to learn more, visit safetyactioncenter.pge.com captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, the state of the economy-- we discuss inflation and the expanded child tax credit that will benefit almost nine of every 10 children in the country, with treasury secretary janet yellen. then, insurrection aftermath-- how the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff feared former president trump was laying the groundwork for a coup in the wake of the 2020 election. and, raising the future-- many point to child care for u.s. military families as a potential model to correct an increasingly unequal system. >> if we want a country that's going to be forward leaning, that's going to have a strong economy, we have to invest in

what's good for children at the very beginning of their lives. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> at fidelity, changing plans is always part of the plan. >> the kendeda fund. committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through

investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporti innovations in ucation, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.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 u.s. surgeon

general, dr. vivek murthy, is appealing to the nation to fight misinformation about covid-19 and vaccines. at the white house today, he charged that bogus online claims are feeding vaccine resistance, and he said social media companies must do more. >> we are asking them to step up. we know they have taken some steps to address misinformation, but much, much more has to be done and we can't wait longer for them to take aggressive action because it's costing people their lives. >> woodruff: also today, los angeles county, california ordered everyone, even the vaccinated, to resume wearing masks indoors, as infections spik and, the head of the world health organization pressed china to stop withholding raw data on the origins of covid-19. he also said it may have been premature to rule out that the virus escaped from a chinese government lab. a major effort to address child poverty in america has begun. millions of parents today

received initial monthly payments averaging $420. it's a one-year expansion of the child tax credit, under president biden's pandemic relief plan. we'll talk with treasury secretary janet yellen about this, after the news summary. the united states will not be sending large numbers of troops to haiti. haitian officials had requested a u.s. force, after the country's president was assassinated, but president biden rejected it today. he spoke at a joint news conference with german chancellor angela merkel, at the white house. >> we're only sending american marines to our embassy to make sure they're secure and nothing is out of whack at all. the idea of sending american forces into haiti is not on the agenda at this moment. >> woodruff: as chancellor merkel was in washington, her country faced a flood disaster. more than 60 people have died after record rainfall sent

rivers pouring across western germany and belgium. torrents swept through towns, leaving whole neighborhoods in ruins. people had to be airlifted from rooftops, and more than 200,000 homes lost power. in the western u.s., firefighters spent another day battling dozens of wildfires. one, in southern oregon, covers an area larger than new york city. it has burned 21 homes and threatens nearly 2,000 more. and in eastern washington state, forecasters issued a day-long warning for extreme winds that could whip flames into firestorms. cuba's president has partially acknowledged that government failings fueled protests over food shortages, power cuts and communist rule. miguel diaz-canel spoke in a televised address last night. he called for careful analysis of cuba's problems, but warned against any violence.

back in this country, president biden's nominee to run immigration and customs enforcement promised a new way of doing business. sheriff ed gonzalez, of harris county, texas, has criticized ice policies under president trump. he told a senate hearing today that he'd uphold the rule of law, and insist on humane treatment of migrants. >> it's important that ice does not work in a manner that in any way intentionally just seeks to terrorize communities, or anything of the sort. i think its important for us to be a professional agency that can take care it's done effectively. >> woodruff: in the past, gonzalez opposed a voluntary program of local cooperation with federal deportation efforts. today, he said he would not seek to end that program. a jury in annapolis, maryland, has found that a gunman who killed five people at a newspaper office was criminally responsible. jarrod ramos pleaded guilty to

the 2018 attack at the "capital gazette," but contended he was not sane. today's verdict means he will go to prison, and not a mental health facility. the biden administration announced rewards of up to $10 million today, to fight ransomware attacks on critical u.s. infrastructure. the effort seeks to identify hackers linked to foreign governments. president biden has already warned russia over harboring ransomware gangs. and, on wall street, the dow jones industrial average gained 53 pnts to close at 34,987. the nasdaq fell 101 points. the s&p 500 slipped 14. still to come on the newshour: why a top military leader feared former president trump was laying the groundwork for a coup. the pandemic's disparate impacts on the cost of living nationwide. how child care for military families could be a model for the rest of the country.

