to learn more, visit safetyactioncenter.pge.com captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, covid on the rise-- the spike in infections and deaths provokes a renewed push for vaccinations. we explore where they will be mandatory. then, the road ahead-- we check in on the latest from congress. is this the moment they finally agree on funding infrastructure projects? and, desperate journey-- the greek government targets migrant advocates as europe struggles with its refugee crisis. >> ( translated ): it's like going from one war to another. i didn't find anything better here than the life i was living. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> woodruff: new requirements for covid vaccinations gathered momentum today as concerns over rising cases grows. the u.s. department of veterans affairs became the first federal agency to require shots. about 115,000 of its frontline health care rkers will be required to get vaccinated within the next two months. there were similar moves on both coasts of the country. california governor gavin newsom said his state will require proof of covid-19 vaccination for all state employees and health care workers beginning next month. if employees don't get vaccinated, they must get tested weekly. in new york city, mayor bil deblasio said municipal workers either must get vaccinated by mid-september or take weekly tests. if not, they risk losingay. >> we're at a point in this

epidemic, this pandemic, where choice, an individual's choice not to get vaccinated is now impacting the rest of us, in a profound and devastating and deadly way. >> september is the pivot point of the recovery. september is when many employers are bringing back a lot of their employees. september is when school starts, full strengths. september is when people come back from the summer. september is when it will all happen. >> woodruff: one major labor union signaled it may fight the changes. separately, nearly 60 major medical organizations issued a call for mandatory vaccinations for all health care workers. more than 40% of all nursing home staff are still not fully vaccinated. for his part, president biden announced today that people suffering from long-term symptoms of covid could qualify as having a disability under the federal americans with disabilities act. today is the 31st anniversary of that law.

individuals would get addition protections from discrimination in employment and housing. but they have to be assessed to qualify. let's focus more on today's news around mandatory vaccinations. dr. ezekiel emanuel helped organize the statement from those medical groups. he's the co-director of the health care transformation institute at the university of pennsylvania. dr. zeke emanuel, welcome back to the newshour, i think many people assume that the majority or all health care workers are already vaccinated but that is not the case, is it? >> no, there are many health care workers that are not vaccinated, unfortunately. in long-term care facilities, for example, about 60% of the workers are vaccinated. but that means 40% are not vaccinated. >> woodruff: and so what is the impetus behind this move today? as we were saying, almost 60

maker-- major medical organizations saying it should be a requirement, mandatory that health care workers be vaccinated. >> well, our motivation is that we're health care workers, we're caring for patients. patients come first. it's our obligation to promote their health and well-being and one of the ways we do that is by taking vaccines. we take the influenza vaccine, the hepatitis vaccine and in the mix of covid-19 we're supposed to take the covid vaccine to protect our patients. whether they are elderly, they're children who can't be vaccinated or imuno compromised cancer patients or organ transplant paicialts. we need to help and protect them and the pest way to do that from covid is to get vaccinated. >> but this pandemic obviously has been going on now for over a year and a half. what is precipitated this right now? >> judy, to be honest. i began urging mandates of

health care workers three months ago, in the middle of april. i think we tried t is always better to have people do things voluntarily. we were hoping if you got a vaccine, you made it readily available and you made it free, people would get vaccinated. but unfortunately, in the country only about half the country has been vaccinated and in health care it night be slightly higher but it is still not 100 percent. and if you can't induce people to get the vaccine by all of these other mechanisms, then requiring them to fulfill their ethical obligation is something we have to move to. it's not the first resort, it's a last resort. >> what do you think the response is going to be. how many health-care facilities do you think are going to require their employees to do this? we saw veterans administration, that is a federal agency do this today. that's a lot of workers, but wh about the private sector? >> first of all, some of the private sector has already mandated that their workers get

vaccinated. i'm proud, at the university of pennsylvania our health system was probably the first large academic health system to tallly mandate all of our employees get vaccinated. i think actually having all of these professional soapts and groups representing doctors and nurses, physician assistants and pharmacists, long-term care facility workers, we'll give them a good reason to now mandate that their workers get vaccinated too. so i think you're going to see a lot more private employers, health systems, doctors mandate that their workers get vaccinated to be able to intersect with people and keep their job. >> and what difference does it make if they are a hold out among hospital groups or others who say we just can't do that. we're worried we may lose employees? >> well, what is interesting is that when houston methodist required it there was a lot of chatter on twitter and social media that people will quit, they will take them to court. turns out that over 99.5% of the

