captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, january 23: the biden administration focuses on its agenda. wuhan marks its one-year anniversary after lockdown, as global efforts to ramp up vaccinations hit some roadblocks. and, remembering talk show host larry king. 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. the cheryl and philip milstein family. barbara hope zuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine foundation. 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.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercellular.tv. additional support 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. >> sreenivasan: good evening, and thank you for joining us. president joe biden began his first weekend in office meeting with advisors as his administration sets its agenda. mr. biden was at the white house with a closed meeting on his schedule but no public events. yesterday, mr. biden pressed for more economic aid the coronavirus pandemic continues

to claim lives across the country. calling the situation a national emergency, the president signed more executive orders yesterday that focused on food aid, increased access to government assistance and a fifteen dollar minimum wage for federal workers and contractors. tomorrow, brian deese, the director of the white house national economic council, plans to meet privately with a bipartisan group of senators to discuss the administration's proposal for $1.9 trillion in new covid economic relief spending. today marks the one-year anniversary of the lodown of wuhan, the chinese city which had the first outbreak of covid-19. the city's 11 million people were locked down for 76 days. a year later, people are out of their homes and mostly back to normal there. >> ( translated ): i feel like things are pretty good now. wuhan doesn't have this disease now, and lives of wuhan people are back to normal. we just need to take precautions and increase our awareness to do so. >> sreenivasan: the number of new covid-19 cases in mainland

china has stayed in the low hundreds for the past several months, but recent outbreaks near beijing have sparked concerns ahead of the chinese lunar new year, when billions of trips are normally made. meanwhile, hong kong is struggling with a new outbreak recording more than 4,300 cases in the past two months. hong kong officials imposed a 48-hour lockdown until more testing can be done to try and contain the virus. in the u.s., covid-19 cases have been on a decline from e peak of early january. according to the "new york times" there were almost 192,000 new cases reported yesterday. more than 19 million americans have received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine, and the c.d.c. reported 1.6 million shots we given yesterday, the largest single day amount so far. >> sreenivasan: for more on the distribution of covid-19 vaccines and the confusion surrounding the state and local vaccination process, i spoke with caroline chen, who covers public health for propublica.

caroline, when we see numbers across the states right now, there's a massive gap between the number of vaccines that states have and the number of vaccines people have in them. why is this happening? >> so, it is a rapidly evolving situation. i think the pace of administration is rapiy rising. and what we are hearing from a lot of states right now is that they're running out of vaccine. so, that is changing. i definitely think that there are still doses on shelves. that is a problem. the question is, where are they? and one of the big issues that i think that we've had throughout this vaccine rollout is just a la of transparency and a lack of visibility. there's lack of ability for both the federal level and the state level to just know where everything is. and even when i talk to state officials, they don't have that clarity. and that's a huge problem. >> sreenivasan: so what is the federal government's role in

this? how do they figure out what state is going to have how many vaccines on what day? >> operation warp speed under the trump administration had done allocations by per capita basis, 18 and up. and it remains to be seen what the biden administration is going to do. but we just reported at propublica that operation warp speed was operating on this week by week basis and just operating on a week by week basis for a national vaccination campaign is so hard because you have no forward planning capability. and then that rolls down to the hospitals and vaccination sites where they're sitting around saying, well, what am i going to get this week? >> sreenivasan: so it was the government's rationale then that i just want to speak for vaccines that exist versus projecting things that might not exist because we still are dependent on the manufacturers not having any problems. >> if we look back, for example, to h1n1 and that vaccination campaign, a big problem there

was over-promising a supply. i can imagine that they did not want to have a similar situation where they said, we promise you that you're going to have x amount every week, and then the inability to deliver would have looked really bad. so, you know, this is really a tricky thing to do right. you both need to give states planning abilities and of course, you don't want to over- promise at the same time. >> sreenivasan: now, in all of the moves that president biden has initiated in the first couple of days he's been in office, there has been talk about the defense production act. can the administration call up one of these manufacturers and say stop producing some of your other medicines, produce more of this vaccine? >> i have not heard that they're planning to use the d.p.a. with asking the manufacturers to sort of stop production of other items because the factories are quite specialized for the type of vaccines that they're going to make. so you can't turn over sort of a pill stamping factory for an m.r.n.a. and a vaccine overnight

