captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, january 18: a look ahead to next week's impeachment trial; and in our signature segment, an attack on italy's olive trees and the battle to save them. next on pbs newsur weekend. >>s newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of ul at mutua america, we believe taking care of tomorrow tcan help you makmost of today.

mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. >> when it comes to wireless, consumer cellular gives itsom custs the choice. our no-contact plans give you as much or as little talk, text and usta as you want. and our u.s.-basmer service team is on-hand to help. to learn more, go to www.consumercellular.tv. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, s haenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening, and thanks for jois ng us. just dfore opening statements in the impeachment democrats released more documents last night showing new ntacts and conversations between an associate of the president's rsonal attorney and an aide to the top repuican on the house

intelligence committee. the newly-released text messages from lev parnas,ho worked with rudy giuliani, show communications with derek harvey, an aide to representative devin nunes. t nunes was one top investigators in the house impeachment probe and is a strong supporter of mr. trump. in the messages, parnas talked abouarranging interviews wit ukrainian officials, including and yuriy lutsenkoin'stor shokin replacement. parnas also exchanged text messages with republican congressional candate robert hyde, who now says he was "just playing." but the texts appear torv reference sueillance of marie yovanovitch, the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. democrats want the new materials included in the upcoming trial. parnas has recently gone public with many allegations. he is facingederal campaign- nance charges but maintains he is innocent. for more on the coming impeachment trial, ryan goodman, co-editor in chief of the national security website justsecurity.orgnd a professor at new york university school of law joins us now.

so, the timeline-- still not see in s >> that's right. so it's still unclear what the senate will settle on. it looks like that might be a situation of two days for either side to present their arguments. and then the big event, which is, will they then vote to have witnesses? witnesses, how does that playe out? >> so, the witnesses can play out in one of two directions. if there are witnesses, we really hear from some stars, playike john bolton, who has not yet testified, and some others.mp so, reallytant new information for the american public. or it could turn into bit of a circus-- at, like, atmosphere. maybe the president gets his people in, who he wants. or people like hunter biden, who aren't directly relevant to the pse. and i think thatt of it, is to try to, like, flip the narrative into being about something else. >> sreenivasan: if that happens, i mean right now, senator mcconnell has said-- well, he's not in favor of witnesses. t in the past, he has been, you know, using the clinton impeachment as precedent. >> thas right.

so i think he's actuallya diicult position. because the clinton impeachment precedent is one in which there re three witnesses broug before the senate trial. apparently every single trialat as been held in the senate has had witnesses, and public sentiment seems to be strongly in favor of having witnesses. this week, the quinnipiac poll had 66%-- around 66%, two-thirds of the majority, wanted to see john bolton testify. and even a plurality of republicans wanted to see- want to see john bolton testify. >> sreenivasan: and that coulde influew many senators vote for having witnesses. >> that's right. if we were to focus on one thing, it would be, are there going to be three or four republican senators-- kind of think of who they might be--wh would break in favor of having witnesses? and a few of them have alreadyto begupeak out in vor of having witnesses at a certain point. >> sreenivasan: okay, and in what is presented here, is it on what has come up in testy in the house?

because we still see new pieces of information being released, that shod influence mebody's decisi. >> appartly, that's what's happened with giuliani associate gave his documents basically at the 11th hour, and the court finally allowed him to send them to the house. and the hoe was able to include some othat in the package that they then brought over to the senate. and then there was a new release yeerday from the house judiciary committee. so i think that they'll bee to send supplemental documents like that. but at the same time, there is also documents in the public square that have not been formally presented, and-- bu they're now known and understood to be available.do t think there's any way in which that wouldn't influence the thinking on the part of the senators, and they'll be, informed abor example, the unredacted emails between the pentagon and the office of management and budget, that are, you know, for lack of a better >> sreenivasan: or the general accounting office's findings, or thmost >> that's right, and that is a good part of it. so, some of it is like, how much

would be called as hard evidence or very stng evidence? but the general accounting office on thursday issues this judgment-- they're a nonpartisan executive agency-- and in the judgment, they actually say that this is a violation of the tipresident's faithful exe of the law, to have held the aid. it's squarely on the topic of the impeachment articles, and so that can't be taken out of the equation. and i'm sure that the house managers will inke that report. >> sreenivasan: ryan goodman from the justsecurity blog andl the n.y.u. sch law. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: to watch live coverage of president trump's impeachment trial inhe senate, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: as we end one year and begin another, we like ce sit down with oro d bring you some of our favorite segments. it's a chance to update some of the stories we've worked on, to see a little behind the scenes, and to bring you a sneak peek of what's ahead. i recently sat down with producers moriothman and laura

