♪ judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight -- pres. biden: this historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone judy: of this country. judy:law of the land, one year after the coronavirus was declared, a global pandemic. checks are arriving for some americans as early as this weekend. then, debating the details would we get perspectives on the massive aid package from senate republican leader mitch mcconnell and democratic senator chris coons. and, fallout. japan reflects on the fukushima disaster and the questions that

remain. >> the government still has not decommissioned the nuclear power plant, yet they claim everything is ok and we can return here. what if another disaster strikes? judy: all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> before we talk about your investments, what is new? >> audrey is expecting. >> twins. >> we could be closer to the twins. >> change in plans. >> at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. >> consumer cellular, johnson & johnson. bnsf railway, the kendeda fund,

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vanessa: good evening, i am filling in for stephanie sy. we will be back to the regular show. one year ago today the world health organization declared covid-19 a global pandemic, upending life as we knew it. the last 12 months have been marked by unimaginable loss, topp with 530,000 deaths in the u.s. alone. that is one death every minute since the pandemic again. the economic toll has been immense this week congress passed a one point nine dollars trillion covert relief bill with only democratic support -- $1.9 trillion covid relief bill with only democratic support. president biden outlined his plans to normalcy the summer. at one point, president biden making a direct plea to the american people, sayg, the

only way to emerge from this is to work together. pres. biden: i promise i will do everything in my power, i will not relent until we beat this virus, but i need you, the american people. i need every american to do their part. i need you to get vaccinated when is -- when it is your turn. and to help your family, your frnds, neighbors, get vaccinated as well. here is the point. if we do all this, if we do our part, if we do this together, by july 4, there is a good chance you, your family and friends, can get together and have a cookout or barbecue and celebrate independence day. vanessa: yamiche alcindor watched the speech. president biden outlined his

covert response plan on multiple levels. what did he say? yamiche: he made big announcements today, saying he sees a way forward through this vaccine. he said first, moving the country normal to -- closer to a normal path by july 4. he wants people to gather in small groups, though there will not be big concerts. he is directing all states, through federal authority, to make all adults eligible for the vaccine by may 1. he will deploy troops to support the vaccination efforts. he said a new website will help americans navigate getting an appointment to get a vaccine, which has been an issue. vanessa: current polling is showing many americans are supporting with the president is pushing forward, correct? yamiche: that is correct. president biden is, according to the latest poll, 62% of

americans approve of his handling of the pandemic. that is higher approval then former president trump ever saw. the highest he ever got was 44%. the president was calling out hate crimes against asian americans. he said he wants to be more empathetic and we cannot scapegoat certain americans. vanessa: despite the polling numbers, there are still people hesitant to get the vaccine. yamiche: that is right. president biden, even though he said these vaccines are safe, listen to dr. fauci. in the same poll we found a 30% of americans say even if it was available to them, they would choose not to take it. 25% of black americans said that and 49% of republican men. but many will te the vaccine. still the majority want to embrace the vaccine.

vanessa: it was interesting to watch the president making that direct plea. one of the steps he says is making sure you and your loved ones get the vaccine. what do the schedules for the president and vice president look like after tonight? yamiche: the president was talking about the $1.9 trillion relief package, telling americans it is a big victory. he will go on a tour of the country, a we will get through this tour, saying white house officials are going to different states. the first lady will be in burlington, new jersey on monday. the second gentleman will be in las vegas. on tuesday, the president will be in pennsylvania. on wednesday, the second gentleman will be in albuquerque, new mexico. friday, president biden and vice president harris will be in

atlanta, georgia. the president saying, the most american thing we can do is get through this. you will hear this over and over, detailing what this bill will do for everyday americans. vanessa: thank you, we shall wait and see what happens. president aydin making a direct and emotional plea to the american people -- president biden making a direct and emotional plea to the american people. ♪ judy: we want to delve into the new covid relief law. we get two views, starting with the senate's top republican, senate mitch mcconnell of kentucky. thank you very much for joining us. e bill president biden signed today, you have said it's the worst piece of legislation you have seen pass in your time in

