geoff: good evening, i am geoff bennett. amna: and i am on the no laws. after winning the new hampshire primary, donald trump sharpens his attacks on nikki haley as her campaign looks ahead to her home state south carolina. geoff: the united states strikes back against militants attacking american interests in the middle east, but the attacks keep coming. a look at the fine line the biden administration is walking to avoid a regional war. >> we don't want to see conflict

escalate. we are not looking for a war with anybody. amna: alcohol-related deaths surge in colorado and other western states with a higher mortality rate than the opioid crisis. >> major funding for the pbs newshour 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 service. >> consumer cellular, this is sam, how may i help you? this is a pocket dial.

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amna: welcome to the newshour. former president donald trump's second primary victory last night in new hampshire makes it more likely that this year's race for president will be a rematch of 2020. . geoff: while trump and biden are setting their sights on each other, former u.n. ambassador nikki haley is reminding republican voters she is still in the fight. we are joined by a former longtime aid the democratic members of congress and republican strategist kevin madden, who advised mitt romney's presidential campaign. donald trump is now the first nonincumbent republican to win both the iowa caucuses and the new hampshire primary. here is a bit of what he had to say in his victory speech. mr. trump: we are going to win. the reason we have supported is that they are so bad and so evil and they are going to destroy our country. geoff: looking at associated

press voter surveys, 21% of republicans who cast ballots in the new hampshire primary said they would be so dissatisfied with donald trump as a general election candidate that they would not even vote for him. 50% of voters who participated in the iowa caucuses said the same thing. how does donald trump unify the party with those numbers? >> i think it is indicative of the tension in his messages. base republican voters, what energizes them is donald trump being this fighter who can take on the perceived excess of the left and fight against joe biden, the way he took the country in the wrong direction. at the same time, one of the big challenges is more moderate swing voters very upset with the idea that he is constantly relitigating the 2020 election and looking backward. the way to unify the party and

win over swing voters if he is going to win the general election has to be focused on a more future oriented message about the issues people care about. the economy, immigration, national security, foreign policy challenges around the globe, really focus on those and where he wants to take the country in the future. president biden got more votes as a write in candidate who did not even compete in new hampshire then former president barack obama he did compete. how does the biden campaign build on that moving forward, especially with the shakeup in the leadership of their campaign. >> senator shaheen and senator hassan put a big effort into making sure joe biden finished on top. those are the kinds of things that help you win a close election.

we have seen since trump's supreme court overturned abortion-rights that there has been a 10% bigger performance on election day for democrats in competitive races. last night was a big win for joe biden, he was not even on the ballot. he is constantly undercounted, but the organization is worth a couple of points. he beat trump last time, that's very important. geoff: nikki haley faces questions about the viability of her campaign since there is little evidence she has major support in the primaries and caucuses that await her campaign. realistically is there anything she can do to boost standing ? >> the biggest challenge her own campaign and her donors. they right now are funding the building of an infrastructure and a campaign that has lost double digits in the first two

contests. she has to present a plan to the donors, here is the way moving forward, offering details about where you win and how you take that momentum into the bigger part of the calendar where you have 16 contests all the way up until march 19. she has to make a case she can win somewhere because otherwise it is hard to make the case to keep the resources going. in places like florida where this campaign -- if it is going to continue, it's like $3 million a week to compete there. you have to consolidate support among your donors if you are going to get the volunteer and voter enthusiasm you need to win. geoff: president biden walked picket lines last year with striking autoworkers and today picked up the endorsement of the united auto workers union. here is some of what he told that group. pres. biden: the days of working

people being dealt out in this country are over in this country as long as i'm president. working people are going to get their fair share. you've earned it. you've fought for it and you deserve it. geoff: how will that endorsement, and more importantly his message of economic populism, boost his effort to reach out to voters in michigan and working-class americans who have comprised the blue wall the democrats need to keep to win the white house? >> unemployment is at a 50 year low and what joe biden did today was tell people you are going to be cut in on this deal. keep me in office and we are going to make sure the prosperity that people on the top are seeing you are going to see when you go to work every day. those are the voters joe biden resonates with, how he won the first time and how he is going to win again. geoff: i want to play a bit of