fong for the last of our conversations. so, last year, we went to both wisconsin and north carolina, the states that are going to be hosting the tional conventions for the big political parties this coming year.a and was there mmon theme when we went to explore what these states are going through, why they're so important? >> both of these states depend on agriculture as a big partf their economy. in wisconsin, it's dairy; in north carolina, tobacco is historically a major crop.ha tariff really hurt the agricultural sectors in both of these states. the question is, when you haie these communwho are impacted by policies by the president, are they going co back and reelect him? >> sreenivasan: speaking of agriculture in north carolina, a state that is as intessentially tobacco as it can be, we found a story about how some of those farmers are transitioning to a different crop. why?ns >> they were tioning ay to hemp because they found that it is a new potentially cash crop for north carolin a lot of the tobacco farmers

have some equipmenni they have tees that are, you know, applicable to and transferable themp. >> we've been for many years curing tobacco, but we're going to transition these barns over to dry hemp. but it's got tobacco in it right now. >> they were h pretty hard by the tariffs. they also saw that, you know, the prices for the cbd oil that you can get from harvesting hemp is in a pretty good spot right now. >> sreenivasan: sowhat's the s enivasan: in the context of this trade war, when we went to wisconsin and we talked about-- we talked with dairy farmers there whtowere having a h time of it. >> 2014 saw record prices. and then, you know, '15, '16, '17, '18, it's all been, you know, below cost of production prices for the most part. >> sreenivasan: milk, like most goods, is subject to the law ofd supplyemand. dairy cows in america make more milk than the u.s. consumes. but in early 2014, china andeg southeast asia buying a lot more milk from u.s. distributors, driving big

profits fmers. but the american dairy industry overestimated how much milk it could sell overseas and ineased production too muc as a result, the price farmers like briggs gehafotheir milk fallen nearly 40%. has it crossed your o not keep doing this? >> every day, probably, you know, at some point in time, you know, yeah. >> sreenivasan: has their life changed in the past year? >> over thousand dairy farms have now closed in wisconsin. prices have gotten a little better. so, they're getting a little bit more for that gallon of milk s that they'ling. >> sreenivasan: mm-hmm. >> and there is some optimismec with thet trade deal struck, the u.s.m.c.a., and possibly an end to the china trade war. however, some people are saying, "look, we did all of this work, we suffered, had milk prices go down w, and we're back whe started." >> sreenivasan: one of the other things that we looked at thiscl year was mucer to home here in new york city. itas a story about the school system here and its quest for integration versus the kind of

self-segregated districts that it has become. what provoked that story? what's changed in it now? >> you know, it goes back tois eport in 2014. u.c.l.a. found new york had th most segregated schools in the country. discussion, a debate in new york city, in particular. one of the mosprcontroversial osals in the pas- over the past two years was the proposal eliminate the specialized high school test. >> sreenivasan: the specialized high school admissions test, or s.h.s.a.t., is the sole requirement to gain admission ts one of the eigh high schools in new york city. this year, stuyvesant high school, the school with the headlines when, out of the nearly 900 slots that it had oailable, only seven went black students. >> now, that's a test that's protted by state law. so, even though the mayor and the school's chancellor wanted ll get rid of it, they act can't. and at this point, that's-- that proposal is stalled beit has been very controversial. >> sreenivasan: so, it's a test

that is for most selective schools in the city system, sort of like top four or five high schools. that, you know, ife veryools academically driven,ou really t wago to these schools. and they're public schools! it's been a big debate in terms of, you know, how do we p up that representation, how do we ceget, you know, all kids to these schools, particularly in immigrant communid es? it's a hscussion that parents and kids, they all-- they want to go to the best schools. so, you can't really blame for that. >> sreenivasan: so, what's happened since our story aired?d >> they are exg what they call the discovery program, which is fortudents who take the test but just missed the cutoff score and they attend a high poverty school. they have a chance to take summer classes and attend one of these schools. >> sreenivasan: okay. let's talk about the most exciting and fun story that you i'm super jealous.k on. where did you go? >> so, we went to rose atoll. it's an island about 180 miles erst of american samoa. >> sreenivasan: an samoa, for most of our audience is?

