caioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, august: a key employment benefit in the stimulus package expires. thnalatest on the cororus outbreak. and, iour signature segment, the state of oregon's timber industry. next, on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue anedgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denisechwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum. we try to liven the moment, not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow

can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement servicesnd investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and by the corporation for and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation nded by the erican people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> sreenivasan: good evening, and thank you for joining us. unemployment benefit that has helped support tens of millions of jobless americans during the coronavirus pandemic officially expired at midnight. today, white house oicials and democratic leaders met for more than three hours. both sides said they had made some progress on negiaotng a new relief package. house speaker nancy pelosi and senate minority leadchuck schumer said it was the best discussion the two sides have had so far. >> there are many issues that

are still very much outstanding, where we are apart. but we had a serious discussion and we went down piece by piece, and we saw where each side is at.tr >> sreenivasansury secretary steven mnuchin and white house chief of staff mark meadows also said there were points of agreement as they emerged from the meeting. re it's time to make a deal, and if woing to be able to succeed in this, it's taking as what started as probably the first day of a good foundation of productive discussions and building upon those until we reach an agreement, hopefully in the next couple days. >> sreenivasan: negotiations are ned to continue tomorrow with staff members, and with congressional leaders and white house ofcials monday. for more on the economic effects of the pandemi including a recent rise in the stockarket, i spoke with diane swonk, chief economist with grant thornton, via zoom from chico. so, diane, broadly, when people

hear this horrible news about hee big picture of our economy, and thenlook over at the stock market and they see the number keeps climbing-- where's the connection now between how the econy is doing and how the stock market's doing? >> well, first of all, there is a big disconnect between the drivers of the stock market, just a few-- a hdful of a few firms, that happen to be benefiting from this horrible environment, pushing it higher. and many of the firms that have been hit hardest are small ampanies, small businesses, th not even listed on publicly-traded companies. so that's one of the issues. and other issues, of course, that, you know, low interest rates tend to benefit the stock market first. oe tools that the fed has stimulate the economy are very blunt. in the stock market more than it shows up i main street. but it is important because you can't have credit markets functioning and have j generating as well. so the fed haso do what it's doing in order to reach those

who are hardest hit by this crisis, yet it does exacerbate some inequalities in w out there. and that's something they're becoming very much aware of at this stage of the game. >> sreenivasan: souch of our economy is propped up by people spending on goods and services. it's notike we stopped eating food. we're still buying the basic things that we need. and for some people, even that's hard. but where havee been spending over this last quarter? >> well, where we saw it, we didn't spend much at all, except for on food, really, in april. and as we got into may and june, we saw, you know, as states opened up, sometimes too rapidly with the spread of the cid virus, we saw restaurant spending pick up a bit. we saw spending on cg really strong. and as we got into june, finally, people backed up on elective surgeries. that really surged spending on health care outside of covid virus, which is important ve delayeany people things during the lockdown. so that came back as well. we also start to see people travel a little bit, spending on

accommodations and restaurants and where they were traveling to. driver miles picked up, gasoline didn't do a lot of other kinds li transportation. so you sawtly some of those things come back that you would expect as you slowly opened up. bu a lot of the spending on services was still absent, outside of the health care sector. >> sreenivasan: and here we are heading into a weekend where congress has not come to an insurance and benefits. and for a lot of people, that $600 is a g deal. that even-- best cas iscenario, evcongress miraculously comes to an agreement, it's still going to take a couple of weektoick back in. >> it's really like falling off a cliff. this is rely stunning, that congress has not been able to come together on this ise. not only did that money provide much-needed food and shelter for people, ev with all the increases in income we saw in that extraordinary support and in stimulus payments, which really were aid payments, a lot

n' it went to paying for food. people still coupay their rent. so this is really important right now, tt at the very moment the moratorium on evictions is expiring, and the extra expanded unemployment benefits are also exring, you're really going to have food and shelter as your biggest-- hit hardest, where people are already in miles-long food lknes. we're tag about the biggest food insecurity and homelessness that we've had since the great depression. th's really stunning. we had homelessness rising when we had 3.5% unemployment rate.k th what we could see in the next couple of weeks. it's something that's never been seen in anyone's rect memory. >> sreenivasan: depending on that you just said how badngs gs are, are used as a ca to try to reopen the economy faster. and they're also used to try to, say, let's get a handle on the public health crisis, because that's what's important and that's what'driving the