what nikki haley said last white -- last night. >> most americans do not want a rematch between biden and trump. the first party to retire its 80 year old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election. geoff: the polling actually bears out the first part of what she said, that most americans are not thrilled about the prospects of a trump-biden rematch. here we are facing the longest general election in history. which campaign is helped and hurt by that? >> by the length of the campaign? i think the fact that joe biden is -- the tough thing about campaigns is they are grueling not only emotionally but physically. joe biden, one of the criticisms many voters have is he doesn't seem like he is up to the task. the more this campaign drags on and the more intense it gets and

the travel and the tone trump is going to set where he is going to be very aggressive, it works to trump's advantage. that is one of the things a lot of voters see when they worry about the prospects of joe biden inside the democratic coalition. amna: the biden -- geoff: the biden campaign are trying to focus on issues. the white house said today they are inviting kate cox, the woman at the center of the texas abortion case, to the state of the union address. >> i think the white house is right on that. women across this country will not tell a poster that i'm not going to vote for somebody once their rights has been taken away. we have seen when they vote, they vote for the democrat. donald trump doesn't talk about this anymore but he talked for the first half of this campaign about the three justices each stage shall kindly delay.

he should be shared how she signed the joy of having left for democrats in education the last two and a half years -- democrats in red places the last two and a half years. amna: nikki haley faces an uphill climb in the next state on the primary map, south carolina, where she was raised and served as governor. the state was also key to president biden's victory in the 2020 primary and now could serve as a signal on his standing with black voters nationwide. to discuss what to watch in the palmetto state, i'm joined now by south carolina public radio's thelisha eaddy. let's start with the republican race in south carolina. nikki haley's home state. will voters choose her over former president donald trump? >> when i think about nikki haley, i refer to it as the peculiar case of nikki haley. native daughter, former governor who was in position to make the

call him in the confederate flag from the state house dome. a lot of people were trying to get that done. seems like checks all down the board, but one can thing that overshadows those things is when i talk to folks on both sides of the spectrum, the criticism of nikki haley is they don't know who she is. just this morning i spoke with an entrepreneur mom of three who says she is leaning towards voting for trump because he is firm in who he says he is and his record. when i asked her opinion on the former governor, she uses the term chameleon and says she feels as though the former governor is just becoming a better politician. even though this is nikki's home state and i know that hailey is looking to have home state advantage, for the republicans here it almost seems as though this is donald trump's home state. he has made lots of campaign visits and rallies here and this past week we saw him on stage

with many members of our leadership in south carolina. it seems like a strange situation but i think that's what our former governor will have to contend with as we lead up to the primary. amna: south carolina holds real significance for president biden. black voters in particular in 2020 really resurrected his campaign. four years later, are they willing and motivated enough to support him the same way? >> a few weeks ago when talking with a democratic member who is working deeply in th party, the same messaging was there. they are celebrating the fact they have this loyal block of voters, particularly female african-american voters, that they are very loyal, they will get the word out and knock on doors, but also in the conversation and also what they're pushing is that there is work to do. so we have younger voters who

are now in the party and they are trying to stress, as a get out the vote, they are trying to stress that you may feel a little disenfranchised, if you will, or that your vote may not always count or that you're not always at the forefront. but the term that this individual used was we need you to have muscle memory. we need you to remember what party works for you. and so, there are campaign events and rally events happening this weekend. and that's the messaging. they're trying to target their younger voters and they're trying to remind people that we are the party that's working for you. this person actually called today a survival vote for african americans. so many of the issues that plague so many of the african american communities here in south carolina, the party wants those voters to remember that, you know, we are in for the hard work. it is going to take hard work. it is not going to happen overnight, but have that muscle memory, remember who we are and

stick with us. that's what i'm hearing from them. amna: the south carolina electorate, broadly very different to the electorate we saw in new hampshire and in iowa. who makes the difference in south carolina and what are the issues that are on the tops of their minds right now? >> the mom i spoke to this morning, when i asked why she is leaning toward former president trump, she said she was pleased with his record. i asked what about his record. top of her mind, immigration. she said that's the key issue for her. what i am hearing a lot from people on the republican side, what matters to them, the tie that binds them, faith, value, and being able to determine where a person stands. she used a term, i like it when people, when their message lines up with my faith values. what i read in the scripture. on the democrat side, what i'm hearing about is that survival vote. african americans are plagued with a lot of issues in different parts of our state. and so they want to make sure