workforce of 26,000 got vaccinated and just a few people de sided they didn't want a vaccine and would rather quit. similar lethere are long-term care companies that have required their workers to get vaccinated and the vast majority, 95 plus percent, in some cases 100 percent have been vaccinated. i think the fear that workers are going to quit in large numbers is a fear not borne out by the cases that we have. >> dr. zeke emanuel, where do you stand on mandating masks right now? as you know the white house is saying that's not f us to do. that is not something we're looking at right now. what do you think should happen in that regard. >> i will tell you, i think this delta variant is very transmissible. it's transmissible much earlier and there are people get a large or sell a large amount of virus that can get to other people. i think when you're indoors, you should definitely wear a mask even if you are vaccinated. it is a small inconvenience if

you go into a grocery store or a pharmacy for 10, 15 minutes that is not onerous. silarly i think if you are outdoors but in a large crowd i would wear a mask. it is not really inconvenient and we should not make it more than it is. it is not like a lockdown. for the vast majority of us who are vaccinated, wearing a mask for a short period of time, even for an hour and a half on a flight is i think absolutely essential. >> woodruff: do you think it is something the federal government should be mandating in more places. >> i think the federal government has mandated it in places like airports. i think we should enforce that mandate, it is kind of lax in a lot of places. i think the cdc will have to issue its recommendation. i happen to agree with the american academy of pediatrics with masking in classrooms is a good idea because that is an extended period of time where lots of people are going to be together in a room in close quarters. so i think it's very important

to revise the recommendation that will then be implemented at the state and local level. >> woodruff: dr. zeke emanuel, we thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you, judy. quite honor-- honored to be here . >> woodruff: in the day's other news, the u.s. combat mission in iraq will wrap up this year, more than 18 years after it began. president biden made it official today during an oval office visit with the iraqi prime minister. he said the u.s. focus will shift. >> it's just to be available to continue to train, to assist, to help and to deal with isis as it arrives but we are not going to be by the end of the year in a combat mission. >> woodruff: there are now 2,500 u.s. troops in iraq. it is unclear how many of them will remain there. in afghanistan, the united nations reports that more women

and children have been killed in fighting this year than in any similar period since 2009. that's when the world body began a systematic count. total civilian casualties in afghanistan have risen 47% from a year ago, as u.s. forces complete a withdrawal. china complained sharply about u.s. policy today at in-person talks outside beijing. u.s. deputy secretary of state wendy sherman met with the chinese foreign minister and vice foreign minister. the chinese blamed washington for what they called a stalemate in relations. >> ( translated ): the meeting is another important high-level exchange, fundamentally because some americans portray china as an 'imagined enemy'. they hope that by demonizing china, they could somehow shift domestic public discontent over political, economic, and social issues and blame china. but they will never succeed. >> woodruff: the u.s. side called the meetings a "frank and

open" discussion. back in this country, a wildfire in northern california, the largest in the state, is threatening more than 10,000 homes. the "dixie fire" was less than a quarter contained today. it had burned across 300 square miles and forced evacuations in several small communities. authorities in south florida have identified the last of 98 people killed when a condo tower collapsed in june. that word today came four weeks after the building came down in the middle of the night, in surfside. search teams officially concluded their work at the site on friday. the man who chaired the trump inaugural committee, thomas barrack, pleaded not guilty today to illegally lobbying for the united arab emirates. the billionaire arrived at federal court in new york, and was met by a protester calling him a traitor. but he said he is "100% innocent."

on wall street, stocks had a quiet day, but major indexes still finished at new records. the dow jones industrial average gained 82 points to close at 35,144. the nasdaq rose three points. the s&p 500 added 10. and,t the tokyo olympics, a major upset in the swimming pool. american katie ledecky, a five- time olympic gold medalist, was beaten by australian ariarne titmus in the women's 400 meter freestyle. ledecky took silver. still to come on the newshour: fears of a return to dictatorship abound in tunisia after the president suspends parliament. the greek government targets migrant advocates as the refugee crisis continues. a manufacturing training program offers an economic lifeline to disadvantaged teens. plus much more.

>> woodruff: on capitol hill, bipartisan infrastructure talks have run into a little washington gridlo. to help us understand where negotiations stand, our congressional correspondent lisa desjardins. so lisa, tell us where does everything stand, what is the latest hangup. >> well, in this up and down quest for a giant infrastructure bill for the country, i have to say this is the largest speed bump that these bipartisan negotiators have run into. over the weekend as thee negotiators are working around the clock and with the white house to see if they can just finish that final, i guess, five

