captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, six months later-- investigations and arrests are ongoing in the wake of the attack on the capitol by a violent mob of trump supporters. then, questions of the collapse: experts search for clues to the structural failure of the surfside, florida, condominium as rescue teams continue to comb the rubble. and, leaving afghanistan-- members of the u.s. military reflect on 20 years in the country, and whether the war was worth it. >> there's a saying in the infantry: ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die. so i don't know if we did good, but i know i made it home alive. >> woodruff: all that and more

on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life, well-planned. of everything, our u.s.-based customer service team is here to find a plan that fits you. to lea more, go to consumercellular.tv

>> the john s. and james l. knight foundation. fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the death toll has now risen to 36, in the collapse of a condominium tower in surfside, florida. search teams recovered eight

more bodies at the rubble pile early today; 109 people still missing. this was day 13 of the digging operation, but, with no new signs of life, officials said relatives of the missing are bracing for the worst. >> for the family members who are waiting and waiting, excruciatingly waiting for information-- they know what is happening. they understand that the news of their loved ones may be tragic loss. >> woodruff: the search teams paused their work for two hours early today, due to lightning and high winds along the fringe of tropical storm "elsa". we'll return to this story, later in the program. that storm churned past south florida today, hding for the state's western coast. heavy rain and winds of 60 miles an hour lashed the florida keys during the day. later, the storm regained some strength as it moved into the gulf of mexico. "elsa" is on track to make

landfall tomorrow between tampa bay and florida's big bend area. in japan, rescue workers in the city of atami found more victims of last saturday's mudslide, bringing the death toll to seven. at least two dozen people are still missing. emergency crews and soldiers continued today to dig through the sludge and debris. but, rain threatened to touch off new slides. american officials from president biden on down say a worldwide ransomware attack has left the u.s. largely unscathed. on friday, russian-linked hackers targeted the software company, kaseya, based in florida, and demanded $70 million. the president addressed the attack today, at a white house event. >> i received an update from my national security team this morning. it appears to have caused minimal damage to u.s. businesses but we're still gathering information to the full extent of the attack and

i'm going to have more to say about this in the next several days. we're getting more detail and information. >> woodruff: at a summit last month, president biden pressed russian president vladimir putin to act against russian cyber- gangs. there's also word that hackers working with the russian government breached computer systems at the republican national committee last week. bloomberg news and "the washington post" report it's the same group accused of hacking the democratic national committee in 2016. the r.n.c. denied that any data was stolen. the pentagon today canceled a $10 billion contract with microsoft to modernize the military's cloud-computing systems. instead, it will solicit new bids. amazon had alleged that president trp intervened to deny it the contract in 2019. it cited his antagonism toward jeff bezos, who was then amazon's c.e.o. and also owns "the washington post".

journalist nikole hannah-jones will join the faculty of howard university in washington, d.c., after a highly publicized tenure fight at the university of north carolina at chapel hill. she announced it today, and she said conservative critics of her reporting on slavery's legacy pushed u.n.c. trustees to halt her tenure approval, initially. they voted to grant it after weeks of protests. hannah-jones won a pulitzer prize for her reporting. and, on wall street, oil prices fell back, pulling down most of the stock market. the dow jones industrial average lost 209 points to close at 34,577. the nasdaq rose 24 points. the s&p 500 slipped eight. still to come on the newshour: experts search for clues to the structural failure of the surfside florida condo. u.s. military veterans reflect on 20 years of war in afghanistan. why the boy scouts of america

settled with tens of thousands of sexual abuse survivors. plus much more. >> woodruff: today marks six months since a pro-trump mob attacked the u.s. capitol on january 6th, in an attempt to stop the certification of joe biden's presidency. for a deeper look at the investigations intthat day, i'm joined by lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: hello, lisa. tell us where does it stand in terms of finding out and arresting those who broke into the capitol? >> let's talk about this sweeping investigation that has been all around the country, led by tips by the f.b.i. here is where that stands. so far, the f.b.i. has

arrested about 535 people in these investigations. now from that group, 10 have pleaded guilty themselves. the rest have cases pending. now, there is a wide range of different kinds of charges. almost everyone in that group has been charged with improper entry, and a smaller group has been charged with conspiracy, and 100 people were charged with assault. over 100 police officers were assaulted. there are still some 300 suspects that the f.b.i. would like to identify and find. they up loaded 11 new videos today of faces they want americans to look at and see if they can identify. among those who they can't identify are the people or persons who planted the pipe bombs at the democratic international headquarters. there are some guilty pleas, some for misdemeanors. a woman recently was given three years probation in that. she apologized in court, and that's why she got a