and more. >> woodruff: now to an interview with treasury secretary janet yellen on the economy and pocketbook issues. it comes as millions of families are starting to receive their first monthly payments from an expanded child tax credit. the credits were part of the "american rescue plan" bill approved by president biden and congress in march. the money es directly into an people qualify if they claim a child under 17 on their taxes. they receive $300 a month per child for those under the age of six, maxing out at $3600 annually. the payments are $250 a month

for children between six and 17 years old, maxing out at $3,000 a year. i spoke with secretary yellen earlier today. secretary yellen, thank you very much for joining us. i know the administration has been very eager to roll out these child tax credits. what impact do you believe they're going to have on american families? >> well, i think it's going to be a tremendously important support for american families, you know, today the families of more than 60 million children will receive an honor beginning on a month today on a monthly basis, checks that will help them meet the expenses that they have in caring for their children. and it will be a dependable source of income that they can counon.

it's estimated that the american rescue plan will reduce this year child poverty rates by 50%. and the child tax credit is the most important reason for that reduction. so it's a very important source of income support. >> woodruff: how can you be sure the money will be spent on children? >> well, families, of course, care very much about their children and the inability to put food on the table or to keep a roof over one's head. these are things that very badly impact children. so a family that needs the money to be able to provide food and clothing and support for the family at large is improving conditions of life for children. and, of course, some of the

money, much of it may be spent directly on children's needs. but broadly speaking, helping families lead more secure lives is a tmendous benefit to the children in these households. >> woodruff: i'm sure, you know, concerns are raised already questions about how this money will get to the very poorest of families. are you confident that it will? >> well, first of all, you know, let me say that we have been able to reach today payments to go to anyone who filed a tax return in 2019 or 2020, people who don't have to file a tax return but did file to receive one of the economic impact payments. those children in those families will also automatically today

receive the advance a monthly child tax payment now for some very low income families that neither filed tax returns nor applied for the economic impact payments we're making. tremendous efforts to reach them is well, working with nonprofits and through advertising campaigns to make sure that they know about their eligibility for these important payments. but this is the most difficult population to reach. >> woodruff: madam secretary, some republicans are already saying this is going to discourage many parents from working. how do you respond? >> well, this is additional income that people need to be able to take care of their children and mainly going to households that are working

families that need some extra help. and the money can help with child care expenses that families have to bear in order to be able to go to work. so i really don't see this as a significant discouragement to work. quite the contrary. >> woodruff: i want to also ask you today about the economy overall. as you know, yesterday we learned the consumer price index is rising at 5.4% and an annual rate. the chairman of the federal reserve, jay powell, jerome powell, said he was surprised by this. were you surprised? >> well, i would agree that prices over the last several months have increased rapidly, it's partly a reflection of the fact that our economy is opening back up, that people have spending power, they're quickly returning to spending on services and travel that they

had not spent on during the pandemic. and there are really some bottlenecks when you see spending expand on travel, airfares, hotels and the like of ramping up supply rapidly enough to meet that demand. so opening up an economy of our size involves some bottlenecks. most of the price pressure is in sectors that were affected by the pandemic. and in motor vehicles where there are bottlenecks reflecting a shortage, the developed of semiconductors outside of those pandemic affected sectors. inflation is very moderate and really consistent with inflation rates we think of as normal. and i believe that the price pressures we're seeing are

transitory, that inflation will settle down over the medium term. but of course, it's something we're monitoring very carefully and we don't want to see inflation pick up over the medium term. that's something we certainly want to make sure that we avoid. >> woodruff: but in light of this and the and the picture of potential inflation, is it risky to be enacting a five trillion dollar spending bill on infrastructure over the next 10 years? >> well, you know, you said ten years, and that's an important proviso, the spending is spaced out over time on an on an annual basis. it is really an amount that our economy can easily handle and it will support faster economic growth and higher productivity and dress structural problems

that have plagued our economy and diminished the well-being of so many families for such a long time. we're investing in infrastructure that we badly need to be a productive and competitive society in research and development, in training, both early childhood education, which will have a huge payoff for our children and in making community college free, affordable for everyone will make our workforce more productive and in supports for working families, not only continuing the child tax credit, but also the expansion that we have in the american rescue plan for support for child and dependent care for paid family leave, supports for health insurance.