necessarily. on paper, both moderna and pfizer have been contracted to produce 100 million doses each by the end of the first quarter. so that's you know, if they deliver, it is quite a lot of doses. and then we probably have johnson and johnson's vaccine coming along as well, which would give us a significant number of doses. so i think the first priority for the biden campaign is actually more on the logistics side. while, of course, we would all love to have more supply, a lot of the logistical ends, the last mile, are still a big problem right now. >> sreenivasan: another concern that people have right now is with all of the news of different variants of the virus, there's one in l.a., there's one in the bay area, there's one in the u.k., and of course, south africa. this is causing concern for everyone. is the shot that i'm lining up to get, is that going to protect me? >> so, so far, we have no reason to believe that the vaccines are not going to be efficacious against the different variants that we're seeing.

epidemiologists, some of them have argued that if we have limited contact tracing resources, which we absolutely do right now in the us, that they should prioritize any cases that are the u.k. variant. we have found a few in the country. so we should prioritize those cases because they will spread faster. and then, of course, there is now more than ever the argument that you should not be a case, any type of case. viruses just mutate. that's what they do. and every time they mutate, which means you're a case, you're giving it a chance to mutate, you're giving it more chances to mutate away from the type of coronavirus that we know that the vaccine works against. so our job as individuals is to not be a case. if you're worried about variants, that's your job. don't be a case. don't give it a chance to mutate. >> sreenivasan: all right. caroline chen of propublica, thks so much. >> thanks so much for having me. >> sreenivasan: braving bitter cold and, at times, brutal

resistance, scores of russians took to the streets throughout the country today to protest the detention of russian dissident aleksei navalny. from the far-eastern siberian city of vladivook to its capital moscow, demonstrators clashed with heavily-armored forces through the day. navalny, is considered to be russian president vladimr putin's primary political rival. he was detained upon returning to russia last week from germany where he recovered from being poisoned last summer. security forces detained thousands of demonstrators who are calling for navalny's release, including his wife yuilia as well as other opposition leaders. >> sreenivasan: newshour weekend special correspondent ryan chilcote has more on today's protests and the growing popularity of mr. navalny. >> reporter: alexenavalny appears to be increasingly popular. when navalny arrived from germany a little over a week ago, his team released a video in which he alleged that president putin has a palace that is value a billion dollars that was built on

bribes. now, the kremlin has denied this allegation, but this video has been watched by more than 71 million people. i profiled him twice first in 2011, when he was basically an activist invesr investigating corruption in state companies, and then again in 2017, when he was trying to run for president, he was actually barred from being on the ballot then. now, where does this go? well, mr. navalny is well known, but perhaps not universally loved. and in fact, one pollster says nevertheless, he can discredit the kremlin with his allegations of corruption, his movement that he's begun. and so it is likely that these protests will continue because it's likely that alexei navalny will remain in jail. and here's the key thing to keep in mind. in september, russia is going to have a very important parliamentary election for the state duma. there is a school of thought that if the kremlin was to, they will keep him in jail until at least after that election in september, and perhaps for years and years beyond that, simply to solve this political problem. >> sreenivasan: larry king,

whose broadcast interviews with world leaders, movie stars and more made news for more than a half-century, died today. his production company tweeted this morning that king died at cedars-sinai medical center in los angeles, but did not say what caused his death. born lawrence harvey zeiger in 1933, king was the son of jewish immigrants from eastern europe who ran a bar and grill in brooklyn. a radio station manager asked him to change his name early in his career and king went on to become a nationally syndicated radio host, and then a nightly tv host on cnn from 1985 through 2010. he reportedly conducted close to 50,000 on-air interviews that included mega-celebrities, world leaders and newsmakers. a three-packs-a-day cigarette habit led to a heart attack and quintuple-bypass surgery in 1987 followed by many other medical issues. he continued on the air at cnn for 25 years, retiring in 2010 but then returning with an online talk show, tv specials and a vibrant twitter feed.