percent that is left to negotiate, they ended up discovering that they really are perhaps farther apart than they realized. i want to take a look right now at exactly what the remaining issues are. on the table in this bipartisan infrastructure discussion there's quite a few of them. >> one of the first issues we have been talking about this before, is transit fund and how much public transportation is funded in this versus highways and bridgesk democrats want more money for public transit that republicans would like. other issue wages for those who actually construct and carry out this infrastructure bill. democrats would like to include a-- part of an old law here in america that would say these workers should be given the wages that match roughly the local wages in the area where they are working. infrastructure bank, this is an idea on the table from both parties but there is a question of how much federal funding should go to this concept of a public private bank to help for

infrastructure. a really big one that could affect states and towns is how much of the covid relief money that has already been passed by congress should be pulled back and used for infrastructure instead. and finally one i want to talk about at length, water projects. this is the issue that caused a major snafu over the weekend, a major block between the parties. and the person really raising objections is the one outside of the bipartisan group that is negotiating. senator tom harper, a democrat of delaware he chairs the public works committee. last week he started raising objections to what he saw in the bipartisan deal. he is someone that pushed very hard for a different bipartisan water bill. and he said he will in fact object so strongly that unless they include the bill that he passed and the school funding for it t that he personally will block any bipartisan intra truck ture bill. a lot of folks aren't sure if he really would or not but this is a major hackup.

he wants more money to fix lead pipes especially for de pressed communities and clean up a chemical that a lot of us experience at home in nonstec plates or pans but something in our waterways really builds up and is there a long time it affects drinking water. these are the issues on the table right now. as we speak, judy, it is not clear how and when they will be able to work this out. >> woodruff: a lot of different pieces to be resolved, a. so what is the sense right now at the capitol. are they going to be able to come up with a deal or not? right, i'm checking my phone as we speak because lawmakers that senate gang of ten is meeting right now to see if they can actually hash out an agreement again on this final kind of five percent left in this deal. they wanted to have this written by tonight. we're going to have to wait and see. i will tell you this, people have been working around the clock on this, staff is

exhausted, some senators are exhausted, there is alot of frustration that a very big problem has come up in the last minute and there still is a sefntion that how this will get through, show there will be what i call a senate rainbow, there will be a big storm and then all of a sudden the sun will come out. how they get there, we never know. but in the next day or two, a lot of hope for a rainbow. >> all right, we'll call it the lisa desjardins rainbow, thank you. >> i'll take it. >> woodruff: today tunisia's president suspended parliament indefinitely and fired the country's defense minister. it comes one day after he unilaterally fired the prime minister. nick schifrin reports on moves that critics call a coup, one decade after the arab spring. >> schifrin: in thbirthplace of the arab spring, a crisis of democracy. tunisian president kais saied

says he had to removehe prime minister and suspend parliament, in order to “save the state.” >> ( translated ): today i have taken responsibility. those who claim that this matter is related to a coup need to revise your constitutional lessons. >> schifrin: tunisians have been protesting a covid-19 spike, a failing economy, and called for the actions that saied took. but democracy watchers and the opposition party, called the moves a coup. supporters of the moderate islamist party that holds the most parliament seats, clashed with the president's supporters. >> ( translated ): the decisions by president kais saeid are not correct, against the constitution and reality. >> schifrin: in washington, the biden administration was not ready to use a label. >> a determination about a coup is a legal determination. and we would look to the state department to conduct legal analysis before we make a determination. to scuses the event in tunisia and the u.s. response i'm joined

by sarah yerkes senior fellow at the carnegie endowment for international studies. welcome to the newshour so was this a coup. >> from where i stand it is a coup. i think if you look at the constitution, the way the president is justifying this, there is no way that you read this that looks like it's justified. is he not allowed to dissolve particle am, that is against the constitution, so to me that is a coup. >> schifrin: he did warn that he wanted a direct democracy rather than a parliamentary democracy, do we know what his intentions are, do we know what his goals are? >> unfortunately he's really a black box. we don't know what his long game is here. it seems right now that he's looking to consolidate power in the hands of one person and that person happens to be him. so i think in the long run he's probably trying to turn tunisia into more of a presidential, authority arian system than a particle amary one but he hasn't tomed us yet what his plans are. >> schifrin: though he has denied it was a coup this afternoon.

