captioning sponsored by newshour pctions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, western wildfires. we are on the ground in oregon, asthajor blazes burn across region, exacerbated by high winds d extremely dry conditions. then, at an impasse-- wi unemployment claims remaining high, congress struggles to ress an economief package for covid-19. plus securing the vote-- multiple countries target both campaigns as a senior homelandcu ty official accuses department leaders ofzi politi reports. and the virtues of going virtual-- the pandemic prompts a major shift in the treatment of

addiction and delivery of medicaon. >> the folks suffering with addiction are more marginalized right now than they've ever been, and we have to be there with meaningful treatment that can help them.ll >> woodruff:hat and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> when the world gets complicated, a lot goes through your mind. enth fidelity wealth manag a dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life. that's fidelity wealth management. >> consumer cellular >> financial sonvices firm rajames.

>> bnsf railway. >> the kendeda fund. mmitted to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic entgement, and the advancem of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of tse institutions: and individuals. >> this program was madeib po by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbe station from v like you. thank you. >> woodruff: wildfre

sweeping across more of the west coast tonight with no end in sight. dozens of fires have killed at least eight people, wiped out small towns d destroyed hundreds of homes in washington state, oregon and northern californ. cat wise begins our coverage, reporting from south of portnd. ac reporter: the smoke was thick this morning in mas county, oregon, as some residents emerged from cars and tents in the parking lthe local community college. the american red cross has set up a shelter here, one of ten locations currently open around the state. many lined up for a warm breakfast, including 70-year-old nancy price and her husband dave silverberg, who is 90. they fled from nearby molalla and have been here for the last three nights, preferng to sleep in their car instead of inside the shelter. >> they said, we hav told to evacuate immediately.

so we just made sure we were dressed and we were out the door. >> reporter: the couple, who say and trying to stay a safesks on distance from other evacuees, have not yet heard if their home has been saved. >> we don't know anything. that's the hardest part, not knowing anything, and knowing we can't go bac >> reporter: tom waldon and his two sons james and jake are from estacada, oregon. going on, i don't know to feel or what to do. it's hard. >> reporter: four wildfires have converged in this mostly rural county on the outskirts of portland, and thousands are currently evacuated from their homes. firefighters have been battling the blazes here for days but progress has been hard due to weather conditions. and fire crews are stretched thin.

chad carter is a spokesman for the d cross. >> the state of oregon has been impacted by the wildfires we're seeing throughout the state. j and it's nt one wildfire. it's multiple. right now thousands of people out of homes and dealing with the most stressful and difficult 48 hours of their lives. >> reporter: the fires i clackamas county are just one scores racing up and down the pacific coast, from southern california twashington state. in oregon, officials estimate there are at least three dozencu fires rrently active, and they've described the situation as "unprecedented." >> we are now approaching00 90acres burned across state. put that number intoct perse, in the last ten years we see an average of 500,000 acres burned in an entire yea we've seen that nearly double in the past three days. we have never seen this amount

of uncontained fire in our state. >> reporter: so far, five towns in the state are believed to be all but leveled. intalent, oregon, a hard hi community in t southern partte of the sevacuees captured the harrowing scene as they ied to flee: fires stretching for mes. and setting off explosions. meanwhile, in nearby medfo, residents returned to survey the damage and recover what little they could. >> my wife passed away five years ago and we came here to look for her ashes. everything we had was here. we he nothing but the clothes on our back, and that's it.ep >>ter: at the same time, in northern california, high winds whipped wildfires there t. a new fu the north complex fire north of sacramento grew six times in size in the span of just 24 hours. it now covers roughly 250,000 acres. just days ago, firefighters had managed to contain 50% of the blaze. today, it's less than 25%. and to the west, the august

coslex has become californi largest fire ever, burning more than 730 square miles.te the speed and ity of the fires there-- and in other states-- have officials worried. already, a number of deaths have been reported in both california and oregon. and in washington state, news of a one-year-old's dea c has shaken tmunity and officials there. wck in oregon, for famili have managed to escape immediate danger, there's great uncertainty about when they might return-- and what they will fin many of the people we met today are asking those veer questions. judy? >>oodruff:t cat, itjust horrible. and we can see from the color of the sky where your ae. people's lives turned upside down. how are they cing? >> reporter: judy, the people we've talked to today, many said they're still in a state of shock. several people told me they hadl