lenient sentence. we had a plea from an oathkeeper who pleaded guilty to trying to overturn the election. that person's sentence is still pending, but could be more than five and a half to six and a half years, so a wide range in the seriousness of sentences that these people face. >> woodruff: and, lisa, what about inside the capitol? wherare we in terms of the attempt to find out who was responsible in terms of investigations, and also to make sure that the capitol is safe? >> that is a big question right now. the u.s. capitol police put out a release saying here is where they are. one thing that is new, capitol police are opening two offices in florida and california to deal with threats against members. that shows you what is going on in these offices. a lot of these members are getting threats, continuing after january 6th. the fences outside the capitol, the last fences, are expected to come down this week. there is still no deal on money to improve security at the u.s. capitol.

that is stuck in the senate. and in addition, capitol police at this moment still cannot d call in the national guard for an emergency on their own. they still have to go through red tape. so there are a lot of issues unresolved. house democrats passed a select committee to look into this because they could not get an agreement on a bipartisan commission. that is operating. eight democrats are appointed by nancy pelosi, and five could be appointed by republicans, we'll see if they do it. that will be the next thing to watch. >> woodruff: and in connection to that, our next guest, lisa desjardins. representative bennie thompson chairs that select committee investigating the january 6th attack. i spoke with him a short time ago. chairman thompson, thank you so much for joining us. what can the american people expect to learn from this investigation that isn't going to come from the number of other investigations under way? >> well, the charge that this select committee is

tasked with is looking at the circumstances and the facts surrounding what occurred, and coming up with a body of recommendations. we have a number of committees of some jurisdiction, but our charge is to collect all of the relevant committee information and sinthasize it into one repor so to some degree, we're singularly focused on january 6th. >> woouff: you have subpoena power, the committee does, do you expect to call former president trump, former vice-president pence -- >> let me just say we have the subpoena authority. if the facts themselves lead us to any individual, we will not hesitate to

bring that before the committee. >> woodruff: so you are open to calling president trump. let me go on and ask you about republican reaction in the house. as you know, not just the republican leadership, but even republicans who voted to impeach former president trump, or who voted for an independent commission, are saying they think this committee is too partisan. i'm going to quote your ranking republican on homeland security, he called it a turbo-charged partisan exercise, not a fact-finding body that the people deserve. >> i want to say that my ranking member on the homeland security is a good person. he was the one who was ambushed by the republican leadership. we negotiated in good faith what i felt was a positive step in the right direction. but we could not get the republican leadership to accept it.

and we accepted everything they asked for. and we could only get 35 votes. and we could not get enough votes in the senate. and so the senate kept saying, give us some time, give us so time. we gave them six weeks before we moved in setting up the select committee. our charge right now is to get to the bottom of what happened. all of the film that the people have looked at around the country, on their tv and what have you, it is absolutely astounding what occurred. if you had said something, judy, to me, that the capitol of the united states of america would be overrun by insurrectionists because they were dissatisfied with the election, i would have said, you have to be kidding. we're not a ird-world dictatorship. we're a democracy. we set the example for the rest of the world. >> woodruff: to their

charge, though, that it is not fair from a partisan stastandpoint, because even if republicans were appointed, there would only be five appointed by the republican leader out of3. >> well, this is a democratic-led effort. we made a good-faith effort for a bipartisan commission. and the republicans voted against it. so now those same people are coming back saying, well, this is prtisan. i don't know what they want. because we gave them one thing, they voted against it. so speaker pelosi is absolutely correct in moving forward because at the end of the day, we have to protect this fragile democracy. >> woodruff: there is no date set for finishing the work of the committee. when do you think it will finish? >> well, we will work as expeditiously as we possibly can. as you know, i said we're

several weeks late from the original start. our projected date was december 31st of this year. i just say i don't think we can get it by that time. but i can say that we will go and get the facts. some of the facts we've already collected, but i don't want to limit it to what other committees have collected. we want to hire the best professionals out here, the best legal minds, the best investigators, and turn them loose. but i also want to hear from witnesses. you know, we have yet to talk to any of the rank-and-file or the capitol police. we always talked to the brass, but we haven't talked to those men and women who were being assaulted on that date. we need to hear from them what occurred, to make sure that we can protect them as they protect us. so we have a fiduciary

responsibility to get this right. as chair, i will work just as hard as i can. my colleagues, who have been appointed so far -- we've had one meeting. it was a good meeting, but we're in the embryotic stage of putting it together. i hope leader mccarthy gives us individuals who love this country, and not individuals who want to tear it up, the sirit of this committee -- the spirit of this committee is we want to protect this democracy and the people who work in it every day. >> woodruff: representative bennie thompson, chair of this house select committee, thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. ♪♪