>> yes. >> schifrin: let's take a little step back and talk about these protests, that he is claiming are the reason that he hataken the actions that he has taken. so what lead to the protests? what are. >> tunisia unfortunately is undergoing multiple crises at the same time. the biggest one right now is the pandemic. they are having their worst covid numbers of the entire pandemic as we speak and people understandably frustrated, very angry. dequately address the pandemic., they're also facing tremendous economic challenges. so people are just really frustrated and fed up with this government. >> schifrin: and obviously we've seen cuts to subsidies, of food and fuel recently but also fundamental political infighting, right. >> absolutely, from the get-go the president and prime minister have really been at odds with each other, even though the president hand picked the prime minister, they have just been fighting with each other, they have been publicly undermining each other, publicly speaking out against each other from the begin sog when this opportunity

came for the president to unseat the prime minister to remove him, he seized on it. >> tunisia was of course the only success story in the arab spring, a largely nonviolent removal of a leader, the establishment of democracy. what do these events say about democracy in tunisia ten years later? >> i don't want to quet put sort of democracy in akoffin. i think tunisia's dm october see still has a fighting chance. i think if we look at the way these protests are being reported upon, the way people are allowed to go into the street, the way that people can criticize the government, they can go out there and call this a coup and they are not getting arrested, that shows that democracy is alive and it is functioning. now this say major threat to tunisia's democracy. i think when we look back at, this six months, maybe even a month, i may have something different, maybe the it will have ended but for now i think we should consider democracy is alive and we need to fro tect it united states, europe, other

democracies need to stand up and protect tunisia's deocracy while it is still alive. >> schifrin: today the u.s. spoke with senior tunisian government officials, released a statement saying no one should quite stief el democratic discourse or take any actions that lead to violence. what should the u.s. do? >> i think the u.s. should be out there making much bolder statements than frankly calling this a coup, as i think it is. that means go through the legal challenge -- channels. but what we are seeing is the united states is bieding its time, in a wait-and-see mode. they are not being forceful in condemning the actions president saied has taken. >> schifrin: i want to switch gears to iraq, today the prime minister was in the white house with president biden, president biden announced the end of u.s. combat mission in iraq but american troops have not been fighting combat in iraq, they've been advising and assisting. why is it important for the u.s. to make this statement politically to help the eye back-- tie rahki prime minister?

>> look, i think-- domestically for the iraqis, i think it is helpful to him, it helps show the united states is no longer this shod owe facing over them, facing pressure to get the u.s. out. i think this is a little bit of a gift that biden is giving khatami to help him achieve his own domestic goals. >> schifrin: sarah yerkes, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: 57 migrants are presumed dead today off the coast of libya, as refugees and migrants continue their desperate journey to europe. but in the country that's borne the heaviest load amid the crisis, police in greece have launched a human-trafficking prosecution against non-profits that help asylum seekers try to avoid being pushed back at sea to turkey. last week, special correspondent

malcolm brabant reported on violent pushbacks by the greeks at sea. but as malcolm also found, pushbacks are happening on the river evros along the land border between greece and turkey. >> reporter: it took persistence for huda and her threehildren to reach greek soil. they were pushed back to turkey three times, before finally crossing the sea to the island of samos. can you just describe to me how you feelbout the way you've been treated? >> ( translated ): we were it's like going from one war to another. i didn't find anything better here than the life i was living. >> reporter: the palestinian family's three pushbacks happened on the treacherous evros river, a militarized zone dividing greece from turkey. can you describe what happened when you were pushed back? >> ( translated ): they pushed us back in a very aggressive way. on the way back to turkey we were ordered into a boat meant for just for three or four people. they put 32 people in altogether with some syrians that work with

they put us all in the river and sent us back. they told us two days before someone fell in the water and died. if you return here, you will have the same fate. >> reporter: this kurdish woman is laying low in the greek capital athens. she's afraid turkish agents will kidnap her, take her back to turkey and throw her in jail. she's a vocal opponent of turkey's increasingly authoritarian president erdogan and fled to greece to seek political asylum. like these migrants, she boarded a small boat and paddled across the evros river to the european union side. but was pushed back by greek border guards, in breach of international conventions stipulating that asylum seekers should not be expelled if their lives or freedom are at risk. and especially not back into the arms of their persecutors. >> ( translated ): being a refugee is a right, unfortunately. because if only everyone could live freely and economically secure. if only there were no wars in people's countries. but they all exist and people have the right to live.

theyave the right to a better life, without going to prison, without being killed. >> reporter: spyros oikonomou of the greek council for refugees is outraged by pushbacks of any kind. >> it's the most blatant violation of international human rights' law. it actively places in danger, people's lives and rights. i don't really see anything being more dreadful. and in all honesty, it's an international shame. >> reporter: greece is currently erecting a donald trump style wall along the evros. greece has the dilemma of feeling abandoned by its european union partners, because so many nations refuse to accept migrants, and at the same time, it's obliged to defend the e.u.'s borders. migration minister notis mitarachi. >> we don't want to be the gateway to europe for the smuggling networks. we don't want to be the gateway for millions of people to enter the european union through greece and end up in all the member states of the european union. but we still feel we're alone greece, italy, spain, malta and