toee their homes quickly and only got out of their homes with the clothes on thir back. many said i'm exhausted after several days of stressful situations. this is happening in their lives after a time when many have been stressed with covid and the pandemic happening. as you can see arod , the smoke is really, really bad here today. we s many people, families and, in fact, children here, did not have masks on and then somoe he people i talked to mentioned family members with asthma, occaonally could hear people coughing outside, and several people told me they felo like they coul escape this bad air, the smoke, because there's just so mly widfires around the state. they said where would we go?o the wildfire s is everywhere. >> woodruff: cat, how is the pandemic affecting everything? >> reporter: some of the people we talked to said they were concerned about going into the shelter due to covid 19. the organization is trying to get out the message that they're doing everything they cano keep people safe including

temperature checks and cleaning surfaces regularly. they really want people to know they're here for them, handing ought food and water outside. but it is an inc difficult time for people with the wildfires and covid 19. >> woodruff: cat wise reporting from western orego thanks, cat. t reporter: thanks, judy. >> woodruff: as ported, there are a number of small towns that have been justth devastated bfires. marion county, oregon, has already seen its share. kevin cameron is one of the county commissioners. he lives in the small city of detroit, whi has seen many of its homes burn down. he joins me now by skype from salem. for talking with us. you were evacuated. te us about that experience. >> well, thank you, judy. it's good to be with u. tuesday -- actually, monday evening about 5:00, we wedre tol be ready to leave monday, potentially, at noon.

10:00, we went to bed. at midnight, our phones blew up with emergency get outow, sheriffs going through the town with their loud speakers and sirens going. we got on the road with a caravan about 1:00. there's a little bit of go east and then at the last minutgo west. they cleared the road, getting down to aba 50-mile drive to salem. about halfway down, the traffic backed up, and the reason why is there was a fire ball right in front of us. i had two vehicles. i was in a truck, an one following me, and you can hear on the video the person behind me was taking video and said we're scared to death, are we going to burn up? we should been going thisay. it's so smokey and fiery i was looking down at thelientene just barely seeing. nothing i've ever exerienced before and nothing i would ever want anybody else experience.

>> woouff: what do you know at this point about your own home, your neighborhood, casualties and so forth? >> well, i'm a marion county yesterday, army corps needed to get people up to don exchange in the dam. with ousheriff and fire taapparatus we were able t a tour. the town is total destruction. there are a line of about eig homes on my street. itv miraculous, and i ha little survival guilt that my home is one of those that's standing, and around the town there are several homes here and inere standing. but the marina town are destroyed. the only thing stnding on min street is a teeny post office. it's just devastating. and there were still fires and power lines down when we were going around. it's very, very dangerous still that's wwanted to ask you, to what extent are the fires stl threatening that area. >> the fire, the wind event that

pushed the fires westbound.s there aretill spot fires. as the winds swirl around, you still have more res up there. as the fires across the state, other places have had to evacuated. the fairgrounds are full with animals and people who need shelter now. >> woodruff: have you seen anhing to compare with this, in your years in oregon?he >> nothing it's threatened homes and had mass, mass evacuation and we're going to have wawcialts. we already know of two and it'in to be a gruesome few days or weeks as wet actually ge back into the back country where a lot of people live cause they don't want to be bothered and it's hard to get to them whenth sog like this happens. >> woodruff: such a terrible thing that's going on.

our hearts go out to everyon involved. kevin cameron, a commissioner for marion county in oregon. thank you very much. w weill rebuild together. we'll come back stronger. thank you very much, judy. >> woodruff: in the day's other news: a huge fire upted at the port in beirut, lebanon, a mth after a catastrophic explosion that killed 190 people and injured 6,500. black smoke billowed over the port's ruins as fire teams woed. the military said it staed at a warehouse full of tires, oil and other material. a sprawling migrant camp inin greece lay in today, after a second fire in as many nights. nearly all of the 12,000 refugees at the moria camp on

the island of lesbos are now homeless. today, they searched through debris for what was left of their belongings. but a greek government spokesman the fire.s of starting >> ( translated ): and they did this because they think that if they tor moria, they will indiscriminately leave the island. we told them they did not understand.no they willeave because of the fire, except for the unaccompanied minors who havens already been trred. therefore, they can forget whatever they had in mind when they set the fires. >> woodruff: france and germany said today they would take in some of the children left homeless by the fires. after decades of war, peacefo talkafghanistan are finally set to begin on saturday in qatar. the tan announced today, and afghan officials confirmed it. the two sides squabbled for months before agreeing on a prisoner exchange as a prerequisi for the talks. back in this country: new claims for jobless benefits staye stuck at 884,000 last week.