that they are heard. and so again, that large, loyal voting bloc for democrats, the african americans and women who are really taking the lead and pushing the party forward, i think those two groups are the ones that would need to be watched during this time, during this cycle. amna: that is south carolina public radio's thelisha eady joining us tonight. thanks so much, great to see you. in other headlines, israeli forces and hamas militants battled outside the main hospital in khan younis -- gaza's second largest city. that left thousands of palestinian patients and refugees trapped in the area. thousands more fled to rafah, along the egyptian border. they are joining one and a displaced gazans already crammed half million into encampments there.

>> [translated] i swear there is no safe place. we are scared for our children. we did not sleep last night with the rain and bombing above us. i set up the tent using nylon. this is the harshest period of winter. amna: back in khan younis, the un agency for palestinian refugees reported an israeli tank round killed nine people and wounded 75 at a u.n. training center. israeli officials have said -- moscow is accusing ukrainian forces of shooting down a russian military transport plane today, killing all 74 people on board. the russians say the plane went down in the belgorod region as it was flying 65 ukrainians to a prisoner swap at the border. amateur video showed the plane bursting into flames as it fell from the sky and plummeted to the ground. ukrainian officials did not immediately confirm or deny the claim.

a state trooper in minnesota was charged with second-degree murder today in the death of a black motorist. body camera video showed brian laundrie again approaching the car during a traffic stop last summer. state officials say londrigan opened fire when this card -- when the car started to move. minnesota police have had a number of encounters, including the murder of george floyd in 2020. ohio will be the 23rd state to ban gender-affirming care for those under age 18. republican lawmakers enacted it today over gop governor mike dewine's veto. he's issued a ban by executive order, but argued that enshrining it in law was overreach. the measure also bars transgender athletes from girl'' and women's sports teams in public schools and colleges. johnson & johnson agreed today to pay $150 million to washington state in an opioid settlement.

opioid deaths in the state had more than doubled to more than 2000 from 2019 to 2022. nationwide, drug companies and others have reached $50 billion in opioid settlements in recent years. across europe, farmers protested from france to poland over sliding incomes and regulation. demonstrators say rising costs and cheap imports are putting unfair pressure on the industry. in france, they put up roadblocks and filled streets with tractors. some took their case against higher costs and cheap imports to the you parliament in brussels. >> [translated] the message is, stop us from being caught in the middle. they impose more and more draconian standards on us but on the other hand, our produce isn't protected. we need to be cleaner and cleaner, which costs us more and more but we're in a global market so the cheapest wins. amna: among other things, the farmers cited special wartime

rules that let ukraine ship more produce to the rest of europe. in economic news, china's central bank announced it's reducing the amount of cash that banks have to hold as reserves. the goal is to free more money for lending, and in turn boost the country's struggling post-covid economy. it's the latest in a series of moves aimed at stabilizing china's markets and shoring up confidence in the economic outlook. on wall street, stocks had a mixed day. the dow jones industrial average lost 99 points to close at 37,806. the nasdaq rose 56 points. the s&p 500 added four. next month, comedian jon stewart will return to "the daily show" as host and executive producer -- but only hosting on monday nights, through the election. stewart led the satirical program for 16 years before leaving in 2015. "the daily show" has not had a permanent host in more than a year. still to come on the newshour, u.s. attacks on iran-backed houthis in yemen raise fears of a wider regional

war. a new book documents the racism of the jim crow era mental health facility. the oscars spark controversy by snubbing barbie for best actress and director, 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 war in gaza has killed more than 25,000 palestinians, according to the gaza health ministry. our colleagues at independent television news have sent us evidence of one more death, an apparently unarmed man walking with a group of men under a white flag, with their hands up. itn's cameraman in gaza documented the killing. the reporter is john irvine in israel. and a caution, this includes images of violence.