cyprus, the five mediterranean countries in tackling the pressure from migration. >> reporter: the battle over the greek pushbacks is heating up. the police on the greek islands next to the turkish coast have just launched a prosecution against international nonprofits and some indiduals who help asylum seekers and who've criticized pushbacks. the police say they may be well- meaning, but they have committed felony crimes such as people trafficking and espionage. teran humanitarian and political analyst panayote dimitras is fighting back. he's been to greece's supreme court to demand that a prosecutor investigates hundreds of pushbacks by the state. >> europe should be more ashamed than anybody else because it's their orders that are to be carried out by all the other players. it is their policies, their agreements that are at the root of the problem. >> reporter: what a difference five years makes. spring 2016 and portugese coastguards are racing to rescue

syrians in distress off the island of lesbos. the portugese were contributing to the european border agency frontex and saving lives. fast forward to this decade and footage of a romanian frontex ship apparently pushing back migrants towards turkey. in a damning report, the european parliament has condemned frontex for failing to uphold its human rights obligations. frontex, based in warsaw, responded by saying it would look into the parliament's recommendations about improving. >> europe should change. and if europe changes, every other player will be forced to change. >> reporter: dimitras is disturbed by a european trend of criminalizing pro migration non profits. these asylum seekers were saved off the coast of libya as they tried to reach italy. their rescuers were from doctors without borders, whose ship, the geo barents, replaced other vessels outlawed in italian waters. but after landing the migrants

in sicily, the ship was impounded because of what the non profit insists are spurious technical complaints. spokeswoman barbara deck. >> since the beginning of 20201 up till now, at least 790 people have been confirmed dead or missing. the need to be back at sea is imminent. we cannot let people perish at the deadliest sea border of the world. >> reporter: back on the greek island of samos, huda has now been granted asylum. the greeks accepted she was escaping conflict and poverty. but above all protecti her children from an extremely abusive father. >> ( translated ): i want my children to be in a place where they are not afraid, i want them to be safe. i want them to study, i want them to be like any children. like any child that loves to play, that goes to school, that finds a familial environment, where there's respect for their childhood. >> reporter: in athens, the kurdish asylum seeker issued this appeal >> ( translated ): all of

europe, all of the world has to be against this. we cannot turn our backs on people who had to escape wars and dictatorships that our very own states foster. if we arnot able to stop wars and migration, we have to make sure that they happen in humanitarian conditions. >> reporter: what's drawing migrants to the european union are its democratic and humanitarian principles. currently all along its frontiers, critics argue, those values are being tarnished. and they wonder, how long is it prepared to turn a blind eye. for the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant in athens. >> woodruff: even as the labor picture in the united states improves post-pandemic, the manufacturing sector is still struggling with a shortage of

workers and raw materials. an analysis by deloitte found that over two million manufacturing jobs will be unfilled through 2030. for his making sense reporting, paul solman looks at a program that's preparing inner city high school students for high-skill, high-paying factory jobs. it's the latest in our "work shift" series, which focuses on navigating the job market in this time of covid and the future. >> reporter: okay, here's a dream confluence: first, a problem kid from inner city louisville. >> growing up in a troubled neighborhood i would have been wrong place, wrong time, probably end up in the system. >> reporter: next, a potentially problem high school. >> this is a school that's 80 to 90% free and reduced lunch. a third of the kids in this school qualify for english second language or special education services. so what you're talking about is a school with significant at risk population. >> reporter: finally, a huge local manufacturer, with jobs it can't fill.

>> we currently don't have enough workers to continue to run our factories, whether it's here in louisville or in georgia or alabama or tennessee. >> reporter: you see where this is going, right? but stick with me. admittedly, just one company, one school, only a few kids. but they're trying something pretty new here, because they have to; the economy has to. let's start with the kid, jaquez neal. >> i would have been one of those just working in a fast food restaurant. and i didn't want my future to be that. not at all. >> reporter: so what was he doing in school? neal's mother is taneda thompson. >> fighting. walking out class, getting smart with the teachers. you name it. >> reporter: getting into trouble? >> staying in trouble from pre-k until ninth grade. he took lighters to school one time and tried to light a girl's hair on fi-- i don't know! >> reporter: but today, as a high school senior? >> none of that. >> reporter: diagnosed with a.d.h.d. and o.d.d., oppositional defiant disorder, her son was medicated from age five. >> he's been off of it for about

a year now. and he hasn't been to his therapist in about three years. >> reporter: as of tenth grade, a transfiguration. >> i literally do research about engineering technology so i can get more mental stage about stuff. so i know how a refrigerator is made. i know how a dishwasher's made. i know how car's made. something new every da that's how i want to use the rest of my days. >> reporter: jaquez neal is now a star student, working his butt off, headed to college next fall. in large part because doss high school reinstituted vocational ed... >> pick a category and a dollar amount. >> reporter: ...using every trick in the book to make even the most boring partof it palatable. >> worker safety for 100. >> reporter: this is how teacher greg ash preps students for their certified production technician exam. >> material handling for 400. video daily double. >> reporter: but the main attraction here: hands on learning.