earlier this month, a spokesperson said ng was hospitalized with covid-19. larry king was 87 years old. to read more on covid-19 vaccination efforts and the latest national and international news, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: this week, the n.a.a.c.p. legal defense and educational fund launched the marshal-motley scholars program. it's a pipeline project that hopes to get prospective civil rights attorneys from law school to the courtroom, and a $40 million anonymous donation is making it possible. newshour weekend's ivette feliciano recently spoke with the l.d.f.'s associate director- counsel, janai nelson, about the scholarship program. >> reporter: so, janai, the marshall-motley scholars program has been described as a comprehensive lawyer development program that leaves nothing up to chance. what does that mean? >> that means we've taken care of tuition, wee taken care of incidentals. we are providing summer

internship opportunities. we are providing a postgraduate two-year fellowship. and then, we also plan to support these participants in their journey of becoming civil rights lawyers over the course of the following eight years as they build a law practice in the south. >> reporter: named after thurgood marshall, the first black supreme court justice, and constance baker motley, the nation's first black woman to serve as a federal judge, the program hopes to support 50 civil rights lawyers over the next 20 years. >> so, when we consider the amount of student debt that african american students in particular hold, that was a significant reason for us to make this investment and think about how we can ensure that these students are not burdened or-- or diverted from the path of civil rights work because of that debt. important to launch this program right now? >> well, for a number of reasons.

i think, you know, we're coming out of a very traumatic period for our democracy. i think we've seen in very stark terms what happens when we aren't truthful about our history, when we aren't truthful with ourselves about the work that remains to be done to build our democracy, and when we aren't truthful about the ongoing harms of white supremacy and anti-black racism and racism writ large in our society. and the work of civil rights lawyers in the past four years has shown how integral they are to maintaining our democracy and ensuring that we fulfill our ideals as a constitutional democracy. so, this could not be more fitting in the moment. this was a program that was a long time in the making, but this particular moment really emphasizes why it's so incredibly necessary. >> reporter: and why focus on training civil rights lawyers to

serve in the southpefically? >> the south is-- is just on fire. so many people have identified the south as-- as a sleeping giant, and certainly the south that-- that is comprised of people of color in particular. we know that there-- that the majority of black people in this country live in the south. we know that latinx communities and asian communities are also growing in the south. and we also know the very fraught history of the south. and so, we want to ensure that as our population in the south continues to diversify, that we are able to meet the needs and demands of that new and diverse population with a cadre of civil rights lawyers who can ensure that there are protections and that there's fairness and equality for all. >> reporter: nelson anticipates these new lawyerwill focus on criminal justice, polici, and educational disparities, but she says ensuring voting rights is a

priority. >> we are concerned about the state of our democracy, the state of voting rights in thi country. you know, the supreme court said back in 1886 that the right to vote ipreservative of all rights, which means that without the right to vote, all of the rights that we enjoy are in jeopardy. and we want to make sure that the growing political power in this country, particularly of people of color, is-- is able to see change as a result of that growth; that power is actually actualized in a way that ensures that there's greater equality, that there is more opportunity, that there's less division and more inclusivity in our representative democracy. >> reporter: janai nelson, associate director-counsel of the n.a.a.c.p. legal defense and educational fund, thank you so much for joining us >> thank you so much for having me, ivette.

>> sreenivasan: it's been 19 years since the united states open a prison at the guantanamo bay navy base for war on terrorism detainees. the population, once close to 800 isoners, now stands at 40. most were held without a trial. six detainees have been cleared for release, but the office to relocate them was closed four years ago. the obama administration failed to close guantanamo. president joe biden's secretary of defense, general lloyd austin, said he will follow through on closing it, but there e still hurdles in the way. michel paradis is a leading human rights lawyer who has represented guantanamo detainees. he's also a scholar of national security law, and author of the book "last mission to tokyo." >> well, the trump >> sreenivasan: what's the hard cost of keeping that prison open? and also, i guess there's also a pretty significant soft cost. >> absolutely.

the hard cost, just in dollar terms, for detaining the detainees is $13 million a year, each. so, this is the most expensive gated community in the caribbean you've ever heard of. but the soft costs are astronomical. they are costs to our diplomatic credibility around the world. there are costs to our ability to cooperate with allies in war-fighting efforts. i think there's also a cost here at home. i don't think you can see children in cages on the southern border if we hadn't in some way or another created the legal and social infrastructure of seeing men in cages in guantanamo a few years before that. guantanamo is a place that, from its very inception, was designed to be a place where people were not people. and once you start creating a legal regime around the idea that there are people who have no rights at all, they are merely objects, it's very easy for that to spill over into all aspects of american society, whether or not it's the tactics used in policing, whether or not

