captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, february 20: president biden declares a disaster in texas, as the state struggles to recover from the deadly winter storm. ( explosion ) and, in our signature series, "the longest war," what military withdrawal from afghanistan, means for stability in the region. 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. the peter g. peterson and joan

ganz cooney fund. 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 a 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 biden has approved a disaster declaration in texas, as the state continues to recover from winter storms that left millions without power, heat, and water earlier this

week. >> that's what we are boiling water in. >> sreenivasan: warmer temperatures across the region today are bringing some relief, but across tes more than 14 million people are still experiencing disruptions to water service, in the aftermath of the storms. in houston, lines for a city-run bottled water distribution site stretched blocks yesterday. today's federal disaster declaration will allow affected texans to apply for emergency grants for housing, and access low-cost loans to cover losses from the storm. mr. biden had already declared a state of emergency in texas, as well as in louisiana and oklahoma. across the region, at least 69 deaths are being blamed on the weather, including 11-year-old christian peneda pavon. a day after playing in e snow on monday, his family said he died in freezing temperatures in their powerless home north of houston. governor greg abbott said the disaster has been unlike any challenge texans have faced, and that making sure people have potable water is a priority.

>> restoring water to texans also means helping texans deal with what may be their largest challenge in the next week, and that is busted water pipes. >> sreenivasan: in houston, new york congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez visited the houston food bank today. it's one of the texas organizations she's helped raise more than $3 million to support since thursday. >> we need to rally fedal support for texans and the state of texas, and we need to make sure that we make short and long-term policy decisions so that this kind of devastation, preventable devastation, never happens again. >> sreenivasan: for re on community impact and response to thwinter storm, i spoke with texas u.s. representative colin allred from dallas. representative, you have been probably working the phones for the past few days. what are your constituents telling you? >> well, thank you for having me on to discuss what's happening here in texas. we've had a week straight out of the dark ages here with texans

burning anything they can to stay warm, for light, turning on gas stoves and gas oven tops and getting carbon monoxide poisoning. and now the power is back. but the biggest issue we're facing is food and water. these stores have been raided. the shelves are empty. there's no milk to find. and about half the state is under a boil water advisory. and many others have had their pipes burst. and so they don't have water pressure or any water in their homes. and so that's the biggest focus right now, is that even though the worst point of the crisis has passed, we still have a long tail to deal with here. >> sreenivasan: so you have water now. are you having to boil it? >> in parts of dallas, we're not under a boil water advisory right now. austin, houston, fort worth and other parts of texas are and i think it's about 14 million texans that are under a boil water notice. like i said, a lot of folks here in dallas, even if they're not

under a boil water notice, had their pipes burst because their homes were without power for 48 hours-plus in single digit temperatures, and their pipes have burst. and so they don't know where to go. and they've also they're also dealing with flooding in their homes. >> sreenivasan: the president just declared a federal disaster emergency declaration today. so what does that do? how does that help? >> well, it's going to activate some really important resources, and this is the part that i think we're going to have to be focused on for months now, and i know the focus on what happened here in texas will probably shift. but for those of us here on the ground, that's going to be months of getting folks the cost of what they've endured covered, getting them through this, discovering, unfortunately, that the's going to be many more deaths probably than we know about now. and so whether it's individual relief, which this declaration activates, or relief for our state and local government, that is going to be covering so many costs, which it also activates, or also just knowing that the

federal government is going be working with us hand in hand to address some of the surprises that we know will probably, unfortunately, comep. this is a really important thing, and i want to thank president biden for doing it. >> sreenivasan: you know, people have a tendency to imagine that it's folks that are stuck inside of homes. but there are other kinds of structures, shelters, that are also without power and suffering. what are some of the ones that you've been working with? >> well, we've had hospitals lose power. some of them were-- had boilers that went offline. others, of course, just had freezing issues and lost water, had frozen toilets in some hospitals, the inability to wash hands in hospitals. and of course, this is all happening during the pandemic in which these are critical things to be doing, and in which we still are having a lot of folks who have been hospitalized for that and have concerns around that. and so, this could not have come at a worse time for texas. of course,here's never a good time for something like this, but for it to happen during a pandemic for critical