these are things that are necessary for families to work. i believe it will promote participation, especially by women in the labor force. and we've seen female labor force participation falloff relative to many advanced countries where these supports for working families are available. >> woodruff: and a very quic final question, madam secretary, and something else you've been very involved in, and that is persuading other countrieso go along with a corporate minimum income tax. is that something that you think congress will pass? what do you think prospects are? >> well, i think it's an historic agreement to get every g-20 country and 132 countries on board with the idea that we should stop a decades long race to the bottom in which one country tries to cut taxes to

attract business, only to find that other countries match or go yet lower. in the end, what that's done is deprive all countries of the ability to raise revenue meaningfully from corporations that are profitable and should be contributing to help us to meet government expenditur that address societal needs. so this is an historic agreement and we believe that congress will pass this the necessary legislation in the reconciliation bill that's moving forward. >> woodruff: treasury secretary janet yellen, thank you very much, we appreciate your joining us today. >> thank you, judy. pleasure to be with you.

>> woodruff: today the "washington post" published excerpts of a new book by reporters carol leonnig and phil rucker, that contains astonishing details of how concerned the military, and specifically joint chiefs chairman mark milley, were about former president trump's actions in the final days of his administration. to talk about that, i'm joined by yamiche alcindor and nick schifrin. >> woodruff: hello to both of you, some blockbuster material in this book. but nick, let's start with what we were just discussing. and a lot of it has to do with the fears on the part of the joint chief chair mark milley, what were they. >> milley and other military fears about what president trump was capable of, about the lack of confidence in his decision making really accelerated when trump fired secretary of defense mark es peer-- esper in early november, when trump was threatening to fire other senior officials including cia direct err gina haspell and installed

loyalist to run the pentagon. current and formter officials say they traveled the world without any deliberation with other officials and without sharing details of their conversations, so milley along with secretary of state mike pompeo and others really tried to hold the line on policy. they froze out trump loyalists, they were feared-- they feared that those policies would be made on the back of envelopes. they feared that some of those loyalists might start a war even. and they feared that trump could do anything to stay in power. including perhaps creating a crisis in the u.s. that would require the deployment of the u.s. military in the u.s. and so as first reported by carol and phil milley compared these to 1933 when hitler uses an attack on the german parliament to establish a nazi dictatorship. milley said this is a rierkstag

moment, he thought they were capable of a coup. he said they are not going to effing succeed. you can't do this without the military, without the ci, and fbi. we are the guys with the guns. >> perhaps it goes without saying but the thought of the president's chief military advise esch thinking that the president was capable o creating a coup is remarkable. >> woodruff: it t leaves one speechless. but yamiche, you, of course, were covering the white house then. what is your reporting about what was going on at that time, about what president trump was doing. and what is he saying about all this right now? >> this reporting and these statements by general mark milley, they really underscore what we knew at the time about the trump presidency late in its tenure. this real critical period between november 2020 and january 2021. really what is shows and what my reporting shows is that white house aidees as well as military officials and those closest to president trump, those who were working for him in his administration, they were

increasingly seeing former president trump as unhinged, as wanting to hold on to power at all costs. and as someone who was scaring them. what you see here are military officials making this backup plan. at the time there were loyalists of president trump who were you were approximating back on the reporting saying no, president trump was just wanting to have a free and fair election and that he would eventually concede. of course something he hasot done even to this day. but we see in this reporting is really what we saw in 2020, into 2021. it was the president who was telling people that hhad not-- that he had won the election, rather, telling people that he needed to stay in power, that he was not going to give up. that said, today the former president put out a statement today, i want to read pt of what he said t is sort of remarkable statement, about 400 words, it said in part, i never threatened or spoke about to anyone a coup of our government, so ridiculous. sorry to inform you but an election of my form of a coup. and if i was going to do a coup, wait for it, judy, one of the

last people i would do it with is general mark milley. i said wait for it, because that last part is really remark. he said if i did want to center a coup day ta, take over the government unfairly and illegally, than mark milley wouldn't be who i would want to do it with it, we never had a american talk about a coup. but today underscores that the president trump did not change his position and makes people around him very nervous. >> woodruff: never heard a president hypothesizing about it. so nick, after january 6th. what did the national security apparatus in this country do? >> the former current, former and current senior officials that i have been talking to say that those fears that they had before january the 6th about what trump was capable of, about his decision making only accelerated. so they reiterated with each other that they wouldn't resign. they worked to avoid any crisis that would require the president to respond and so they tried to not provoke around the world. they also tried to send a couple