john: this is the edge of the supposedly safe area that the israelis have been encouraging gaza civilians to flee to. these makeshift homes have been vacated because the war is getting closer. the billowing smoke was evidence of the new israeli offensive in khan younis that has been forcing more families to evacuate and seek safety elsewhere. >> everywhere you are going, you will find the israeli army. they shoot us at home, any building, in the street, anywhere you are. they will give you a chance sometimes for five minutes. sometimes they will not give you any chance to take your clothes, your children, your family and get out of the building. this is our life in gaza, it is very difficult. john: these pictures were filmed

by a cameraman working for itv news in gaza. as he moved forward toward the combat zone, he noticed this group of men doing their utmost to appear nonthreatening, trying to proceed with care. they wanted to reach two other family members and get them out of harm's way. >> [translated] i have my mother and brother in there with 50 or 60 displaced people. the israelis came to us and told us to evacuate but they didn't let my brother out. we want to go and try to get them, god willing. john: the interview complete, our cameraman walked away. and then this happened. [gunshot] the interviewee had been shot and fatally wounded. you can see them place their

flag on his chest. as he was carried away, the white flag was turning red. >> [translated] carry him. they have killed him. john: -- yells this youth, then suddenly, more gunfire. they scream at a child, telling him to find cover. by this stage, the man's wife, his widow, has heard what happened. as she rushes to the scene, she meets the party carrying away the body on a makeshift stretcher. when they are satisfied they're a safe distance away, they stop

and the mourning starts. geoff: we asked the israel defense forces to respond to the story today. a spokesman said, quote, "we're not aware of the event and it's still under examination." an israeli defense official later told pbs newshour that an israeli analysis of the audio found that two weapons fired shots. they say one was an automatic that fired three bullets, and the rate of fire does not correspond to any rifle used by the israeli military. the official added, they are investigating further. amna: one of the u.s. priorities since the october 7 hamas terrorist attack has been preventing violence from expanding across the region. but overnight, the u.s. launched strikes at iranian backed groups in both iraq and yemen, following attacks by those groups. and once again today, houthi rebels fired missiles at multiple american ships. nick schifrin looks at the widening u.s. military campaign and the threat posed by iran.

nick: just after midnight in iraq, u.s. strikes targeted an iranian backed militia. two hours later in yemen, the u.s. military targeted iranian backed houthi rebels. strikes in 2 different middle eastern countries, against 2 different iranian supported groups, designed, in the words of national security council spokesman john kirby, to prevent wider war. we don't want to see the >>we don't want to see the conflict escalate. we don't want to see some nflict with anybody.war or a we're actually trying to de-escalate. nick: iran's revolutionary guard corps has long supported what iran calls an axis of resistance to conduct forward defense against its enemies. in iraq, that includes khataib hezbollah, a shia paramilitary group that the u.s. labels terrorists, but is also part of the iraqi military that helped defeat isis. last weekend, the us military says the group fired rockets and ballistic missiles

at this u.s. military base, al assad, causing, quote, "a number" of american injuries. the u.s. military says last night's u.s. strikes targeted khataib hezbollah's headquarters, storage, and training sites. >> we are not going to hesitate to take necessary action to protect our troops and our facilities and we'll stay vigilant going forward. but iraqi prime minister mohammed shia al-sudani called the strikes, quote, "irresponsible escalation," after reiterated a threat to push u.s. troops out of iraq. >> [translated] after the repercussions and attacks on the iraqi security headquarters, we have the right to start this dialogue immediately in order to reach an agreement on arranging a timetable for the end of the mission of international advisors. nick: in yemen, the u.s. says iran provides the houthis intelligence, money, and the advanced weapons that allow the group to target international shipping. 30% of global container traffic sails through the suez canal via the red sea. dozens of houthi attacks have forced many ships to reroute around africa, driving up

consumer prices and causing supply chain delays. the shipping company maersk says today's houthi attacks targeted two american ships, the maersk detroit and the maersk chesapeake, as they carried cargo for the u.s. department of defense. because of that cargo, they were being escorted by u.s. navy ships that shot down two houthi missiles. to stop those missiles, the u.s. hopes beijing pressures iran to reign in the houthis. it's not clear if beijing is willing to help, but publicly today urged restraint. >> china calls for a halt to the harassment of civilian ships and urges relevant parties to refrain from aggravating tensions in the red sea. nick: the u.s. and u.k. have launched nearly 10 rounds of strikes on the houthis and vowed to keep going, said president biden on thursday. pres. biden: well, when you say working are they stopping the houthis? no. are they going to continue?