>> woodruff: witthe search in surfside, florida growing more dire, each day seems to bring more questions. william brangham speaks tonight with an engineer who's trying to get some of those answers. >> brangham: judy, there are still so many questions about what happened at the champlain towers; questions about the original design and construction of the buildings; revelations about earlier warnings regarding needed repair work, and whether those were taken seriously enough; questions over whether cost concerns eclipsed concern about risk. the town of surfside has hired allyn kilsheimer, a renowned structural and forensic engineer to investigate this tragic collapse. he and his company have investigated dozens of other structural failures, and he joins me now. >> brangham: allyn kilsheimer, very good to have you on the "news hour." there is this enormous pile of rubble, where rescuers are still trying to see if there are people iside there. and now you have to try to investigate what happened.

can you explain that process? how do you go about doing that? >> what we do is collect all of the information we can find by looking at drawings, original drawings, and testing information. we take samples of various kinds of materials and have it tested for various types of things to give us information about the components and materials. and we do computer engineering models, and we model the entire building based on the original set of drawings that we have. and then what we're searching for is a trigger. things like the pentagon and world trade center, you know what the trigger is. here we don't know what the trigger is. so we're looking at the building and the codes it was suosed to be design from. we look from the materials testing, we look at the materials and bear the consistency and strength and things like that. and then what we do, at

the beginning of this, like last friday night, i came up in my head with 20 things i think might caused something like that. we eliminate as many as we can. and we add more things to the list, and as we possibly can, we remove th from the list if we can prove it. then once we have the models done, we start saying let's assume, in a hypothetical situation, that this particular material wasn't the strength it was supposed to be. so we plug in what that material strength is and say does that contribute to a problem or cause a problem? it is like three huge 3,000-piece puzzles, and you mix them all up with a broom, and then you have to put the puzzle together. >> brangham: we have seen various reports about the building owners getting some warnings that certain things needed to be repaired that were apparently not done. do tse warnings and

those reports give you any hihint as to what might be going on? >> i don't think so. we're getting 300 e-mails a day of people giving us information, and probably more than that, and we listen to all that and see it. the bottom line is concrete cracks, it is made to crack -- all concrete cracks. things deteriorate over time, except for old people like me -- i don't deteriorate. >> brangham: the magic you've got there. >> or something. the idea is i don't think that althese different things that i have read -- and we haven't been able to really test anything yet -- i don't think that they were the necessary trigger. they might have been a contributing factor, but not the trigger. and that's what the big challenge will be, to try to find that trigger and look at these various things that have been reported and say, gee, if

this steel was rusted and this concrete was soft, how did that affect it? >> brangham: we know miami itself is under a lot of other stresses, from sea level rise and nunenuisance flooding. and then there is this tragedy. you must be hearing from building owners up and down that region, saying, do we need to worry? are you hearing from those people and what are they saying? >> yes, we're hearing from lots of those people, and what they really want is some assurance from somebody that they feel comfortable with that they don't have any problems in their building, and their billeding is not going to fall down around them like surfside, florida. we're putting together a little list of things we suggest they look at in there particular units, if they choose to want to do so. we're working with the city of surfside on some issues they might want to have looked at. i just finished a meeting

with the vice mayor and some other building owners where we talked about those kinds of things. >> brangham: i know you have to give sort of precedence to the search-and-rescue that is still going on. do you have any general sense of how long this investigation of yours will take trog. ?>> no. it is going to take months. we can only do some of it right now. so for the last 12 days, and probably for the next two to three to four weeks, we can only do parts of the thingsbut that is letting us do other things. my experience is it takes a very long time because you're collecting information. and sometimes there are little things that get uncovered, that you go, geez, that's a huge issue and have you to follow that path. so it is just going to take a lng time. >> brangham: allyn kilsheimer, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you, sir.