extra messages to, and then the military deployed unpress nented numbers of service members to protect inauguration in washington d.c. milley and others breathed a sigh of relief on january 20th that it went off. >> woodruff: and you were reporting as and as yamiche reported the president continues to make these claims that he won the election. yamiche alcindor at the white house, nick schifrin, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> for more on all this we turn >> woodruff: for more on all of this we turn to leon panetta who served as secretary of defense and director of the c.i.a. during the obama administration. leon panetta, listening to all of this from what is coming from this reporting, what do you make of it? >> well, i think it just confirms that the events of january 6th brought us very

close to endangering our dm october see it steph. and that we are now in a process of looking at all of the concerns and suspicions that have been raised about just exactly what president trump was up to in the events following the election, and leading up to january 6th itself. those fears and suspicions are still very much alive. >> and when you, and the reporting of that general milley, again, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, someone, a position as secretary of defense, you certainly work very closely with the joint chief chairman at the time, you were in office. i mean this speaks volumes about the concern at the very top about what the president of the united states might do.

>> there is no question that general milley was very concerned about what exactly the president was up to. and i think for good cause. i mean after all, let's just look at the evidence that we have almost from the president himself. he refused to accept the results of the election. he refused to concede and allow for a peaceful transfer of power. he also was clear that he was going to promote this big lie that show the election was stolen. he told the vice president to basically ignore his constitutional responsibility and send the issues back to the state. and then he spoke to a crowd and clearly incited that mob to march on the capitol of the united states. so we have a president who

clearly was not willing to abide by the cnstitution. and i think the fear that general milley had was that if this president doesn't want to follow the constitution of the united states and his oath to office, then what else is he up to and what else could he do that might endanger the country? and that's when i believe the concern that the president might in fact empower the military to show determine the results of the election. it's something that frankly concerns not just seng esper-- esper and general milley, it concerns ten former secretaries of defense who were concerned about just exactly what the president would do in using the military. >> and you were reminding us today of the letter that you and the other former secretaries of defense sent around that period.

you said a moment ago that you think the danger is still there. what do you mean by that? >> . >> i think that if our democracy is is so fragile that president of the united states could virtually ignore the nstitution when it dame to an election, and who continues to believe that show he won that election against all of the evidence to the contrary, that the fact that this president continues to take that same position, i think raises a real concern that he is by no means as he ended his effort to try to regain the presidency one way or the other. and i think that is the concern. that is the danger is that he

will continue to try to show sway his followers, that what happened on january 6th was something thaperhaps could happen again. and that's what really concerns me. is that that danger is still very real. >> and how confident are you leon panetta that our system is strong enough to withstand something like what general milley feared after the election. >> well, there's no question, judy, that our system of government has been severely tested over these last four years. and show we have been able to survive. and i believe we will survive. but it depends on people like general milley very frankly. so i have to reflect the courage

to do what is right. and the fact that he says that whatever his concerns and fears about what this president would do would never succeed, tells me that general milley understood and i think others understood that their first oath of a legance is to the constitution of the united states, not to an individual. >> well, we cerinly benefit from the wisdom of your experience and we thank you very much for joining us. former secretary of defense leon panetta. thank you. >> good to be with you, judy. >> woodruff: at the start of the pandemic, rents for luxury apartments in big cities plunged, with landlords slashing prices by hundreds or even thousands of dollars, and

throwing in free amenities and perks. but around much of the country, rents for lower-income apartments stayed the same or rose higher, exacerbating inequality. special correspondent and washington post columnist catherine rampell has the story. >> reporter: brett vergara is up in the clouds. >> yeah, it's pretty dang magical, i would say. >> reporter: he just got the brooklyn apartment of his dreams, after all. >> you got world trade over there, empire state building, all the bridges. >> reporter: it's a huge upgrade from where he lived before, says his mom katherine starr, visiting from syracuse. >> i remember the first time bringing him down here and dropping him off at his first basement apartment with bars on the walls in a tiny little eight by 10 room. and i'm like, why do you love new york city so much? >> i look out here and feel lucky and humbled and grateful, to say the least. >> reporter: he feels lucky because he got this 49th-floor