yes. geoff: tonight a houthi spokesman took credit for today's attack on american ships, and vowed the attacks would continue. to discuss tensions in the region and the u.s. response so far, we get two views. michael doran was a senior director on the george w. bush national security council staff, and now direct the center for peace and security in the middle east at hudson institute, a washington think tank. and ali vaez was a senior political affairs officer at the united nations, and is now the iran project director at the international crisis group, which describes itself as working to prevent conflict around the world. thanks very much, welcome to both of you. michael, what is your assessment so far on u.s. strikes on houthis in yemen and u.s. strikes in iraq on iranian backed groups? michael: they are not going to do the job. the president basically admitted that. maersk also said at the world economic forum that this is going to go on for months, that shipping through the red sea and

the suez canal will be disrupted for months, so clearly it's not working. if this is operational prosperity, we are not guarding it. geoff: same question, what is your assessment of the u.s. strikes in yemen and iraq? ali: i agree they are not working, but because we are addressing the symptoms and not the proximate cause, which is the war in gaza. the reality is the houthis have been engaged in a war with the saudi led coalition for years and have been targeted with the same u.s. weapons we are now using against them for multiple years and they have never been deterred. they are capable, determined zealots and have little to lose. they have been gaining in popularity at home as a result of this. we have had the same experience in iraq for many years. using the military tool is not

the solution here. it is an option but not the solution. geoff: are the houthis undeterminable and is a military solution not the solution? michael: they are deterable and they are being aided by the iranians, who are deterable. an underreported fact is the houthis for the first time in the world used an anti-ship ballistic missile. the houthis, who don't have a serious defense industrial base. they are able to do this because the iranians are providing them with this weapon. the general who is responsible for this is on our terrorist list because he killed americans in iraq. he orchestrated the attempt to kill the saudi ambassador here in 2011.

we have a guy who has a history of killing americans, organizing attacks on american soil. if we hold him responsible, we could deter them. geoff: what about holding iranian officials responsible and the iranian guard itself? ali: there is a long track record to look at. you remember when the u.s. killed general soleimani in 2020. we were told iran would no longer be able to project power in the region. in the past few weeks, israel has taken out multiple commanders as well as a hamas commander in beirut. the u.s. has taken out a commander in back bed and has been bombing the who these now at least seven times. there is a long track record to look at. we have at certain points 150,000 troops on both sides of

armed borders in iraq and afghanistan and yet we were not able to deter them. the military option is not a solution to every issue we have in the region. if you look at last year, iran and the u.s. were engaged in quiet diplomacy that led to an understanding between them that resulted in the longest period in which we had no attacks on u.s. forces in iraq and syria. since the war in gaza started, we have had more than 150 attacks on u.s. forces. the correlation is similar -- simple to understand. geoff: take on that last point, that diplomacy not military action creates de-escalation. michael: here is a conversation that never takes place in iran, where they say that's or just rate attacks on american and allies and the supreme leader says, there is no military option, we should de-escalate.

they are the ones who escalated after october 7. they defined the contest in gaza as between iran and its resistance access -- axis and the united states. the united states tried to de-escalate by saying this is a conflict between israel and hamas only. they have not reciprocated. they are escalating. the only way to make them de-escalate is to take things from them that they hold dear. geoff: respond to that fundamental point, that the tension is not about -- or the source of the tension is not about the war in gaza, but really about iran and its proxies versus the united states. ali: we had a period right before the war in gaza that we had no attacks on u.s. forces in the region. the reality here is we have a long track record of testing both of these propositions,

diplomacy and military force. i will remind the viewers that we went into afghanistan and spent trillions of dollars and 20 years of war to replace the taliban with the taliban. we have to understand there are limits to the use of military force. i am not saying these are good people and we should not do anything, but i am saying use of force is not useful unless and until we have a realistic, achievable diplomatic solution and an endgame, and i'm not seeing any of that. i ran and the united states are acting as arsonists and firefighters at the same time. i believe neither has interest in expansion of the war, but unfortunately there is no diplomacy to try to bring this to an end. geoff: we have 45 seconds, so briefly, michael, could these strikes lead to the expulsion of u.s. troops from iraq?

