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tv   PBS News Hour  PBS  July 25, 2024 3:00pm-4:01pm PDT

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geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna nawaz is away. on the "newshour" tonight, the new presidential matchup takes shape, with vice president kamala harris trying to rally support from key voting blocs and former president trump sharpening his attacks.
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israel's prime minister sits down with president biden. how the families of hostages view netanyahu's controversial visit to the u.s. and we continue our look at what's behind the troubling rise in suicides among young black americans. >> one of the main questions i'm asked is how do i find a therapist? how do i find a clinician, a black clinician in this area? there's a great need to ensure that there's enough providers available to service all those in need. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by ♪ -- has been provided by -- carnegie corporation of new
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york, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support. more information at karma get our and with the ongoing support -- carnegie.org and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: welcome to the newshour. vice president kamala harris was in houston and washington today, honing her campaign message --
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one day after president biden explained why he exited the presidential race. harris' likely nomination has former president trump and his team racing to shift their r laura barron lopez has more. ♪ laura: this morning harris in , houston, addressing the first labor union to formally endorse her candidacy for the white house. harris only mentioned her opponents name once. vp. harris: donald trump and his extreme allies want to take our nation back to failed trickle down economic policies. back to union busting. back to tax breaks for billionaires. laura: but drew a sharp contrast to trump throughout, boiling the election down to one question. vp. harris: what kind of country do we want to live in? a country of freedom, compassion, and rule of law? or a country of chaos, fear and hate?
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laura: that question, answered in her first campaign video. vp. harris: we choose freedom. ♪ laura: released early today, it also lays out the future harris sees for the country, once again, referencing trump. vp. harris: we choose a future where no child lives in poverty, where we can all afford healthcare, where no one is above the law. laura: it all comes a day after president biden's oval office address, justifying his seismic decision to drop out of the race. pres. biden: i decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. that's the best way to unite our nation. there's also a time and a place for new voices. fresh voices. yes, younger voices. and that time and place is now. laura: meanwhile the former , president scrambles to pivot his attacks from biden to harris. >> mr. president, welcome back.
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laura: in a phone interview on "fox and friends" this morning, trump responded to harris's messaging against him. mr. trump i get a kick out of : one thing. they say, sir, be nice, you just got hit with a bullet, maybe he's changed. be nice. and i'd love to be nice, but i'm dealing against real garbage when you hear that. laura: that played off of remarks last night from the former president's first rally since biden dropped out. trump portrayed harris as a liberal extremists. mr. trump if you want socialist : healthcare, nation wrecking inflation, the death of american energy, and a lying radical left liberal san francisco extremist as your commander in chief, then kamala harris is your candidate. she's the one for you. [crowd booing] laura: and incorrectly labeled her as biden's "border czar" while using demonizing rhetoric toward migrants. mr. trump: if border czar harris stays in charge, every week will bring a never ending stream of illegal alien rapists, blood thirsty killers, and child predators to go after our sons
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and our daughters. laura: in reality, migrant crossings are down 55 percent since new asylum restrictions took effect seven weeks ago, the homeland security department said thursday. this afternoon, the vice president was back in washington for a meeting with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. she did not attend his speech to congress yesterday, her campaign citing a scheduling conflict. as she campaigns, harris will have to continue navigating one of the toughest foreign relationships for president biden. one that's cost him some support within the democratic party, and in key battleground states. it will now fall on harris to bridge the gap ahead of november. and just four days into her campaign for president, vice president harris is starting to see a surge of support and new openness from key voting blocs that could ultimately determine the election. geoff: let's talk more about that, because president biden won women voters by roughly 57%
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in 2020. how is the harris campaign trying to capitalize on that success and reach out to that voting blocs? laura: -- voting block? laura: they have held nonstop calls. tonight, they will hold a call with white women organizers and grassroots organizations across the country. one on sunday with black women organizers, 44,000 black women joined that call that had campaign officials on it and within a few hours of that call, they raised 1.5 million while people were on that call and then they had one with latinas just last night, roughly 4000 latinos joined and they raise $118,000 on that call so the campaign is hitting the ground running, trying to mobilize women across the board. geoff: i know you were speaking with key organizers in multiple states today. what did they tell you? laura: i spoke with latasha