infrastructure, things like hospitals to be affected, but also other things, like domestic violence shelters. we have one here in dallas that had their pipes burst, had to evacuate. the folks who were there, you know, are already dealing with so much in their lives, and they have to evacuate to undisclosed locations because in many times they're fearing for their own lives. so, it's caused enormous trouble here. >> sreenivasan: what kinds of legislative action could be necessary to prent this from happening again in texas. i mean, you had something similar happened about ten years ago and people figured, well, we've learned from that. we've made all the necessary precautions or we've tak them. but, that wasn't the case. >> no, it wasn't. the texas regulators did not take the advice that they were given ten years ago. and we had a similar colsnap come through texas. we had some blackouts, nothing like the scale that we're seeing now. and they were told that if you

don't weatherize, this could happen again. and they chose not to. they issued some recommendations, but not requirements. and that's something that, as we all know, in many cases, that's not going to be followed. and now, we have dozens of deaths. we've had millions of texans without power. as i sai we've had texans making just-- just incredible choices to try and protect their families, sleeping in tents on their living room floors, holding their babies as close to their chests as possible to keep them warm through a freezing night. i mean, it's just unimaginable, the pain that this is caused. and, you know, obviously, texas has its own grid, as some folks may know, wee not part of the national grid, and most of texas, we have a unique situation where you have both the supply and the demand in terms of power that we can create it and we have about 30 million people drawing on it. but if you're going to do that, you have to have redundancies in place. you have to weatherize. and we have wind power here that some of it did freeze. but that happens in iowa as well, where they have freezing temperatures and the wind still

works. we have natural gas lines. it froze, but that happens in alaska as well, where they use natural gas. but those lines don't freeze. this is preventable. >> sreenivasan: there are texans who are going to be faced with very high utility bills because the price in the market right now was very high when demand was high and supply was low. and that's just how pricing works. but if some of these same utilities were the ones that didn't take the right steps, didn't weatherize and it led to the blackouts anyway, is there any relief for a consumer? >> well, that's something that i actually have been speaking with my staff about and talking with some of my colleagues here in texas out, whether or not we can lead an effort, if not through legislation, which may come too late, at least through public pressure, to try and address this and to make sure that these energy companies know that we don want to see folks being bankrupted by trying to stay warm during a crisis like

this, and that particularly given the fact that so many of the energy generators were not prepared for this, saw their generation powers go offline because they did not weatherize, did not make the investments necessary to do that, that they should not then be profiting from what happened here. and so, there's going to have to be probably a multi-pronged approach to this. number one, seeing if there's legislation that can be passed to address going forward. but then looking back and trying to help folks in the moment, see if there's anything we can do and also maybe working with fema to see what aid can be provided individually and for folks who are facing large bills. because i've already heard from a number of my constituents online that this is something that they already know is coming. >> sreenivasan: representative colin allred, thanks so muc >> thank you so much. >> sreenivasan: for more on the weather aftermath in texas and the latest national and international news, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivan: new coronavirus infections and the rate of liv lost from the virus continue to fall in the united states. but the country is nearing

500,000 deaths since the pandemic began. according to the "new york times," there were at least 2,607 new coronavirus deaths and 77,556 new cases reported yesterday. over the past week, the average numberf ses per day, has decreased 45% from the average two weeks earlier. the centers for disease control and prevention reported that close to 4million people have received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine as of yesterday. president biden acknowledged that winter storms disrupted some vaccination centers during the past week on a visit to a pfizer manufacturing plant yesterday the white house said six million doses were delayed, but that the vaccines are safely refrigerated and won't spoil. countries are marking the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic. italy established a new day to honor doctors, nurses and other health care workers today, one year after the first known case of covid-19 was detected there.

a hospital in northern italy confirmed a 38-year-olman with no links to anyone who had been in china, had the virus on february 20 last year. the region went into a lockdown, the first outside china, as cases climbed rapidly. one year later, the lockdowns have ended but italy has lost at least 95,000 people to covid-19, the second-highest coronavirus toll in europe,fter britain. jailed russian opposition leader alexei navalny lost his appeals of two sentences today, and will remain in prison. navalny appeared in a moscow courtroom seekg to overturn charges of violating terms of his probation for earlier convictions. he said he was not hiding, and was recuperating in germany from a nerve agent poisoning that he blames on the kremlin. speaking befe the verdict, navalny said russians should fight because they are not free and because it is “a very unhappy count.” the court reduced his sentence by six weeks for time served under house arrt. he also lost an appeal in a secnd case crging him with libel.