it was fresh evidence that the recovery from pandemice may be slowing. meanwhile, efforts to pass a new relief bill stalled again. a slimmed-down senate republican bill failed to move forward in a procedal vote. 'll take a closer look after the news summary. a new book by journalist bob woodward incding aud recordings of their conversations show the president knew the gravity of the virus eay on but played it down. at the white hse today, he insisted he acted properly. >> i didn't lie. what i said is we have to be i idn't lie. what i said is we have to be calm, we can't be panicked. serious problem.t's a very and it's always a serious problem. that doesn't mean i'm going to jump up and down in the air and start saying "people are going to die, people are going to die." no, no, i'm not going to do that. we're going to get through this.

>> woodruff: democratic vice presidential candidate kamala harris said today the recordings >> we need leadership that sees and recognizes the suffering and is prompted then to be guided by truth and fact and not wt is in their political self- intest, which is what we've seen in donald trump. >> woodrf: mr. trump campaigned tonight in michigan, where the democratic governorwa ed the rally could help spread the virus. twitter says it will start labeling or removing misleading claims that try to undermine public confidence in elections. that includes false claims about ballot tampering or the outcome of a vote before results are official. the social media giant has already begun labeling some of president trump's tweets with fact checks. grave new numbers tonight show the global wildlife population has fallen nearly 70% since 1970. the world wildlife fund points

resource consumption as causes. a newshour interview today, famed naturalist sir davidor attegh said this study and ongoing, u.s. natural disastersc are a wakel. es you've got rising sea levels. you had the cyclhurricanes moving through with greater ferocity and frequency than ever before. we see on our television, newsreel coverage of appallinggs thhat happened in your country, devastation. >>eoodruff: the study says loss of bio-diversity directly threatens e global food supply. citigroup today became the first major wall street bank to name a woman as c.e.o. jane fraser is currently head of citi's global consumer banking division. and, on wall street, wednesday's rally evaporated today, as tech stocks sank again. the dow jones industrial average lost 405 points to close at

27,534. the nasdaq fell 222 points-- 2%. and, the s&p 500 dropped 59. and, actress diana rigg died today in london, after fighting cancer. she came to fame on the 1960's tv series "the avengers" playing secret agent emma peel. later, she played the only woman ever to marry james bond in the 1969 thriller "on her majesty'sr et service." and, more rently, rigg had a recurring role on "game ofs, th" gaining a new generation of fans.as diana rigg w 82 years old. still to come on the "newshour," congress remns in a stalemateom over an ec relief package for covid-19; election security plmains in question as mul countries target both campaigns; we exane the u.s.' uneven reonse to the pandemic and much more.

>> woodruff: congress tonit remains stuck over how to address the economic crisis from the pandemic. as we noted earlier, there we not enough votes in the senate to advance a republican proposal-- one that was noas far-reaching as other ideas floated in recent months. this morning, the republicannd democratic leaders in the senate blamed the other side for the gridlock. >> republicans have tried repeatedly to build on the cares act and get more help out the door to american families. atdemocrats have blocked u every turn. they've invented different excuses each time. >> but this bill is not going to

happen because it is so emaciated, so filled with poison pills, so partisanly designed.ig it was dd to fail. >> woodruff: and yamiche alcindor has been tracking progress on covid relief and is here with an update. so, hello, yamiche. so this bill went down to defeat not enough votes. tell us what was in it and what happened when it came up for a procedural vote. >> well, judy, this the latest push to get some sort of coronavirus reef to americans bad riin need of help. this was a g.o.p. effort, expected to fail and did fail as expected. it failed along panrty lies. every democrat voted against the ll along senator rand paul of kentucky voted against it, bt all of the republicans voted in lock step with ceter mitch mcconnell. this was seen as a suc fcer mitch mcconnell even though it failed because senate