michael: certainly possible. everyone in the region is watching to see if the united states is going to protect itself and its allies. the united states is under direct attack by proxies of iran that are under the control of iran. if we don't defend ourselves and our allies, everyone is going to draw the conclusion that we are not going to defend them. and they will edge toward iran and china. one of the most perverse things we hear is the united states is asking china to help us with iran. how is that possibly going to work? geoff: ali vaez, should the u.s. be concerned it will lose its presence in iraq? ali: it is possible, although it seems the iraqi government does want the u.s. to remain in iraq so we don't see another reemergence of isis or other radical group.

that is working in our favor but as long as tension in the region is continuing, the risk of u.s. fatalities remains pretty high. geoff: alcohol is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the u.s. every year, more people die of alcohol-related causes than drug overdoses. but problems with alcohol often go overlooked. william brangham looks at how this is affecting the western part of the country -- and one state in particular. william: while alcohol is problematic everywhere, colorado as one of the highest rates of alcohol-related deaths in the country. drinking deaths in the state spiked 60% between 2018 and 2021. in 2022, more than 1500 people in the state died from excessive drinking, a slight decline from earlier, but that's still 50%

above pre-pandemic levels. when you also take into account deaths from chronic, long-term conditions related to alcohol, the death toll doubles, a number that far exceeds deaths from opioids. but as the denver post reported in a new four-part series, alcohol has not been treated with the same urgency as opioids. that series is called "colorado's quiet killer" and reporter meg wingutter joins me now. thank you so much for being here. your series is titled the quiet killer. why do you refer to it as quiet? meg: it is quiet in the sense it has not generated much attention. we hear about the number of people dying of opioids, which of course is a massive killer that we need to pay attention to, but there is not really the awareness that alcohol can also be deadly. when i was writing this series

and interviewing people, other than people who specifically study alcohol, there was not really this awareness that the death toll could be anything comparable, because it is not something people talk about much. many people would rather not admit excessive drinking was what killed their loved one. we just don't have the conversation. william: when we talk about categorizing deaths from alcohol, can you break those down? are we talking about accidents where people are intoxicated, chronic conditions? what are these deaths? meg: when i was interviewing people, often they would assume this was a lot of dying in crashes or young people drinking themselves to death in one night, but what it is mostly is longer-term conditions.

liver disease, cancers, heart conditions, death by suicide where people were intoxicated at the time, which makes you more impulsive and more likely to follow through on suicide if you were having those thoughts. it does look different than people expect. accidents are a problem but are not the biggest source of the problem. william: are there things public health experts told you might help the state to do to bring these deaths down? meg: there is no one magic thing that if we do this it will make a huge impact, but there are a lot of small things that can nudge people. when alcohol taxes go up, people tend to somewhat reduce their consumption. when alcohol is not as convenient, people also tend to drink a little less.

cultural things, trying to give people alternatives and normalize events where drinking is not at the center. none of those is going to completely fix the problem, but they each give people a nudge toward reducg consumption, which over time adds up to fewer people developing these chronic conditions. william: alcohol is so ingrained in our culture, even though we are in the middle of dry january. it is notable we even have a month where we tried to drink less. were you surprised overall by the things you found in your series? meg: yes. i had actually kind of stumbled on these numbers about alcohol-related deaths and that seemed high compared to the overdoses. as i started talking to people more about the conditions it is

involved in, it makes sense. the odds in an average drinker will die from alcohol are much lower than the odds an average fentanyl user will die from a substance they are using. but so many people drink that it adds up to this very large toll. and it is uncomfortable to talk about in a way that illicit drugs are not, because so many of us enjoy having a drink and don't necessarily want to hear that it could be a problem. william: that is meg wingerter of the denver post. thank you for sharing your reporting with us. amna: crownsville state hospital in maryland was one of the last segregated mental asylums in the country, and it operated for some 93 years. thousands of black patients came

