captioning sponsoredroy newshoductions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, a troubling rge-- the world marks its highest single-day total of new coravirus infections yet as the president walks back remarks about slowing down testing. then, jailed for journalism-we discuss the crackdown on press freedom in the philippines with a journalist targeted by her country's government. plus, warning signs-- problems with voting machines and vulnerabilities to hackers in the state of georgia uercut trust in the democratic process. ec we don't necessarily have fair and secure ons across the united states and georgia is the epitome of problem elections. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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foundation. for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supportio institutionsomote a better world. at www.hewlett.org. >> and with the ongoing supporte of tnstitutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting.tr and by cutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the covid-19 pandemic has infected more than nine million people worldwide, u of tonight. and, deaths in tted states have topped 120,000. all of this, as the pace of the

pandemic gains new mom am. nawaz begins our covera >> nawaz: in geneva today, a im new record, confirmed >> yesterday, more than 183,000 new cases of cid were reported to w.h.o. >> nawaz: that represents theil biggest surge in new covid 19 cases, since the start of the pandemic. all gged by the world health organization within 24 hours this weekend. in brazil, the world's highest spike, a startling 54,000 new cases-- almost a thirdf all new infections. in india, more than 1500 new cases. and hospitals, already under strain, are now turning away patients. meanwhile here in the u.s., more than 36,000 new cases-- roughly one-fifth of the global surge. states that had once seen new cases plateau, and moved to ease restrictions, are now riding new peaks. a dozen states across the south and southwt reported record increases this past week. oklahoma, where on saturdaypr

ident trump held his first indoor rally sin march, is also reporting new highs. blaming the spikes on increased testing, the president toldd supporters hstructed his team to scale it back. >> when you do testing to that extent, you will find more cases. so i said to my people, "slow the testing down, please." e>> nawaz: white house tr adviser peter navarro later told cnn's jake tapper, mr. trump was joking. kn>> come on now, jake, yo it was tongue-in-cheek. that was tongue-in-cheek, plea. >> nawaz: but asked about his rally remarks in an interview with scrippsetworks today, president trump dodged answering direct, instead pivoting to how much testing h been done. >> but did you slow it down? >> if it did slow down, ankly i think we're way ahead of ourselves, if you want to know the truth. we've done too good a job. >> nawaz: hiwhite house press secretary later denied any efforts to curtail testing.

confirmed that eight staffers at the rally had now tested positive fothe virus, health experts including from the world health health experts, including fromth the world herganization, say scaled up testing is not the only driver behind the latest spike in infections. >> we do not believe that this is a testing phenomenon. clearly when you look at hospital admissions, they are countries, deaths sober of rising. and they're not due to increased testing per se. >> nawaz: in new york city, mayor bill de blasio said testing is what allowed the city, once the epicenter of the u.s. outbreak, to move into its next phase of reopening today. >> this is a game changer. remember we didn't use to have is on a massive scale, nor did o other citistates around the country. now we're doing the thing that's worked so well across the worldl we're proactreaching people who test positive or need help. are symptomatic and >> nawaz: more than 300,000 new inyorkers were allowed bac businesses and offices today. whilbarbershops and hair salons welcomed customers inside for the first time in mored han

one hundys. for the pbs newshour, i'm amna nawaz. the surge in cases in india, brazil and other countries is it also bears repeating that even though the number of deatha dropped in the u.s. from the initial peak this spring, more than 600 people a day are still dying in the u.s. from covid. some perspective on all this from an expert who watches the global transmission of the disease. stephen morrison is a senior vice president and director of t csis,health policy the center for strategic and international studies. he joins may now, stephen morrison, welcome back to the newshour, let's start overseas where we are seeing some of thse enormous surges specifically in brazil. 54,000 new cases, why is there such an alarming surnige hap right now? >> well, it's a number of factors. ini mean tehas expanded a bit but that's not the main factor we're loking at here. there was a lockdown for a