republicans r weeks couldn't figure out how to get together and vac something. this was called the skinny g.o.p. plan. you had $650 billion in total, spendit there was only 300 billion innew spending because the bill would have repurposed $350 billion inly previoapproved spending. $350 billion in weekly enpansed unemployment benefits to replace the 600 that ex paired on wajuly 31. thermoney for businesses, coronavirus testing and schools but no new smulus checks or aid for state and localve ment. the republicans were saying here's what we can do, but it was vastly differenthat b what democrats did and what democrats want. in may when the house passed their bill, it was more than 3 trillion-dollar. so both sides are very far apart. are, now, the republicans and democrats saying about

coronavirus relief and the wayfo ard? >> well, both democrats and republicans are essentially pointing figures at eaerch oth and saying the other party is to toblame. semitch mcconnell today said that democrats, they would have wanted to support some of the things in this bill but they were essentially holding out for a bigger bill. ts heard from democ essentially saying mitch mcconnell wanted political cover and was pushing forward this bi gl. all of thes to say that taxes installein august r a new coronavirus bill are stillle st suggestions are congress could adjourn and aving without having a new dea senator marco rubio, lisa, who was on vacation this week, she flagged this, he put out a video ntially saying, sorry, not going to be able to pass any sort of relief for you until after the election.n >> woodruff:d yamiche, you cover the white house. are you saying they may try to domething with regard to covid relief? and how is this affecting americs across the cotry?

essentially, americans across the country who are terrified and scared and a lot of theme jobless not going to be able to get relief from the federal government anytime soon. executive actions includingabout putting money toward airline industries and school vouchers. a white house source today said many of the things they want to do including payroll tax and limited because they're the executive branch. the congress controls the purse, so essentially what we have here is a stalemate where americans are left in the wind and they're the ones o are struggling. >> woodruff: just extraordinary to see nothing happening. yamiche alcindor reporting for us. thank you, yamiche. >> thanks.

>> woodruff: the u.s. election is a target-- microsoft unces today russia, chin and iran are all trying to hack the biden and trump campaigns. c es one day after a whistleblower from the department of homeland security claims he was urged to downplay russian interference and was pressure to skew igence.se our nick schiffrin and amna nawaz help fill in the picture. nick, i'm going to start with you. tell us exactly what it was that microsoft announced today. >> microsoft says foreign groups stepped up efforts targetinthe examples. and cites three e same russian military intellence unit that hacked a leak in 2016 has now targeted0

ganizations including campaigns, political consultas, and one analyst said skdk, nicker bakr which consults for biden. microsoft says chinese actors ukes successfully tarlgtd people affiliated with the biden campaign and a promine individual formally associated with the trump administration, but we have no details. microsoft says iranian actors tried unscess friday to log into the accounts of trump administration and campaign officials. microsoft acknowledme of the foreign influence operations have been successful and there are also details how russians are going to new lengths to avoid detection. department of homeland securitye and intelligefficials said today this is a sign of private-public partnership over election security, but, judy, it bes been noted there haen no release of any stolen data to influence the elction, at least not so far. regard to russian operations, the trump administration was

startingohem tday. >> yeah, these are actions from the department of treasury anda justice t really high light the spectrum of russian attempts ento continue to inf the election. the treasury department sanctioned a ukraiember of parliament whom it calls an active russianagent. he released videos designed to dispearnlg joe biden and this is an attempt to weaponize divisions inside the u.s., tweeted by president trump and cited by ron johnson. the department of justice charged a russian o masions a russian effort to influence elections and his indictment isf a sign ongoing russian disinformation campaign. that has the same goal as it did in 2016 -- create kiss distrust in the p.s. politicocess and to help president trump. the independent analyst i spoke to today, judy, says all of thif is more prhat russia continues to be interd in

tipping the sca while china and iran are more interested ing -term intelligence-gathering operations, and these analysts fear that the director ofnt nationalligence is downplaying the active threat posed by russia to the election by, intead, highlighting the longer-term threat pose bid china. >> woodruff: so much to keep track of. let's talk about that. amna, separately from this, there was this whistleblower complaint saying that the administration is trying to downplce russian influ tell us about that. >> that's right, judy. the istleblower's a man named brian murphy, former head of of intelligence.y's office head he's alleging he was asked to censor or skew intelligence so it better lined up with president trump's messages and priorities. he alleges a few things. in one complaint says the act secretary of heland security,

