♪ judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the “newshour” tonight, the fall of afghanistan -- the taliban responds to protests with violence, forcefully quashing dissent and limiting airport access for afghans trying to flee. then, the delta threat -- hospitalizations from covid-19 skyrocket in southern states, overwhelming already strained intensive care units. and, western wildfires -- over 35,000 people are forced from their homes in california, as crews struggle to contain the rapidly growing fires. >> there are a lot of people reconsidering about where they want to live, but there are a lot of people who just want to

rebuild. judy: all that and more on tonight's pbs “newshour.” >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. >> before we talk about your investments. >> what's new? >> audrey is expecting. >> twins. >> we would be closer to the twins. >> change in plans. >> at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. >> johnson & johnson. bnsf railway. consumer cellular. financial services firm raymond james. the kendeda fund, committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org.

carnegie corporation of new york, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security, at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possle by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. judy: more american and allied flights are leaving the capital

of afghanistan tonight, as an ever-growing sense of panic descends on the city. more american troops and marines landed, with more on the way. but taliban fighters, despite u.s. efforts, are hindering movement toward the kabul airport, and thousands of civilians remain trapped. again, with the support of the putzer center, jane ferguson reports from kabul. jane: demonstrators prorated a long afghan national flag through the streets today, a show of defiance against taliban rule as the country celebrated independence day, the end of british control in 1919. sporadic anti-taliban protests spread to more cities. many were met with gunfire to break up the crowds. taliban fighters reportedly fired on people waving the afghan flag at a rally in an eastern city. witnesses said several people were killed.

gunfire also rang out for another day outside kabul's international airport, as crowds desperately tried to flee the country. for those who make it past the taliban checkpoints and into the airport compounds, life here is pretty rudimentary. thousands are sleeping out in the open. and yet, the atmosphere is one of hope and relief. it may not become triple, but it is safe -- it may not be comfortable, but it is safe. it's estimated at least a dozen people he been killed in and around the airport in recent days, either from gunshots or stampede's. -- or stampedes. the u.s. is urging people to get to theirport as soon as possible, but taliban fighters are preventing many from doing so. despite u.s. officials repeatedly saying that have struck a deal with the taliban to allow passage. pentagon officials reported more than 7000 people have bee evacuated so far.

about 5200 u.s. service members are involved in that operation. armed u.s. fighter jets are also flying overhead to maintain security. back in washington, the pentagon estimated between 5000 and 9000 people can be flown out daily, a number they hoping to increase. >> we have additional officers now at these additional gates with additional troops helping them. and so, i think we are poised to see an increase but i wanto be careful before i make predictions. what we want to drive is an increase. jane: outside the airport perimeter, taliban fighters patrol the streets. one of the group's commanders vowed to restore peace. >> the market is very crowded and people are very happy. a large number of people and residents of kabul are not afraid of us anymore. we will bring security to afghanistan and we will improve the economy and life. we will try and hand the power to the people. jane: meanwhile, a glimmer of

normalcy, as girls returned to school to take their midterm exams. the militant groups as they can continue their education, as long as they wear their he job -- hijab head coverings. how long this contues remains an open and urgent question. president biden said he was not convinced the taliban had change their ways. he spoke in an exclusive interview with abc news. >> i think they're going through an existential crisis about, do they want to be recognized the international community as being a legitimate government. jane: afghanistan is also facing a humanitarian crisis, with major food shortages and drought that resulted in the loss of more than 40% of the country's crops. she warned the situation i especially dire now that tens of thousands of ahan people have been displaced. >> 80% of those forced to flee our women and children. they need shelter, health care,

sanitation, and other core belief items. most of all, they need safety and stability. jane: at the same time, afghanistan faces a potential currency collapse. the head of the afghan central bank warned its supply of u.s. dollars is quote, close to zero. the international monetary fund has also blocked the country from getting loans. judy: and jane joins us again live tonight from kabul. so it was only a few days ago that the taliban was trying to say to the world, we are going to respect human rights, but now we see they are violently reacting to these protests. it did not last long. jane: the reality of implementing any concept of human rights among your rank-and-file in the street is clearly becoming occult for the taliban. those words of wanting to give people rights and to rule peacefully have not rung true at all whenever the realities of