>> woodruff: there is a long history of foreign troops leaving afghanistan after long and bloody fights. now, the u.s. and its allies have almost completely withdrawn. nick schifrin explores how these decades of war look to veterans who served there. >> schifrin: the united states will soon complete the withdrawal of almost all military forces in afghanistan. the war in afghanistan has been america's longest. the u.s. invaded in october 2001, nearly 20 years ago. we thought we'd mark the withdrawal by talking with three veterans of the war about their experiences and what was accomplished. major megan pickle evans has been in the military since 2004. in 2013 she led an all female cultural support team who would speak to mostly afghan women in villages. she is still in the army. former specialist izia james was in army connaissance, surveillance and acquisition team outside of kandahar city in 2010 to 2011. he also served two tours in iraq before he went to afghanistan. he was medically retired in

2013. and retired colonel mike jason had a 24 year career in the army. in 2012, he was a battalion commander who worked alongside special operations forces in northern afghanistan. he also served two tours in iraq. he retired in 2019. welcome, all three of you to the news. major, let me start with you. when you would speak to afghan women, did they give you the intelligence that you were looking for? and looking back, do you believe you were doing something good? >> we were gathering information, atmospherics from the women. they needed help with support for medical facilities. they didn't it's not like america where there's a walgreens down the street, there's not a walgreens. there's not an urgent care that they can go to. so that was one of the things that my team would specifically do. we had a clinic and they would the people from the village would me in specifically women, children, some men, and we would actually give them care. we've gone to the into the actual villages, do presence patrols. and that was one of the other things we would do, engage, get

the information, but also provide medical care to them. so the women in villages were always very receptive to us. there were sometimes not so much. and of course that was that it was more kinetic or not. but majority of the times we went in, they were very receptive to everything we were doing. >> schifrin: isaiah james, for you, you were on the front lines and it was a much more kinetic experience in kandahar. and of course, you'll remember that your commanders talked about winning the war by winning hearts and minds in afghanistan. were you ever trained to do that? and do you think that you succeeded at that mission? >> my mission was very kinetic. i'm an infantryman by training have been my whole nine years in the military. no, we were never taught to win hearts and minds. you can't really turn a grunt off, so to speak. we were taught to, bluntly, two in the heart and one in the mind with our shooting drills. so we were never we were never taught that know, they teach us how to kill, kill, kill. but then at the flip of a

switch, you're told to go out there and to be nice to people who you've seen as a target, your whole entire deployment. it was a hard transition to not look at everything as a threat. every motorbike was an i.e.d. every pile of trash on the road was an i.e.d. every person giving you the evil eye, so to speak, at the market, was waiting to target you. so it was a very hard juxtaposition to be an infantryman on patrol every day, but then to know that your mission was to basically win hearts and minds and try to placate the situation. >> schifrin: and do you think you did good? do you think you succeeded? >> well, the's a saying in infantry os is not to reason why, but to do and die. so i don't know if we did good, but i know i made it home alive and most of my guys made home alive is good so. >> schifrin: mike jason you saw an interesting mix of special operations, what we call black ops, the guys who go in at night to try and kill senior taliban

commanders and white ops, the people who will go into villages and work with tribal elders. that was about 11 years after the initial invasion. did that work? do you think your mission succeeded? >> i mean, like everything else in afghanistan, as you know, it's all it's all in the nuance, it's all in shades of gray. i saw what looked like a progress. you know, you had the black ops sort of kind of clearing the space for us to do our operations while working in the villages doing things that we had learned in vietnam 30, 40 years earlier. brought those tactics back, really started working with the people in small villages, with the cultural support teams, you know, that megan worked on. we all are working together on this stuff in very remote, isolated places. and you could see it. you could see it could work except the silent voice inside my head in 2012, said mike man, too little, too late. like, why are we doing this now? and then immediately while we were doing it, we already knew. we knew in '12 the surge is

going to come to an end and we were starting to talk about transition and taking things down. >> schifrin: megan pekal evans, i wonder at this point if you think the u.s. should have stayed 20 years? >> i think we did good work and i'm proud of what we were able to do in this time. you know, i took an oath to support and defend our constitution and inherent with that oath to support those leaders appointed over me. right. >> schifrin: isaiah james, was the war in afghanistan worth fighting for afghanistan and for us national security? >> for 20 years? no, absolutely not. i've been deployed three times as an infantryman. my first deployment, we lost 32 brothers and sisters. my second deployment, we lost eight. my third deployment, we lost 11. how many of those mothers and fathers are weeping for their children to this day? once you got osama bin laden, that was our mission set. there's an afghan proverb that the villagers will tell us all the time. and it says, you may have the watches, but we have the time.