the senate. and yet, it helps working-class americans. there is support in its for the unemployed, there is support for health-care workers and schools. the polls are showing 70% of americans like it. why are they wrong? sen. mcconnell: i am not surprised at the american public's initial reaction to this, before they know what's in it, would be positive. the thought of many americans getting a $1,400 check, why would they not like that? but let's look at the history of the pandemic, which really started about a year ago. we passed five bills last year, judy, five of them, the biggest one being the c.a.r.e.s. act, on a bipartisan basis. not a single one of them got more than eight votes in opposition. we just two months ago passed one of those five, $900 billion. it's not even out the door yet, and yet the new administration

wants to go back as if nothing has happened in the last year, and do another bill that the president will sign today, the size of the bill we did a year ago, at the height of the epidemic. so, i understand why the american people's initial response to this is positive. what they do not know is how much of the bill has nothing to do with the pandemic. less than 1% of it deals with vaccinations. only 9% of it deals with health care. all the rest of it is unrelated to the problem it's designed to address. judy: senator, the administration has been candid to say the bill is about the economy. they point out tens of millions of americans are still unemployed. they say this bill would take 13 million americans, lift them out of perty, reduce child poverty in half. are you saying you oppose those things?

sen. mcconnell: what i'm saying is, the economy is about to come roaring back. what the administration is trying to do here, judy, is to get in front of the parade, so they can take credit for what's already happening, based upon what we have already done. the economy is going to have a fabulous year. it has nothing to do with this massive democratic wish list of items that their various constituencies warrant. judy: the administration, senator, says they are aware of projections about the economy, but believe these are necessary to help people most in need in this country. when it comes to the debt, we know you mentioned future generations paying for this. under president trump, the debt was something like eight dollars trillion, -- $8 trillion,

almost. you're not saying that is something that's only ok under a republican president, are you? sen. mcconnell: i am not saying that. i'm saying last year it was justified, based upon the pandemic. otherwise, it wouldn't have been passed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis. what they're trying to do this year, it's noteworthy, received not a single republican vote in the house or senate. you have to ask yourself why. thisear is not last year. the economy is on the way back. this will be a great year for the american people. new jobs will lift people out of poverty. it did not fit the condition we find ourselves in, in march of 2021, which is not the condition we found ourselves in, in march of 2020. judy: senator, another piece of legislation, important piece of legislation heading towards the senate has to do with election reform, with creating a national standard for voting.

the advocates, people who are for this, say it was necessitated i what state legislatures are dealing to restrict voting in a way that would primarily affect voters of color. at this point, what is your view of this? sen. mcconnell: it is another bill that passed with not a single republican vote. the reason for it is, even though it's styled as somewhat related to what they call voter suppression, what i read the states are doing is restoring some of the voting practices that existed before the pandemic, in other words, simply eliminating some of the emergency provisions that were there during the pandemic. this is an outrageous one-party takeover of the way we conduct elections in this country. there will be overwhelming total

, republican opposition to it in the senate, just like there was in the house. judy: senator, just quickly, that raises the question of the senate rule known as the filibuster. it is something that you changed the rule around in 2017 when it came to the supreme court confirmation for neil gorsuch. democrats may try to do the same thing in the weeks and months to come. sen. mcconnell: a totally different issue. the senate has two calendars, the executive calendar, nominations, the house is not in the personnel business, and of legislative calendar. the executive calendar, for most of the history of the country, was operated as a simple majority. then the democrats started filibustering nominations, which was never done before. we did go back and forth on that over the last 20 years but now , we're back to where we were at the beginning of bush 43's administration, the executive calendar done with a simple majority.

that has not been the case for legislation. the legislative filibuster has been there for a very long time. our democratic friends in the minority last year used it frequently to stop things that we might have wanted to do. now they are threatening to blow the place up and turn the senate into the house, so that they can get their way, with presumably 50 democrats voting yes and the vice president being in the chair. there is considerable reluctance on the other side to do that because people remember when they were in the minority and what the senate filibuster does is one of two things -- either really bad ideas don't pass at all, or you sit down and reach a bipartisan agreement. that's why senator manchin and senator sinema have said under no circumstances will they participate in turning the senate into the house. judy: senator, one final quick question. that is, in our w poll with marist and npr, it turns out that republican men and people