what they are seeing on the ground have played out. their foot soldiers have an opening fire on people. we have reports of journalists being beaten up. local journalists going into hiding because fighters have knocked on their door. there is a growing sense of panic that the old taliban is back. many of us have contacts and connections who are panicked. it is likely the taliban leadership meant it into a certain degree whenever they said they wanted to be providing stability. because whether or not they really believe in human rights, what they do believe in is not looking as though they cannot control the situation, that they cannot display that they are in charge and their instability under their rule. whether or not they are able to control their rank and file going forward will be their biggest challenge. don't forget, these are foot soldiers used to operating in

rural areas where they can show up to people's houses d demand to be fed and demand shelter. now they are in cities with moderate, educated populations whore not used to being told what to do. and that is a huge challenge for the taliban leadership. judy: jane, take us back to the situation at the airport in kabul. has that improve that all -- improved at all? jane: you might be able to hear helicopters behind me. those are shifting people basically from one place to the runway and back. so that has been a slight provement. but the situation inside the airport on the roads is getting dramatically worse. there is a growing sense of panic among the local population. and people who are coming and just getting through and into this airport area are telling us stories of increasingly violent intimidation of being beaten by taliban members at the checkpoints on the way here, at

being verbally abused, and having heavy, heavy gunfire fired over their heads. in scenes that are unbelievably violent. a lot of these people are families with children with them. i spoke with young women who feel like they have been particularly singled out for a lot of the intimidation. one young woman who just made it to the airport today told me the taliban fighters were shouting at all of the women, we will not allow america to take our women. so there is just incredibly to spoke in -- incredibly dystopian scenes on the outskirts of the airports, and it is heartbreaking that people still have to go through that just to get on a plane. judy: still remembering that woman doctor you spoke with last night. such a moving portrait. and we know there are still so many more like her. jane ferguson reporting live tonight from kabul. thank you, and please stay safe. jane: thank you.

judy: now, for perspective on the afghan situation from the biden administration. jon finer is the deputy national security advisor, and i spoke with him moments ago. thank you very much for joining us. our reporter in kabul, jane ferguson, is describing for us panic in the streets in kabul. she is describing the taliban preventing most people from getting to the airport. are these evacuations going as the administration had hoped? jon: it is a very serious security situation in kabul, and we are well aware of reports that people are having difficulty reaching the airport. a lot of people are reaching the airport in spite the challenges, and a number of people we have been able to put on evacuation flights out of afghanistan has increased steadily day by day, and we expect that to continue. but i do want to point out there's an extraordinary degree of problem-solving going on in the ground, both military

personnel and diplomats, to address the situation you are describing. to get people out of the country. judy: we did hear president biden say yesterday in that abc interview that if americans are not all out but august 31, the military will stay as long as necessary to get them and america's allies out. but how are you going to do that without putting more military force in there? jon: we do believe it is possible to get all-americans and afghanistan's who want to get out of the country, out by that time. we have been communicating steadily with americans through our state department, which maintains lists of people who have been residents in afghanistan over a period of time. we do not have an exact count, but we have been sending an increasingly urgent series of messages to those people that they should leave afghanistan for their own safety and security, even before the recent crisis.

in recent days and weeks we have even offered to provide fincial assistance for people who want to purchase flights out of afghanistan when the commercial aviation system was up and running. we reached out to them directly again today to try and locate any americans who would like to get out of the country so we can help facilitate the departure. judy: does that incde military escort? jon: i will not go into all the operational details, but we take very seriously the plight in afghanistan. judy: and how far is the administration prepared to go to extract those afghans who helped and supported the united states over the last 20 years? jon: as you know, we have already evacuated more than 2000 special immigrant visa applicants. these were afghans who worked on behalf of the u.s. mission in afghanistan are the with our diplomats or professionals or military officers. we have plans underway and flights underway in real-time today, tomorrow, and going