afghanistan is known as the empire killer. alexander the great marched elephants in there and lost, the russians and a million men and lost, america spent 20 years, trillions of dollars and countless treasure and human lives. and we're pulling out. we have to learn from history. we cannot go in there and expect to give somebody a gift at the tip of a sword. >> schifrin: jason, i see you acknowledging that history. you know it well. you made a point earlier, which is that the u.s. did not fight one 20 year war. the u.s. fought 21 years, meaning people were deployed only for one year. what was the impact of that? >> we were there for 20 years when mike was there for 10 months. and to the locals, and to our partners and we worked with that were always ready for, you know, who's the next gringo that's coming along? i mean, we talk about 9/11. i was a captain. i remember it vividly. we knew we were going to go into war. this country had to respond. we had to eradicate al-qaida. we had to we had to get rid of the space that they were operating in. and we could not allow what was

happening to come out of afghanistan again. and then we had to bring bin laden to justice. but i think in looking back, we can all agree we never really had a definitive strategy. we can disagree on whether we should come out-- take all of our forces out, or how much we should leave behind. but you know what? at least right now we finally have a definitive policy. we have not had that. >> schifrin: megan pekoe evans do you think about those women who you met in western afghanistan and are you worried about them? >> oh, i think about them probably almost several times a day. we really were out there trying to help them help themselves. and so with the women they had in their district, women's affairs representatives. and so we had established a very good relationship with the one in heart province, shindand district. and so with her, we were able to build such a good network with the women in the local village and we established this running meeting where we were able to

find out security issues. we were again, they were getting ready to vote, right, in 2013. so we are able to talk to them about the elections. we were able to connect with them about infrastructure issues in their area. and the intent was all that right was to help them help themselves. and we did. and they were grateful for that. >> schifrin: isiah james, forgive me for asking a personal question, but when you remember yo memories from afghanistan, i wonder if you think about that phrase, help them help themselves, or if you have different kind of memory? >> well, history is replete th that phrase. help them help themselves. it never turns out the w that it sounds, right? it's when the pilgrims helped the indigenous people who live to help themselves. it's when, you know, missionaries went to countries in africa to help those people help themselves. it never turns out the way that it sounds. it sounds very lofty, but it doesn't really turn out that way. my memories of afghanistan, i have good memories. but as you said at the beginning of the segment, my job was literally to be out in front of the main force, finding targets

and executing on those targets en we got orders so i don't know if we helped themelp themselves. but all i know i'm a grunt i'm a i'm a door kicker. i'm as patrol sergeantill say i'm a barrel chested freedom ghter. but so we didn't make decisions at the operational or strategic level. but i know at the tactical level on the ground, it didn't look like that. all i know is that we were sent there to do a job. and 20 years on, you know, is that job even done? did we, like mike said, did we even have a strategy? it was 20 different strategies. was this was this war ever worth it? you know what i think about some of the memories from afghanistan, a lot of them are haunting, a lot of are bad. i'm still in therapy to this day because of that. i'm still, still dealing with the p.t.s.d. i'm still dealing with the night terrors and the traumas. and i'm 34 years old. i retired medically at 27 because i got hit by too many i.e.d.s. >> schifrin: mike jason, we've been talking here in washington a lot about all those afghan

interpreters, all of the afghans who facilitated the u.s. war. do you believe that the u.s. should evacuate them? >> without question. i think right now we're talking about the high number is about 70,000 when you start including families and children. there's is an absolute unambiguous moral responsibility by this country to help those who signed up and turned in and were out there with us, whether it's isaiah's interpreter or my interpreters or even some of the afghan security forces, megan's people, all the folks that we worked with. so we will ask again our allies and other operations in future conflicts to sign up and be part of this effort and work with the united states. and it is our credibility is on the line. we owe it to them to get them out as quickly as we can. >> schifrin: mike jason, izia james, major megan pickwell evans, thank you very much to all of you. >> thank you.

>> thanks for having us. >> woodruff: the tentative settlement between the boy scouts of america and tens of thousands of sexual abuse survivors is one of the largest in u.s. history. the agreement was announced just before the holiday weekend. the national organization of boy scouts filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the winter of 2020. but as john yang tells us, there are now real questions about just how much survivors will receive and whether this settlement is adequate. >> yang: judy, the proposal is a first step in settling the more than 80,000 claims against the boy scouts for decades of sexual abuse, and lawyers who negotiated the deal on behalf of survivors of the abuse say there could be a lot more money to come. in a statement, the boy scouts of america called it a "significant step toward a global resolution" of those claims. the deal must still be approved

by the bankruptcy judge, and other attorneys representing survivors say they will object to it as too small. attorney kenneth rothweiler represents about 16,000 claimants and negotiated the settlement. >> kenneth rothweiler, thank you so much for joining us. >> i'm very happy. >> have you talked to any of the survivors that you represent, and what is their reaction to what they're hearing about this? >> yeah, i talk to survivors every day, and i always get their opinion as to how they're feeling and how they perceive the whole bankruptcy going. i wouldn't say they're overjoyed, but they feel satisfied because the boy scouts have acknowledged what they've done. and now they've come to the table and, you know, compensation is coming to the survors. >> when we hear numbers like this and settlements like this -- i mean this is big -- but how much of that money, after fees, after other expeensz -- expenses, howmuch of that moneys going to actually end up in survivors' pockets?

