captioning sponsored by wnet >> hill: on this edition for imturday, december 26: a us standoff as benefits for millions of americans are set to expire; the latest on the explosion in nashville; and in our series "roads to recovery," we take you to bridgeport, connecticut, where landlords and renters try to navigate eviction moratoriums. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denise schwartz. pthe cheryl and philstein family.

barbara hopeuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine foundation. charles rosenblum. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our u.s.ased customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercellular.tv. additional sport has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> hill: good evening, and thank you for joining us. the standoff between congress

and the president continues today over the $900 billion covid-19 stimulus bill president tasrump still has not signef late is afternoon. without the new legislation, extend federal unemployment benefits will expire today for a americans.d 12 million uraer the stimulus bill, fe unemployment benefits of b00 a week wouextended until mid-march. a moratorium on ections during the pandemic will also expire in less than a week if the president does not sign the stimulus bill. >> it really is a disgrace. >> hill: the day after congress passed the bill, mr. trump asked lawmakerto amend it, calling for an increase in direct stimulus payments to taxpayers and rejecting foreign aid and other spending as "wasteful." from his mar-a-lago resort in florida this morning, he tweeted that he still wants "to get our great people $2,000 rather than

the measly $600 that is now in the bill" and "stop the billions dollars in 'pork.'" in a statement today, president- elect joe biden called the bil"" critical" and said the present's refusal to sign it is an "abdication of responsibility with devastatinge consequ" mr. biden also said it was "a first step and a down paymen more action that we'll need to taky e ea the new yeato revive the economy and contain the pandemic." thele president also pointed out that without the president's signare or additional stop-ga legislation by lawmakers, fun government will end monday, leaving many government workers without paychecks. law enforcement authorities in nashville, tennessee, told the associated press this afternoon that they have identified personf interest in yesterday's explosion. local and federal agents are

fromll the downtown nash explosion christmas morning. at an early afternoon news conference today, law enforcement officials did not interest.spects or people of >> at this point, we don't have any indication that we are looking for another subject. but, again, there's 500 leads 're running through, so there's all sort of individuals we're looking for. >> hill: police emergency communications across tennessee and kentucky remain out of service because of the proximity of an at&t facility to the explosion and a fire that restarted last night. the blast damaged at least 41 builings. today, tennessee governor bill lee asked the white house for a disaster declaration to help withhe recovery. law enforcement officials say the bl oast, whiginated in an recreational vehicle parked on theee s was intentional. three people were hurt and are being treated at local hospitails. in addon, police said they found tissue at the scene that

could be human remains. the f.b.i. is ligding the inveion with the a.t.f. and shville metro police. as people around the world gather to celebrate chrtmas this weekend, the coronavirus continues to cast a shadow. the number of people hospitalized for covid-19 in the u.s. remains near record high levels, includingn california. the state is the first to pass two million confirmed coronavirus cases, and the surge is putting re pressure on hospitals in parts of the state. in los angeles count which is home to ten million people, record numbers of covi19 patients are hospitalized and in intensive care. l.a. county is also among those testing to see if a new strain of coronavirus, which was found spreading in england, is here in the u.s. starting monday, the centers for disease control and prevention will require people traveling from the u.k. to the u.s. to st negative for the viru

within three days of their trip. the u.s. is now one of more than a dozen countries to place restrictions on travers from the u.k. ree new strain seems to spread asily but is not believed to be more dangerous, and health vaccines will likely workoped here in the u.s., more than 1.1 million people have already rtten a covid-19 vaccine shot, and more doses aling out around the world. getting their firsments oftarted the pfizer-biontech vaccine today, part of a coordinated effort across the 27-nation bloc. the first shots were given in hungary and geany, which started a day before many other e.u. countries. in this first wave, eachountry is receiving about 10,000 doses, with masvaccination efforts expected to begin across the bloc next month. the united kingdom and

european union made public the details of the trade deal that negotiators agreed to this past week. the two sides were reviewing the more than 1,240-page agreement yesterday. the deal comes just days before britain leaves the e.u. completely in what is known as brexit. if the british and e.u. parliaments approve the massive document, britain will be ab to continue to trade with the 27 european union nations without tariffs or quotas. but questions remain about security cooperation and access to the e.u. market for britain's financial services sector. for the latest national and international news, visit www,pbs.org/newshour. >> hill: as vaccines slowly start to roll out and 2020 finally comes to a close, there are glimmers of hope that the tucovid-19 pandemic may evly end. but with months inead and lingsocial, economic and