period but it was very flawed. it was very fragmentedment there s been aopening. people have become complacent. i think probably the dominant factor is simply wretched national leadership in the form of prsident bolsonaro wo has had open scorn for science and fos thivirus. has embraced hydroxychloroquine, s had con temp for his governors who attempted to put in pace quarantines, has called for mass rallies, has done pretty much everything possibly wrong. and his support and legitimacy has collapsed. and so we-- and the epidemic is concentrated in large, ceban ers where there is high slums and it's very hard to social distancss aco water is often quite problematic. and so we' seeing a surge in these large urban concentrations, sao paulo, rio

deej nareth and southeast t is quite difficult situation, 60,000 dead, a million caes, they could in the course of this ummer overtake the united states in terms the numbers that have died reasons let me ask you about ind as well, the prime minister there did lock down the entire country ck in march, four weeks. we're talking about over a billion peop across the country. so why are we seeing this spike now all these weeks later? lockdown in india. had a 77 day and that had some impact in dampening the curve but it was unsustainable. you had over a hundred million migrants who were impoverished, workers who were let loose and mi grated back across the country to their homes, carrying the virus with them, oftentimes, and he had to-- he had to rele. so there was a finally a lifting

of this, but they did not have the systems in place in their health system. their health system, the public sect certificate woeful, testing has been terrible, and remains terrible. and so you are seeing a surge, again not unlike bril. you are seeing it in mumbai and new delhi, these huge urban concentrations is where we're seeing the hot spoght now. >> and what about here in the u.s. as we reported earlier dozens of states are now seeing an increase. is the increase iecn infons that we're seeing just due to an increase in testing here? >> no, i think what we ar seeing in the united states is a surge, an accelerat community transmission. there is no question testing has increased. our peak testing was just under0 600,0 per day but on an that much.y it is abut half so testing has not increased all that much in terms of actual testing. but what we are seeing here is a new normal. i mean yesterday we had 37,000

cases. that is an astronomical number. and it again gets back to, we have a lockdown, that had an impact. it was lifted prematurely. people have reverted to complacency. they have not continued in terms of social distancing and use of masks and ha wshing. and we're seeing a surge of cases particularly in the west and the south, andre incingly in parts of the midwest. >> you also heard us report that president trump d mentioned over the weekend that he had asked his team to slow down testing, the rational being if you don't test than the number of confirmed cases doesn't go up. what do you make of that reasoning. >> it's dangerous. the notion that you would deny testing because you simply didn't want to acknowledge the ality of what is around you is

reckless and irresponsible. and it speaks to this idea that your electoral calculations ares whuld drive your decision making, not your concern for the population.well-being of your so if you are one of those who has died of one of those 120,00e or a familymber of one of those 120,000, to hear the idea that you would deliberately minimize testing which is so vitally important to understanding the transmission of this disease and so vial important to be able to contain new outbreaks after you lift and reopen, you have to have capacities in place starting with testing to be able to chase down those cases and contain them, if you minngimize tes and you slow testing, you are undermining your own ability to cope with this. i want to make one other important point here about the surge that we're seeing. the surge across-the-board in brazil, in india, in t ueted states does get back to what fauci has termed the worst

nightmare, which is the nature of this virus. this virus is incfarediblt. it's pernicious. a third to a half of the transmission is asymptomatic so it is invisible. it kills people as we're seeing, 420,000 deaths. but it doesn't kill at such ath high ratt it snuffs it self out. so it continues to cicle the gle. and that is the relentless reality, that you request have or leadership, wretched leadership, poor systems and the like but it does noist slow th virus. >> and we should not get hundreds of people still dying here in the united states every day as a result. stephen morrison from the center of strategic and international studies, thank you for being with us. >> thank you, amna. >> woodruff: in the day's other

news, a judge in south floridae announced ndemic has forced an indefinite delay in the trial of nicolas cruz, for the parkland school shootings. the judge said it remainou unclear whens can reopen for jury selection. cruz is charged th killing 17 people on valentine's y, 2018. a noose at a nascar speedway in atalladega, alabama, led outpouring of racial solidarity today. the noose was found sunday in the garage space of bubba wallace, nascar's sole black driver. he had successfully pushed to ban confederate flags om racing sites. l 39 other drivers ralli around wallace today, pushing his car down pit row before the rain-delayed race began. he climbed from the car and wept. the white house confirms that president trump approved the weekend firing of u.s. attorney geoffrey berman, in manhattan. the president initially indicated he played no role.