is there any way of estimating that at this stage? >> it is hard to estimate it at this time, john, because we're not finished yet. this settlement with the b.s.a. and the locals is just the first sep. that has always been the plan, to get the settlement with those two entities, and then to get the insurance rights, now assigned to the trust, so we can go after the insurance companies. that's where, actually, most of e money is i predict in the end this will be a multi-billion settlement. >> and will all the claimants get the same amount or different amounts to different claimers? >> different amounts to different claimers, depending on the severity of use -- there are a lot of factors that go into it. it is called the t.e.t., which is guidelines for the trustee to assess how much emerc each claimant will get. >> when the boy scouts of america filed for bankruptcy, there was a lot of controversy because

the local chapters were not held. where is the money for this settlement -- where is the money coming from? >> it is a total of $850 million. $250 million is from the national boy scouts of america. $600 million is from the local counsels, and there are about 250 local counsels. and that is broken down into cash and property and a promissory note. we tried to extract as much money for survivors, both from the b.s.a. and from the 250 locals. >> will this limit the liability of the counsels after this settlement? >> they will be getting what is a channeling injunction, which means their exposure has ended. >> there is more just money in this settlement. what do you think are some of the other significant provisions? >> on behalf of the survivors, i can tell you it has never beeabout the money, just about the recognition from the boy scouts that this went on

for decades. the survivors feel good about the fact that the boy scouts have acknowledged that, and now we move on from there. >> and there are -- as i noted in the introduction, there are some attorneys who are not thrilled about this, who say it is too small, and that you can't really judge how equitable it is until you know how much the local counsels have. what is your response? >> my response is: those lawyers don't know what the plan is from the beginning. the plan was to get a settlement from the b.s.a. nationals and then the locals. and then move on to the insurance. there are billions of potential dollars that could come from the insurance companies, also from chartering organizations, like the l.d.f. church -- i mean from sponsoring organizations, and from chartering organizations. so there is a lot of potential money that can come the way of the survivors. we now have to be aggressive as the lawyers to go after it. >> will the survivors have a say in accepting this

plan, and whether -- it is ultimately up to the bankruptcy judge, but will the survivors have a say in this? >> they will. they will ultimately vote on a plan. so their votes will be counted. and a certain percentage of the survivors have to vote in favor of it for the plan to go through. so, yes, they will have a vote. >> you say this is the beginning, there are others to go after. how long do you think this process is ultimately going to take? >> it depends how much the insurance fights us, quite frankly, john. if they come to the table and will talk to us, we can get this done by the end of the year. if they don't do that, we'll have to litigate against them. we have a lot of lawyers involved in this bankruptcy that are rea to litigate. we'll have to wait and see. >> kenneth rothweiler, who is representing claims of sexual abuse against the bboy scouts of america. thank you very much. >> thanks, john. i appreciate it.

>> woodruff: san francisco has a soaring homeless population. on any given night, some 35,000 are without a place to live. much effort has gone into resolving the crisis, with little effect. stephanie sy reports on how there is now hope a new perspective can make a difference. > it's easy to get stuck in this life, especially when you don't have no help, no hope. >> sy: this is silicon valley home to facebook, google and some of the greatest wealth in the country. and yet, along the 140 miles of trails and riverbeds in the city of san jose lies its other half. >> sy: do you think you'll always be homeless?” >> yeah. i've come to terms i'll probably die out here.

what's it like to live here? >> you're vulnerable. you can't be prepared for everything. >> once you get on the street, there is really no way to get a job. >> one of my greatest desires is for somebody to see the change in me, because i know a lot of these people out here. >> lee clark has been there himself, addiction and jail time led to a five-year stretch of living on the streets. >> i used to ride the bus all night. they called it the hotel >> sy: like the thousands of others without a home in the region, he felt lost and ignored by a broken system. just before the pandemic hit, lee finally made his way out, but hasn't forgotten who he left behind. >> one of my greatest desires is that they see the change in me and be inspired to change. >> we want to win people's trust. trying to get them housed. >> reporter: lee's transformation is in part due to his >> sy: lee's transformation is in part due to his involvement with the lived experienced advisory board. formed by the non-profit,

destination home, it gives the homeless a voice in what matters to them. destination home's c.e.o., jennifer loving says this type of formal board reflects a paradigm shift. >> it was created by a group of people that had either been homeless here or were currently homeless, saying we need a place where we can talk about what's going on. we need power to make decisions. >> and i'm like, sign me up. like today. >> all destination home did was provide the container. it's been self governance from the beginning. >> sy: its executive committee, led by dontae lartigue, oversees the 16 member board. to build organizations rooted in lived experience. >> reporter: together they advice non-profits, such as >> sy: together, they advise non-profits such as destination home on policy and spending, while also consulting for the local government. >> sy: their most recent assignment was to determine why this hotel bought by the city for housing the homeless wasn't being fully utilized. >> and the reason why it looks institutional, it looks like a prison.