>> is pretty far already. >> sreenivasan: ( laughs ) pl, you're literally on the her side of thet. why are you going to this atoll? >> it is a national marine monument protected by united stes, and it has this amaz diversity of species-- bir, turtles. twe thought it was a perf place to look at what's happening in terms of climate change and also the state of, you know, our oceans and our islands. >> sreenivasan: and, most important, it doesn't have any humans. ( bird noises >> the constant din of birds cah rd as you're sleeping, as you're walking around, because there-- there are literallyre hu of thousands of-- of birds that are nesting. >> sreenivasan: there's no natural predator there, so this is there-- they're the top of the food chain. >> it's like walking into a nature documentary. >> sreenivasan: yeah. >> birdsre everywhere. turtles are coming up to nest. even in a place where the u.s. government has protected this island-- it's hundreds of miles away from civilization-- the impacts of human activity are still reaching it through

climate change, through warming ters, higher seaevels, ocean acidification that will threaten the coral reefs that protect the island. >> sreenivasan: what do they do to make sure that you don't have an impact on the ecosystem there? >> we had to make sure that all our clothing was brand new. and that's mainly a precaution to make sure we don't introduce any, you know, nebacteria ores insects-cially, invasive species that could potentiallyys disrupt the ecm. and we had to put all of our clothing and shoes in quarantine, which means a freer for two days. >> sreenivasan: to kill anything that was on your clothes. and then, when you're aying there, we're not talking about thritz here. >> no, we stayed in tents kind of on a beachy side of the island.an >> sreenivokay. >> we set them up when we first got there. >> sreenivasan: that sounds very dreamy. >> it-- wellat times, it is. but the last night we were there, a storm kind of brewed and we had 40 to 50 mile per hour wind gusts hitting ou

tent. it was sunny five minuteago. rain was coming in everywhere. i suddenly started to miss the mforts of home. >> sreenivasan: ( laughs ) what did you get to see wh you were there? >> i mean, we've got extrely when we first got to the island, a sea turtle was coming down the beach from nesting. and usually sea turtles nest at night. this is a green turtle, a species that nests mainly on this one island. the-- the turtle was laboriously making its way down the beachus after havinglaid what tends to be about a hundred eggs in a nest, making its way back out to sea. >> sreenivasan: all right, moriothman, laura fong, thank >> thank you. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: italian olive oil has a worldwide reputational for y, but its quantity that's because of rge that's attacking olive trees in a region that traditionally produces rouly 40% of italy's oil.

it's gotten so bad that, for the first time in history, italy has begun importing olive oifor itown consumption. newshour weekend special correspondent christopher livesay and videographer alexandra pavone traveled to ground zero ofhe epidemic to bring us this report. >> as you can see, he'got somefu beautil, beautiful old trees. >> reporter: olive trees have cals in the southern italian region of puglia for centuries. >> trees, i would imagine they're probably 400, 500 years old. >> reporter: wow. they also inspire part-timers like actor helen mirren. olive trees define the landscape >> they're, like, powerful and imposing, and-- and you just feel their history.k, and you thoh, my god, this henry-- henry viii was alive, elizabeth i." >> reporter: they brought you here?ol >> aely. i mean, when i first saw these trees, i was just abso blown away. >> reporter: but now, puglia's

aive trees are at risk fr epidemic disease, xylella fastidiosa, eeping through the gion, and mirren is sounding the alarm. >> and now, it's really, really terrifying., and it's so, yes, it basically dries the tree out from the inside out. do just looks so sad, n't it? and-- and th is what the whole landscape might end up looking like, populated by ghosts of-- of history. >> reporter: xylella fastidiosa causes leaves to turbrown and brittle around the edges. eventually, whole orchards shrivel and die. the disease has spread acrs the salento region, the heel of italy's boot, at the rate ofar0 miles per nd now covers 3,000 square miles when it first surfaced in 2013, farmers were bewildered. was it aungus? a result of imate change? and how bad could it get? to find out, we've come to italy's national research center in puglia. so, what is this? >> these are samples. >> reporter: it was here that marisaponari and other

scientists first identified the outbreak six years ago as a bacteria. it preys on the tree's lymph, which provides water and nutrients to its leaves.so the bacteria, it's-- it's kind of choking these-- these trees... >> yes, exactly. >> reporter: ...from their >> yes, exactly. >> reporter: but it can't spad on its own. >> so, i'm removing the-- the head. eporter: you're decapitating the spittlebug? >> exactly, becausere if they carrying the bacterium, this will be in the head of the-- of the insect. >> reporter: it's called a ittlebugand it feeds o olive tree tissue. this tiny little bug is responsible for spreading this-- this plahee. >> without the insect, the bacterium caot move from one plant tonother plant. >> reporter: the spittlebug can carry the disease for hundreds of yards every seasos scientist donato boccia. >> reporter: so far, some 25

million trees are either dead or doomed, he says. that's meant curtains for thousands of family faat have been here for generations... >> ( translated ): these are the trees of my father and my grandfather. >> reporter: ...farms like enzo manni's. >>translated ): for me, it was a joy to come here with my wife and kids when they were little and gwing up. i spent my childhood here. lering the harvest, school students out so they could help pick olives. the all kids like us would climb the tall branches to get the last olives. it was a lot of fun. >> reporte what about your ildren and future generations in your family? >> ( translated ): it hurts my heart to think about that because it's as if i didn't do everything in my powerlow them to enjoy the same beauty. >> reporter: manni and his son, federico, take me to their shuttered olive mill so, you used to keep olives in here?