but today, his press secretary said attorney general william barr spoke to mr. trump, armer refused to resign.wa >> barworking on a smooth transition and when berman chose to respond in the way he de , he came to esident and the president agreed and he fired this individual, mr. berman. no investigation will be affected by this as was made by attorney general barr >> woodruff: berman's office is looking into whether rudolph giuliani, the president's personal attorney, broke federal lobbying law workers at a major u.s. navy shipbuilder have gone on strike for the first time in 20 years. some 4,300 machinists union members walked oba overnight at iron works in maine, over su.contracting and work rul the strike could disrupt delivery of guided missile destroyers to the navy. a dust cloud out of africa blanketed much of the eastern

caribbean today, and headed for the united states. air quality fell to "hazardous" across much of the region, from puerto rico to antigua to trinidad and tobago. the cloud is the largest and most concentrated in 50 years. in britain, archaeologists using remote sensing have made a startling discovery near stonehenge. this animation, from the university of bradford, shows a circle of underground pits, more than a mile in diameter.it just two miles from the stonehenge monument. the pits also appear to date from the same era, about 4,500 years ag ndd, on wall street today, stocks advanced,il closed above $40 a barrel, for the first time since early march. the dow jones industrial average gained 153 points to close at 26,025. the nasdaq rose 110 points, and, the s&p 500 added 20.

still to come on the newshour: crnois management: the gover of arkansas on the pandemic spikes and the president's respse. a journalist targeted in the philippines discusses the crackdown on press freedom. problems wh voting in georgia undercut trust in the democratic process. and much more. >> woodruff: as ates continue to reopen their economies, many are seeing new surges in coronavirus cases. more than 3500 new positive tests since they began phase twe ening last week. governor asa hutchinson is back on newshour for an update.

governor, welcome back. we thank you for joining us. so this spike in cases, what dor you ute it to and do you have any question that there's some connection to the reopening? >> we actually measure it every week, judy, in terms of the new cases that we have, ar they related to the fact that we opened up, lifted some of the restrictions. and the answer is that we have not seen a correlation between lifting restrictions and the new cases that we have. the new cases actually are mming out of soe of the essential industries that are open regardless it is our food supply, and so that is what we are targeting in terms of our strategy. we've increased testing dramically in arkansas. this month we are testing 4 percent of our population, over 120,000 tests, which isa dramatic increase, really doubling from last month.oo whenever youat our contact

tracing, trying to break those transmissions of the virus within the community. and so that's the strategy. we have 75 counties in arkansas today, 72 of them had an increase of less than 20 cases. so we have three counties that had a larger amount and that's where our focus is.yo ve got to have two messages, keep your economy moving, keept itrowing, the same time this is a deadly virus, you have tosetakriously and you have to manage the risk. >> you do have those outbreaks at the powl tree plant in northwest, arkansas, also in prison facilities around the state but i've also sen specialists quoted as saying in the state of arkansas saying they don't think it's connected, just to more test. and one in particular, an epidimiologist with the sta's health department said she said it is probably connected to a osening of restrictions. so you are saying you disagreewi

that? epidimiologist was misquoted but i certainly agree that whenever you see the increase in testing, excuse me,he increase in cases, it's more than just increasing the tis. st part of it but it is more than that. we certainly acknowledge that w have you know, an increase in concern and a couple of our counties in northwest arkansas, that's why we are de voting more resources to it we will continue to do more testing because youll that up with isolating quarantining, and trying to stos that tssion. and so yes, we've had some outbreak but we me asu as to whether st related to those lifting of icsons, there's not an indication of that. we'll continue to monitor that d if we feed to make adjustments, we will. i >> speaking of testingd watch your news conference this problems with, i guess some