public health dama w, pbs newshokend is starting a series focusing on one place-- i fairfield counsoutheast connecticut-- and how it makes back from the depths of this pandemic. we're calling it "roads to recove," and here's christopher booker with an introduction. ♪ >> reporter: to hold a mirror to fairfield county in nnecticut is to see america's pandemic in its reflection. nestled in the southwest corner of the state, its proximity and connections to new york city, whether through roadways or e public transportation, m early surge of the coronavirus inevitable. after a spike in april and a quieter summer, cases today, like in most of the united states, have risen this winter. in all, this county of 945,000 people has had more than 51,000 infections and 1,600 deaths.as he year ends, fairfield remains, like so much of the country, locked in a loop of

uncertainty. but that uncertainty, and the long recovery ahead, is intertwined with the very same inequalities that the pandemic managed to exploit, from the risproportiote fatality rate for mies to the record financial ins for the already oralthy. even bthe pandemic, fairfield was one of the most untrequal counties in the coy with financial service hubs in ritzy new york subikesions in greenwich. fairfield county, the top 1% earn me than 62 times the bottom 99%. and fairfield unty also includes bridgeport, connecticut's largest and poorest city. even before the covid pandemic, this cit which sits right on the long island sound, h a poverty rate of just over 20%. with such uneven footing, what does recovery look like in fairfield? and will ameca's reflection look as it did before the pandemic? >> hill: the $900 billion covid-19 relief ckage that passed the house and senate this

week remains in limbo after president trump refused to sign the bill on tuesday. that bill includes a major boost for renters: $25 billion in rental assistance and the extension of a federal eviction moratorium. with the fate of that assistance up in the year, the first installment of our "roads to recovery" series focuses on renters and landlords in fairfield county, connecticut; and how, since the pandemic started, they've navigated a patchwork of eviction moratoriums and limited financial support. newshour weekends christopher booker begins our sen bridgeport. o reporter: like tens of millioother americans, paul hernandez's life was turned upside down th the arrival of covid-19 in march. he had worked at a nearby staples for six years, but the pandemic meant hernandez was suddenly out of work. >> you know, i took the unemoyment, then in july they recalled us back. and i couldn't go back becse i

have a problem with my hip. i needed, you kn, two hip replacements, and my hips are real bad, you know. then, i started suffering from depression. >> reporter: unable to go back to work, hernandez lost his unemployment and felsevera months behind on his $735 a month re. >> and i was worried about losing my place. you know, where was i going to go, you know? was i going to have to go to a homeless shelter? >> reporter: nine months into thpandemic, it'story housing advocates in connecticut know aoo well. >> people just have noere to go, and we're hearing... we're >> reporter: dorisatorre is the deputy director of building neighborhoods together, or b.n.t., a non-profit that has worked to help people like hernandez. she says the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has put pressure on a housings system that waready under strain. in fairfield county, more than half of renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing. eople are paying way more

than what they can afford. and ther it's so easy for them to fall behind when they hove just one month or a couple of weeks w getting paid. they just don't have the resources in the savings to be able to carry through, you know... through a crisis. it's just not there. >> reporter: but there is some rental assistance available. in jy, the state launched th temporary rental housing assistance program-- or trhap, for shor using $40 million of federal money primarily from the cares act passed in rch, it provides up to $4,000 in assistance to low-income renters. tenants have to show tre impacted by covid-19, and, if approved, the payment goes directly to the la. but it turns out that distributing $40 million of rental relief in a pandemic is not an easy task. by september, the state had only fully processed two applicants. seila mosquera bruno is connecticut's housing commissioner. >> at the beginning was a little slow because people isoing to learn the ocess and trying to expedite.

now, they're basically just collecting the information and sending that to us. so, the amount of contracts that we get, they have increased about 50%. >> reporter: is ere any precedent for connecticut hg ousing hav build such a robust program like this in such time? >no. we didn't have any program, so we basically built it from... from scratch. >> reporter: this is where latorre and groups like b.n.t. come in. >> there last call who are bringing us cuments. >> reporter: b.n.t. is one of 11 non.rofits administering tra latorre is managing her team remotely, chard with getting papeork from tenants and landlords for nearly 800 applications, many of whom may have littlmore than a cell phone. without action from congress, connecticut only has uil cember 30 to spend most of the funds. >> we find that a lot of people that we call,"hey, you know, we sent an email on this date, an we haven't heard from you. u not... you know, are y not need any more?"