who supported former president trump remain the most against getting a covid vaccine. what would be your message to them? sen. mcconnell: with regard to the vaccine, as soon as i was eligible, i took it. i have encouraged everybody in my state to take it. this shouldn't be a partisan issue, either mask-wearing or getting the vaccination. getting the vaccination is important. i would encourage everyone to do that, without exception. they are proven, safe, and necessary, if we are going to get this pandemic in the rearview mirror. judy: senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, thank you very much. we appreciate it. yamiche: thank you, judy. judy: and for a democrat's view now, senator chris coons of delaware joins me. senator, welcome back to the "newshour." i don't know if you were able to hear, but the minority leader

was just making the case that the covid relief bill signed today by president biden is squandering money, that five bills passed last year, that there's $900 billion in the pipeline, in essence, that this is way more than what's needed sen. coons: i'd encourage anybody who's interested in that debate to go and ask the american people. this bill is overwhelmingly popular. it has the support of more than 70% of the american people and the majority of republicans. not in the capitol, not in the senate, but a majority of republican voters around the country recognize that the pandemic and the recession are continuing to harm american families. so, sending $1,400 checks out to something like 100 million americans, funding a continued expansion of our vaccination program that has already under president biden put shots in arms of a quarter of all americans, safely reopening schools, getting kids back to school, while vaccinating teachers and paraprofessionals,

and providing another round of unemployment insurance support and investment in small businesses to keep them afloat or help them reopen, with a particular focus on restaurants, that's some of the many good things in this bill. it is popular. our president has led us to this point, and i think it will lead to a song recovery cong out of the pandemic later this year. judy: senator, the minority leader also makes the point, he says, that this comes at the wrong time to be spending all this money, because he says the forecasts are that the economy is just about to come roaring back. in other words, this is going to happen on its own and congress didn't need to do this. sen. coons: well, judy that was exactly the same argument that the minority leader was making six months ago. there was a determined bipartisan effort by a group of senators to finally force that last bill, the $900 billion, that we passed and that

president trump signed, right at the end of december. this has been a long, hard slog. as president biden will make clear in his first national address after his inauguration later this evening, he has been relentlessly focused on helping us recover from this pandemic. the pandemic was far worse than it ever needed to be, and the recession caused by it far more painful than it ever needed to be, but president biden is doing a strong job leading us out of it. i think saying the american people should simply wait around and hope that our economy is going to recover, that we're going to come out of this pandemic, without making more bold, necessary investments in our schools and hospitals and businesses and families, is just the wrong thing at this time. i was proud to vote for this bill and i think it is essential for us, moving forward. judy: senator, we heard president biden say, on a number of occasions, he hoped there would be bipartisan support for this legislation, but not a single republican is voting for

it. how discouraging is that for the president? you know him very well. sen. coons: well, judy, joe biden is someone who didn't just run for office on bringing us together as a country and on working across the aisle with republicans in congress. it is part of who he is. it is part of how he served as a senator for delaware for 36 years. it's part of what delaware asks of its elected leaders. i know that joe biden will continue trying to work across the aisle, reaching out his hand. thvery first meeting that he hosted in the ovalffice with members of the senate was with 10 republicans. two of the younger republicans, newer in their service in the senate, said to me afterwards they were impressed and surprised at how well he knew the numbers, how well he knew their proposal. it was supposed to be in our -- an hour meeting and the president himself extended it to

a second hour. even during the week of the impeachment trial, president biden had over a bipartisan group of four senators to talk about one of our future priorities, infrastructure, and how we can make progress on that. it's part of who joe biden has always been, and it's part of how he hopes to bring us together. but, frankly, the fact that this bill is so supported by the american people on a strong bipartisan basis, i think, shows that he is making progress on things that are a priority for the american people, even if, on this first big bill, he wasn't able to get any republicans to come across the aisle and join him in the capitol. judy: senator, finally, very quickly, because i know you talk to republicans probably more than most other democrats do, do you get the sense that there will be republican support for the infrastructure bill or for the bill with regard to racial justice coming along? i literally had a conversation on the floor of the senate this afternoon on one of the most senior and central republicans for infrastructure, who wa asking me whether i think there

will be time for us to work together on some bipartisan initiatives around infrastructure. i'm optimistic there will be. i spoke with another republican last night about a bipartisan effort that senator schumer is leading to pull together a bill to confront china and to make our country more competitive, investing in manufacturing and in research and in onshoring supply cins. there's a number of initiatives, judy, where i think it is possible for us to make progress on a bipartisan basis, and i'm going to be engaged in those. it is what joe biden wants it's , what the american people expect. and i think it is what will make us stronger on the world stage, if we're able to move forward with bipartisan legislation across a wide range of areas. judy: senator chris coons of delaware, we thank you. sen. coons: thank you, judy. ♪