90,000 testing kits that were sent to arkansas by the.s. department of health and human services. how much does that set backhe state's efforts to keep a record, to keep track of what is going on? well, any timeptyou dishe supply chain with a faulty product, that's a problem. and we had not distributed that widely. we are trying to trace it down but we can oveom that but it is a gap in our supply chain. and re you've got many southern states thahave an upsurge in our number of cases, we'rrtesting moand so that puts a strain on the supply chait and so our ional message needs to be let's continue that investment in testing, let's make sure that we do our social distancing. let's take thi seriously, do what you can from an individual discipline standpoint. we've got to build the infrastructure for this fall. we don't know whether it's going

to be anotheresurgence in the fall or whether this is going to be a constant flow and epidimiologists were cited both ways. so we have to be prepared rerdless and build that national intra fruk ture because the need will continue. w that just quickly we kno neighboring state of oklahoma, president trump had a big campaign rally there in tulsa on saturday night. it is understoo that a number of arkansas across the state line to go over to attend the rally, how much concern do you have about people coming back because it was indoors and people were not required to wear masks? >> well, i would say that if someone was socially distancing up on the third tier or the second tier by themselves, they're okay. but if you are in the middle of that crowd without a mask on and you are from arkansas, i hope that you will e tested when you come back. we certainly don't want any virus to be attributed to your

attendandr there. >> wf: have you put that word out in the state of arkansas? publicly.ly, i have said tha just common sense that i wouldn't want people f i was going there to socially distance, wear a mask, if you are not going to do that, engage in that disciplined behavior, then make sure you bee responsid have a test when you come back to make sure that are you not positive. >> woodruff: was it a mistake you thinfor them not to require masks? >> well, it is my understanding that they expected people toc either slly distance, follow the cdc guide line. any rally, any event like that in a public nature with a crowd of people needs to follow common sense, public health guide lines, that is obviously so.thing that's importa >> woodruff: a different subject, governor, and that is e focus on confederate symbols across theountry in recent

days. i see that arkansas has 34 civil r properties, according to a report i was looking at, the vast majority of them represe the confederacy. one particular symbol was taken down over the last few days, should all of them come down in your opinion? >> well, it all depends upon the local muneicipality, it's located, where is the proper way to ple for that tobe located. no one wants to erase history.nt we do o learn from it. these are discussions that will be onoing. we've had the city of little rock remove one confederate statue. we hope that that will be moved to a location that is consistent with its history. there will beabiscussiout other venues as well. ansas weou know in ark did have protests. and we have set up a task forcei

tocuss the future of law enforcement with protest leal rs as w the exeument and law enforcement all together. and i think that will promeduce ery good things for the future and build and strengthen harmony in our communities and the discussion about some of these statutes that are really reminiscent of an oppressive time for ourf arican-american population, has to be a part of that discussion as well. >> woodruff: ut just quickly, are you not weighing in with your view one way or another on whether tho confederate symbols should come down? >> well, i think there should be a discussion, andcisions made. i understand that what thats meo those that weree oppressed, tir ancestors in that form oflavery. and that's what the civil war was about. so it's not a pleasant memory ana reminder for them. and it should be a lesson in

history, not a hopping memory of history. so there are so that should be moved but those are many local decisions. the general assembly will have to be a part of that discussion, so to me the priority should be that arkansas needs a hate crime law. we're one of the four states that toes not have thatat is something i'm pushing for. and i think that is a priorit that will address real problems. >> governor asa hutchinson of arkansas, governor, thank youha >> you,udy. court in the philippines convicted one of the country's most pminent journalists of "cyber libel." press freedom advocates quickly called the trial unfair, and part of larger crackdown by filipino president rodrigo duterte on critil media, and

his political opponents. nick schifrin picks up the story of maria res. >> schifrin: maria ressa is filipina-american journalist who was once a "time" person of the year, and used to be manila bureau chief. she founded rapler, an independt news site that investigated duterte without fear or favor. in 2012, rapler published article linking a businessman connected to duterte, wi illegal drugs and human trafficking. since then, ressa has been charged with multiple crimes her lawyers call politically motivated. the charges add up to as much as 100 years in prison. and maria ressa now joins mean froma. maria ressa, what's the state of press freedom in the philippines?by >> it's deat thousand cuts. freedom, but essentially over the last four years, of our democracy.but certainly what wen just in the last two, onths, you kne largest broadcaster-- imagine, if cbs or cnn were shur down by , right?