that is chad wolf, told him to hold back on reports about russian disinformation campaigns, to stop providing assessments on the russian election threat and intead to focus on iran and china. murphy said he refused to comply in both days and forr democrat h.s. initials said there was consent pressure from the wh house not to talk about the murphy alleges he was asked by second in command to change intelligence reports, to downplay the threat of far rght white supremacists development and t to include reports on antifa. one former official said he doesn't believe it's a priority for the current d.h.s. to address the growing national supremacist reat. >> woodruff: i saw food the president formally nominated chad wolf to be the secretary of homeland security. amna, yohave been in touch with the people at cumeland

ty today. what are they saying about all this? >> well, judy, they flatly deny the claims. they say theyelcome the result of any investigation. they say there's no truth to murphy's claims. they said the agency is working to address all threats tome the nd regardless of ideology and the act secretary chat wolf is foced on thwarting election interference from any foreign powers, any attac from an extremist group. judy, we should mention brian murphy has been invited by house democrats on the house intellence committee, testify before them in a private session, that would be on september 21, so we'll follow up judy.then. >> woodruff: ain, so much to almost dizzying fo the american public trying to follow what's going on in wahington with th elections. thank you both, such important reporting. thank you.az, nick schifrin.

>> woodruff: the political fallout from the president'swo comments to boward about the coronarus remains to be seen. but there are also qns about what more could or should tve been done when presid trump realized the coronavirus was much more serious an he publicly acknowledged. the president ys he was trying to avoid creating a panic at the time. william brangham explores some of those questions now. >> reporter: "the washington post" yesterday revealed that, for his new bo, bob woodward interviewed president trump multiple times. on february 7, this is what president trump said to woodward about the novel coronavirus: >> you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. and so that's a very tricky ones th very delicate one. it's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus. this is more deadly, this is 5%,

versus 1%, this is deadly stuff. >> reporter: but at that time-- in public-- the president was describing the gravity of the situation differently.ys three ater, the president said this: >> looks like by april, you know, in theory,hen it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. >> reporter: two weeks after the woodward call, there was thisas rance: >> we have it very much under control. >> reporter: the nexh, he was implying in a tweet that the virus.s much worse than the e, on the phone with fox news-- as the u.s. saw roughly 20,000 new cases eve-- he said this: >> it's fading awafa it's going t away. >> reporter: joining me now to wade through the president's response-- as well as ou broader national response-- is one of the reporrs who has helped explain this crisis as well as anyone i've read: ed yong of "the atlantic magazine." ed, very good to have you on thu'"newshour". heard the woodward tape where the president certainly of the coming pandemic, and

then, yet, we saw my examples of him both talking very differently about it in public, and some would argue acting vry differently in his role as chief executive. how do we measure the consequences of the president's actions? >> well, we've seen what happe when the person in charge of the country's response is not up tho task. you know, we've seen what happens when you put someone who lies consistently, who doesn't tiust exp, who chooses to feed his own ego rather than to look after the welfare o his citizens and, you know, it's not good. trump isot, by far, the only reason why america has failed so badly to control covid 19, but he is central to e country's failure. his repeated attempts to downplwh e pandemich

we've heard now in statrk deail have lured much of the country into a false sense of security. i've argued in my latest pieceou america's pandemic spiral, that a disaster of this magnitudwas always going to be difficult for us to get our heads around. it was going to be -- >> regardless of who is in charge. >> that's right, regardless of who is in che, it would be too se dublghtive to return normal and grasp the size and scope of the problem. but when the person in chargis actively telling citizens everythi is fine, it's going to go away, when he'stboog this tendency to succumb to magical thinking or silver bullets, then things get problematic and he's contributed to this fraying of theat nional understanding of this crisis. >> in that most recent pece in the atlantic that you mentied, you also point the finger at our

national citizens' response more broadly. you write, the untry has consistent thought about the pandemic in the same unproductive ways. give me some examples of that. what do you mean by that? >> so, for example, we've bounced from oneolution to another without really understanding th to control a pandemic you need a lot of different solutions. to our attention flips from social distancing to mas to treatments to, you know, coming up soo vaccine. we need all of these things. we need to do testing, contact tracing, masks, we need to put all these measures together, but we so only focus on one thing at a time, that's one issue. we tend to focused on blaming individualsraer than fixing broken systems. it's very easy to poi a finger at someone who is having a party or someone nring a mask correctly than it is to look at

l the oken institutions, the incarceration state, nursi homes, healthcarinns substitution, all else that's jeopardized the country's health. the country has a ten gdency too for moralism instead of putting in structures to alleow thm to make better choices. >> reporter: devils advocate. we are in an eenormous country, different educaon levels, institutions, this is a tough, big nation to govern. the things you're talking about, i'm curiousle what you would see as a possiblremedy for that, ich i would agree that larger societal problem. how do we remedy that? >> so i think that's why clear from leaders is so important. you know, these instincts i've talked about in my recent piece, these intuitions that lead us astray are pretty universals.