>> in the day's other news, the u.s. house of representatives opened a drive for the first major gun control measures in 20 years. democrats passed bills calling for background checks on all gun sales and an expanded ten-day review preiod. -- period. similar bills died when republicans had control, but they will hold votes. >> hr8 will be on the floor of the senate and we will see where everybody stands. no more hopes and prayers, thoughts and prayers. a vote is what we need, a vote, not thoughts and prayers. >> the senate is split 50-50 between the two parties and the gun control bills would need 60 votes to pass. the people of japan marked 100 years since the nuclear meltdown

in fukushima. the country fell silent, marking the moment the earthquake struck, and honoring more than 20,000 people who died. we will look at what has happened since, later in the program. in myanmar activists a 12 more protesters against the military coup were shot dead today. six died, with people crouched in the street, and they ran as security forces opened fire. killings were reported in four other cities. china's legislature endorses a move to tighten control over hong kong again. the measure let's the central government name more of the lawmakers. the vote was 2895-0. leaders insisted it is in the best interests of all concerned. >> the session made the decision to improve the election, which is greatly supported by all the

delegates. this illustrates the firm determination of the people, including those of hong kong, to safeguard security and constitutional order. >> beijing has steadily reined in hong kong's freedoms. the heir to the british throne, prince william, denied today that the royals harbor racist views. he answered a shouted question at a public event and said, quote, "we are very much not a racist family." back in this country, the former police officer accused in george floyd's death is charged with third-degree murder again. a judge reinstated the charge against derek chauvin. that is in addition to second-degree murder and manslaughter. the ruling came as jury selection continued. new york's democratic governor cuomo is facing pressure to

resign over alleged sexual misconduct. a bipartisan majority of lawmakers called for cuomo to quit after an aide reportedly accused him of groping her. bill de blasio joined in on the demand. >> the latest report, and the fact we can talk about how many people are bringing forward acquisition -- accusations. it is not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,. it is six women that have come forward. it is deeply troubling, disgusting to me. he can no longer serve as governor. >> cuomo denied the claims and refused to step down. the speaker of the state assembly authorized an impeachment investigation into the governor. mississippi's republican governor signed a ban on transgender athletes joining female sports teams. the bill takes effect july 1. more than 20 states are considering similar legislation.

in economic news, more claims for unemployment benefits fell to 712,000 last week, in a sign layoffs are easing. that boosted wall street. the dow jones gained 188 points to close at a new record, 32,485. the nasdaq jumped nearly 330 points, two point 5%. the s&p 500 added 40 for another record close. still to calm, the many ways american life has changed over the past 12 months. japan reflects on the fukushima disaster on its 10th anniversary, and much more. >> this is the pbs newshour from weta studios in washington and in the west at our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state

university. judy: as we mentioned earlier, one year ago today the covid-19 outbreak has been declared a pandemic. this was the week last year when shutdowns rapidly escalated. large public gatherings began coming to an end, and the country faced the prospect of a very different time ahead. amna nawaz is here with personal recollections of how life in the u.s. was transformed and the challenges of this past year. >> covid-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. amna: in the year since that ominous announcement, on march 11 of 2020, life in america has changed drastically. the u.s. has seen more than 525,000 deaths from covid-19 and upwards of 29 million confirmed cases. there have been lockdowns, school closures, an economic collapse. inequality has gotten worse. our hospitals have been

overwhelmed. it has been a year of pain, disruption and incredible stress. >> thank you for making the time. it is a lot to cover. amna: in recent weeks, we have spoken to more than a dozen americans, a front-line nurse, a single mother, a public health official, and many more who were sick, or even lost someone to coronavirus. they shared with us their memories and their stories of pandemic life over the last 12 months. when do you remember everything kind of changing in the pandemic for you is there a day? ,>> yes, absolutely. march 12, 2020. i will never forget that day. i am at work. i had a little bit of a cough. i am messing with other supervisors. my gosh, what if i have covid? i was joking about this. i had had a very strange sensation when i was going to sleep. it was so bad i felt like my lungs locked up. i came off the bed and was on my