view for a bargain-basement price. >> rents have been dropping significantly, especially in really dense urban areas such as new york city and san francisco. >> reporter: nancy wu, economist at real estate sites zillow and streeteasy. >> the biggest discounts are in some of the most expensive neighborhoods, and anywhere up to five months of free rent. >> i was stalking streeteasy looking at like the listing history and i was like, okay, this is going to be home, it's just a matter of when. >> reporter: vergara, a tech worker, first zeroed in on the building in august, when he was still renting a place with three roommates. the apartment was posted in october for $3000, nearly a thousand dollars less than what it had rented for pre-pandemic. he then watched the price fall almost daily for three months. >> and then just swooped in. >> reporter: in the end... >> it's like 2650-ish. and two and a half months free. >> reporter: so that's a pretty deep discount. >> yeah. even in my dreams that were, you know, like theoretically dreams don't have restrictions, right? did not dream of this. >> reporter: but, not everyone is getting a great deal.

>> when i started my rent was $900. it is now $1500. >> that ain't right. >> no! >> reporter: faye porter is a tenant organizer in chicago and a paralegal who lost her job during the pandemic. she's been fighting rent increases for a decade now, including a $70 hike last june. >> this is how i have to heat my apartment in the wintertime. >> reporter: ...while she's watched her living conditions deterioriate. >> plumbing issues, electrical issues. i've had a fire in my apartment. gas leak. because our carpet hasn't been cleaned in, at least in two years and it's never vacuumed, the building smells bad so this is what i have to do. >> reporter: tell me more about the heat. that's been a chronic problem, right? >> definitely. last year was the worst. this is the ice inside my bathroom window. >> reporter: these are the portable heaters she had to buy. >> i had to get five to make sure that the apartment stays warm to some degree.

>> reporter: so those sound like pretty substandard conditions. >> yes. >> reporter: how come brett vergara scores a great deal in a luxury apartment, and faye porter can't catch a break? >> people get stuck in here too. >> the k-shaped recovery that's been present in labor markets is also showing up in housing markets. >> reporter: economist jenny schuetz means the two-track recoery, where the rich get richer and the poor get left behind. >> so higher income renters who still kept their job, who have strong credit scores and have some assets, have taken advantage of low interest rates in this time to become first time homeowners. >> reporter: many decamped to the suburbs or beyond, leaving a lot of vacant luxury rentals behind. >> but at the same time, low income renters who have had job losses andncome losses and really don't have a lot of choices about where to live, they're actually seeing somewhat higher rents at the low end of the rental sector. >> reporter: because of increased demand for cheaper

housing. they're competing with middle income renters who may also have lost jobs. >> people who maybe were in a slightly nicer or larger apartment before who are having to downshift or downgrade a little bit. >> reporter: robin schwartz is one of those down-shifters. >> i had a balcony. i had a dishwasher, i had the washer-dryer, and i had a really decent sized rooms that you could walk around in. >> reporter: a health and lifestyle coach in chicago, schwartz's business dried up last year. she wanted to move, but she was struggling with long-haul covid. >> i had terrible, terrible difficulty breathing. i still have difficulty breathing. like now. and the fatigue and the brain fog and the coughing and the racing heart. and feeling that way to have to go try to find another apartment. it was a bit of a nightmare. >> reporter: was it difficult to find a place that was wiin your budget? >> yes! in fact, what ended up happening

was the prices began to rise! so where i'd started looking at one-bedrooms as a couple of months passed they were charging for a studio what they h been charging for one-bedroom. >> reporter: she ended up taking a udio about half the size of her old apartment. and with none of the perks. have you been monitoring what's happened to your old apartment? >> the price dropped enormously after i moved out. to like 1550 or something? >> reporter: down from about $2000. even though high-end units like her old place are getting cheaper... >> the windows don't fit properly. >> reporter: ...they're still out of reach for many low-income tenants. the wait list for financial assistance is long and offers no guarantees. you've probably seen that in lots of neighborhoods where the rental prices are higher, they've been falling. >> i've seen rents go from $3,00 to 1500. >> reporter: that's her current rent. >> some of the places are wonderful. i've looked at them. there's this particular loft. i wanted it so bad.