>> i don't want to sit there and talk about it. i want to be hands on. so once i learned that we got a lab, i was intrigued. i was happy. no, no hesitation. i was like, yes, get me in there, get me in there. >> reporter: is the key to it that you've got a shop like this or that you have stuff you can physically be doing. >> yes, i have a lot of resources. now that i'm in a lab, it's like i can go in there and build anything that i want. and it's fun. i guess the best thing ever. >> sitting behind a desk for 90, 100 minutes, it doesn't work for him. but education like this, an alternative, works for him perfectly and he has excelled in it. >> reporter: the program has kept charles malone going too. >> i had built a can crusher at one point. >> reporter: a can crusher? >> with pneumatics. >> reporter: way better than a classroom for sure. his mother had what she thought were loftier aspirations for him. you wanted him to go to college, no? >> i did want him to go to college, but he had no interest in college. i kind of thought you had to get a college education to do something. this turned my thoughts around. >> reporter: a major change. >> completely.

>> reporter: perhaps even more to the point, says county schoo superintendent marty pollio, education like this makes sense, in every sense of the phrase. >> when kids see a skill that is going to specifically lead to something, a certification, a high paying, high skilled, high wage job, they're much more likely to be engaged in the school. >> reporter: and that's where ge appliances, now owned by the hands-off chinese firm haier, comes in, with a program called g.e.a 2-day, outfitting doss high school with a manufacturing lab, luring kids into two-day a week paid apprenticeships at its ginormous factories nearby. >> as sophomores they can go to ge appliance park and they can see what they're learning in the classroom relates to real world experience. then as juniors they are usually going to work for them during summer works program. and then their senior year for the ones that are 18, get to co- op on mondays and fridays

through the g.e.a.2-day program and get even more real world experience. >> reporter: and get paid. >> and get paid. >> reporter: starting at $15.50 an hour, plus benefits. and high schoolers aren't the only ones who work two days a week. so does jayme maskey, who switched from full-time after giving birth to her first child. >> i picked the program because i wanted to be there for my son and watch him grow. >> reporter: haylee miles is in college. her friends ask why she works in a factory... >> and i tell them they have a tuition reimbursement program. i work there two days a week and it helps pay for college. >> reporter: renee jumper is older: 47. but during covid, she felt her kids needed her help with schoolwork. >> working two days a week at g.e.a. has enabled me to homeschool them. >> we thought, hey, we were targeting high school students that maybe weren't thinking about going to college, but a lot of women showed up and came to work and did phenomenal.

>> reporter: but wait a minute, i said to g.e.a.'s a.j. hubbard... most people think manufacturing is in long term decline in this country. and now the robots are coming. so why are you trying so hard to find people to fill jobs that might not be there? >> i don't know that manufacturing is declining. we've added 100 robots here, but we've added 1,000 jobs just in the last year. >> reporter: and the robots? >> even though we're adding robots in... >> reporter: gea's valorie hughes: >> it's elevating the skill set of the iividuals that we need in the jobs. >> reporter: technical skills like those doss high is now trying hard to teach to meet the demand out there. but doesn't superintendent pollio worry. about education serving business? doing so to the detriment of a broader education? >> so i've been asked many times, are you forcing a kid to choose their career as a 15 or 16 year old? and so what i usually say is absolutely not. our job as a school district is

to make sure kids are engaged and passionate and college and career ready and give them multiple pathways along the way. >> there's so many doors can be open. and the possibilities is endless. >> reporter: jaquez neal is headed to college in the fall. but he's got a vocational fallback: high tech manufacturing. for the pbs newshour, paul solman. >> woodruff: this could be another make-or-break week in washington. from infrastructure negotiations to the first hearing of the january 6 committee and the effort to convince americans to get the covid vaccine. john ya is here to make sense of it all with our politics monday team. >> yang: judy, for that, we turn as always to amy walter of the cook political report, and tamara keith of npr.

