judy: good evening, i'm judy ridge of -- judy woodruff. we discuss inflation and the expanded child tax credit that will benefit almost nine of every 10 children in the country. the treasury secretary janet yellen joins us. then, insurrection aftermath. how the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff feared former president trump was laying the grouwork 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. judy: althat and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour been provided by -- >> johnson & johnson bnsf railway consumer cellular financial services firm raymond james

the kendeda fund carnegie corporation of new york and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪

vanessa: we will return to judy woodruff and the full program after the latest headlines. 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 totep up. we know they have taken me 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. >> also today, the los angeles county in california ordered everyone, even the vaccinated, to resume wearing masks indoors, starting saturday. the county's public health officer said there is substantial community transmission and the head of the world health organization pressed china to stop

withholding raw data on the origins of covid-19. a major effort to address child poverty in america has begun. millions of parents today received initial monthly payments averaging it's a one-year expansion of the $420. 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. president biden: 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 am forces into haiti is not on the agenda at this moment. >> 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 homes 200,000 lost power. in the western u.s., firefighters spent hours battling fires in an area can -- covering an area larger than new york city. officials today ordered additional evacuations. the national interagency fire center says 71 currently active wildfires have burned an area larger than the size of rhode island. overseas, lebanon's prime minister designate has resigned,

deepening a political crisis that has left the country without a government now for nine months and the economy in a financial meltdown. he cited keep differences with the country's president. u.s. secretary of state antony blinken said the resignation is another disappointing development for the lebanese people. 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. 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. >> '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. >> the biden 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. still to come, why a top military leader feared former president trump was laying the groundwork for a coup. the pandemics disparate impacts on the cost of living nationwide and how child care for military families could be a model for the rest of the country, and more.

>> this is the "pbs newshour." judy: 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 goes directly into an individual's bank account. people qualify if they claim a child under 17 on their taxes. they received $300 a month per child for those under the age of six, maxing out at annually. $3600the payments are $250 a month for children between six

and 17 years old, maxing out at a year. $3000 i spoke with secretary yellen earlier today. secretary yellen, thank you very much for joining us. i know the administration has been eager to pull out these child tax credits. what impacted you believe they will have on american families? >> i think it's going to be tremendously important suppo for american families. today the families of more than 60 million children will receive , beginning 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 count . it's estimated that the american rescue plan will reduce this

year child poverty rates by 50 percent. and the child tax credit is the most important reason for that reduction. so, it's a very important source of income support. judy: how can you be sure the money will be spent on children? janet yellen: 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 tremendous benefit to the children in these households. judy: 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? janet yellen: well, first of all, let me say that we have been able to reach today payments that 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 advanced 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 as 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 difcult population to reach. judy: madam secretary, some republicans are already saying is is going to discourage many parents from working. how do you respond? janet yellen: look, 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 sethis as a significant discouragement to work. quite the contrary. judy: 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% at an annual rate. the chairman of the federal reserve, jay powell, jerome powell, said he was surprised by this. were you surprised? janet yellen: 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 bottleneckwhen 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 that 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. judy: but in light of this and the picture of potential inflation, is it risky to be enacting a $5 trillion spending bill on infrastructure over the next 10 years? janet yellen: well, you said 10 years, and that's an important proviso. the spending is spaced out. over time on an annual basisit is really an amount that our economy can easily handle. and it will support faster economic growth and higher productivity and address 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 children, and in making community college free, affordable for everyone will make our work force 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 have seen female labor force participation fall off relative to many advanced countries where ese supports for working families are available. judy: and a very quick final question, madam secretary, and something else you have been very involved in. and that is persuading other countries to go along with a corporate minimum income tax. is that something that you think congress will pass? what do you think prospects are? janet yellen: well, i think it's an historic agreement to get every g20 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 meet government expenditures 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. judy: treasury secretary janet yellen, thank you very much. we appreciate your joining us today. janet yellen: thank you, judy. it's a pleasure to be with you. ♪ judy: today the washington post published excerpts from a new