i've made tem, yoe probably made them, our viewers are probably making them now. i'm not judging people for them but we can try and reist them. it helps if leaders show a way out, ife thy provide clear communication, and this is absolutely opposite of what has actually happened, as we've hed from woodward's tapes. trump and many of his associates have, instead, exacerbated these bad intuitions by feeding people lies, misinformation, a false sense osecurity, this longing desire to return to nomal. you know, rather than counteracting thoncse ins sed showing a country out, they deepened and wod every faulty intuition that we would naturay succumb to. >> reporter: amidst all this, is there anything you look at coming forward in the winter or perhaps a vaccine of this coming flu season that gives you hope?

>> i think one to have the bestn is that, in the northeast, a lot of places that were hit originally very hard by the pandemic have actually managed to hold th line, capped cases and summer and tht'she spring encouraging to me for the fall and winter. in general, americans hav tually done a lot. they've taken to things like masks which were unfamilia social distancing, andheve donet that in the face of bad l communicatioes, poor leadership from the federal governmenthe now, maybecan hold that for the long term. i worry that people will ge have the unaccept become the acceptable. >> reporter: ed yong, read alls magazine.""the atlantic thank you so much for being here. >> thanks for having me.

>> woodruff: for many americans facing addiction the pandemic has made life increasingly difficult. across theountry, overdoses have soared, with more than 40 opioid-related mortality this year. but covid is also changing how addiction medicine can be provided. and some experts are saying itd co a silver lining in a devastating public health crisis.st hanie sy has our report. >> how are you, josh? >> so, josh, tell me: are your cravings under control, are there mes when it gets erwhelming? >> reporter: but virtual appointmentsike these only became possible after the

the drug enforcement adinistration said it would temporarily relax rles. >> do i send your medicine directly to your house? >> yes. okay, all right. practitioners like dr. lloydl now have thebility to prescribe medications via telehealth or over the phone even to new patients. >> i was extremelyl rateat that was available. >> reporter: last month, lloyd prescribed 40-year-old john wickerson s suboxone over the phone while he was in an emergency room suffering from severe withdrawal. he has been in recovery from an opioid addiction since surgery. without suboxe, he said he would take any opioid he would get his hands on. the medication helps block his cravings. >> i have been a much better husband and father. i feel like my old self again. >> it's been the biggest game

chger i'vead in my time in addiction medicine. >> reporter: lloyd is the o former he tennessee's department of substance abuse seices and serves as a chief medical officer in 23 treatment facilities in tennessee, kentucky and florida. he spoke to me via sktype side nashville recently. do you think the opioid crisis, alre pandemic before the -- epidemic before the pandemic, is going to get worse because more people wil turn to drugs? >> it's already gotten worse. patients in their home get to sy environment. i've seen them go from nicets apartmo hotel rooms to now the back seats of cars, and i see it every single day. and i see it every single day.er our se right here where i am is up about 20% with fatal and non-fatal erdoses. loyd says telehealth and the relaxation of federal rules on

prescribing medications to counter addiction could not come people have for getting treatment an outpatient basis for opioid disorder, numr one, transportation. two, fear of coming into an environment where you could be expo cd to theovid virus. medication, all ri to get your so what telehealth has done is it's allowed us to meet people where they are. >> reporte while the national institutes health say there's awabundant evidence opioids could give relief, most don't receive them. most counties don't have a licedred provider for g the efficacy for which dr. lloyd is lloyd describes his own downward spiral into addiction. >> there's a saying in recovery circles is >> there's a saying in recovery circles that one is too many, a thousand is not enough. and that pretty much sums it up. >> early in his career he was

driving home feeling stressed and foundeft over hydrocodone he broke one in behalf andntist. swallowed it. >> but the time i got home suddenly swallowed it. >> by the time i got home, suddenly my life was better. suddenly, this pain that i was dragging around with me and the anxiety and all the things tt i was worried about just kind of melted away. >> reporter: within a few weeks he was hooked. and the next four years he says became a constant pill chase. have enough to get through this day? where am i going titt? next?" but i couldn't quit because every time i didn't have the pill i got sick and it's all i thought about. p >> lloke pocketed extra pills from his own patients. >> my use accelerated so much and then it becaromes to find 100 vicodin a day even for me. >> reporter: by 2004, lloyd says he was >> reporter: by 2004 loyd says he was no nger able to conceal his addiction from his family, and his dad confronted him. >> he said, "steve," he said, "you have a drug problem."

