hidden conversations, what americans really think about race and identity. and michele norris joins us now. welcome back to the "newshour." michele: it is great to be here. geoff: the race card project for you has been a 14 year pursuit. how has the submissions tractor this country's racial journey over that same period of time? michele: when we started this in 2010, we were two years into the administration of our nation's first black president. and we were having a discussion as a country at that time about america being post-racial. so there was sort of a whoosh oh hope in the air. a lot of the submissions in the beginning reflected that. only one race, the human race. can't we all just get along? but over time the cards got deeper and people started to share some of the things that the viewers saw an introduction.

the reason i entered this relationship, i am only asian because it is convenient, or when it is convenient. white, not allowed to be proud. what we realized quickly a couple years into this it was a little bit of a divining rod. you could track things that were happening in the news or in society. they would show up in the inbox. so, trayvon martin, for instance, the killing of trayvon martin. that did not become national news for weeks after he was killed in florida. we were starting to see stories about people talking about an america that no longer felt comfortable to them, or familiar to them. in ways that we hear now, for instance, at far right political rallies. that language that has been almost normalized, we were starting to see it early on in the inbox. so as a journalist, it was not only interesting, but it was a

rigorous tool for trying to understand what was going on in america, outside of the headlines. what was going on in really personal spaces. geoff: conversations about race in this country are so often trapped in the black/white binary. but this book reflects a real panorama of race, class, age, background. what stories stand out to you, and did you pick up any through-line's, any points of connection? michele: there were certain through-line's. the patterns themselves tell a story. we see a lot of people sometimes asking the same thing, sometimes saying the same thing. we have hundreds of cards from a woman of color who say you are pretty for a, fill in the blank. you are pretty for a dark skinned girl, you are pretty for an indian girl, something like that. and so you see that sometimes people are all climbing the same hill, struggling with the same things. the other thing that is interesting to me is that none of the cards reveal patterns.

they reveal the way america is sometimes in conversation with itself without even knowing it. geoff: in what ways? michele: some of the cards feel like they are in conversation. like someone writes in about, m ugged by black teens, trust destroyed. fugate cards that people are talking about their fear of people of color. and then you get cards on the other side that fall into some version of, lady i don't want your purse. a car that came in, i am not intimidating, you are intimidated. it is almost like a conversation that people are having across difference come across some kind of chasm. sometimes it happens in ways, did these two people just talk to each other? then there are cases where people are not talking to each other and they are talking to me. in the book there is a really

interesting story about a couple, she is white, he's iranian. they don't know that they have each sent in a card, but i recognize she was talking about her husband. years later i talked to her. geoff: in the book you explore whiteness, which is interesting because whiteness in this country is so often seen as the default, or as you say in the book, the normative identity. there are a number of submissions that fall along these lines. one said, being white is not a crime. another said, do hillbillies get white privilege too? michele: or another car that said hillbilly is the wrong kind of white. those submissions were surprising to me. not the individual submissions, the volume of them. when i put the basket on the table and asked people to share their stories about race, most of our conversations about race in america are by, for, or about people of color, and they fall

along that black/white binary. but even when that happens, white americans often have a bystander status. the conversation is usually led by, or targeted at, people of color. when i put that basket on the table, i never expected to engage in a 14 year odyssey of listening to white americans talk about race. that was completely surprising. in most of the 14 years we have been doing this work, the majority of the cards have come from white people in america, or we also have cards that come from more than 100 countries. but the majority are from america. that was surprising in revealing, and rewarding as a journalist. because it helped me understand america in a different light. these are conversations that i normally do not have access to. as you noted in some of these cards there is a certain defensiveness sometimes. there is a certain sense that this conversation does not include me and when it does i am always made out to be the bad guy. geoff: may i ask what your race

card says? michele: my first words were, fooled them all, not done yet. because i am a brown girl that grew up in a midwestern state. i am from minnesota. i had a speech impediment as a kid. a life as a communicator was not imagine for me in part because of who i was and where i came from and how i presented in the world. and i did not see a track for that. there were no gwen ifills on the air when i was growing up. over time i six words have changed. it's in part because america has changed. we were in a hurry to get over this. we want to be post-racial. we want to see the finish line. and i think some form of debate will always be with us, because we are just such a fara gated country. and so my six words now are, still more work to be done. geoff: michele norris, the book

and the intention we hide it arts are an airy. it is called our hidden conversations, what americans really think about race and identity. michele: it is really wonderful. i wanted a book that jumped off the page. there are a lot of photos inside, it is a very vibrant book about a difficult subject. geoff: a real privilege to speak with you. thank you. ♪ and as always there is more coverage online, include an in-depth look at how misinformation is still playing a major role in vaccine hesitancy. that's at pbs.org/newshour. and that is the "newshour" for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. thanks for spending part of your evening with us. >> 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 the judy and peter blum kovler foundation. >> architect. beekeeper. mentor. a raymondjames financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well-planned. >> the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. and friends of the "newshour." this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs

station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] >> you're watching pbs.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