you go, there's this gate, you got to be buzzed into this gate. >> it looks institutional. it looks like a juvenile hall. >> reporter: and they listened to you? >> we'll see. >> we've set aside >> we set aside some funding in our budget to make some kind of phical improvements to the site. they will be done with in partnership with the lived experience advisory board. >> sy: deputy director for san jose's housing department, ragan henninger says the advisors have shed light on the complexity of the homelessness crisis. >> i think for us it really highlighted that you know every homeless person we're serving has some kind of previous trauma in their life. >> and the more that people are understanding how powerful this is, the more in demand they are. there's a under supply of housing that's affordable in every city in this country. >> sy: in san francisco, another organization has taken working with a community advisory board a step further, leading to real tangible resultsn housing.

andrea evans leads the chronic homeless program at tipping point, a non-profit backed by some of san francisco's richest philanthropists including 49er's c.e.o., jed york and the charles schwab family. it's goal is ambitious. >> it is a $100 million, five year initiative. the goal of which is to partner with san francisco and a bunch of non-profits to cut the number of chronic homelessness in half by the end of 2022. >> sy: how much is $100 million in the grand scheme of the homelessness problem here in san francisco? >> it's not a lot. >> sy: really. >> in the grand scheme. >> sy: that's due to the fact that three thousand chronically homeless san franciscans are currently living on the streets. >> we are by no means able to kind of replicate what the city does on an ongoing basis. and so we are really trying some very targeted approaches to house people more quickly and to make sure they're able to stay housed. >> sy: and that's where tipping point's seven member advisory board comes in.

like destination home, it consists entirely of individuals who've been homeless, like t.j. johnston. >> right now i'm staying in a house but for about nine years i've been unhoused in san francisco. i'm kind of honored that people are asking us for our input. >> sy: so far, that input has resulted in major decisions in grant money spending, including tipping point's eleven million dollar flexible housing subsidy program. >> it's been incredible to have that wisdom at the table. >> sy: however, longtime homeless advocate, jennifer friedenbach cautions that not all boards are as effective. >> there's advisory boards where you will have like one or two unhoused people and then they get tokenized and never listened to in the group. and so you really have to have a deep connection to decision making, real power. even before the formal advisor

board was formed we canvassed about 300 people who are experiencing homelessness and asked them, what are your priorities. it's bringing in that expertise. >> we have that know-how that we would like to impart on the rest of our community. our needs are relatively simple in that we just want to be housed and a door that locks. in a shelter suation, having your privacy is next to impossible. >> sy: and that input is what drove forward the construction of the tahanan building-- 145 units dedicated solely for the homeless population downtown. >> we've tried a really innovative approach. we're using modular construction and so that has cut both the time and the cost significantly. >> sy: the goal is to have the entire project finished in just under three years for under $400,000 per unit. >> sy: a record for the city's tough building laws.

which still sounds like so much. >> it's a lot of money. but by san francisco standards, its normally about $600,000 a unit. >> sy: to pull it off, each unit was created off site, and then hauled in, and assembled on location. >> it is much more than a roof over your head. it really is. it's an opportunity. it going to be beautiful. >> sy: you've never seen this before. what do you think? >> wow! relief, for one thing. just to see all this realized. i think this represents a chance to get a new start on life. >> reporter: and for >> sy: and for t.j., its satisfaction in knowing that he helped so many homeless individuals find a new home with a door. for the pbs newshour, i'm stephanie sy in san francisco.