navalny will now remain jailed for another 2.5 years. police opened fire and killed two protesters in the city of mandalay in myanmar today. the violence occurred as authorities continue to try to suppress growing opposition to the military coup that ousted democratically elected civilian leaders on february 1. hundreds of thousands of workers across the country have left their jobs to join the protests. according to witnesses, at least 40 people were wounded today and hundreds more arrested. yesterday, a 20-year-old protester died after being shot by police during protests on february 9 in the nation's capital. hundreds of protesters gathered outside thailand's parliament today after the prime minister and nine ministers survived a no-confidence motion. the pro-democracy demonstrators and opposition lawmakers pressed for the vote over what they say is slow roll out of coronavirus relief measures and government corruption. the prime minister, prayuth chan-ocha, is a former chief of the armed forces. he overthrew an elected prime minister in 2014, and stayed in office after a 2019 election

that his rivals say was flawed. naomi osaka captured her second australian open tennis title today in straight sets over u.s. player jennifer brady. the 6-4, 6-2 win became the fourth overall grand slam championship for japan's osaka, making her the first woman since monica seles, three decades ago, to win her first four major titles. it was the first grand slam final for brady, who called osaka “an inspiration.” a reduced number of fans were back to cheer the two players on after a previous covid-19 lockdown that barred spectators from attending the tournament at melbourne park. osaka moves up to number two in the rankgs, behind australia's ashleigh barty. >> sreenivasan: at least five people were killed in three separate bombings in kabul, afghanistan today. the blasts in the afghan capital were said to be caus by

magnetic mines placed under vehicles. a series of attacks in recent weeks have killed members of the security forces, judges, government officials and journalists. while no group has claimed responsibility, the blasts come as peace talks between the afghan government and the taliban remain stalled, and as western countries continue to draw down troops. >> sreenivasan: as we've been reporting, president joe biden's foreign policy agenda includes weighing the former administration's deal with the taliban to withdraw all u.s. troops from afghanistan by may 1 of this year. with th deadline looming, two decades of foreign support and teaching afghan forces to lead without military allies hgs in the balance. newshour weekend special correspondent jane ferguson and producer emy cassie have the final report in their series, "the longest war." >> reporter: afghanistan's security forces have faced vast challenges before... ( shouting ) ...but none quite like this. after two decades of partnership

with e u.s. and its nato allies, foreign forces are preparing to go home, leaving these men to fight the taliban alone. on a base just outside kabul, the troops and their commanders put on a brave face when talking to journalists. >> ( translated ): you will see that the foreign forces have no physical presence among our forces. the afghan national security forces are the ones taking the fight forward. yes, they advise, but there will be no major changes if they leave. >> reporter: in reality, even th the limited u. air and ground support they currently have, thtaliban is stronger than it has ever been inhis two decades-long war. they continue to bolster their positions around cities. reassuring the local population that these soldiers are in control is increasingly tough to do. as the taliban strengthen their stranglehold on urban centers in afghaan, trying to keep these major roads open is a challenge for the afghan forces; trying to secure the capital,

even more important. the february 2020 deal president trump's administration signed with the taliban says all foreign forces will leave afghanistan by may 1. in return, the group were to promise to prevent afghanistan becoming a staging ground for terror groups attacking the u.s., and engage in peace negotiations with the afghan government. those peace talks have stalled, and as the deadline to leave looms, violenages across the country. the new biden white house, inheriting both the deal and its deadline, has hinted at delaying that exit date. at an annual summit of defense ministers this week, nato secretary general jens stoltenberg told the newshour they haven't given the taliban a free ride. >> the promise to leave ghanistan is conditions-based. our presence in afghanistans conditions-based, and taliban has to meet their commitments. we will only leave when the time is right.

i think the main issue is that the taliban has to reduce violence, taliban has to negotiate in good faith, and taliban has to break all ties, has to stop supporting international terrorist groups like al qaeda. >> reporter: ultimately, nato troops will follow whatever decision the ite house makes. >> as you know, we went into afghanistan together-- nato allies, partners, and the united states-- after 9/11. we have made decisions on adjusting our presence together, and we will also make the decision when the time is right to leave together. >> reporter: the biden administration has yet to decide how to make peace with the taliban but keep fighting al qaeda. >> i think there's not a lot of enthusiasm for continuing to keep u.s. forces in afghanistan, but there are a few factors and dynamics that pull towards