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brown. she helped lead that call with 44 thousand black women and she said she has never seen this level of excitement. she compared it to when barack obama ran into thousand eight, saying it is just seismic, and she said that harris has a history of engaging with a number of key constituencies from lack women to asian-american voters and women across the board. vp. harris: -- >> meeting on issues that i think black women care deeply about, reproductive rights and voting rights. she has a particular appeal to young people because there were some young people who are deeply upset with the current administration about gaza. geoff: latosha brown -- laura: latosha brown said one of the young people she has been talking to was her knees who said she was on board -- her niece who said she was not happy about president biden running. i spoke to an arizona organizer who said that the shift has already happened and they have
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been knocking on doors, that they used to hear questions about whether or not president biden was going to stay in the race and now, they are more energized and some undecided latinos in that state are saying they are curious about harris and they want to learn more about her. geoff: let's return to this issue of young voters. what is your reporting suggesting about that? amna: we spent some time in michigan. my producer and i. in april, we held a roundtable with young voters under the age of 30 including two young women of color. one of them is an uncommitted voter, those voters who are not happy about president biden's response to israel and gaza and she said that she is unsure if she will vote for harris but that she is much more open to her then she wants to president biden and we also checked in with a young black woman, melinda, who said that biden was to moderate for her but that if the election were held today, she would vote for harris so she hopes that she hear more from harris about criminal justice reform. geoff: that is interesting
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because republicans are trying to paint the vice president as being far more progressive than president biden, this mind that she is a san francisco liberal i keep hearing over and over again. unpack that strategy for us, the trump campaign strategy. laura: they have been rushing to try to define her and some of it is repeated attacks that they used on president biden but one thing that they have been doing a lot is to been calling vice president harris a di higher -- dei hire. trump has also called her "dumb as a rock." he did that on truth social, questioning her qualifications for the job and a lot of the black democratic organizers that i spoke to said that calling harris a dei hire is just another dog whistle. donald trump recently on the campaign trail repeatedly mispronounced her name.
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>> so now we have a new victim to defeat, lyin' kamala harris. for 3.5 years, she has been the ultraliberal driving force behind every single biden catastrophe. i will probably change it to harris or kamala. >> this is something donald trump did in 2020. he and his surrogates repeatedly mispronounced her name and a lot of democrats have said it is just another dog whistle. geoff: what is the campaign strategy for dealing with these attacks question mike i spoke with democratic strategists who say this is offensive but kamala harris should not take the bait. she should rise above this. laura: they have not been responding to this at all. in some cases, they are
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preempting it. in the case of past comments made by trump's vice presidential pick, j.d. vance, highlighting some disparaging comments he made in 2021. >> we are effectively run via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cap ladies who are miserable at the choices they have made so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. it is just a basic fact. if you look at kamala harris, pete buttigieg, aoc, the entire future of the democrats is controlled by people without children and how does it make any sense that we have turned our country over to people who don't have a direct stake in it? laura: kamala harris is the stepmother to her husband's two children and her family has come out defending her as well as the ex-wife and democrats have highlighted those comments, preempting a lot of those attacks and essentially trying to make the argument that republicans are out of step with voters when it comes to
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reproductive rights and when it comes to privacy around family planning. geoff: appreciate it. let's shift our focus now to president biden's decision to end his presidential bid. i spoke this afternoon with a senate democrat who knows him best, senator chris coons of detonator -- of delaware. thank you for coming to the news hour. you are president biden's closest ally in congress, his campaign cochair. the president's speech last night explaining why he's not seeking reelection he didn't , really concede any of the points made by those democrats who sought to push him out of the race, that he's too old, that he's unable to effectively press the case against donald trump. has he explained his reasoning to you? was it the polling? was it the fracture in the party? what was the specific issue or argument that convinced him to exit the race? sen. coons: look, geoff, i think what really matters here is that we take a moment and reflect on joe biden's incredible record, one of the most consequential presidents of my lifetime, maybe of our entire history.