book by reporters carol leonnig and phil rucker describing how -- that contain the shauna hsing -- astonishing details of how the military were about former president trump's actions in the final days of his administration. to join -- to talk about that i'm joined by nick schiffrin and yamiche alcindor. some blockbuster material in this book. 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 chiefs chair mark milley. what were they? nick schifrin: yes. so, milley and other military's 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 esper. that was in early november, when trump was threatening to fire other senior officials, including cia director gina haspel, and when he installed loyalists to run the pentagon. current and former officials i talk to say those loyalists pursued policy changes, traveled the world without any

deliberation with other u.s. officials, without sharing details of their conversations. and 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 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 leonnig and phil rucker, milley compared these days to 1933, when hitler uses an attack on the german parliament to establish a nazi dictatorship. milley said this is a reichstag moment. his fear was existential. he thought they were capable of a coup.

he said they're not going to f'ing succeed. you can't do this without the military. you can't do this without the cia and the fbi. we're the guys with the guns. perhaps it goes without saying, but the thought of the president's chief military adviser thinking that the president was capable of creating a coup is remarkable. judy: it 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? yamiche alcindor: well, 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. and really what it shows and what my reporting shows is that white house aides, 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 onto power at all costs, and as someone who was scaring them. and what you see here are

military officials making this backup plan. now, at the time, there were loyalists of president trump who were pushing 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 that he has not done even to this day. but what we see here in this reporting is really what we saw in 2020 into 2021. and it was a president who was telling people that he had 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 president did put out a statement the , former president, i should say, put out a statement today. i want to read part of what he said. it's a sort of remarkable statement. i was 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 is 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

general mark milley. and i said "wait for it" because that last part is really remarkable. he's saying, if i did have want to have a coup d'etat, if i did want to take over the government unfairly and illegally, then mark milley wouldn't be who i would want to do it with. we have never in american history, of course, seen a president talking about a coup d'at. so, today really is also underscoring that president trump has not changed his position, and continues to really be someone that makes a lot of people around him very nervous. judy: never, never heard of president hypothesizing about it. so, nick, after january the 6th, what did the national security apparatus in this country do? nick: yes, 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. and 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 sd a couple of extra messages of deterrence to adversaries, including iran. and then the military deployed unprecedented numbers of service members to protect inauguration in washington, d.c.

and milley and others breathe a sigh of relief on january 20 that it went off peacefully. judy: and, as you are reporting and as yamiche has 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. judy: for more on this we turn to leon panetta, who served as secretary of defense and director of the cia during the obama administration. listening to all this from what's coming from this reporting, what do you make of it? >> well, i think it just confirms that the events of january 6 brought us very close to endangering our democracy itself. and we are now in a process of

looking at all of the concerns and suspicions that have been raised about just exactly what president was up to in the events following the election and leading up to january 6 itself. those fears and suspicions are still very much alive. judy: and the reporting about general milley, again, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a position, as secretary of defense you certainly worked close with the joint chiefs chairman at the time you were in office, this speaks volumes about the concern at the very top about what the president of the united states might do. mr. panetta: there's no question that general milley was very concerned about what exactly the

president was up to. and i think for good cause. after all, let's just look at the idence that we have, almost from the president himself, he refused to accept the results of the election, he refused to concede and allow for peaceful transfer of power, he also was clear that he was going to promote this big lie that somehow the election was stolen. he told the vice president to basically ignore his constitutional responsibility and send the issues back to the states. and then he spoke to a crowd and clearly incited that mob to march on the capital of the united states. so we have a president who clearly was not willing to abide by the constitution, 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 somehow determine the results of the election, it's something that, frankly, concerned not just secretary esper general milley, it concerned 10 former secretaries of defense who were concerned about just exactly what the president would do in using the military. judy: and you were reminding us today of the letter that you and the former secretaries of defense sent around that period, warning about your concerns. you set a moment ago that you think the danger is still there. what do you mean by that?