through over the years and many of them died there. nbc news correspondent antonia hylton began looking into the facility a decade ago, during her first year of college. i spoke with her recently about her findings, which she details in a new book, "madness: race and insanity in a jim crow asylum." and i asked her why she wanted to tell this story. >> it was my freshman year, and i stumbled into a course about the history of psychiatry, and i became obsessed. you know, on the one hand, it was an academic obsession, a passion for the history of mental health. but there was also a personal aching and longing, i think, because i come from a very big, tight-knit family. i'm one of seven kids. but the one topic that always seemed off-limits when i was growing up was mental trauma and mental illness. and that's because i came from a family with a long history of dealing with those issues and loved ones, relatives who had spent time in institutions not unlike crownsville. and so, when i was finally out

on my own as a young adult, it was my moment to explore, to try to find myself, my family, a bit of my history reflected somewhere. and i stumbled upon a footnote about crownsville hospital, and i didn't know then what this would become. but i knew that i had found something really special and really important, a key piece of black history, of the history of psychiatry. but really, it's an american story, a story that i think implicates all of us. amna: tell me about what you uncovered, because you go on, as you mentioned, a decade long journey uncovering documents, talking to people who work there, family members of folks who were at crownsville as well. you basically document the story of a chronically underfunded, perpetually shortstaffed facility surrounded by hostile neighbors, subject to the same overt and violent racism as many other institutions and resources

for black people at the time. what was the impact of that on the people who were there? >> crownsville is this complicated institution that comes to reflect all of these evolving battles in our country , in its early years, founded in 1911. and one of the things that was most shocking to me, that i found when i first embarked on all of this research, was that this is the only hospital in the state of maryland, and quite possibly the only hospital in the history of the united states, that forced its own patients to build it from the ground up. and this is because doctors at the time had very particular beliefs about black people and their minds, their mental wellbeing. many of them believed that emancipation was a mistake and that black people weren't able to handle freedom, and that this rise in mental illness, in emotional disturbances that they were witnessing in the years after emancipation, they figured, well, it must be because they can't handle freedom. no one seemed to pause and ask, well, what effect might have

enslavement had on black americans? and so they create these segregated institutions from the very beginning with this idea that black people are different and therefore need to be treated differently, and that the solution, part of the therapy, the treatment, is to put them back to work. and so these patients in 1911 are brought into a forest, and they're not just carrying some water or sandbags and helping, you know, some contractors out. they are pouring cement, they are moving railways, they are building massive structures from the ground up, and they are working side by side through the day and night with contractors and electricians to build a hospital that once it's complete, they're going to be marched inside and they're going to become its first patients. and so i often share that story with people so they understand that this is really the beginning, the genesis of a story that comes to reflect so much of how black people are then treated, and the hospital's founding, it represents that moment after emancipation. it comes to represent fights

over integration, civil rights, the fight for black people's complete and and honest representation and participation in this country. amna: you document a number of horrific, quite frankly, accounts, acts of violence and crownsville abuse of patients , inhumanity that really takes your breath away. but there is also moments of bravery and real humanity, in particular from some of the black staffers at the facility who really fight for people who aren't getting treatment. uh, does any one person or any one story stick with you? >> there are a few. there is this group, this clique of black women who arrive in the 1950s and 1960s. and they are some of the very first black people who get the opportunity to work at crownsville. for its first several decades, it's a hospital that's all black patients and exclusively white employees. then integration comes and slowly more and more black,

local community members are able to get jobs and to treat people who don't just look like them, but in many cases went to school with them, rode the bus with them, lived down the street from them. they notice that many patients don't have clothes, so they go home and they gather their own leftover clothing, and they bring it to the hospital. they notice that some of the male patients don't have belts, and their pants are falling down all day, and they're not able to live with dignity. so they go and they make their own makeshift belts, very simple acts like that that for decades it seemed no other employee had had thought to do. and so they start to transform the culture of the hospital just because they see those patients as human. amna: you dug into your own family history as part of your reporting as well. and the reluctance, as you mentioned, to talk about a lot of the mental health issues through the generations. you write this. "in my family, the stories range from regular depression to anxiety to alcoholism and schizophrenia. we were warned about how much diabetes there was in our family medical history. it would have helped to know about the number of mental