so the largest broadcaster here, abs-cbn, is shut down.e the last tat happened was when martial law was declared in the '70s, and it was shut down for 14 years'r thstill trying to fight it. and then less a little over a month later, here's my conviction. it is the first of eight criminal cases that i face for being a journalist. >> schifrin: we've seen attacks on the supreme court, chief justice, on prominent legislatures and of cothe war on drugs, which the n. calls a murderous crackdown that's killed more than tens of thousands. is this part of a trend in the philippines? >> absolutely, and it's too, you know, the first is reallwhen we saw in 2016, the weaponization of social media. so the attacks are coming exponentlly bottom up.me and then it top down, by weaponizing in the law. the law is the tip of e arrow that is used to attack perceived critics. i'm not a critical journalist in the sense that i didn't set out

to criticize president duterte. i just set out to do my job, to hold power to account. th schifrin: and what the president says i there's a lot of crime that he needs to crack down on, and that's his defense. and the president's allies also point out that there is a commission now to investigate some of the murders against journalists. >> the tens of thousands-- this is the u.n.'s estimate of people killed in the druglyar, there's een one conviction of a case that's been brought to court of police. it is impunity and then on the second front, in terms of journalists, seen exponential lies, just my case alone. i don't have to go very far. all i've done is to do my job. but beyond that, this case should have been thrown out of court because the law we allegedly violated wasn't even in effect at the time that that story was published. the nd of legal acrobatics t bring this to court and to have

a conviction are mind boggling >> schifrin: what the government says is that the article was edited after the law came into effect and that the cyber crime law specificly has no statute of limitations, and that's what you were convicted of. >> both are wrong. essentially, because in 2014, tat's two years later, someone in rappler fixedographical error. they fixed one letter of one word. it's a typo. and for that, myself, i and one of my former colleagues can go that's the first.ears. e second is the statute of limitations for libel. e constitution is very clear on this, it's one year. our laws are clear. and yet to convict us, it was changed, the judge, judge montessa's court says, it's now twelve years. >> schifrin: the issues of press freedom in asia are larger than in the philippines. the day that you were convicted, i stocked, i talked to stephen tetler, the committee to p journalists' asia coordinator. >> you've seen it across the board in cambodia and malaysia, philippines, thailand, india has

been terrible. so this is part of a broad f trend that hced press freedom further into retreat from what we've seen in recent yars >> schifrin: why is that retreat happening, do you think? >> i think of two, two reasons. the first is that our information ecosystam has fundamy changed with the power of technology. so startinin 2016, we pointed out that these cheap armies on social media are literally changing the facts, right? and starting in 2017, all of tht and it'sust in the philippines. it's in the united states. what has happened here is haening to you. so when facts are debatable, then you have no integrity of anything, you can't have the second reason is because there's almo like a dictator's playbook that we're seeing all around the world. they're using the vulnerability of the information ecostem, social media, and they-- what we thought would be an enabling and empowering tool during in egypto

haturned into a despot's >> schifrin: you mentioned the united states. the u.s. state department did release a statent the day after you were convicted decrying the case. has the u.s. done enough?ke >> we would o see more of the ideals of the united states. the rest of the world has felt a terms of press fressues.e in r having said that, no matat the u.s. or any other country says, this is a filipino prlem. and filipino must step up and demand their rights. otherwise, we're going tlose it. >> schifrin: maria ressa, thank you very much. >> woodruf new york state and kentucky have their presidential primaries tomorrow. in kentucky, the are concerns facing major delayg linesd be

and other problems if turnout is high. fewer than 200 polling places will be open because of covid. that's compared to 3700 in a typical year. earlier this month, georgia served as the latest examp of serious voting problems that could affect electionshis fall. miles o'brien has the story. >> reporter: it was no walk in the park when georgians cast their ballots on june 9. many voters, disproportionatelye crats and african americans spent six to eight hours inpa lineent yet piqued. at the centr park rec center atlanta, i met amelia dobbs, four hours into a grueling vote- athon. >> i'm very disappointed after being a voter for overars. it's getting worse, worse and worse. it can't get any worse than th. >> reporter: john dodson and his partner landa borras were just