mr. panetta: i think that if our democracy is so fragile that the president of the united states could virtually ignore the constitution when it came to an election, and who continues to believe that somehow 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 has he ended his effort to try to regain the presidency one way or the other. and i think that's the concern. that's the danger, is that he will continue to try to somehow sway his followers that what

happened on january 6 was something that perhaps could happen again. and that's what really concerns me, is that that danger is still very real. judy: and how confident are you, leon panetta, that our system is strong enough to withstand something like what general milley feared after the election? mr. panetta: well, there's no question, judy, that our system of government has been severely tested over these last four years. and somehow, we have been able to survive. and i believe we will survive. but it depends on people like general milley, very frankly, you have to reflect the courage to do what is right. and the fact that he said this, 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 allegiance is to the constitution of the united states, not to an individual. judy: well, we certainly benefit from the wisdom of your experience. and we thank you very much for joining us, former secretary of defense leon panetta. thank you. mr. panetta: good to be with you, judy. judy: at the start of the pandemic, res for luxury apartments in many cities plunge, with landlords slashing prices by hundreds or even thousands of dollars, and throwing in free amenities and

parks. but around the country rents stayed the same arose higher, exacerbating inequality. special correspondent and washington post columnist catherine rampell has the story. >> he just got the brooklyn apartment of his dreams. >> you got the world trade over there, empower state building, all the bridges. catherine: it's a huge upgrade from where he lived before, says his mom. >> i remember the first time bringing him down here and dropping him off at his first basement apartment with bars on the walls 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 be -- to say the least. catherine: he feels lucky because he got this 49th floor

view for a bargain-basement price. wu, economist at real estate sites zilla oh and street easy. >> anywhere up to five months of free rent. >> i was stocking easy -- street easy and looking at the listing history and i was like, this is going to be home. it's just a matter of when. catherine: he 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 $1000 less than what it had rented for pre-pandemic. he then watched the price fall almost daily for three months. that's a pretty deep discount. >> even in my dreams, i did not dream of this. catherine: but not -- but not everyone is getting a great deal. >> when i started my rent was

$900. it is now $1500. catherine: 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. catherine: while she's watched her living conditions deteriorate. >> pulp -- plumbing issues, electrical issues, our carpet hasn't been cleaned and at least two years, and it's never vacuumed. the building smells bad, so this is what i have to do. catherine: tell me more about the heat. that's been a chronic problem, right? >> definitely. last year was the worst. catherine: these are the portable heater she had to buy. those sound like pretty substandard conditions.

>> yes. catherine 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. catherine economist jenny : schuetz means the two-track recovery, 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. catherine: 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 and income 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 rental sector. catherine because of increased : demand for cheaper housing, they are 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. catherine 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. catherine a health and lifestyle : coach in chicago, her 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. catherine was it difficult to : find a place that was within your budget? >> yes! in fact, what ended up happening was the prices began

to rise. so where i had started looking at one bedrooms as a couple of , months passed they were charging for a studio what they had been charging for one-bedroom. catherine she ended up taking a : studio 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? catherine: down from about even $2000. though high-end units like her old place are getting cheaper they are 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 $3000 to $1500. >> that's her current rent. >> some of the places are

wonderful. i've looked at them. there's this particular loft i wanted so bad. he said i had it, until i said i had a housing choice voucher. and it was over. 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 are people of color. >> it's not helping the people who don't have vouchers in the first place or people who are still facing pushback from landlords from taking their so these are bigger problems vouchers. that still need to be addressed. catherine 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 ince, 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. catherine 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 say that you need to build about 300 and apartment units 25,000 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. catherine: so there has been a glut of units at the high end, though pricethere may be rising again, are rising again as superstar cities reopen. >> i would say this pastear, to sum it up, is like guilty gratitude, where i feel like i got away with something here. catherine: all those hit hardest by the pandemic feel like they are 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. catherine: 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. catherine: for the pbs newshour, i catherine rampell. am♪ judy: ma 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