>> woodruff: a new book, out today, explores a life of scientific discovery in nature and some extraordinary feats of the human body. jeffrey brown went deep into the woods of maine for our story, part of our arts and culture series, canvas. >> oh! baby birds! >> brown: at 81, bernd heinrich is still studying the natural world around his home in the mountains of western maine. >> you know, there's data being created, might as well use it. >> brown: he's a renowned biologist, best known for his work on insect and animal physiology and behavior. he's also a renowned runner. he no longer races in the ultra- marathons he's set records in, but he still takes a jaunt of five or more often rugged miles many days. you know this is unusual, right? >> i guess so. but i don't care if it's unusual.

i'm getting something out of it. and it definitely makes me feel more alive. they say if you stop moving you start dying. so i don't want to stop moving. >> brown: his new book combines his two lifelong pursuits-- and the ¡animal' under observation is himself. it's called “racing the clock.” >> this is one of the big topics in biology, is a biological clock. how does that clock work? because things are so geared to time. so that is a theme because i'm connecting it to the running. >> brown: you write in this book, “aging is a trial of one”" what do you mean by that? >> well, if you're the guinea pig, i'm doing an experiment and i can't have somebody else do it. >> brown: just getting to heinrich isn't easy. he lives alone in a cabin, or¡ camp', as it's called in maine he built ten years ago. an older camp nearby is used to keep books, photographs and files, and provide shelter for the students at the university

of vermont, where heinrich taught for decades, who still attend his ¡winter ecology' session each year, covid permitting. this is largely off-the-grid living: without running water. he draws his water from a well and chops his own wood for heat. there's a small solar panel for charging the computer and satellite dish to access spotty internet service. in his science, heinrich says, he looks first for patterns in nature and then for the differences, the ¡anomalies' that offer a way in. >> anomaly means that there should be some reason for it. >> brown: a reason why something's not going to pattern? >> yeah, so if you only see one pattern, you can't even think about it, it just ¡is'. but when you see a different one, then you can ask ¡why?' >> brown: he's been asking ¡why' in 24 books, including two on one of his best-known subjects: ravens, a bird not usually found in great numbers here. his work with them began with one of those ¡anomalies'.

>> i heard ¡aahh, aahh'. ravens making this noise. and i said, well, i've never heard them make that noise before, what's going on? and i said, i bet there are some big food there. and so i went up there almost a mile up into the hills there and sure enough, there was a moose, and it was covered with brush. you couldn't really see it. i think a poacher had killed it there and then covered it up. but the ravens had found it and they were feeding there. and all of a sudden there were a lot of them. so where did they come from? did they attract each other? no-- they're not supposed to do that. you get a big pile of gold, you hide it. you don't let anyone know. >> brown: what's going on individually and then as a group. >> yeah. so that took, like 20 years. >> brown: that included raising ravens himself to study their behavior. and some of them would accompany him on his runs. heinrich ran short distanc, the half-mile, in high school and college. long distances came later: at 39

he won his second marathon, in san francisco. a year later, he won the boston marathon 40 and over masters division. and then: even longer distances, with u.s. records set, including: 100 kilometers in 1981; a 24-hour, 156 mile run around a track in 1983. 100 miles in 1984. he's kept the beat-up old pair of running shoes from his competition days. and kept running as he's aged. from the start, he says, the fascination was to see what he could do, how far and fast he could run. and the scientist in him was always at work. he studied how insects regulate their energy output and metabolism to achieve endurance. and then, his own behavior and potential, sometimes to comical effect. >> i didn't take anything for granted, like fuel. i tried, you know, i shouldn't even mention all i tried.

tried beer and olive oil and honey and all the things that are not even mentioned, you know, and i fell flat on my face a lot of times. so i thought, that was kind of fun, you know, to find out. and then you wonder, why did you fail? well, it's because of that? now i knowi'm not going to drink a jar of honey to run. >> brown: he's had accidents through the years from his outdoor life and surgery on both knees. but somehow, in ways he can't explain, he hasn't worn down. >> maybe it's like friedrich nietzsche said, ¡what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' i don't know. but there might be something to it. >> brown: a man who's studied animals all his life looks at the animal that is ¡man' and sees this: >> we are built for running. >> brown: but most of us don't run. >> we run for, basically, emergencies, but we try not to

run if we don't have to, because of course we want to save energy. so the bird isn't going to fly 1,000 miles unless there's a purpose behind it. if he doesn't have to, he's not going to fly. so most of us don't. we don't have to migrate, we don't. you know, the grocery is right there. we don't have to go far. we don't have to travel. but we have the capability. >> brown: the question is: do we want to use it? bernd heinrich says he can only offer one man's experience, but as you can see, his answer is clear. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in western maine. >> woodruff: after my conversation about the january 6th investigation with representative bennie thompson, i also asked him about rising cases of covid in his home state of mississippi.

state, which has the lowest vaccination rate in the country now. here is a bit of what he had to say. >> the governor refused to take fema money to go out and i.d. those vulnerable areas. i have four counties in my district, out of 26, where we didn't have a single vaccination site. >> woodruff: you can >> woodruff: you can find his full response on our website, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic gagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the rporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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