maintaining troops and not pulling forces out of afghanistan. >> reporter: laurel miller is a former special representative to afghanistan and pakistan for the ate department. >> one is what biden himself has said as a candidate and previously, which is that there are still concerns about terrorism risks emanating from afghanistan directed at the united states. and he has spoken about keeping some american forces in afghanistan for purposes of counterterrorism. >> reporter: while it's possible to get an extension of a few months from the group, she argues, it's hard to imagine the taliban allowing any u.s. troops to stay permanently, no matter how few. >> it's not realistic. ultimately, there's a choice that has to be made. the taliban's number one objective these-- lo, these last two decades has been the removal of foreign forces from afghanistan, all foreign forces from afghanistan. they are not going to do a 180-

turn and reverse on that number one objective. and so, i see no possibility that the u.s. could negotiate with the taliban, maintaining some even relatively small number of forces in the country. >> reporter: getting them to break entirely with al qaeda has proven impossible so far. even the wording of the deal doesn't ask the taliban to renounce the group, instead promising they won't allow them to use afghanistan to launch attacks on america. although al qaeda has been massively weakened since the u.s.-led invasion, the united nations believes there are still between 200 and 500 al qaeda fighters in the country. and, a report released earlier this month by their sanctions monitoring team stated: "member states report little evidence of significant changes in relations between al qaeda and the taliban. al qaeda assesses that its future in afghanistan depends upon its close ties to the taliban, as well as the success of taliban military operations in the country." >> if they declare that they are no longer-- that they break with

al qaeda, they open themselves up to attack by other groups, and it suggests they have sold out. so, it's not really an option for them. >> reporter: jessica donati is a "wall street journal" reporter, former kabul bureau chief and author of "eagle down," examining the u.s.' reliance on special forces in afghanistan in recent years. she says separating the fight with the taliban from the fight with al qaeda, or pure counter- terrorism, has been a challenge for years. >> "counterrrorism" has always been this sort of catch-all phrase to describe what u.s. troops are doing there. in the past, it's meant a broad range of things depending on what the s. posture is. so, when the u.s. has been a little bit more strict on what they've been doing, it's perhaps limited to strikes on targets and even, you know, taliban targets that have links to al qaeda. when the definition has been more broad, you've seen counter- terrorism missions get approved to help the afghans, for example, retake control of major

cities or district centers; because the argument is if the taliban regain control of a major area, then al qaeda have a chance to regain a foothold there and then threaten the u.s. so, there's been a really broad years, and it's beenver the deliberately vague because the u.s. does not like talking about the war in afghanistan at the moment. >> reporter: in a situation where there are zero u.s. forces on the ground in afghanistan, as soon ain a few months, counterterrorism would become logistically more difficult to do. sending special forces and intelligence personnel in for specific operations would rely on having partners on the ground they could depend on. >> if you have a situation where the u.s. has left, the afghan government has splintered, and you have different forces loyal to one commander or another, it's going to be very difficult for the u.s. to send in people to help. if you have a situation where everything is fractured and it's a horrible civil war, people are going to be more focused on

getting rid of their rival than helping the u.s. take out one taliban-- or one al qaeda or isis commander. >> reporter: succs in the peace negotiations between the taliban and the afghan government will be remarkably difficult to pull off. instead, a deepened, bloody civil war looms as a more likely outcome when the u.s. troops leave. fighting al qaeda is one thing, but precipitating the potential fall othe afghan government is a serious risk for ben. >> to actually be the president on whose watch a worsening of the civil war, degradation of rights for afghan women and others occurs, is a political risk to take. and i think if the u.s. did pull out completely, you would see a rapid unravelling of the current political order, and the security situation would worsen in afghanistan.

and that's a tough thing to see happen on your watch. it could make what is not now much of a political issue at all a political issue that you have to deal with. >> reporter: away from the politics, the afghan security forces continue to try to hold the line, unsure as to how much supporthey will have in the coming months. america's war here is winding down while theirs continues. >> sreenivasan: finally, tonight, you might not know his name, but you will recognize his most famous sculpture. arturo di modica, who created wall street's charging bull sculpture, died at his home in vittoria, italy yesterday. he was 80 years old. the artist lived and worked in that wasn't his intent. he told an italian newspaper he conceived it as “joke, a provocation.” in 2017, a wall street firm

installed a second atue of a young girl staring down the bull, designed to call attention to the lack of gender diversity on corporate boards and the pay gap of women working in financiaservices. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. for the latest news updates, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for 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.

the peter g. peterson and joan ganz cooney fund. 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 youake the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. additial 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. >> [ crowd cheering ]

>> ♪♪ >> this piano is not sustaining. i'm nothing without a good sustain. >> you're nothing if you've got a good sustain. >> stand by your weapons. >> [ playing "you should be dancing" ] >> ♪ my baby moves at midnight