economy, right? it seems a false choice, that we really shouldn't have choose between our health and our economy. >> the course of covid determines the course of the economy. it's so much intertwined and linked together that the fed chairman, jay powell, and the federal reserve decided to insert that line into their statement this week when they course of the economy isat the dependent on the course of the virus. the economy cannot do better until we bend the curve on covid, and whanowe've seen is, only did we pull back before we had one state go into a lockdown, we lost 1.4 million jobs by march 14, before the first state went into lockdown on march 19, because people pulled in because they were afraid of contagion, and firmson pulled bacheir meetings. we're seeing that same exact behavior started in the latter part of june and early july. and the states that are hardest hit by covid are seeing the largest pullback in spending before they reverse course on openings. and i think that's what's important, is, fear is a real

hactor. our or is what drives the economy, and you can't have a healthy economy without having our help. >> sreenivasan: all right. diane swonk, thanknkso much. >> tou. >> sreenivasan: as leaders in washington try to work outon another ic coronavirus relief package, the u.s. continues to be the epicenter oh global pandemic. there were morthan 67,000 new infections yesterday, according data compiled by the "new york times." on average, daily cases have actuallyeclined by 3% over the past two weeks. in total, the u.s. now has morec than 4.5 millifirmed infections, and 153,000 people have died of the virus. obally, there are 17.6 million infections, and 680,000 deaths, accordinto researchers at johns hopkins university. india continues to be a hotspot, recording its steepest one day yesterday.onfirmed infections

it has recorded more than 1.1 million infections in july alone,nd is only behind the u.s. and brazil in total cases. today in germany, thousands gathered to protest coronavirus restrictions. participants at the event, titled "the end of the pandemic, or socially distance. germany has been widely hailed for its response to the virus, but in recent days, there cks been an upn confirmed infections, and officials have warned against complacency in following coronavirus restrictions.or one legisln germany's governing coalition labeled the demonstratorwith the hashtag ov-idiots." president trump b threatening the chinese-owned social media video app tiktok, but the to sell its u.s. operations to avoid the ban, according to several newseports quoting unnamed sources. the chinese company bytedance owns tiktok, whichhares user- generated short videos and has as many as 80 miion users in

the united states. the trump administration and lawmakers have repearaised concerns that the popular app collects users' data and poses a national security risk. tiktok's general manager of u.s. operations released a videoto statemeny. >> we've heard your outpouring of support we're t planning on going anywhere. >> sreenivasan: india banned tiktok in late june, along with zens of other chinese-based apps, claiming the applications were secretly transmitting users' data to servers outside india. flida declared a state of emergency ahead of hurricane isaias as it heads towards the state's east coast. the second named storm of the atlantic hurricane sson crossed the bahamas today with 80 mile per hour winds and heavy rain. the projected track shows it skirting florida's coast starting tonight and through tomorrow. florida has set up shelters, but officials say evacuations are not likely. the state's largest power company urged customers to be ready for possible outages throughout the weekend and into monday. >> the ultimate trk of the

storm is unknown. and the center of the storm could remain offshore. but tral storm fords will blow into our lines and ll cause power outages. >> sreenivass.: visit www.g/newshour for the latest national and international news >> sreenivasan: as donald trump campaigned throughout america in the run-up to the 2016 election, omhe pledged to revitalizeof the country's most iconic blue- collar industries, from coast to coast. then-candidate trump told audiences that their jobs were coming back, including those who worked in oregon's timber industry. cut imber jobs have been half since 1990. we're going to bring them up, folks.we're going to do it realy right. we're going to bring them up, okay. ( applause ) >> sreenivasan: before coronavirus restrictions, newshour weekend's christopher booker set out to oregon, to learn about the state's historic timber industry and how-- if at all-- the fortunes of those who

work in >> have changed. eporter: watching a tree run through the southport lumber company in ioos bay, orens the process takes 30arkable. minutes, each tree running through a 21st-century production system that would have been hard to imne just a generation ago. the mill, built in 2005, can process 100 truckloads of raw tmber a day, producing lumber and wood chipst are eventually turned into paper products. and while the mill is in every way an extension of oregon's thonomic past, it's also a window into whindustry's future is so uncertain f the stats workforce. >> so, you can see these saws, every time a log comes in, they shifpositions, chop the log into shorter stements. >> rep jason smith is the manager and one of the co-owners of southport lumber company. >> iyou look up at the screen up here, it showa cro- section and a profile of the log, what the products we're going to get out of each log, and how it's going to be positioned and rotated and to-- to optimize the value and

the lumberut of the lo. reporter: the company has invested heavily in technology and automation, and the workforce is much more specialized than a generation ag >> each board in our mill is scanned with computers. it is optimized,utomatically grade-stamped by a computer. it's then processed down a sorting line automatically and it goes to a stacker. so that whole process is done with a couple people, whereas in the past, it was done with ten or 12 people. >> reporter: this efficiency is one of the reasons southport has survived when many millsn >> what we've seene industry is the same thing that we've seen in most industries in the united states, where if you look long-term, we tend to produce the same amount of output with fewer workers. >> reporter: mindy crandalis a professor of forest policy at oregon state university, and studies the state's forest products industry. >> when we talk about revitalizing an industry, i'm always really curious what the metric is that people aralusing. are weng about output? are we talking about employment? because those two things are very differe.