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and he heard from and took seriously input from a very wide range of people, from senators and governors and mayors, but also just average people, friends, neighbors, people who worked for him, people he'd known for a long time. and he weighed his gut instinct, which is to get back up in -- and fight. he is a person of grit and determination, and the input he was getting from pollsters, from average folks, from elected officials, suggesting that the path to the presidency to reelection was increasingly narrow. joe biden is clear eyed about just how big a threat to our democracy donald trump poses. and so ultimately, because he loves our nation more than he loves his own personal ambition. he was willing to step aside. i think it was one of the most significant and most selfless acts by a senior elected official i've ever seen in american history. geoff: i have spoken with
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democrats, and i'm sure you have two who are unsettled, disappointed about the way the president was treated. there are democrats who were angry about what they see as a betrayal, by his democratic allies, his friends in congress who pushed for his ouster. how does president biden see it? sen. coons: well, i shouldn't speak for him on that point other than to say i know he's grateful to have had the opportunity to serve in the presidency, to be one of the most senior and respected leaders in the history of the democratic party. and i think we'll see in the next couple of weeks and months as this all unfolds, a convention in chicago where president biden will be celebrated and recognized for his incredible accomplishments and leadership, a campaign that unfolds over the next few months where he will be a critical part of the campaign for vice president harris to be the next president, and the remaining six months of the biden presidency, where he will continue to roll up his sleeves and dig in and make a difference. joe biden is one of the most
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skilled and capable foreign policy leaders we've ever had as president, and there remains a lot to do in the six months ahead and in the years after he leaves the presidency. geoff: let's talk more about vice president harris. how will she distinguish herself from president biden? how does she forge her own message without effectively running away from an administration that she's been part of for years? sen. coons: well, geoff, i can't imagine why she'd want to run away from the most consequential and accomplished administration in decades. the legislative record of the biden-harris administration is unmatched. so, geoff, i would expect that vice president harris, as our presidential candidate, will say b to build on the success ofhe the biden-harris administration. but of course, she's a different person, shall also bring some different areas of priority and -- she will also bring some different areas of priority and focus. today, she speaking at a
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conference, for i believe, the american federation of teachers in houston. and when you've seen her in front of crowds and audiences, she excites folks. she gets them engaged. she delivers a sharper, tougher message against trump as a former prosecutor, something that does distinguish her from president biden, who, although a lawyer, never served as a prosecutor. so she's got some ways to differentiate herself. but i frankly think she will build on the very strong record that president biden and vice president harris have had over this first administration. geoff: both president biden and vice president harris met separately today with the israeli prime minister. is there any daylight between the two of them, harris and biden, on their view of how the israel-hamas war should be resolved, or what the future should entail for the palestinian people? sen. coons: well, i don't know the specifics of exactly how that meeting today. that each of them had separately with prime minister netanyahu may have unfolded. but there is long, strong and deep bipartisan support for the
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u.s.-israel relationship. few americans have been stronger in their support for israel than joe biden. i do know that there's broad concerns in my caucus. so i would expect that vice president harris would continue the long and deep support for israel from the united states, while also raising concerns about just how long this war has gone on in gaza, whether it's really sustainable, and what we can do to improve the delivery of humanitarian relief and secure a cease fire and the release of hostages. geoff: the next big question for democrats is who replaces kamala harris as the vice presidential nominee on the ticket of the reported shortlist? who do you think expands and improves democrats standing, in this presidential contest? sen. coons: well, i know them all. and i don't think i should choose between them, but i can speak more knowledgeably about two. mark kelly, the senator from arizona, has literally been my neighbor here in washington. in recent years, i've gotten to know mark and his wife, gabby,
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very well. i knew gabby giffords when she was a congresswoman before her tragic shooting injury in an attack now several years ago. mark is both a navy pilot, a decorated combat veteran, and an astronaut. and his service to our nation is admirable. but it's his work with gabby as an advocate to reduce gun violence, to promote gun safety in the united states, that really brought his voice to the fore. and as someone who has represented a border state that has all the challenges and opportunities that come with being a border state like arizona, i think he would contribute a lot to the role of running mate for kamala harris. josh shapiro, the governor of my adjoining state of pennsylvania, my wife's home state, is someone i've known for years since he was montgomery county council president. he's got a wonderful family. he's got a great record as a legislative leader, as attorney general. now, as governor, knowing how to address and fix and solve problems in a big state, a state that has areas that are red,
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that are purple, that are blue. and having won statewide several times in the key swing state of pennsylvania, being an ethical, hardworking, capable person and a good public speaker, i would recommend him as well. so there's a number of good choices, but there's two off the top of my head, where i just happen to know them both well. geoff: all right. democratic senator chris coons of delaware, thanks for your time this evening. we appreciate it. sen. coons: thank you, geoff. geoff: and we start the day's other headlines in the western u.s. and canada, where emergency crews are racing to tame hundreds of wildfires. two of the hardest hit areas are california and alberta, canada, while the largest active fire in the u.s. late wednesday was in oregon, but a thunderstorm today brought some relief. in the canadian rockies, 25,000 people fled the town of jasper,