he said i had it, until i said i had a housing choice voucher. and it was over. that if you have a section eight tenant then drugs is going to come with them, some unsupervised children, they're not going to keep their house clean. and also they're people of color. i've had that happen to me at least 20 times. >> reporter: illegal, t all too common. and one reason why the high-end rent cuts haven't yet filtered down to the neediest. >> it's not helping the people who don't have vouchers in the first placor people who are still facing pushback from landlords from taking their vouchers. so these are bigger problems that still need to be addressed. >> reporter: other policies intended to help distressed tenants may also have some unintended consequences for rents. >> landlords may be trying to sort of balance out the overall building income, given that some of the tenants in there aren't able to pay. but because of the eviction moratorium, they're still in there.

so they're losing income on some of the units. and they may be trying to make that up by raising rents on tenants who still have jobs and can afford to pay. >> reporter: and many landlords have little wiggle room. >> rents at the low end have a floor based on just the cost of utilities and the mortgage and property taxes and so forth. so you can't have much softening. >> we just don't have enough affordable rental housing in this country as the is the big problem. >> reporter: caitlin walter, national multifamily housing council. >> we say that you need to build about 325,000 apartment units every year in order to keep up with just that year's demand. and there were many, many years, almost a decade where we didn't meet that annual demand. >> reporter: so there's been a glut of units at the high end, though prices there may be rising again, are rising again as superstar cities reopen. >> i would say this past year, to sum it up, is like guilty gratitude, where i feel like i got away with something here. >> reporter: while those hit hardest by the pandemic... >> this has been really hard >> reporter: ...feel like they're being left behind. >> and the unfairness has been

especially upsetting. >> it angers me. it's a fight every day to deal with the housing situation. and sometimes i'm tired. everybody gets tired of fighting. the only way we can fight this is to get organized. >> reporter: but fight she does, starting with her next rent increase, another $50 a month. >> because we all need and deserve a safe, clean, decent, affordable place to live. ( cheers and applause ) >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, i'm catherine rampell. >> woodruff: many families in the u.s. struggle to find affordable, quality child care. but there is one group that has access to what some say is the gold standard of child care in for americans, that is, families in the military. tonight, special correspondent cat wise and producer kate

mcmahon take a look at the military's child care system and why it seems to work so well it's part of our series, "raising the future: america's child care dilemma." >> reporter: it was a big day at fort belvoir last month. dozens of military families gathered to celebrate four and five year olds graduating from pre-school and heading off to kindergarten in the fall. fort belvoir is an army base just outside d.c. in fairfax, virginia. about 10,000 service members and civilians live and work at the base. many of them are parents who need child care in order to do their jobs. for the u.s. military child care is not just a family issue-- it's a matter of national security. >> we have to take care of our families. and that means child care. >> reporter: colonel joshua segraves is the garrison commander at fort belvoir. he says the milita's child care system is mission critical. >> so when you think about

readiness, child care provides a key facet of that readiness and how we take care of our soldiers, but also maintain our readiness to deploy worldwide at any given moment. i think without that we would be significantly degraded in our ability to accomplish those missions. >> reporter: as congress contemplates a new role for the federal government in american child care, many experts say they should look to the military system, which has been called “" model for the nation.” >> i don't think you can find much better than the military child care system. >> reporter: based at the pentagon, patty barron oversees military child care policy. she says she's seen a need for quality child care throughout her life. a military spouse and mother of three, she came to the u.s. from el salvador as a child andays her mom struggled to find child care. >> she had to go to work every single day. what she went through to find child care for us was crazy. so much so that at the age of

ten i was the one that was taking care of my brother and sister. and so for me, it's very personal. >> reporter: the federal government spends just over a billion doars a year on the military's child care system which serves 160,000 children from birth through 12 years of age. care is offered in a variety of settings: centers and homes on bases, and also off-base at approved providers. it's not free-- parents pay a sliding fee based on their total family income. since the 1970s, the number of service men and women with families has grown, and so has the need for more child care. but in early days, that care was not what it should have been, according to barron. >> there was no training. there was no development, a developmentally appropriate training for the providers. but there are also some ugly things going on. >> reporter: poor conditions and cases of neglect and even abuse prompted sweeping reforms on capitol hill.