they're like, "no, my god, i deerately need the mreey! and whatou talking about, an email? i didn't see it." and then, we're getting a lot of calls from landlords. they themselves are behind on their mortgage because the tenantt is ying the rent. so, you know, they are going themselves through the process of trying to get caught up in the mortgage and really desperately need this money. >> reporter: as of this week, connecticut has processed nearly 5,900 applications, providing about $17 million of the $40 milln currently available in aid. with administrative delays and a limited funds for rental assistance programs, the biggest backstop for renters here are eviction moratoriums. in connecticut, there are two-- one from the centers for disease other from the state, which will run until at least early febr nry 9. >> rig, it's our best bet to keep everyone where they arei we are at the end of this public health crisis. >> reporter: rashida rattray is education and outreach cooonrdinator for thecticut fair housing center, a non-profit advocacy group. >> i think it's very unfair to

put a time limit on covid. we h.tried that clearly in ma we thought two monts., three mon it's december, so realistically speaking, this mo torium needs be extended till the end of the epidemic, till e end of the ublic health crisis. >> reporter: what was your orsponse to the announcement that there was aorium on evictions? >> i thought that it was a very, very bad situation. i reaislly have thought that was not the answer from the beginning. properties around connecticut,13 including in fairfield county. he's also on the board of the greater bridgeport property owners' association. >> we as landlords are not unsympathetic to the plight of everyone that's, you know, facing this right now. and, in fact, we just really wish that government who's, like, forced this upon us... i mean, this is... this is something like why should this particular industry be stuck th all of this financial burden? >> reporter: he says while propert ay owners still expected to pay their property taxes, utilities, and mortgages,

some renters are exploiting the moratorium. >> well, i think that tre are sompeople out there that are tenants that are taking advantage of this and not worrying about... that they may owe this... they may owe the landlord down the road. they'll take the chance and roll theno dice and, you maybe try to skip out or... or be able to a void paymeever. >> reporter: housing advocate rashida rattray pointshat tenants in connecticut are still being evicted. s50ince march, more than eviction cases have been filed, fairfield county who had recently tested positive for the c.d.c. moratorium can only be used as a defense after a landlord has started an eviction in court. and the state's moratorium has several a tenant is six months or more behind on rent or if a landlord wants to use the house as their primary dwelling, wch is what the owner here wanted to do. but there is at least one point of ntreement between te

advocates like rattray and landlords like adam bonf. rental assistance programs like trhap are not closing the gap. has enough?p program been >> honestly, no. systemic issues with the trhap program from its genesis. evn with the initial roll-out of the program, the document cess was cumbersome. there was not much outreach with regards to the trhap program, so a lot of people didn't know that it existed. >> reporter: is the thrap program that connecticut has offered, is that enough? >> i think absolutely not. it's a drop in the bucket compared to the losses that the >> reporter: landlords in connecticut are not alone. without additional federal aomssitance, ects with moody's analytics estimate that byanuaryenters will be behind by about $70 billion. and the losses go well beyond market-rate buildings. the very groups advocating for thhousing are also feelin pain. >> normally, we have 5%-8% of

our tenants overall whore delinquent or late on rent, in arrearages. it's five times tt now. >> reporter: noah gotbaum is the executive director of b.n.t. in bridgeport. in addition to being one of the non-profits administerino trhap, it's a affordable housing developer. in all, b.n.t. has about 400 units of affordable housing, and gotbaum says organizations like his could go bankrupt without the financial assistance from programs like thrap. we lose 15%-20% of our rents, which is what's happening now, we can't keep lights on. we can't provide utilities. we can't do the cleaning. we can't repair the les in the roofs. we can't provide the housing that we provide. >> reporter: back in bridgeport, paul hernandez is safe for at least a few more months. he applied for trhap, and the prograpaid his landlord $4,000, enough to cover the back rent he owednd most of his

total for january and february. after that, the 57-year-old is counting on receiving disability sefrom sociarity insurance, or s.s.i. he applied this fall his doctor told him that given the hip condition and issues with hr heart, he should no lon work. >> right now, i'm on borrowed timeyou know. i mean, the program helped me for a bit, but... >> reporter: what are you going to do if the s.s.i. does not >> i mean, i d't really know, you know. i'll cross that brt ge when i there. >> hill: as 2020 drawso a close, we wanted to give our producers and reporters here at newshour weekend a chance to reflect on some of the segments they worked on this season. hari sreenivasan spoke with newshour weekend's yvete feliciano on how she's been