"i said "yeah, daddy, i d i said, "i don't know what i'm going to do." i said, "i'm going to lose my wifelogo my house. i'a lose my medical license. we'll lose everything i worked myhole life for." and he said, he said, "steve, none of that stuff's gonna do you any good if you're dead." at that point, lloyd said he finally had the wilhito beas addiction but it wasn't enough. he needed nine injections of biewp morphine. >> the megdicines people fighting channels >> medication holds cravings at bay. and it gives people a fighting chance because people relapse because of cravings. reporter: it sounds lik telehealth has really lowered the barriers for a lot of folks to get treatment, specifically medication assistance for opioid addiction. why were those barriers so high to begin with? >> a lot of folks look at medication as a crutch. oh, you're switching one drug for other. and it perplexes me, because we don't have problems treatingr otings that are largely behavioral with medication. and the example i always use is type 2 diabetes. type 2 diabetes is largelyor beha.

don't eat right. don't exercise enough yet. we treat iwith medication all the time to quell the >> that was embarrassing. i felt disgusting. nicole hernandez is one of dr. lloyd's patience, inm recovery f prescription opioid addiction that began in 2008 after a near fatal car lshe initially used power opioids to manage pain from her multiplenjuries. at the worst point of this, how many pills did you need to take to dull thpain and to feel like you were addressing that issue? >> well, it depends on which pill, but the strongest ones, i don't know, like 20. >> reporter: like many others who suffer addiction, hernandez calls being someone she couldn't recognize. she forged prescriptions and ended up in jal. only then realizing the hold the d ugs had on her. >> towards the your pregnancy, you didn't get cravings more in the third

trimeser? hernandez is prescrid suboxone which helps lessen her continuous pain without the feeling of addiction and withdrawal. the virtual appointments kept her from having to visit the clinic. >> it'been awesome. i never had to leave my baby's side. >> reporte lloyd said since telehealth became an option, tients rates for showing u for foul blowup appointments, a key to recy,ovoubled. tbut telehealth is not a silver bullet. >> there are drawbacks to it. for the person who tends to isolate, becau the opposite addiction is not recovery, it's one of the things that this relationship.om us is that >> reporter: it's why lloyd also fought to keep the treatment facilities he helps oversee in three states open during the pandemic. as chief medical officer, dr. lloyd institud ahost of

safety protocols including testing his own staff, isolating any positive cases in frequent temperature checks. >> we're more crucial now than we've ever been. the folks suffering from addiction are more marginalized than they've ever been andb we have t there with meaningful treatment that can help them to the best of our ability as our worlds get turned upside town. >> reporter: even with tpae emic turning the world upside down, dr. lloyd has been able to expand his reach because to have the relaxed telehealth rules which he now says should be made permanent. for the "pbs newshour," i'm stephanie sy. >> woodruff: jane fondllis a ood icon, with her academy-award winning acting

career spanning decades. she is also famous for her political activism. she describes her passion andts protdvocating for climate change in her new book, "what can i do? from my path from climate despair to action." jane fonda, thank youch for talking with us. it's good to see you again. at the end of last year, youre itting in at the capitol, you had been arrested four times you said you had to puter hing on the line and you're still at it. >> we're still facing a dire ituation. the tists tell us we have till 2030 to cut our fossil fuel emissions in half, and it's going to take an unprecedented effort by unprecedented numbers of people prepared commit civil diso bones. that's why i did five row fridays, why i'm still doing them and wrote this book. this aswers a lot ofestions and tells people what they can

do. >.>> woodruff: what's the main thing you want to get across? 's the story of your protests and these engagement. what do you want people to tak away? >> i want them to understand, a, it's a dire situation we'rewe facing, anave little time left to really do what's needed, what the scientists tell us we have to do the reason we have so little time is because the fossil fuel industry lied to us 40-plus years ago. they knew what they were doing. the scientisttold them they were causing glarng and it -- global warming and it wod be catastrophic for the world. they did itli anyway and to us and tried to make us doubt the science. as a result, the window has shrunk in which we can do something. so the book shows us what we can do from both individual actions but most importantly group actions, getting together with a movement with lar numbers of people and acting in concert to rce the government to do what's needed.