in 1989 congress passed the military child care act. the overhaul required the military to provide high quality, affordable care for service members and for child care teachers to earn fair wages. for the past three decades, congress has supported funding for the military's child care system to meet the needs of service members and their families. but outside the gates of fort belvoir, and military installations around the countr the child care landscape looks very different for the rest of america's families. army specialist deja lyles has experienced those differences. >> i pay like a little over 400 a month, which isn't bad at all because in the civilian world i paid almost 300 a week for child care. >> reporter: she's the mother of five-year-old paris. she now uses fort belvoir's child care, but paris started out in civilian care. >> i can see her education has changed because she's way more advanced now than she was prior to that when she was in the civilian daycare.

>> reporter: in the military, parents pay between about $2,500 to $8,300 a year per child, regardless of age. the government covers the rest. in the civilian world, center- based infant care ranges from about $9,400 to more than $17,000 dollars a year. and, in the military, starting wages for child care providers typically start around $28,000 and can go as high as $45,000. they also get benefits. civilian child care providers earn on average about $24,000 a year often without benefits. >> welcome to joann blanks child development center. >> reporter: i visited some of fort belvoir's five home-based family care providers and seven child development centers including one of the army's largest... >> reporter: leo duran is the director of the joann blanks child development center which serves more than 280 children ranging in age from six weeks to five. >> we have a diverse staff in here, which i love. it is very important because we

also have very diverse families. and when we have teachers who can actually make that family, you know, more comforting to them when they know that we speak the language. >> reporter: teachers follow approved curriculum and there are unannounced inspections several times a year. janet evans is the chief of child and youth services at fort belvoir. >> they are teachers. they're not babysitters. we developndividual training plans for them. we have staff that come in brand new with a teaching degree. and they would still have to have this same training with the departnt, with the army for those meeting those training components on how we do it here to defe that quality. >> we do continue education training nonstop. >> reporter: tammy mcgruder has been a lead teacher at fort belvoir for 19 years. she says in addition to sharpening her professional

skills, providing top quality child care also means routine, safety and warmth. >> i want to make sure that i can do the best i can and be a substitution for their mom on that day for that eight hours or nine hours until they're able to get their child back in their arms. i want my kids to feel loved until mommy or daddy come back, and safe. >> reporter: military spouse tabitha stafford provides a different care option for families-- she runs a small child care business in her home at fort belvoir. >> being a family child care provider is amazing. i get to do what i love to do, which is being with children. but i also accommodate a lot for the needs of the children and their ages. so we do dferent activities according to what the children can do. >> reporter: while the military child care system has largely addressed costs, quality and workforce pay, it does share one challenge with the civilian

world: access. >> there are areas where the wait lists are high. we need to take care of that. how are we going to take care of that either through new construction, public private partnerships... that takes money. >> reporter: nationally about 10,000 children of service members are on waitlists for on- base care. and infant care, in particular, is a big need. trying to address me of those shortages, the military is launching a new pilot program in five regions to help military families pay for care providers in their own home. and new child care centers are now in the works on bases in hawaii, alaska, washington state and california. barron says although the system isn't perfect, she believes the investment in america's future is worth it. >> i want people to have available, affordable, quality child care, especially our military families, because they deserve it. but as does everyone in the nation, we all deserve it. when you think about children and you think about infants and

toddlers, that brain development, if we want a country that's going to be forward leaning, that's going to have a strong economy, that's going to be to raise future scientists and the cure of cancer might be out there, we have to invest in what's good for children at the very beginning of their lives. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, i'm cat wise at fort belvoir, virginia. >> woodruff: with summer in full swing, you may be wondering what books to take along on vacation, or enjoy right at home. >> part of our arts and culture series, canvas. >> a boat ride across boston harbor, a good way to see the city with its rich history, and