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before a nearby fire tore through the area. officials are still assessing the damage, but estimate up to half of the popular tourist destination has been destroyed. >> right now the wildfire is , still out of control, and crews are working in dangerous conditions to try and protect critical infrastructure in the town. to those in alberta and around the world who have experienced the magic of jasper, the magic is not lost and it never will be. geoff: meantime, prosecutors in northern california have arrested a man for allegedly starting the state's largest wildfire of the year by pushing a burning car into a gully. the park fire has burned more than 70 square miles near the city of chico. the death toll from hurricane beryl has risen to at least 36 in the state of texas. fort bend county officials announced nine new fatalties
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today, saying power outages and heat-related causes were at least partially to blame for some of the deaths. at the peak of the outages, nearly 3 million texans were without electricity. (unless otherwise noted a typhoon slammed into china's -- texans were without electricity. a typhoon slammed into china's southeastern coast today. earlier in the week it hit the philippines, killing at least 22 people. the storm brew up rough seas, sinking an oil tanker in manila bay and sparking concerns of a potentail oil spill. the typhoon then moved on to taiwan. three people have died there so far, and at least 380 were injured. one restaurant owner said the storm had taken everything from her. >> i don't know how, it's bad. we have to tear it all down. my mood, i can't talk about it anymore, because i have a bad heart, i'm going to faint if i go on. geoff: more than 240,000 residents were evacuated from
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china's province ahead of the storm. it's expected to weaken as it moves inland, but will bring heavy rain over the next few days. a former uvalde school police officer has pleaded not guilty to charges that he failed to take action while 19 children and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting in 2022. adrian gonzales made his first court appearance today to face 29 counts of abandoning and endangering children. each charge could carry up to two years in prison. gonzales was among the first of nearly 400 officers to arrive on the scene at robb elementary school, but then waited for more than 70 minutes to confront the shooter. california governor gavin newsom today directed state officials to start dismantling thousands of homeless encampments. his executive order is meant to address the tents and makeshift shelters that line california's streets, freeways and parks. but the measure leaves the actual enforcement of such removals to local officials. the order is the nation's most
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sweeping response to a supreme court decision in june that allows cities to enforce bans on sleeping in public. the u.s. economy grew at a healthy clip last quarter. commerce department data out today showed that gdp rose 2.8 percent during the april-to-june period compared to last year. that was better than expected, and double the growth we saw in the quarter before. separately, weekly jobless claims fell last week by 10,000, which was more than expected. overall, layoffs remain low by historical standards. treasury secretary janet yellen, who is abroad in brazil meeting with her g-20 counterparts, also noted that inflation keeps inching in the right direction. >> inflation is down significantly from its peak, trending toward the federal reserve's target. our administration recognizes that prices are still too high for many americans. geoff: fed officials have
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signaled that they are prepared to start cutting rates if inflation keeps trending down. on wall street today, stocks failed to shake off recent troubles. the dow jones industrial average managed a slight gain, adding about 80 points. but the nasdaq dropped more than 0 points, as tech shares continue to struggle. the s&p 500 also ended lower on the day. and a passing of note, martin indyk, the renowned diplomat who spent decades trying to bring peace to the middle east, has died from complications due to cancer. indyk served as u.s. ambassador to israel twice during the clinton years, and later as a special envoy under president barack obama. he pushed for a two-state solution to resolve the long-standing conflict between israelis and palestinians. it was a dilemma he described on the news hour a decade ago, as existential. >> the demographic dynamic is such that israel will sooner, rather than later, have to choose between being a jewish state, because there will be a minority of jews in the area that israel controls, and being a democratic state. and that's a choice that israel
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should never want to have to make. geoff: diplomat, author, and friend of this program, martin indyk was 73 years old. still to come on the "news hour", how a lack of mental health care is contributing to a troubling trend among young black americans. a look at recent turbulence in the airline industry. and an art exhibit explores how south korean culture is changing the world. >> 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: today, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu visited the white house for the first time since 2020, for separate meetings with president biden and vice president harris.
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he and president biden also met with the families of americans who have been held by hamas in gaza for the last 293 days. that's as the administration pushes for a deal that would stop the war and release at least some of the hostages. nick schifrin has the story. nick: netanyahu had the rare opportunity of meeting the commander-in-chief and the person running to replace him. first, he met president biden in the oval office. biden laughed after netanyahu called him a proud irish-american zionists. that is biden laughing right there. and then later, he met with vice president harris. after that meeting, she said she believed in israel's right to defend itself but also was concerned about how israel was conducting the war, and she said that there were too many palestinian civilians being killed. separately, there is a meeting between president biden and prime minister netanyahu with
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the families of americans who were held hostage. if you see that meeting right there. the national security council spokesman, john kirby, said a cease-fire hostage deal was closer than before but was still not done. >> there are gaps that remain and our team continues to work with our counterparts in the region to see if we can't close those gaps. we believe that they are of a nature where they can be closed and that we can achieve a deal but it's going to require, as it always does, some leadership, some compromise, and an effort to get there. nick: to talk about that part of the story, we turned to jonathan, who met with president biden and prime ministers netanyahu and is the father of an israeli american who was kidnapped trying to defend his family from hamas terrorists. jonathan, thanks so much. welcome back to the news hour. he said today this afternoon that you are feeling more optimistic about a possible deal than in the past. why?