white seems to work so well. it's part of our series, "raising the future: america's child care dilemma." >> it was a big day last month, dozens of military families gather to celebrate 45-year-os -- 4-5 euros rajoy writing from preschool and heading off to kindergarten in the fall. it's an army base just outside d.c. in fairfax, virginia, about 10,000 service members and civilians live and work at the fort. many of them are parents who need childcare in order to do their jobs. for the u.s. military, childcare is not just a family issue. it's a matter of national security. >> we have to take care of our families, and that means childcare. cat: he is the garrison commander at fort -- at the

fort. he says the military's childcare system is mission-critical. >> when you think about readiness, childcare provides a key facet of that readiness and how we take care of our soldiers, but that maintained that also maintains a readiness to deploy worldwide at any given moment. cat: as congress contemplates a new role for the federal government and american childcare, the experts say they should look to the military system, which has been called a model for the nation. based at the pentagon, patty baron overseas military childcare 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 and says her mom struggled to find childcare. >> she had to go to work every single day. what she went through to find childcare for us was crazy. so much so that at the age of 10, i was the one that was

taking care of my brother and sister. and so for me, it's very personal. cat: the federal government spends just over a billion dollars a year on the military's childcare 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 base, and also off-base at approved providers. it's not free. parents pay a sliding fee based on their total family income. since the 1970's, the cert -- number of servicemen and women with families has grown, and so has the need for more childcare. but in the early days, that care was not what it should have been. >> there was no developmentally appropriate training for the providers. t there were also some ugly things going on. cat: poor conditions in cases of neglect and even abuse prompted sweeping reforms on capitol

hill. in 1989 the congress -- congress passed the military childcare act. the overhaul required the military to provide high-quality care for service members and for childcare teachers to earn fair wages. for the past three decades, congress has supported funding for the military's childcare system to meet the needs of servicemembers and their families. but the childcare landscape 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 that at all. in the civilian world, i was paying almost $300 a week for child care. cat: she's the mother of five-year-old paris. paris started out in civilian care. >> i can see her education has changed because she is way more advanced now than she was prior

to that. cat: in the military, parents pay between $2500 to $8,300 a year per child, regardless of age. in the civilian world it can be more than $17,000 a year. and in the military, starting wages for childcare workers typically start around 28,000 dollars and can go as high as $45,000. they also get benefits. civilian childcare workers - childcare providers earn on average about $24,000 a year, often without benefits. i visited five home-based family care providers and seven child development centers. leo durant is the director of the joann blank center, which serves within 280 children ranging in age from six weeks to five years. >> we have diverse staffing 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 more comforting to them when they know that we speak the language. cat: 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 belfour. >> their teachers, they are not babysitters. we develop iividual training plans for them. we have staff that come in brand-new with a teaching degree, and they would still have to have the same training with the department of defense for those meeting the training components on how we do it here, to define that quality. cat: tammy mcgruder has been a lead teacher here for 19 years. she says in addition to sharpening her professional skills, providing top quality childcare also means team --

routine, safety, and warmth. >> i want to make sure that i can do the best i can and be a substitution for their mom or dad for that eight hours until their back in their arms. i want my kids to feel loved unl mommy or daddy come back, and safe. cat: military spouse tabatha stafford provides a different care option for families. >> being a family childcare 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 different activities according to what the children can do. cat: all the military childcare system has largely addressed cost, quality, and workforce pay, it does share when challenged with the civilian world, access.