first of all, vote. all the way through the book, it talks pout the imortance of voting. but not to have it end with the vote.th we have to roll up our sleeves and force the government to do what's needed. it's very praufical. >> woo since you started d is, pretty big things happened, first remost the ndemic. how has that affected your ability to get your message across? >> we were worried, of course, with the terrible things that have happened to people in the united states and in the worldav because tothe covid pandemic. we took our fire drillridays virtually. i may b be 82,ut boy do i know how to do a zoom meeting. we had 750,000 people following us across all platforms last friday. that's amazing. tens of thousands of people areo signing up volunteer, writing letters, making calls to electel offi getting people to vote, especially going in to --

virtually goininto latino communities, making sure people vo and that they understand the importance of the climate. what they chose u is, in spite of everything, people are still really ccerned about the climate and are using this time when they're sheltering in place to do something about it and sign up to volunteer. >> woodruff: it's been a pandemic and also, of course, jane fonda, there has been the "black lives matter" movemmt which has over to life. people mching, taking to the reets, pushing for racial justice. do you find it's just harder to get people's attention, that there's less a bandwidth for environmental change when there's so much else going on that people are concerned about? >> actually, no. i don't knowf people are familiar with the project one climd communications. it does amazing research. one of the things it hawns sho it is apparently black people

care more about the climate than white people do and, of all people, latinx's are concerned about the climate crisis. the fossil fuel industry has for decades put their drilling and fracking and ininerating and refineries in communities of color and low ince and indigenous communities under the assumption that these people lack power a won't be able to do anything about it. so people of color have real been impacted by the fossil fuel industry. >> woodruff: you've talked about the importance of voting. i look back at our interview last november and you say no matter who we elect, no mtter how progressive they are, it it won't work unoless weld their feet to the fire. does it make that muchce differho's elected in november? president trump is saying, after all, he's the best environmentan

pressince teddy roosevelt. >> wouldn't we all rather push a centrist than have to fight a fascist? trump has been trouble for the environment, rolling back all the environmental regulations improving clean air awater at a time like this. he's drilldrill, drill. he's in the pocket to have the fossil fuel companies. he's the opposite ofpp environmentalist. joe biden can be persuaded and pressured. he's already moved very far in the last yea so we have to get him elected and holdhis feet to the fire, as i said a yeaago. >> woodruff: you acknowledge joe biden has not emraced the green new deal, which is something you advocate. so you're saying you think he can be persuaded? >> i do. i think so. if there's enough of us ou there doing the persuading. again, the pject on climate

and communication says we only need 2.5% of people to win new policies, that's 11.5 million people in the united states. we can rouse 11.5 people to pressure the biden administration to do what's i think we can wi. they are already, according to the project at yale, 13 million people who are ready to engag in civuil disobedienceno one's asked them. there's a great unasked out ouere and it'r job to ask them and organize anild mobe them to do what's necessary. >> woodruff: one last thing that has to do with the other part of your life, acting. you are about to shoot the final there was -- we heard this week from the academy of moturion piarts and sciences that they have a new standard they'rs going to imin coming years requiring more diversity and clusion both on camera and off, this is for shootin movies.do you think this is goio

make a difference and do you think hollywood is doing enough in that regard? >> well, this is a big deal, ifp it hns. i have not read the details of it yet. i mean, obviously, the devil's in the dels. "mad menwell, there just were not a lot of people ofolor in those offices back in those days. so you have to be honest to the peri that you're filming. but i like thedea that rules are put in place at require companies to hire with more diversity in mind. i think oat's really god, but i don't know the details yet. en't just happened and i hav read yet. >> woodruff: jane fonda. the book is "what can i do? my path from climate despair to action." so good to have you witveus. thank yo much. >> good to see you again, judy. thanks. she just keeps on going.d and

thank you, jane fonda. that is the "newshour" for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. and that's the newshour for tonigh i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you. pleasetay safe and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> architect, beekerperce >> consumeular. >> bnsf railway. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide.

>> the alfred p. sloan foundation. driven by the promise of great ideas. >> and with the ongoinsupport of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made fossible by the corporatio public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org e,

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