the best way to gets to the watershed, an old warehouse in east boston's ship yard now converted to an enormous art space by the institute of contemporary art orr ca. on display inside a very different approach to history. are we meant to be underwater? >> either under a nice sky or the sea floor, choose your adventure. >> 40 year old artist has built a kind of giant ruin, for visitors to walk under and threw, above a deep blue mesh or tarp. >> we had have to perv rate it and allow light just right. >> and create a shimmering watery effect. below a strange structure, walls lurching at wild angles ready to collapse. >> i'm thinking like an archaeologist, a frame and through this act of imagination, you can then get a bigger, truer

picture of who we are. >> she herself was born in the dominican republic to a dominican mother and haitian father. she came to miami at age eight. >> beauty brought comfort to me. i moved around a lot as a kid. and that meant a different room, different spaces. and one way to anchor into space, one way to claim this new room as my own, was to transform it i had the bit of fab ruch, some paper, man some paint, just change it into whatever my mind could imagine. >> did you think of it as art at that point. >> and i did not think of it as art. i just knew that it was a thing that was within my reach that could transform worlds. >> formal training came at cooper union and hunter college in new york and she now lives and works in the bronx. she's best known as a painter, transforming worlds in a very literal way by taking old maps, documents and other archives and

painting directly on to them. layering histories ad showing connections. the products like sugar that move from caribbean fields to cafes in paris. the bodies of people who work to produce them. but also the revolutionary ideas that move between europe, haiti and the british colony. >> what i am so excited about, personally, is the fact that this place that i come from is som meshed with other places in the world in ways that we are not even aware of or used to thinking of it it. >> she often includes figures from caribbean mythology like the-- seg-wapa a powerful female tricksster that come see as witchlike, she painted one on a large mural. >> i was always told of her as a warning of like if you don't behave you will be like a wild seg-wapa. and as a five year old, you think okay, she's traceless, she's beautiful, she gets to be

fierce, she gets to break generations of family trouble. >> right. >> why would i not want to do this. a bad hair day, no. so. >> she became. >> she became kind of like this superhero character of potential. >> for this project she's gone bigger. recreating haiti's-- palace built in 1813 for king henri, it is a symbol of revolution and independence from france but itself left in ruin from earthquake damage in 1842. and she built it in boston to highlight direct connections through shipping and trade and especially here in east boston, mei dpraition, this part of the-- migration, this part has been a wave of immigrants especially in recent years from central america. there is rubble on the ground, barn ak els clinging to the there's rubble on the ground, barnacles clinging to the walls, a sense of scale and mystery. >> it's almost like a cairn or

this thing that's emerging out of the ground. it's a place of imagination, but it's made of everyday materials. i think i want people to be able to take everyday things and imagine their potential. it's plaster, wood, paint the same house paint you would have in your home to paint your walls. >> brown: and it's decorated with patterns, designs, and images from various cultures that have interacted through time. >> these are symbols and colors that areeant to suggest different points of connection from the black diaspora in latin america, in north american and the caribbean, and primarily in west africa. for instance, when you look at something like this, it's a melding of the symbol for the biafran lion with the african- american black panther. >> brown: baez says her work is always about engaging the senses first, to grab the viewer with beauty and imagery. then, she hopes, we'll look harder. >> a lot of times when we think of history we're taught to

imagine it as something distant and separate from ourselves and i want us to realize we're constant ¡threads' that are speaking forward and backward, our actions are predicated by people before us and our lessons learned can maybe dictate what we pass on. >> brown: firelei baez' re- imagining of history is on exhibit through september 6th. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown at the institute of contemporary art ¡watershed' in boston. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, domestic violence shelters and advocates say they've seen a major uptick in calls for help, and experts worry that the surge in gun sales during the pandemic increases the danger. we explore that 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.

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[uptempo orchestral music] - hello everyone, anwelcome to "amanpour and company." we're looking back at some of our favorite interviews, so here's what's coming up. - i'd say that there's at least a hundred people here. there are children from the ages of five to literally three months old. - [christiane] inside the harrowing trek to america. vice news host paola ramos tells us what migrants really face on their dangerous journey through the jung. then. [group sings in foreign language] - [christiane] gridlock in yet another israeli election, as palestinians gear up for theirs, the first in 15 years. candidate and former foreign minister nasser alkidwa on what all this means for peace and human rights in the region. plus. - you have a lot of, thousands of officers, who want to serve, who really want to do the right thing.