>> reporter: since the mid- 1990s, the amounucof timber pr in oregon has stayed retively consistent. but during that same period, about half of the state's mills have closed, and nearly 30,000 fewer workers are emoyed in the timber industry. >> a lot of the older, less- efficient mills tend to cle when conditions are rough. and then, the mills that pick up the slack tend to be tig newer, morey efficient, more mechanized mills. logging has gotten more mechanized. these tend to be good things in the sense thattohey are indi of improving u.s. productivity. but it does mean that employment yttrends down, even if evng the same.t the industry stays >> reporter: but there has been a major transition in where oregon is getting its logs-- a change that has deeply divided the state for decades. nearly two-thirds of oregon's forests are public, controlled by either the federal government or oregon, like this state forest. just 20 miles from coos bay, the question for many in the timber industry is wther the trees in these pubc lands could be used to meet local

demand for logs. between 1989 and 1995, timber harvests on federal land fell by 90%. that's in large part because oft the rn spotted owl. it was listed as a threatened species in 1990 under the federal endangered species act, and as a result of lawsuits and protests, large portions of itsa hain the pacific northwest became off-limits for logging... ( chainsaws ) ...leang the timber industry to looto private land. this past year, we've lost that's largely driven by supply. >> reporter: supplof timber. >> yeah, raw wood supply. >> reporter: because theyan't, they just can't get enough? >> correct. >> reporter: brennan garrelts is a logging manager with lone rock resources, a timber company thcr owns 135,000 of land it employs 105 peoe, harvesting trees and then replanting them, each one taking decades to get to a point where is can be cut.

you are, within cosyst, in an enviable position. you are the ones with the timber? >> correct. >> reporter: but garlts says there's a finite number of trees that lone rock can cut each year. >> we are absolute sustainable. we manage and harvest anwe have limitations on how much we harvest every year, because we are looking at the long-term future of our company. so we can't just all of a sudden cut way more than we're growing. >> reporter: lone rock sells to about two dozen different mills, including southport. >> i can't think of any other sawmills that really have the access to the barging infrastructure that we do. >> reporter: jason smith says southport gets about 10% of its logs from federal land, and with less locallyvailab logs, the company has broadened its supply. >> we are buying logs throughout british columbia. we buy login various ports in washington, and have on and off, bought logs in the california and oregon ports as well. >> reporter: but not every mill in the area has managed to stay competitiv11 >> there wasull-time

employees. 96 of those were hourly and the rest were salary. >> reporter: and you're the last one. >> i'm the last person yes. >> reporter: donald turner is president of the locani machinists u, and now, the last person to work at georgia cific's mill in coos bay. the mill closed last year, and turner now takes care of the grounds. what did the closure mean for coos bay >> well, it was 111 family wage jobs lost, and then the outlying jobs from there, all the log truck drivers. we would get anywhere rdfrom 10- upof 100 or more loads of logs a day. >>eporter: unlike southport, the georgia pacific mill only processed one species of tree, the douglas fir, and the company said cheaper asian logs made the mill in coos bay too expensive to supply,nother piece of the complicated puzzle that is the timber industry-- making broadpo tical pledges, like the one

donald trump made in 2 bring jobs back, ever more complicated. number of timber jobs in oregone has been relatively flat. when you hear politicians reach out to timber workers and say, we're going to bring this back, what goes thugh your mind whendg you hear p like this? >> i'm both a little skeptical and a little sad, because i think a lot of rural places are tired of being promised quick, easy fixes. these are-- these are what we call wicked problems, right. forestry is a hugely valble industry that produces goods that we ne and produces a ton of ecosystem services that people also really value. so, to say that there's a simple solution to, f example, forcing more employment into an industry that is trying to stay mpetitive globally, i think is over-simplistic. >> reporter:ere you surprised in 2016 and started makingme