welcome to you both. the lead segment on the show tonight, covid, even though it is july 4th, president biden said he would be celebrating our independence from covid, we would have 70 percent of americans vaccinated, tam, is there a danger that the president's a dpenda what he wants to talk about is going to gets or has been overtaken by something that is largely out of his control. >> everyone was celebrating on july 4th. and it felt great, didn't it? and then reality has been is thing in and the delta variant has another agenda. and the fact is that we are now three weeks out from the july 4th goal of 70% of adults vacs nationalled and it's still not quite there, it is at 69% according to the latest numbers. vaccinations have once again started picking up just a little bit. but there is only so much that president biden can do and he

has-- he and the administration are sort of stuck in between people who say don't you dare tell me what to do, don't mandate and on the other side, people in public health saying, and a huge number of medical associations saying no, you really should talk about mandates. we need to break through. and the biden administration has continued to err on the side of caution, of not wanting to seem like the stamp of big government is making people do something. and the result is that it is slow going it is the individual conversations, individual per situation and of course that fight about a week ago with the social media companies trying to tamp down on misinformation. >> yeah, i mean we know that all of this is true. we also know that we're for tell krats, politically, that democrats would love to see going into t 2022 mid term an

economy on the rebound, a public health crisis in the rearview mirror. i think we all were kind much at that place. we have been talking nonstop about the infrastructure bill, about the human infrastructure, known athe amecan family plan. and yet we got pulled back into the reality that a public health crisis isn't over until it's actually over and i think the hard part about the convincing piece is that this is from june but the kaiser foundation polling found there is a difference in unvaccinated adults. between people who said i'm nervous, i'm going to wait. i want to wait it out. i don't really know if i'm going to get it versus the oh, i'm never getting this. and not surprisingly or maybe, well, not surprisingly, the folks who say i'm never going to get it, overwhelmingly those are republicans, 67% republicans,-- the folks who

said i don't know, i'm waiting it out, i'm dping to wait and see, that is a more diverse dprowp of people, both in terms of political ideology. >> and yet republicans seem to be changing their tune a bit. we had an interesting op ed from sarah huckabee sanders one of the great defenders of president trump. she is running for governor. she talked about this, she was take advantage of president trump's operation warp speed which is true, the president trump did develop, the vaccine was developed under his administration but then she also blamed president biden and vice president harris for undercutting confidence in the vaccine, so she is walking, like other republicans walking this fine line. >> then we saw the republican governor of alabama also come out and say this is unvaccinated people who are doing this to us. so we've seen multiple higher level republicans steve scal

ease, the number two on the rep shall it-- scalise, the number two in the republican side got his first vaccination last week or the week before. so there is certainly the push on, but the reality is it if these numbers do continue to bear out once we get into july, that the kaiser foundation showed us, that there still might be that solidly committed group of people who they aren't going to budge no matter who tells them. the real question is whether there are mafn dates in place and as we saw today, the veteran's administration saying well, if you are a health care worker you have to get vaccinated. in california and new york, again health care workers have to get vaccinated. that may be the only way you'll really see movement with that group. >> noticed at the top of the show we heard the infrastructure deal. it was about a month ago that vice president-- the president biden walked out of the white house with the bipartisan group of senators saying they had a freed on the framework. they are having trouble filling in the framework. >> tam, what are the po text

rewards and risks of continue allly trying to negotiate a bipartisan agreement even as the-- is fall recess is rushing toward us or the democrats going on their own. >> i'm going to roll out an old cliche about political negotiations where you know, nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. and that is the stage that these negotiations are currently in. in terms of risks and rewards. certainly there is a backup plan. democrats could just roll the parts of the bipartisan infrastructure deal that they like into the american family plan that amy was talking about earlier. they o could roll it in, do it with democratic vote as loan. the only chal weng that is democratic votes alone are not a guarantee and there are some democrats who are really set on the idea of a bipartisan portion o this, of being able to say

this does contain really important bipartisan elements and so part of this may be whether the biden white house and other democrats, if these bipartisan negotiations fail f hey can convince their fellow democrats that they tried. >> amy, we're in an environment where compromise and bipartisanship is not necessarily the ideal that it once was. >> indeed. >> and it is getting harder and harder especially when we see the kinds of people now who seem to be attracted to officare those, many of them, who like the fight more than the fixing. but you know, the other reality and i think the challenge for the biden administration right now is we spent all this time talking about process. not a whole lot of time talking about what is actually in the package and it's not getting delivered, especially when you are talking about infrastructure it is great to get a deal done or legislation passed but it takes a long time to fix roads and put in newlpipes.

>> tomorrow the first meeting of the house committee investigating january 6th. seven democrats, two republicans, the two republicans both liz cheney, adam kinzinger voted to impeach president trump. neither of them were the choices of kevin mccarthy. is this starting off as something that is going to produce a result that are going to be widely accepted, do you think? >> it is hard to see a scenario with results widely accepted. kevin mccarthy, the house minority leader today described those two republicans aspell osi republicans. i don't even know what that is. they are definitely real republicans but the thing is they are not trump republicans and at this point it isn't about partisan championship any more. it's about whether you are a trump person or not a trump person when it comes to this investigation, everyone on that committee is not a trump person so how they convince trump people that this is a legitimate fact finding mission is not clear.