>> there are areas where the weightless are high. we need to take care of that, either through new construction, public-private partnerships. that takes money. cat: nationally about 10,000 children of service members our own weightless for on-base care. infant care is a big need. the military is launching a new -- new pilot program in fiery regions thelp military families pay for care providers in their own home and news childcare centers are now in the works on bases in hawaii, alaska, washington state, and california. she believes the investment in america's future is worth it. >> i want people to have available, affordable, quality childcare, especially our military families, because they deserve it, but we all deserve it. 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 rse future scientists and the cure for cancer might be out there, we have to invest in what is good for children at the very beginning of their lives. cat: for the pbs newshour, i'm cat wise in virginia. ♪ judy: we learn history in many ways, through books, documents, maps, and sometimes through art. jeffrey brown introduces us to an artist exploring connections between her native caribbean island and the wider world as part of our arts and culture series. >> a boat ride across boston harbor a good way to see this , city with its rich history, and the best way to get to watershed, an old warehouse in east boston's shipyard now converted to an enormous art

space by the institute of contemporary art, or ica. on display inside, a very different approach to history. are we meant to be underwater? firelei baez: either under a night sky or on seafloor. choose your adventure. jeffrey: 40 year old firelei baez artist has built a kind of giant ruin, one visitors can walk under and through, above a deep blue mesh or tarp. firelei baez: we had to perforate and then angle the lights just right. jeffrey: to allow light to filter through and create a shimmering, watery effect, below, a strange structure, its walls lurching at wild angles ready to collapse. firelei baez: i'm taking, like an archaeologist, a frame, and through this act of imagination, if you want to call it, fabulation, you can then get a bigger, truer picture of who we. -- who we are. jeffrey: baez herself was born in the dominican republic to a dominican mothernd haitian father.

she came to miami at age 8. firelei baez: 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. i had the ability to, with a bit of fabric, some paper, maybe some paint, if i could get it, ju change it into whatever my mind could imagine. jeffrey did you think of it as : art at that point? firelei baez: and i did not think of it as art. i just knew that it was this thing that was within my reach that could transform worlds. jeffrey: formal training came at cooper union and hunter college in new york and she now lives anworks 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 onto them, layering histories and 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 moved between europe, haiti and the british colony. firelei baez: what i am so excited about personally is the fact that this place that i come from is so enmeshed with other places in the world in ways that we are not even aware of or used to thinking of. jeffrey: she often includes figures from caribbean mythology like the ciguapa, a powerful female trickster, in some tellings, which like. in boston, baez painted a ciguapa on a large mural. firelei baez: i was always told of her as a warning of like, if you don't behave, you're going to be like a wild ciguapa. and, as 5-year-old you think, ok, she's traceless, she's beautiful, she gets to be fierce, she gets to break generations of family troubles. why would i not want to do this? a bad hair day? no.

jeffrey: so, she became a character for you. firelei baez: so she became kind of like this superhero character of potentials. jeffrey: for this project, she's gone bigger, recreating haiti's sans-souci palace built in 1813 for king henri christophe. it's a symbol of revolution and independence from france, but itself left in ruin from earthquake damage in 1842. and she's built it in boston to highlight direct connections through shipping and trade, and, especially here in east boston, migration. this part of the city has long been an entryway and home for waves of immigrants, especially in recent years from central america. there's rubble on the ound, barnacles clinging to the walls, a sense of scale and mystery. firelei baez: almost like a cairn or this thing that's emerging out of the ground. it's a place for 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. jeffrey: and it's decorated with patterns, designs and images from various cultures that have interacted through time. firelei baez: these are symbols and colors that are meant to suggest different points of connection from the black diaspora in latin america, in north erica 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 african-american black panther. jeffrey: baez says her work is always about engaging the senses first to grab the viewer with beauty and imagery. then, she hopes, we will look harder. firelei baez: 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 eaking forward and backward. our actions are predicated by people before us. and our lessons learned can maybe dictate what we pass on. jeffrey: firelei baez's reimagining of history is on exhibit through september 6. for the "pbs newshour," i'm jeffrey brown athe institute of contemporary art watershed in boston. judy: and online right now, domesticiolence shelts and advocates say they have seen a major uptick in calls for help and experts worry that the surgeon gun sales during the pandemic increases the danger. we explore that on our website, pbs.org/newshour. that's the newshour for tonight. join us again online and tomorrow night. thank you, please stay safe, and we will see you soon. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its

caption content and accuracy.] >> johnson & johnson bnsf railway the ford foundation.

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