overtures to the forest products asdustry? >> it surprised. i think that the preside was looking at opportunities where there is burdensome regulation fromnthe federal governide of things. poster child, i thrng for a industry screams. we've been over-regulated. if you look at the potential of our lands, its-- they're there. we could support a very vibrant industry, and we're nowhere near utere we could be. >> reporter: bason smith is not counting on any major change in federal policy. >> i don't know how we can ever get to the good old days. i think we've reached a point where we're basically operating the private timberland can produce, and any of the federal timberlands is kd of a bonus at this point. >> sreivasan: nasa astehnauts roberten and douglas

hurley are preparing to begin their return to earth from the inrnational spacenstation this g. their historic mission aboard the space-x crew "dragon" capsule will mark the first manned launch and return of a commercially built and operated american spacecraft. the "dragon endeavor" has been since may, and is expected to splash down tomorrow afternoon. i spoke with dave mosher, senior space corspondent with "business insider," about the astronauts' scheduled trip back home. dave, there was a lot of citement when the "dran" capsule from space-x took u.s. astronauts up into space. and there's a little excitement on the way down, because these capsules are supposed to splash down in the water like bk in the old days. what's it going to look like eaen this capsule re-enters h? >> well, what we're first going to see is ed undocking pre, which is this-- the crew "dragon" spaceship moving away from the acternational station. and then, that starts a journeys of anywhere fr to 30 hours before they actually land back

on earth. we're not going to see a lot af those stager they leave the space station just because they're in space. the spaceship is going to get rid of this trunk, this cylindrical thing full of the solar panels anthe fuel and all the stuff, and then it's going to start entering the atmosphere. and shortly after thto, we're gointart getting telescopic views of the crew lragon" coming ba. it's going to loe a hed-hot kind of white dot in sky. and nasa is going to follow this all the way to the ground. they're going to deploy the parachutes. we're going to s those parachutes come out, from ground cameras, cameras on bants and in air. and we're going to see the splashdown in the ocean and we're going to see a bunch of boats diverging on that-- th capsule, to get those astronauts out of there before they puke their guts out, and get them back to the recovery boat, get them all checked out by some doctors, and we're ga ng to see t of that footage. and then we're going to see them whisked away to land via helicopter from that recovery boat. >> sreenivasan: so there is a little concern now-- florida is bracing for hurricane isaias.

what does that do to the weather and the conditions and where the astronauts can land? >> yeah, this is a pretty stunning moment to try to perform a highly important, experimental test mission inic you're proving that a e and-new spaceship can safely return peo earth, like take them up to space and take geemack to earth. this hurricane irating some extremely strong winds, lightning, weather, clouds, all the stuff you don't want. ast right now, they have several-asa says, out of these seven landg sites, three are on the atlantic side and four on the gulf coast side, for this capsule to splash down. right now, hurricane isaias is kind of looking to go straight up the atlantic side of florida so we're looking at a possible landing in the gulf of mexico at this point. >> sreenivasan: so, how precise can they get on exactly where they want to land? and then, how long does it take to get from space to that spot? >> so the precision of the

landing of this capsule is really good. we saw that with the "demonstration one," or "demo one" mission. they basically put it down right where the boat was-- the recovery boat was at. it just astonishing what a bunch of engineers and aerospace scientists can-- can fure out, in terms of the physics and like, the wind conditions. they can really nail the landing and pull the boat right up to where the capsule's going to be. which is a good thing if you're coming back-- you don't wantapo be in thatle for too long because you're going to really seasick, going up and down on e waves. >> sreenivasan: so we're going to be able to see this? if they know exactly where it'so goinand, are we going to see the capsule with the parachutes coming down and splashing down in the water?>> asa is scrambling basically all resources that it can. it's even called on the department of defense to have emergency recory vessels available. they're going to have planes in the sky, boats in the water, look for this capsule as itto comes through the atmosphere. and it's not just for our viewing pleasure here t. they aing to get as much data as they can about this

return, because the goal of this mission, the "demonstration 2" that this capsule is safe tow take people to and from space. not just any people, but civilians. tom cruise wants to go up in cis with his director-- this space capsule, tw "dragon"-- and film a movie at the international space station. so they've got to show that thi is really sad part of that is collecting as much data as they can. they're going to be recording this out the wazoo. and we're going to be taking a really nice backseat armchair look at this, because they're going to stream a lot of that footage directly to nasa tv. >> sreenivasan: dave mosher, thanks so much for joining us. >> my plsure. thanks for having me. >> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. for the latest news updates, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watchinan stay healthyhave a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet

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♪ ♪ >> for a long, long time in the southeastern conference, every scholarship athlete was white. but in 1967, 4 african-americanp footbayers became the first to challenge racism in southern sports. this is the story of those heros, a story of triumph, tragedy, and redption. [♪] major funding for this program was provided by woodford reserve and the following organizationsu and indis...