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jonathan: it seems to me that there's been an alignment and a variety of pressures that have come to bear both on hamas and hamas leadership in gaza as well as on israeli leadership. it is clear in terms of israel that our military and intelligence communities have determined that it is time to complete this deal. there's some adjustments, some, you know, details that need to get hammered out, but it is time. the incremental security improvement that may come from continued fighting is not worth risking the last of the hostages or the prices that are to be paid by the civilians in gaza. on the other hand, hamas is under immense pressure both because of israel's continued military campaign, the conquest, as well as international pressure that has come to bear.
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mostly as a result i think of president biden's announcement in late may of this three stage deal. nick: laying out the deal, basically. jonathan: it was a masterful piece of statesmanship by president biden that made it clear that there is a deal on the table, that has at least tentative approval from israel, and that it is up to hamas to decide whether it is a terrorist organization that has no concern -- granted, obviously, for israeli civilians and hostages, but also for the people of gaza. nick: the details are still being negotiated and you said today that the ball is in hamas's hands. and a father said that there is an update going to hamas students are what can you tell us about what details negotiators are going to be presenting to hamas in the coming days? jonathan: there is nothing i can
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share with you about the details but the process, i can certainly sort of elaborate on that a little bit. we heard in the course of the meeting today with the president and the prime minister that their teams are working as we speak to create not a new proposal but a kind of refinement of the existing three stage proposal that they will be sending to hamas by way of the intermediaries within the coming days. during that discussion, as we really emphasized as hostage families, the importance of the urgency here. hostages are dying and we know this. so it would seem that that message has been received by israel. the united states is emphatic about the need to complete this deal quickly. nick: the regional officials who i talked to and you heard this publicly, are a little bit concerned about netanyahu himself. he talked about how the
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intelligence establishment are behind this deal and there have been some questions about whether the political leadership , netanyahu himself, and some officials in the region are worried that he is changing the goal posts on some of this related to the gaza and egypt border, related to some of the movement of gazans from the south to the north and perhaps about the prisoners. do you believe that netanyahu is behind this deal? jonathan: he committed that he absolutely is and he also committed because we asked for it, that there will be no additional terms attacked on by israel. of course, there may need to be refinement of certain conditions and i think that is part of a negotiated process no matter what so i think more than ever before, certainly, our prime minister understands the gravity of the moment and in a private conversation afterwards that i
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can share with you, as a historian, my day job, and also as an israeli, really impressed upon him the need for leadership right now. even if there is something of a political price he must pay to enter into this agreement, that the people of israel will simply applaud and support him. i hope he takes me up on that. nick: his private reassurances have been made to you and u.s. officials for many weeks. in public, most recently, his speech to congress, joint session of congress yesterday, he said this. >> we are actively engaged in intensive efforts to secure the release and i am confident that these efforts can succeed. some of them are taking place right now. nick: is he saying enough in public like he is saying to you in private? jonathan: in full transparency, i have been extremely critical both of israel and the u.s.
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media about his seriousness in terms of really completing this deal and rescuing as many hostages that are still alive as possible and returning all of the murdered victims bodies. it seems to me today, by virtue of the meeting with the president and was senior u.s. leadership that he now understands that the buck has to stop. there is no legitimate reason to continue to delay in the world is watching. the world is watching both sides , both the israelis and hamas and i believe that hamas is also feeling that pressure. the madness has to stop. nick: i have had you do this multiple times but i will do it again kid what do you want the world to know about your son? geoff: he is the father of three gorgeous, wonderful little girls, one of whom he has never
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met. he is a builder and creator and maybe one day, the there will be one day where we will be able to introduce you to the extraordinary projects all for the betterment of israeli society, jewish and non-jewish. the world would be so much better served by him being here and a free man than being in a hamas territory. nick: thank you so much. geoff: thank you. geoff: last night, we reported on the troubling rise in suicide deaths of young black americans. special correspondent fred has this report from chicago, part of our race matters coverage. this story discusses topics of
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suicide that some may find disturbing. >> feeling like you're not the regular type of person -- it could shift your mind. it's a really dark place. and i remember i even i was, what, nine, ten? just like, i don't even want to be here anymore because i just didn't -- >> you thought about ending your life? >> yes. fred: when noah boynton was growing up on chicago's south side, he had trouble brushing off the kinds of teasing he faced at school. he had a condition that affected how he ran and the appearance of his leg. sharon morgan -- boynton's single mother and a teacher herself -- initially thought the taunts were mostly harmless. but later, she received a call from the mother of her son's best friend. >> he went home and was like, "mom, noah's having these thoughts." i just remember that night, me and my mom were sitting, crying together because i just -- it was time that i actually told her how i was feeling. i didn't want to be gone, but i just couldn't take it anymore.