>> let's be clear that not trump faction is really small. there is not part, you look at this and you say oh, is speaker pelosi driving a wedge into the republican party but putting two members of the opposition party on this, it would be an effective wedge if there were a wedge that would actually work, right. when it domes to trump, there are really a handful who are on the side of we need to investigate more. >> if there were really a wedge to trif off t would work. amy walter, tamara keith, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: for women with breast cancer, losing one or both breasts in the course of treatment can be a shattering experience. as maya trabulsi of kpbs in san diego reports, a tight-knit group of women at a retirement home in escondido, california is lessening the pain associated

with mastectomy one loving and skillful stitch at a time. it's part of our ongoing arts and culture series, canvas. >> it's like riding a bicycle, you don't forget. >> reporter: in her little cottage at redwood terrace retirement home, pat anderson's creativity hasn't slowed down over the years. after a long career as a textile designer, she still enjoys making yarn by hand on her homemade spinning wheel. >> and everything you wear starts with this process. >> reporter: her work, both old and new, is strewn on her couch. >> this is the very first thing i ever made. >> reporter: her friend pat moller is here, and admires her handmade creations from the '70's. >> did you see this hat, pat? >> how neat. >> reporter: the two pats call this tranquil home in escondid“" the magic place,” as it has become the setting of their new friendship, as well as a surprising grassroots movement

called s.b.w. >> and that stands for sisterhood of the boobless wonders. >> reporter: the sisterhood of the boobless wonders are breast cancer survivors and part of a trio of knitters who have literally taken comfort into their own hands, in the shape of hand-knitted bust forms, aptly called busters. >> and here they are. they're nothing more than a specially designed accessory to >> reporter: in the six years since pat made the first prototype, the busters project has helped more than 1200 women across the country who have undergone mastectomy surgery. >> all women's clothing is designed to accommodate the bust contour. so if that is gone, your clothes don't fit right and you end up feeling dumpy and unkempt. >> reporter: pat says, most of all, it shows. until now, the only official solutions offered to patients were surgical reconstruction or medical-grade silicone prosthetics which can be heavy. busters, on the other hand...

>> this weighs less than an ounce, they're soft, they're washable, they're natural and normal looking. >> reporter: at first glance, busters may look simple... >> these are tricky to make. >> reporter: pat says there is a very specific knitting technique that involves the direction and grain of the yarn. and pat has proudly patented the design. >> we've got a contour here but it has to be flat on the back. >> reporter: what makes them even more unique, unlike prosthetics, is that they are customizable in size by simply adding or removing filling. >> almost a full cup size larger or smaller. >> reporter: every last detail has been considered. >> the light, bright, cheerful colors help women remember that they are breast cancer survivors, not victims. >> reporter: each pair takes about eight hours to knit. it's a real labor of love, so pat moller stepped in to help.

>> she happened to be in front of me in the buffet line. and i said, ¡if you need any help knitting, i would be happy to'. >> and she's doing the biggest sizes. so, you know, she's a good knitter. >> reporter: when fellow resident berniece dufour found a lump on her breast... >> i didn't want any nonsense. i said, just lop it off. >> reporter: medicare covered the cost of the silicone prosthetic she holds in her hand, which usually costs more than $20per breast. >> i weighed it on my postal scale. it weighs two pounds. and it was hot in the summer and it could even be cold in the winter. i don't think anyone would choose this. >> reporter: since she was introduced to busters, she says this breast sits in a box. >> now, i have a much better choi and i'm sticking with it. >> reporter: a basketful of thank you notes with gratitude from recipients, usually comes with donations that go toward sponsoring another woman's pair. from one survivor to another.

>> there is life after breast cancer. >> reporter: as for pat anderson, in a career that dates back more than 50 years, she says busters is her final project. >> how many almost 89 year old women can say that they're still doing something that makes a difference? >> reporter: and much like the 60/40 acrylic/nylon blend chosen for its strength and softness, these survivors exude that same resilience, creating a product that is built to last, down to the final thoughtful stitch. for the pbs newshour, i'm maya trabulsi in san diego. >> woodruff: 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:

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♪ hello, and welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. let the games begin. i talked to legendary u.s. goalkeeper and two-time olympic gold medalist brianna scurry about how athletes will manage this very different olympics. and -- >> i will not be lectured by sexism and misogyny by these men. >> famous for this fiery speech in parliament, julia gillard joins us with a call to focus on the pandemic's devasting impact on education, especially for young girls. then -- >> are you gs going to get the