ahead of ms. dobbs in a line that encircled t park. they were livid. >> it is 9:56, the are now eight, eight, ballots counted. >> eight ballots scanned. eigh this is exercise and patience but it also it's an exercise in will. and if the intention is to break the will, this will, those people are not leaving. >> reporter: inside, beleaguered poll workers struggled with a new, complex voting system that they hadn't even seen before the election. in-person training was deemed unsafe in the midst of pandemic. among other things: the passwords to log on to the machines didn't work. marilyn marks is executive director of the coalition forna good gove, an organization focused on election transparency and verifiability. >> we don't necessarily have fair and secure elections across e ited states and georgia is

the epitome of problemon elecco georgia bes really the example at almost every level of what is wrong. >> reporter: marks helped lead the charge to usher in a new era of voting in georgia last year. for 18 years the state used electronic voting machines made by diebold election systems. the machin were widely used across the nation, even though experts proved ty were easy for hackers to attack without leaving a trace. >> a federal judge is ordering georgia to stop using its outdated voting machines... >> reporter: in august of 2019, a federal judge ordered the state to scrap the flawed machines for something more secure and verifiable. so the state spent more than $100 milon to supply every county with so called imagecast machines made by a canadian company, dominion voting systems.

they are ballot marking devices, meaning voters make selections a touch screen, and ballots are printed with choices embedded in a q.r. code and listed in plain english.ot the paper bas then scanned and counted. brad raffensperger is georgia's secretary of state. >> when you have a paper ballot, matter how that when it comes about, at the end of the day, you have the paper that you cant dohe audit from and then you can audit the election. that's something i think is morc securese then we really capture voter intent. >> reporter: but electionts security expay that is not >> it's a computerou have no idea what's in the computer. and you have no idea what the computer is doing with the information that you give it. r orter: rich demillo is a professor of computer science at the georgia institute of technology. he tried to stop the state fromt buyi dominion system now >> a ballot markince is in the first place, extremely

expensive pencil that will make mistakes, that is prone topr failure, that'e to misuse and if it fails, if it's misused, you have no way of telling that you don't have the original record of voter intent. >> reporter: are you concerned the system can be hacked? >> no. we are very vigilant. we understand that electio are tempting targets for hackers. >> reporter: indeed. at the hacker convention def con, they have been making virtual mince meat of electronic voting machines for years. legendary white hat hacker and election security consultant harri hursti was part of the exploits.ou >>an introduce races which don't appear as when they should be, you can change the design on the screen to be misleading and confusing the voter. when the voter imaking the selections. are those selections recorded accurately? >> reporter: the new votingt. ls

caed knowink. especily younger people of

color and minority. so and it's very important and i know how important it is, so they'll do anything to throw a rock in a process. >> reporter: with four to five million georgians expected to vote in november, this primary election offers a stark warning of electoral chaos ahead. for the pbs newshour, i'm miles o'brien in atlanta. >>roodruff: young voters un 25 are taking to the streets and to social media to oppose president trump.

political energy tte into votes for former vice president joe biden? yamiche alcindor reports. >> alcindor: on turday in tulsa, oklahoma, it was a disappointing turnout for president trump's comeback rally. earlier in the week, the president said for the event, thcampaign had fielded one million sign-ups. >> we're getting exact numbers out, but we're either close to, or over one million peopwa ing to go. >> alcindor: but come saturday, just 6,200 of the 19,000 seats america's teenagers on the social media app "tik-tok" say they helped fuel false expectations. reey claim thousands regis for the rally as a prank on the trump campaign. >> i got two tickets, but i totally forgot i have to pick up every individual piece of lint off of my floor. >> it would be such a shame if all of you did the same. >> alcindor: as the 2020 campaign nears, america's youngest generation-- known as