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and it gets to that point. fred: he started therapy but in , 2022, boynton's grandfather, morgan's dad, died at the age of 87. >> he was so good with my son. it was the things he gave, the things that i couldn't. >> a lot of people don't have, don't grow up with that father figure in their life to show them, just how to become a man . he was that guy for me . losing him was, in a sense, we both lost a father in a way. fred: morgan started to see more troubling signs in her son, including increased isolation. she decided to seek help specifically from a black male therapist. >> black men handle emotions differently. and i wanted someone who could understand how noah was feeling and help him navigate through that. >> a kid or a client, right, they don't care what you know until they know that you care. fred: they found dwayne smith, a licensed counselor.
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when he first met boynton, the two only talked about basketball before slowly getting into conversations about feeling and emotions. >> he understands he gets it. his story is similar to anyone i know. -- he understands. he gets it. his story is similar to anyone i know. you know, it's just things like that make it easier to -- >> there are things you don't have to explain. >> exactly. it's a lot of things that you don't have to say because they already get it. >> it's definitely a big, big deal. it does matter. i think it brings a level of, of comfort because one of the things that that we all have in common, particularly in the african-american community, is, you know, we know some of the struggles, you know, some of the biases. you know, we we all have had these encounters, you know, being misunderstood, you know, being labeled. fred: smith works in schools,
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runs a summer program for teens and provides therapy, largely to clients who live on chicago's south and west sides, where many of the city's black residents live. >> it's a lot of work. there's a lot of need and there's not enough people. fred: experts say there is a lack of black mental health professionals across the country despite a growing demand for such services in black communities. in 2012, the city of chicago closed half its public mental health clinics mostly ones , located on the south side. by 2020, according to one analysis, the provider-to-population ratio in some areas was about a tenth of the national rate. officials have announced plans to reopen at least one clinic and expand services elsewhere. >> there's still a great deal of work to do in order to ensure that those who are in need and at risk are receiving the support that could ultimately save their life. fred: university of chicago professor janelle goodwill has studied the rise in suicide deaths among the city's black residents, including youth. >> when i speak with families who have already lost their child, or families who are
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currently living with the reality that their child is at risk for suicide, one of the main questions i'm asked is how do i find a therapist? how do i find a clinician? how do i find a black clinician in this area? and so i know that that's something that is really impacting so many families. oviders available to service all those in need. fred: in 2020, licensed clinical social worker camesha jones started "sista afya community care." it provides free therapy specifically for black women and girls, a population that's seen one of the biggest increases in suicide both nationally and in chicago. jones, who's dealwith her own mental health issues, says her clients rarely face just one kind of stressor. >> if a black woman were to go to me and she's like, you know, i'm taking care of my children, i'm also taking care of my parents. and i just feel really stressed and stretched really thin because of all of these things that i'm juggling. i would automatically get that
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. everything that we've been through in this country and we're still here is powerful. but all the things that we're growing through to still exist in this society is really, really difficult. fred: that, jones says, is partly why it's so important to get more black providers into the field. one barrier is licensure requirements. a 2022 report found that 84 % of white people who took the licensed clinical social worker exam passed on their first try. for black applicants, that rate was just 45%. and only 57% of black applicants ever passed the test. so last year, the illinois legislature passed a law allowing an alternative for obtaining a license, completing an additional 3000 hours of supervised practice. >> with where things are at right now with mental health in our communities and in this country, the more that we can open it up for people who really want to do this work, i think is a huge, asset. -- think is a huge asset.