navigating the news in this unconventional year. >> sreenivasan: ivette, you would often be traveling around the ountry, maybe be around the world, doing stories. how was this shift in covering the news? >> well, i've been in the field a couple times since the start of the pandemic, but mainly i've been prucing pieces from my living room. and that has been one of the biggest adjustments. so, it's been a process in rethteking how to ll these storieacs, how to quire the footage and the visual elementsn thatd to tell a story. >> sreenivasan: has it been smooth sailing doing all this >> ( laughsving room? it definitely hasn't been smooth sailing. here in new york city, you know, ere will be times where i'm doing an interview or trying to record my voice for a piece, and my heating pipes will start ganking, or the sirens wi off, or my dog will start

barking, or my interviewee will have their, you know, toddler run through the shot. >> sreenivasan: what are some stories that come to mind? >> well, especially from t beginning of the pandemic. i do a lot of criminal justice reporting, and, you know, when quarantine first started, a lot o are publicts, defenders in new york, were messaging me and telling me how they were very worried about their clients who were being detained insidnew york city jails. >> this is a public health concern. the point is to get people who are going to get sick and die of rikers as soon as possible. >> staff attorneys working at new york's legal aid society in rnbrooklyn say they're con for the health and safety of their clients after hearing stories about what is happening inside the city's detention centers. anyone.can't get away from people are housed down with their beds. a hundred in a dorm. people are coughing. you can't get away. there's no soap. it's like a itrror movie. -- it's terrifying. peope already testedthan 200

positive for the coronavirus at efacilirk city's detention another piece fr that time was a piece about a datroupe. it's called "the dance cartel." they were using zoom to create online "social dis-dance" parties. thprocess for partygoers i simple: log-into the zoom meeting where the party is held; set up your camera shot using your computer or phone; finally, log onto another web site called mixlr. a dj set there, created especiallyor the event, is broadcast live. and then, get to dancing! ♪ you know, it's just really interesting to see how people were using the technology not justedor conversation with lov ones, but also to share art, to share music. and that, i think, has been a big theme of 2020. >> sreenivasan: another way was through the number ofograms

interviews that you were producing and part of. will any of those stand out? >> i think the conversations that really stick out for me are the ones that i had with activists who were organizing all over the country and all over the world around a range of... of issues-- climate justice, voting rights, lgbtqgh ri, immigrant rights-- during quarantine, when it's not as easy to be out there in the instreets getheir message out and when a lot of the media's focus was on the pandemic. and obviously, thisummer, the killing of george floyd was a-- aip really hugeng point that led to widespread protests and conversations around anti-black state violence in this country. and one conversation that sticks with imara jones.t i had she is a soros equality fellow and the creator of transsh media. and she was talking about the

importance of centering black trans women in these conversations around violee against black people in america. >> for instance, last summer, we had a spate of violence against black trans women wherin many ways the rage that's being felt and shown on the streets is-- is what i felt for my community. and yet, we... there was not this response, and there's never and this lack of equanimity means thathere's not sustained pressure on the systems that oppress us, that we value certain lives more in the community than others. and as long as that's the case, it's very hard to make progress. >> violence against trans women isents with racial justice in a really interesting way. binut she was highlighow that iss often gets overlooked eonven withinrsations around the movement for black lives. > sreenivasan: all right ivette feliciano, thanks so much and happy holidays. >> ppy holidays to you, har

>> hill: final tonight, a >> hill: that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. visit www.pbs.org/newshour. and for those celebrating, happy kwanzaa, which begins today and lasts through january 1. i'm michael hill. thanksor watching. stay healthy and have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. barbara hope zuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine

foundation. charles rosenblu we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. tual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and by: or and by the corporation public broadcasting, a private co oamerican people. the and by contributionss o your pbation from viewers like you. thank you. you're watching pbs.

christina: i am a storyteller. if something really touches me, i have to process it my pieces, they're not pristine. oops. but i feel like that's my energy in there. it's part of what makes my work me. george: as i make the work, i embed it with the story that i want to tell. the story that i'm creating is between the viewer with the story and the sculpture.ell. it really is this narrative that they create. i want to keep playing with different expressions,ur differenes. like most things, it's ongoing. nicholas: we come from oral history. our histories were shared orally and passed on, and they continually are still. coloaization kept us in cors and boxes. an "indian" petroglyph.