it's the treatment of immigrants at the border or near the border, the treatment of refugees. very quickly, the law of guantanamo has become infected in a way, has infected the law of the united states. >> sreenivasan: is the very existence of this facility and the people that are in it an opportunity for our enemies to recruit against us? >> it's not just an opportunity, it's a primary recruiting tool. there is a long tradition going back to the 50s of radical muslim terrorists using the imprisoned, essentially political prisoners, as their primary recruiting tool. and guantanamo has been the most spectacular example of that around the world. there's a reason that isis put men in orangjumpsuits before burning them alive or beheading them because they were making it a moral equivalence to guantanamo. >> sreenivasan: so what is the solution, then? how should we be bringing people to justice? >> sure. so the easiest, most tried and true way to bring people to justice, such as the five men

charged for perpetrating the attacks of september 11, are the federal courts. you could do that very easily in federal courts. the federal courts have a sterling track record of not only convicting people in terrorism cases, but of giving them extremely stiff sentences. for the other detainees, the men who were brought there back in 2002, before the ipod-- not the iphone, but before the ipod was invented, are now old men. there is simply no rational security reason to hold the vast majority of the 40 men who are in guantanamo. >> sreenivasan: why is there any interest in this not being in the federal court system? >> certainly during the obama administration, there became this, i would call it, a faux machismo around the war on terrorism that you saw former president trump often play up, "the guantanamo-- we're going to fill it with bad dudes."

so i think that's a big part of it. politics has played a tremendous part in making guantanamo as dysfunctional as it is. you know, as we're conducting this interview, yesterday, as something of a parting shot, an outgoing trump official charged three more men in the military commissions in guantanamo. by all accounts and by all measures, only to complicate secretary austin's ability to make good on his promise to the congress that he was going to really make an initiative to close guantanamo. >> sreenivasan: so what happens to these three, i think it's indonesian men, that have been arged, or, they might go to trial now? >> i woul't put my money on it, to be perfectly candid. these men have been in guantanamo or at least in u.s. custody since, i think, 2003. but to give you a measure of how any trial might go, the 9/11 conspirators, the five 9/11 conspirators, have been facing trial since 2008. there's no trial date set yet. the only thing that has been unflaggingly true about the

military commissions is delay. one thing after another has made these sort of these trials into a waiting for godot experience there. the trials that everyone's waiting for but never come. and these three indonesians, they're going to be in some form of rope-a-dope trial process for the next decade. and i think it's really just a startling feature of guantanamo and the military commissions that wactually are having fairly realistic conversations about the 9/11 case not actually being resolved until the people who were not yet born on september 11th are approaching middle age. and it's a scar on our country that has yet to heal. and guantanamo is the primary reason that scar continues to fester. >> sreenivasan: michel paradis, as a senior attorney at the department of defense office of the chief defense counsel, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you so much for having me on. >> this is pbs newshour weekend,

saturday. >> sreenivasan: after months of shutdowns and restrictions during the covid-19 pandemic, some ski resorts are cautiously reopening in the u.s. and europe, but not in france. worried about outbreaks, french ski resorts can't use their chair lifts or open their chalets. but, the shutdowns are spurring demand for a much slower snow sport, snowshoeing, and one french company is stepping up production to meet the demand. the ski lifts are shut down, but there is plenty of snow, trails are open, and thousands of people in france are willing to walk where they once flew downhill. >> ( translated ): i really haven't used snowshoes a lot these past years. now, i'm getting back into it because, well, it's different. it's quite good for physical activity, it makes your body work, we warm up quickly compared to skiing, when we sometimes get a bit cold on the ski lifts. >> sreenivasan: the snowshoe company t.s.l., based in the

french alps, is producing its high-tech snowshoes at a record pace, and has a backlog of 40,000 pairs. >> ( translated ): for us, it is quite stressful, but it's a good stress. because we are crumbling under orders, we don't know how we will make it. it's rather a good stress. >> sreenivasan: for those wiling to carry snowboards or skis up hills, snow shoes are currently the only y to go in france. snowshoeing is so popular, ski resorts and their instructors are trying to keep up. >> ( translated ): we rent equipment at the ski resort, and we have a park of around 100 snowshoes, which usually is enough. but right now, on busy days, it is taken by storm, and at 9:00 a.m., or around 9:30 a.m., there is not a snowshoe left. >> sreenivasan: instructors have switched from teaching skiing to fitting the specialized footwear and guiding first-time snowshrs. an industry suffering big losses from covid-19, it's a small step toward recovery.

>> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. for the latest news updates visit www.pbs.org/nshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for 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 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 toy. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and 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. you're watching pbs.

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