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fred: the effects of the change won't be seen for a while. but there are already calls to expand alternatives to other mental health professions. on the south side, noah boynton, who followed his late grandfather, an olympic boxer, into the ring, believes therapy after his death prevented him from taking the same path as some of his peers. >> at first when he passed, it was like nothing matters anymore. it's like i have i don't know what to do. it's just you feel lost a lot. and when you feel lost like that, a lot of times demons find you. if i didn't get that help as fast as i did, i would have probably tried to jump in the streets or try to be something that i'm not because it helps you, it covers that up a little bit. it it helps mask it. fred: today, boynton's happy. he just graduated from high school and is enjoying summer. he's getting ready for his first
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year at morehouse college in the fall. he wants to become an entrepreneur, maybe build his own clothing brand. but he says, he continues to work on himself. >> the mental health battle is not something that's going to end. it's just something that you have to continuously want to win, you know, and you're not going to it's not going to ever really be over. fred: and as this crisis continues, he hopes sharing his story will encourage others find the help they need. for the pbs news hour, i'm fred de sam lazaro in chicago. geoff: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under-told stories project at the university of st. thomas in minnesota. ♪ geoff: it has been a very, very rough week in the aviation business, and especially for passengers. delta airlines finally has most
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of its operations back to normal today after days of delays and thousands of flight cancellations, connected to a tech outage that angered travelers and gave the airline a black eye. delta's response is now being investigated by the department of transportation. southwest airlines is also being investigated by the federal government for a string of near-miss incidents involving its aircraft. separately, southwest also announced today that it's finally going to move to an assigned seating system for the first time in its history. our aviation correspondent, miles o'brien, is here to catch us up on the latest. it's always great start with this big move from southwest. they are ending the cattle call boarding. miles: expectations have fallen a little bit. right now, southwest is profitable but not as profitable as it has been over
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the course of many years and it is not meeting the expeditions of wall street so there are activists investors in the midst insisting that the management change the way it yet southwest history, this is about the most profitable airline ever. year after year even after 9/11. they had a hedge fund for fuel and maged to get around that. they have always done very well with that, having a very efficient, lean operation. so the idea that this company is troubled, they may be just, been the larger issue of the lingering aftereffects of the pandemic which is affecting the airline industry systemwide. geoff: southwest is also now being investigated by the federal government for these near-miss incidents. help us understand what the government wants to know more about. miles: well, first of all, let's be clear, this probably has
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nothing to do with what we just talked about in southwest and the business model but we do have something that may be related to covid and its aftereffects. we have about half a dozen incidents, unusual altitudes on approach, very low. in tampa, oklahoma city, a sudden dive after departure in hawaii, precipitous dive towards the ocean. in mildly aerobatic move on one flight. and then a flight in portland, maine, where they took off on a closed runway before the control tower opened. all of these things speak to an issue of crew seasoning and perhaps training and the faa is going to be looking closely at that. a lot of experience crewmembers in the cockpit retired in the midst of covid and the aviation industry, wherever you look, has had pretty much a brain drain and that could be what is at work here. geoff: let's shift our focus to delta because they are finally getting back to normal, but there's still a lot of baggage
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that needs to get to its right place and there could be a big problem for its reputation now. what they are experiencing is actually very similar to what southwest experienced last year. why are these airlines struggling with systems like this? miles: it's interesting. the southwest thing is what everybody comes about. computer meltdown in the midst of bad weather and heavy travel situation but if you look at what happened there, it is kind of the opposite of what happened to delta as far as technology. southwest had a very antiquated system that got completely overwhelmed by events. more than 16,000 flight got canceled. i was talking to mike boyd who studies this pretty closely. he says delta is by far the leader in adopting high-technology i.t. and has a very sophisticated, complex, interwoven system which gives the airline tremendous visibility on where it's planes are, where people are, where bags are, where the crews are dispatching come on and on and
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on. it is all connected. what can happen, which is what we saw, it is like pulling the plug out from the outlet. everything goes dark so the airline now is going to have to look at this like they look in the wake of an aircraft accident and trying to figure out what went wrong to make it safe for the next time. geoff: let's talk about boeing because boeing finalized its plea deal with the department of justice today, agreeing to conspiracy to defraud the government on safety of the max 737 jets, and paying a $243 million fine. but that's not all, its new space capsule, starliner, is still docked at the international space station with the astronauts it carried and its return to earth delayed once again. people are wondering what's going on, what the concerns are there. miles: what a sad statement that boeing is in this situation on
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the criminal counts but it is a separate division but you have to wonder if there's some sort of way to connect these two events. the starliner capsule had all kinds of problems. thrusters did not fire right. leaking on and on and on. nasa has decided it does not feel completely comfortable with bringing the astronauts home as it is right now because they don't fully understand what is going on. they are making progress on that. they are tested laying -- testing similar thrusters on the ground, finding degradation of seals, trying to understand all of this. the big deal from their perspective is the hardware, which is failing, will burn up in the atmosphere when the astronauts come home. they want to figure it out before that happens. meanwhile, the astronauts are getting quite an extended stay on the international space station and we can only hope that nasa will pay the hotel and meal vouchers. geoff: absolutely.