>> reporter: todmo, it's little thaa warehouse for rusty equipment, one of hundreds ofav mills thatclosed in the surrounding salento area, the part of puglia hit hardest by the outbreak. >> reporr: wait a minute. you've gone from 500 oil mills to just 15? >> reporter: when? >> reporter: but the mannifa mily isn't going down without a fight. they run a co-op that helps farmers pool resources and explore new crops that aren'tte afflby the bacteria. so, you're processing potatoes here >> yeah. >> reporter: in time, he hopes

that farmers will also embrace grape cultivation for wine. th potatoes, and other tubers. burning millions of dead and diseased trees in abandoned groves like this one. to make matters worse, thee clim the mediterranean is getting warmer as xylella spreads. >> reporter: that's because it makes the local habitat more prone to spittlebug reproduction, and the disease is not limited southern italy. evidence of it has been discovered in spain, france,al portand parts of the middle east. and spittlebugs might not be the onlyroblem. scientists are studying worrisome signs that cicadas, like those chirping around us, might also be rriers. and why is that dangerous?

>> reporter: and that's much further than the sttlebug? >> reporter:f this is a r against an epidemic, who's winning the war? >> reporter: one rea hope, boccia says, is that the disease may be reaching its naturalti limis. even with a warming climate, it still gets cooler farther north, something the spittlebug and disease don't like. another is that while the government was initially slow to act, it has now chopped down thousands of trees, creating aer buone to prevent further contagion. and scientists are workingar nd the clock, studying the disease, searching for a cure. >> then, we can check if this d.n.a. contains xylella or not. >> reporter: okay.e omising lead: grafting. scientists have identified two ecies of olive tree that appear to be resistant to taking donor bark

resistant tree, farmers attach it to an afflicted trunk, and, if successful, effectively bring the tree back to life. >> ithis orchard, we have-- we have grafted all of the trees with a species called lecino that is more resistant to xylella. >> reporter: can you show me? >> y! yes, absolutely. i can see one right here, look. this is the grafting. oh, look, this one's growing! look! >> reporter: oh, wow. >> oh, my god, that's the first one i've seen growing. that's fantastic! oh, i must call them up and tell them. that's amazing! this ithe future of this tree. if-- if this tree is to have a future, there it is. but, you know, whether the trees will be able to sustain this kind of new growth as the rest of it dies back is a question.d 's a question-- really, at the moment, as far as i can make out-- nobody knows the answer to.

>> this is pbs newshour weekenda rday. >> sreenivan: this weekend, new york's schomburg library in harlem celebrated the traditioni of black comic its annual black comic book festival. thousands attend the two-dayon exhibiwhich also features screenings, panel discussions yd a cosplay competition. and for fans, bong and old, it's a chance to meet some of their favorite comic creators and maybe nd some new superheroes. b >> tck comic book festival was started eight years ago, and it was smaller to start. now, we get about 8,000 people. it's been really ex'sciting. o see the ways that black creativity and black culture is being celebrated. >> awesome! definitely! i like that book. >> i can't breathe! >> thank you!

>> having kids come and get really excited about the books is really the point of it all. our main character is, you know, a strong black teenage girl who'getting a team together to help her save the world. >> there's this comic lled the "tuskegee heirs," and that's my favorite comic. >> make sure we let kids know.>> eah. his great-uncle, my uncle, was a tuskegee airman. it's amazing that my uncle is represented in a comicook. >> it is m.l.k. weekend, and we think of comics and martin luther king as very different, but i think they're both about heroism and thinking about ways that heroes can be everyday people. and that hero could be you.

>> senivasan: finally tonight, >> sreenivasan: the white house released it's legal response to charges of abuse of power and obstructing congress do not state an impeachable offense and there is no violationf any law. sources close to the white house legal team, said in next week's trial, the president's lawyers will arguehe articles violate the constitution and are "an attackn the american people." we'll have more on tsorro broadcast a online at pbs.org/newshour. that's all for this edition of i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching.gh have a good nit. captioning snsored by wnet captioned by media accessroup at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bed and irene schwartz.

sue and edgar wachenheim iii. tethe cheryl and philip mi family. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum. t we trylive in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help y make the most of today. mutual of america financial ic group, retirement se and investments. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a prite corporation funded by the ibmerican people. and by contrions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. you're watching pbs. ♪

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