"gen-z"-- is energized for political change. yog voters on average lean democratic. but historically, they are less likely than other generations to vote. cd in this year's democra primaries, the majority of young voters rejected joe biden for progressives like bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. this month, biden's campaignrs released a digital ad promising to take action on structural st to vote for biden, but to address the ongoing lack of nominee among demo voters.tic a recent fox news poll swed 63% of biden spouprtersas id they were more driven by fear of president trump's reelecon than enthusiasm for biden. one such voter is 18-year-old

he opened his eyes recently to more issl wholeheartedly that plague that devasted athens as

it warred with sparta. the epidemic contributed to athens' defeat and helped bring an end to its expement with democracy. just one example of how disease has shaped human history. >> everything about us, our art, our culture, our religion has

been informed, inflected, should say, with the passage of death and suffering in the forms ofse. >> brown: frank snowden, professor emeritus at yale university, is author of"ci epidemics and y." he now lives in rome, a city slowly re-opening after imposing a strict lockdown. it's also a city that has seen the impact of disease before. skeletal remains from the 5th century a.d. show victims of a malaria outbak, one that wreaked havoc on the roman empire's military d economic might. pandemics throughout history, often captured in the imaginations of artists, have hit in specific ways, with different imincts. ginninhe 14th century, bubonic plague changed the course of western civilization. a third of europe's population perished. historians see enormous political and economicmpacts:

worker shortages gave serfs more bargaining power and hastened the end of feudalism. snowden also cites a growing awareness of public health. >> doctors had personal protective equipment. that is the masks and the plague costumes and a rod for social >> brown: william shakepeare experienced plague in 16th and 17th century england. >> there is not a play as played directly about plague. but if you want to shock your audience, you can mention thepl ue >> a plague on both your houses . >> brown: that would have had an extraordinary resonanc shakespearean play. >> brown: but not all pandemics resonate in the cultural memory: the so-called ¡spanish flu' of 1918 was different. st>> in an amazing way, al immediately following the pandemicit just disappears from the american public conversation. >> brown: nancy y istow, a histofessor at the university of puget sound, is

author of "american pandemic: e lost worlds of the 191 influenza epidemic." brisw's great-grandparents were two of the 675,000 americans and upo 50 million people worldwide who died, s that far surpassed tho killed in the world war raging at the same time. in some smaller ways the pandemic did alter american life. >> as a result of the pandemic, public spitting really was owned upon. another thing that disappears for us is the public drinking cup. >> brown: but overall, bristow says the pandemic reinforced the status quo. >> in the midst of the pandemic, people who were poor might suffer from cold and hunger and homelessness. people of color would find themselves excluded from theit emergency hos that were produced. and yet in the aftermath, therem was ement to repair those problems. >> brown: so it sounds as though 1918, the way you see it, was a

pandemic that did not lee so much of a trace. >> that's exactly right. i think there were lessons that could ve been learned. it's a somewhat human and certainly american tendency to put aside and eventuorget those things in our past that are unpleasant or that don't speak toho we want to be or imine ourselves to be. the pandemic we'regave noted, through has exposed the continuing inequities in our time. and in the aftermath of the killing of george floyd, protestors across the nation decided to take their message to the streets, many wearing masks, despite the health dangers. frank snowden suggests the history of pandemic and illness offers us choices for our time. >> it's a crisis because teible things can happen. but it's also a time of opportunity. en i think that this is a time when we can not re-imagine our lives in ways that would make us safer than we were this time

around, thatould actually leave the world a safer, a better place for our grandchildren than the one that >> brown: a hope for the future, with an eye on the past. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and againveere tomorrowng. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> since our beginning, our business has been people, and that mission givesrpose,g. and a way forward. day, and always. >> the kendeda fd d. commit advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.or

>> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more world.rdant and peaceful more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. station from viewers like you. thank you.

hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. this juneteenth we discuss 155 years since the end to sl ery. then what we should know about e people we don't know. best-seller malcolm gladwell on how our inractions with strangers often go wrong. plus, re-imagining america. the smithsonian's loni bunch ac tells martin ison on the