hands and knees on the floor holding onto my bed, just trying , to regain my breath. that scared me. at that point, that's when i said, ok, you know what, i don't know what this is, but i got to go. the 16th of march was when i drove myself to the hospital. they checked everything. they said, we need to admit you right away, like right now, because not only do you have covid, but you actually have severe pneumonia, and it's killing you. >> there was one particular day where it was towards the end of the day, after doing a 12-hour shift. and because of the volume, we had to open up yet another intensive care unit. and after climbing the stairs to the sixth floor, my legs just could not go anymore. and i came home, did not remember the drive. i know that i was in my house, and i was afraid to close my eyes that night. i did not want to die alone in

my house. that is what i kept saying, because i live ane. i said please, god, don't let me , die alone here. >> on the day my father passed away, that day marked the 300,000th american death from covid, but it was also the first day that a covid vaccine was administered here in the united states. my siblings and i, we remember that moment very well, seeing the image of her receiving the vaccine, and then, on the banner it saying that the u.s. was on target of reaching the 300,000th death that day. perhaps my father was the 300,000th death that day. but it was just such a momentous day and certainly darker for some people. >> her life was cut short at 28. i said adeline, mom's here. open , your eyes. i said, do you know who i am?

she said, yes. then her eyes would go down. i had to ask her a number of times to open her eyes. it was extremely difficult to read she was trying hard to do that. i knew my husband wanted to see her as well. i did not want to utilize all the time by me just staying in there. before we left i said, adeline, can you open your eyes and give me a kiss? she leaned forward and she gave me a kiss on the mouth. i had this feeling, this awful feeling that i would never do this again. >> i have an uncle who passed away from covid. he showed up to the emergency department and was really sick, and they didn't test him for covid. thinking about how that has actually affected my family, and the fact that i, even as a physician, have to worry that my family is not going to get the best care, is just so upsetting,

because, who knows -- if my uncle had been tested when he first came to the emergency department if he would have survived? the thing that i worry about a lot with my black patients, with my with my latinx patients, with my poor patients is, do they have that same security when their family members go into the medical system? i don't think they do. >> covid doesn't affect everyone the same. i am angry at the people who just don't care. they don't care about other people, who are insensitive about people. it doesn't matter that my parents were ill, that they had issues. we are still human. we still have a life to live. this should not have happened. my parents should not of been victims of covid. >> the single most frustrating thing about this pandemic has been the level to which it has been politicized. this is unlike anything we have ever seen before. having to really justify the science behind public health's recommendations over and over

and over to really smart elected officials because they were hearing from the community that, oh, i can't wear a mask, i can't breathe when i have a mask on, which we all know is not true, that was so frustrating for us to have to do that. really, it was just another example of politicians kind of co-opting the public health response to this pandemic. >> i think the thing that i anticipated the least, actually, was just how we would normalize all the death, how we would normalize, like, all the kids, stuck at home and essential workers going into these work laces over and over. that it could get so bad and seems so normal. that sense of like everything falling apart at every level all around you, and yet you have to live, you have to survive, you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and the normalcy of the weirdness

was the thing that, without living through it, i don't think i could have ever understood. judy: just heartbreaking to hear all of this. it has been a year that has touched all of us and we are so grateful to be able to reflect on it. and you can hear much more of these stories and others on our podcast with amna, "america, interrupted: the longest year." and you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ judy: now to japan and another solemn anniversary. it has been a decade since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit off japan, triggering a tsunami. waves crashed ashore at more than 500 miles per hour, killing thousands and setting off a nuclear disaster in fukushima. nick schifrin will look at that nuclear explosion and fallout in

a moment. but, first, special correspondent grace lee reports that those events are still fresh in the minds of the japanese as they prepare for the next quake. reporter: this is what coming home looks like 10 years on from the great east japan earthquake. hisae unuma remembers being evacuated from her fukushima home when disaster struck on march 11, 2011. >> i'm almost 70 years old now. i don't think it's possible for me to rebuild my life here. reporter: a magnitude9.1 earthquake, followed by a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown. more than 20,000 people were killed or reported missing. hundreds of thousands more lost their homes. to this day, parts of several towns near the nuclear plant remain uninhabitable. the meltdown caused radioactive damage, second only to the chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster.