breakdowns too." how has this changed how you look at the stigma surrounding mental health conversations, particularly around communities of color where there are fewer resources and these are often issues we just don't talk about? >> it gave me more empathy, because there was a time when i was very angry at some of my family members. i had tried to have conversations with them. i remember being in high school and asking my parents if i could have a therapist because i was feeling very down at school and they said, no, that's not something that black people do. therapists don't treat black people well. you can't trust them. i felt like they'd shut me down and turn me away. and they were old school, and they just didn't want to hear about my life and my experiences. but once you reckon with this history, and you see the way in which they were excluded from real therapy and mental health care treatment, or when they did access it, how harmful it at times could be, you start to understand why maybe did my grandparents and my parents

think this system wasn't for them, that it wasn't safe for their children to engage in it? amna: the book is "madness: race and insanity in a jim crow asylum." the author is antonia hilton. antonia, thank you so much. >> thank you. geoff: when the academy award nominations were announced yesterday, among the films on the list for "best picture" was the year's biggest-grossing movie barbie, but many were surprised the nominations for best director did not include the film's director, greta gerwig. jeffrey brown has a look for our arts and culture series, canvas. jeffrey: so how do these nominations get made, and why were both greta gerwig and star margot robbie both left off? "washington post chief film critic ann hornaday has been thinking and writing about that and she joins me now. you wrote an interesting piece

today and what you said the range of films that were nominated in the best picture category really reflected the wonderful range of films being made. but not in the director category. what happened there? ann: i think -- let's focus on the good news, which is what an amazing year. this is a wide range of films, in theme, tone, and approach. we want the bigs, the littles, and the mediums. but the director, when they nominate the five finalists for the oscar, do tend to go with the kind of auteurs, technically rigorous, ambitious work. jeffrey: a lot of people point to the irony that the director of a film smartly critiquing sexism in our culture doesn't get full recognition. to sum that suggests that that very sexism is on display.

ann: i can understand that, but i'm not sure. i think we need to be really careful and may be more thoughtful about framing this as pure sexism. let's not forget justine made the cut for anatomy of the fall. it may have as much to do, if not more, with genre than gender. even though poor things made the cut for director, generally directors don't take comedies as seriously as dramas. i think that might have as much to do with it as anything. also i think we need to remind ourselves about how these nominations are made. the nominations do come from the individual branches and those members basically cast their ballots individually, anonymously and confidentially, so it's not like they are getting in a room and making

these decisions collectively. i am more hesitant to paint this with the wide brush of sexism or snub. if anything, it points to how rich the choices were. we can quibble. we would all make our choice of who we would replace with whom, which is fun and it increases our interest in movies, but at the end of the day these are very strong choices and extremely well directed films, so it's not as though somebody got in at somebody else's expense. jeffrey: what about the actress category where margot robbie did not get in? that was a very strong category of acting. ann: that's my point exactly. we don't know the numbers. we don't know how close those votes were. even though i know it's heartbreaking for the people that get up early, and it's also

something of a team sport for the fans of the movies, barbie did get recognized in many other categories, including supporting actress, which was sort of a surprise to me, as well as best picture and other categories. maybe i am being pollyanna, but i do choose to see this as more good news and bad. jeffrey: we have talked about the lack of representation in films and in the nominations. there have been many changes made in the makeup of the academy. do you see the results of that in recent years? ann: if anything i see the results in the increase in international members. i think we are seeing c changes. it is exciting and returns cinema to its proper global place. even though oscars are quintessentially hollywood, the

transmission between hollywood and other cultures is long-standing and rich, so i think the degree to which we are seeing things like "parasite" and michelle yeoh winning for everything everywhere all at once, and this year anatomy of a fall, it speaks to a widening of a lens of what we consider movie movies and mainstream movies, and that's all to the good. jeffrey: thank you. geoff: that is the newshour for tonight. i am geoff bennett. amna: and i am amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour, including jim and nancy built

their and the robert and virginia schiller foundation. the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide. 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. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its

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