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miles o'brien, thanks for being with us. miles: you are welcome. geoff: from kapok to skincare, south korea has been at the cutting-edge of cultural development internationally as a new museum exhibit reveals. it did not happen overnight. jared bowen reports for our arts and culture series, candace. jared: less than fifty years ago, this was a defining image of south korea. a field of farm-friendly dirt. today, it is this, cosmopolitan with a cacophony of color. it's also this! ♪ >> i think it is very hard for us to imagine people have not heard or encountered anything about a korea wave in our daily life whether we know it or not." jared: christina yu yu is chair of the art of asia at boston's museum of fine arts where the exhibition hallyu! the korean
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wave has left its galleries awash in south korean pop culture. in fashion, film and fandom. the wave, she says, began in the 1980s and is cresting still. >> at the beginning of the exhibition, we have this collage of parodies and retakes of of psy's gangnam style. there are people from ghana, there are people from london, there's a video made by prisoners in philippines dancing gangnam style together. it is almost touching every corner of the world. jared: in the world has responded, making shows like squid game the most popular non-english television series of all time. here we find costumes from the show. and a recreation of the bathroom from parasite. the 2019 south korean film about class struggle with such universal appeal it became a surprise oscar-winning hit. >> this poor family, there was a flood and their bathroom was
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destroyed. that's a symbol of their lives, you know their aspiration to become an upper class family was crushed. jared: it's a plotline that mirrors south korea's own. economic disparity has been an impetus for the nation's growth-especially in culture. case in point: in the mid-1990s, the country realized that the american film jurassic park generated as much revenue in south korea as its own hyundai cars did. >> that was just a shock to everyone. the government noticed that and they were able to quickly get together and went behind the film industry, went behind the creative industries and started to subsidize them again. >> what you're really seeing is also capitalism affecting korean
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government. it's saying, you know what? we're going to create intellectual property in our music and our fashion our designer technology, and we're going to share it. jared: min jin lee is part of the korean wave. the bestselling author of the novels free food for millionaires and pachinko, she came to the u.s. with her parents as a child and remains ltural influence.ea's outsized >> what really makes me drawn to the korean story is you have a country that's in a weird geographical position because it's surrounded by all these superpowers. russia, china and the us really care about what happens to korea as an important ally. and you have all these people who are so desperately trying to determine themselves so for me that process of self-actualization, that is what i think makes it keep going and going and going. jared: as the show reveals, it has been a steep climb. technology giant samsung started as a grocery store. lg launched as a cosmetics company making lucky cream face powder before becoming synonymous with appliances. >> you can't make a person keep going unless they want to. and i think when i meet koreans around the world, they want to start telling you who they are
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and what they want. and i kind of think that's really, i connect with that passion and i connect with that yearning. geoff: then there is k-pop, eliciting worldwide fandemonium. the popularity of korean music groups, christina yu yu says, stems from a very intentional pop pipeline to their audiences. >> we have displays, costumes worn by different idol groups, performers, you know, such as this one, is, uh, worn by an ensemble called aespa. their style of dresses here, design actually is an interaction between the idols themselves and the fashion designers and the fandom. so basically, there's a callout on the internet and they say, "please submit your ideas." geoff: for as splashy as the korean culture wave has been, the country has always kept its history and culture deeply embeddedor even embroidered as the case may be. it's abundantly evident in korean fashion. yu yu points out that as avant-garde as looks may appear,
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they tell the nation's story. they evoke traditional ink paintings. they pay homage to korea's traditional hanbok dress, and they make subtle references to the moon jar. a simple, round object dating to the 18th century used to store food and liquor. but today, says yu yu, it holds weighty symbolism. jared: -- >> in the 20th century, a lot of the -- trying to find something that represents the resilience of korean people. so they really elevated the status of the moon jar as a symbol of korea. jared: a nation, that for decades now, has found fertile ground wherever it can plant its own will. for the pbs newshour, i'm jared bowen in boston. geoff: and that is the newshour for tonight. i am geoff bennett. for all of us here at the pbs news hour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us. have a good night.
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this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] >> you are watching pbs.
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