>> the government still hasn't decommissioned the nuclear power plant, and yet they claim everything's ok, and tell us we can return here. what if another disaster strikes? reporter: that disaster may not be far off in the future for the most populous city on earth just 160 miles away. tokyo is due for an earthquake of the century. >> it could happen at any moment. but there is about a 70 % possibility of it happening in the next 30 years. the government is preparing on the premise it will happen. reporter: tokyo's metropolitan government calls it tokyo x-day. a comic on its web site illustrates a magnitude-7 earthquake hitting the city, and ends with a bleak message: it's not if, but when. >> we are yet to have a clear plan for that specific situation.

reporter: maki saito is a disaster risk reduction adviser at japan platform, a nonprofit that specializes in emergency aid. when the earthquake hit fukushima 10 years ago, the organization dispatched a team there within three hours. >> we are still dealing with the aftermath of that earthquake. we estimate the region will need our help for the next 30 years. reporter: if an earthquake like this were to strike tokyo, a government estimate predicts the death toll could go as high as 230,000. a sobering warning came just four weeks ago, when another 7.1-magnitude quake shook fukushima. >> if a tsunami were to hit tokyo, the damage would be quite serious, since the city is on low ound. but the tall buildings will allow people to evacuate. reporter: preparations to minimize damages in the event of a disaster are underway. tokyo's buildings are famously shake-proof, and 3,000

evacuation sites are sprinkled across the city. the government also holds regular drills, as do schools across japan. but the big question remains: is tokyo ready for x-day? >> no, i don't think we are ready. what's crucial is to make sure people have as much information as possible for every scenario. reporter: major international events, like the olympics, have been cause for concern too. in two weeks' time, the tokyo olympic torch relay is set to start in fukushima, a symbol of the region's recovery since 2011. like the games themselves, the relay had to be rescheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic, a reminder that even best-laid plans may not pan out. different torches were lit today, candles across tokyo, and at 2:46 p.m., the exact time the earthquake struck, a moment of silence to remember the last and all the pain suffered since.

for the "pbs newshour," i'm grace lee in tokyo reporter: now we turn to thomas bass, the author of seven books, currently working on a book about nuclear exclusion zones, including fukushima. he's a professor of english and journalism at the state university of new york in albany. thomas bass, welcome to the "newshour." we just heard from a resident from fukushima who pointed out that the government claims it's safe, but she doesn't feel safe. there will be olympic matches held in fukushima city this year. do you believe it's safe? thomas: it is still a nuclear exclusion zone. it is a zone that excludes people from living in its. certainly those areas are not safe to return to. other areas are contaminated with nuclear particles and not safe to return to. you just saw a woman facing a village that has been devastated

and is no longer habitable. it no longer has stores, services. even if it were considered safe to return to, one could not return to it. nick: japan's government has long acknowledged some of its very early mistakes. politically, the party in charge pay dearly for those mistakes. it points out today that it set a level of acceptable toxicity in the area and that the iaea has excepted that level. do you believe the argument? thomas: well, no, i certainly do not. nick: the government raised the so-called allowable level of contamination 20-fold. they raised the allowable level to that that is usually limited for full-time workers in nuclear factories. it was only by raising the so-called level of toxicity that they were able to claim that the area was safe. nick: let's zoom out a little bit for the whole country.

japan has kept offline more than 30 reactors. it rewrote the rules for its nuclear regulatory agency, much like the u.s. rewrote its rules after the three mile island accident. do you believe the japanese government has done enough? thomas: first of all, they shut down all 54 of their nuclear reactors, and only a handful of those had been given clearance to reopen. let's face it. japan is a geologically unstable part of the world. it suffers -- there was just an earthquake a couple weeks ago. japan has geological problems that are far greater than most of the united states and its nuclear reactors. the japanese government can claim that it's made its reactors safe and toughened up its regulations, but the simple fact is, japan never showed have built nuclear reactors along its incredibly unstable shores. nick: the japanese government

says that it acknowledges that radiation is a long-term problem and is trying its best to manage the risks inside fukushima, which are still there. do you believe that they are managing the risks well enough? thomas: no, i certainly do not. i mean, the reactors are still uncovered. there has not been a concrete sarcophagus built over them, as was the case with chernobyl. they're still massively hot, still leaking large amounts of radiation, still having groundwater flowing through the reactors that has not been controlled. the plan to decommission them stretches out 40 years, because it requires technology that has not yet been invented and technology that has not yet been proven to work. in terms of managing the disaster, i would not give the japanese government high marks on that front. nick: thomas bass, thank you very much. thomas: thank you. thank you for having me. ♪

judy: we will be back shortly with reflections from teenagers on how their lives changed during the pandemic and what they are looking forward to after it is over. but first, a moment from your local pbs station, a judy: for tr

of quarantine and remote school forced an unprecedented experiment in learning and coping. we asked our network of student journalists to reflect on how their world has changed and what they're looking forward to once the pandemic is over. here is a sample. >> it's been a year. >> covid-19, the virus that changed everything for everyone. >> it's very overwhelming in this time just to, like, exist. >> i think the pandemic affected me the most was mainly through sports, because there was a solid eight months where we just

had no sports, no hope. >> i hate being in the house, and i hate my car just sitting outside. my car has been lonely. he wants to go skirt, skirt. >> the first thing i would love to do again is go to a movie theater. i have not been to a movie theater in probably over a year. >> the pandemic has also made me a lot more of a humble person, more empathetic, i'd say. >> last year, i didn't really take care of myself mentally or physically. now i work out every morning and eat healthier. >> i became more closer with my brother, and i have had to make new friends in the neighborhood, because others live in other parts of the town, but some live right ound the corner from me. >> i feel that i'm a very different person than i was a year ago. i also feel i am nicer and more compassionate. lessons i have learned are not to judge people based off what i know because i don't know what they are going through.

>> i also lost a great family friend due to covid named juan back in juan was my october. grandmother's best friend. my favorite times with him were when he took me and my grandmother tohop and go to parks. >> if i learned anything, i learned that life is too short to be wasting time and putting your energy towards the wrong things. >> i began to learn how to manage my schedule better, and, most importantly, i began to learn how to self-motivate myself and see each day as a new opportunity. >> i didn't really know what i wanted to do until this year. i'm either going to be a special education teacher or a nurse. i think it'd be great to be a nurse, because seeing everything that's happening right now and being able to help people and give them vaccines and just be there for people in times of need, i feel like it'd be a great job. >> i feel like i'm a lot smarter than i was a year ago, not in terms of academics, but just in terms of the way the world works and how scary and how just upside-down it can turn.

>> one year later, i started thinking positely. >> when the pandemic is over, i can't wait to live a normal life. >> i just want to go to a concert. >> i can't wait to just go outside and feel good. >> i cannot wait until this pandemic is over and everyone in this whole wide world is safe. judy: such wise and special young people. thank you, each and every one of you. that is the newshour tonight. i am judy woodruff. join us later for our special coverage of president biden's first televised address to the nation, from the white house, at 8:00 p.m. eastern. from all of us at the "newshour," thank you, stay safe and we will see you soon. >> >> major funding for the "pbs

newshour" has been provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to help you connect. for more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> johnson and johnson. bnsf railway. the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of sociachange worldwide. ♪ >> the alfred p. sloan foundation, driven by the promise of great ideas. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions -- and, friends of the newshour.

>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪ >> this is pbs newshour west from weta studios in washington and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. >> you are watching pbs. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

emergency planning for kids. we can't predict when an emergency will happen. so that's why it's important to make a plan with your parents. here are a few tips to stay safe. know how to get in touch with your family. write down phone numbers for your parents, siblings and neighbors.

>> i love cities, and budapest is one of the most beautiful in the world. whenever i arrive in a new city, i always make a beeline to the local food market. whether it's the boqueria in barcelona, the central market in florence, or the ferry plaza in san francisco, that's where you'll find me. today, we'll visit the incomparable budapest central market, in search of paprika, the spice budapest is most known for. and then back in the kitchen, we'll make hungarian goulash and pull-apart seeded bread wreath with smoked paprika butter. i love to travel the globe in search of new food and wine discoveries. for me, it's about more than returning home with a handful of new recipes. it's about taking the spirit of austria... of italy... of greece... and of the danube river... and injecting some of their magic into our everyday lives.