forward to evacuate what we hope to be thousands more of afghans wh are in urgent need of getting out of the country, including people who worked on behalf of the u.s. and including other afghans who are at risk in special categories of concern. this is a high-priority and one that we are continuing to execute today, tomorrow, and moving forward. judy: if necessary, is the u.s. prepared to send more troops in? jon: we are not talking about more troops at this point. we have a significant troop presence at the airport in afghanistan. th military has told us they havehat they need to keep secure. i do not want to underestimate the threat picture that exists in afghanistan currently. it is a very serious security environment. as of now, they have told us they have a forced posture in place to keep the facility secure. judy: do you have ongoing talks between the administration and the taliban in order to do everything you can to provide for safe passage way for these people? jon: as i think you know, we have been in diplomatic

conversations with the taliban for quite some time. those conversations at high levels took place in doha, qatar. we have also established a channel to the taliban on the ground in kabul. so exactly those sorts of operational considerations, including safe passage to the airport, can be arranged based on the work of our commanders in the field who have the clearest sense of details on the ground and what we need to accomplish that. judy: i know you are aware of this, but there are not only republicans, but many democratic members of congress and so many others were criticizing the administration right now for not doing more earlier to move not st americans, but especially those afghan allies who worked with the u.s. over the years, to get them safely out of the country. we have members of congress, including those appearing on this program, who are saying they pleaded with the biden administration to move on this earlier, and their pleas were

met with deaf ears. jon: you heard the directors of national intelligence and central intelligence agency's say yesterday that all this transpired much faster than anyone internally, and most people externally predicted it would. what you had was a country that effectively lost its governing authority and its armed forces within a matter of days. when that happened there was guaranteed to be a degree of turbulence, especially in a place as politically complex as afghanistan. because we did take these reports as seriously as we did, we had forces pre-positioned in the region that we were able to flow into the country very quickly. we were able to gain security control of the airport within a matter of days and we were able to close down our embassy and evacuate our diplomats without a major security incident involved in doing that, which would have been a worst-case scenario. we have now been able to start kidding these flights to get people out of the country on an urgent basis. judy: you are saying this happened much faster than anyone

expected, and the president himself said that. but we have top former cia officials, head of counterterrorism for southwest and southwest asia, saying he advised your team. he says he knows for a fact that the ultimate assessment from the intelligence community to the biden team was that afghan forces might capitulate within days. in other words, that this was something the administration should have foreseen. jon: all i can say about that is i and my colleagues have read every piece of intelligence that is relevant. every assessment that has come from our intelligence community on afghanistan going back to the beating of this administration, we take these assessments very seriously. i would point you again to the comments yesterday by the directors of national intelligence and the central intelligence agency who basically said exactly what i just told you. this all transpired much more quickly than was anticipated by them or anyone else. judy: we are the chairman of the

joint chiefs say it was known that there could be a full collapse of the afghan government. is that what the administration expected? jon: intelligence is about a range of possibility. that was one of the possibilities. and this is important to underscore. the president ordered forces be prepared in the region so we can flow them into afghanistan very quickly on a hairtrigger if the security environment began to deteriorate. that is exactly what we did. we were able to draw our embassy down and begin these evacuations out of afghanistan much more quickly. judy: one last question about that. should the united states have negotiated an exit that involved a larger footprint here at the end for the united states so that the united states is not encircled in its efforts to get people out of the country, at one airport just outside kabul? jon: the united states has a very significant security footprint in kabul, in afghanistan. our military commanders told the

president they have what they need to keep that facility safe and secure. i guarantee you the president will provide whatever is required, but forow we have what we need. judy: jon finer is the deputy national security advisor. thank you very much. we appreciate it. and joining us now are two lawmakers with experience in afghanisn. republican congressman peter meijer of michigan is an iraq war veteran who worked in afghanistan as a conflict analyst from 2013 to 2015. democratic congressman jake auchincloss of massachusetts served as a marine infantry commander in afghanistan in 2012. and we welcome both of you to the newshour. you have just been listening to jon finer, deputy white house national security advisor. what is your overall assessment listening to him and everything else you know on how the administration has handled this aftermath of the collapse of the afghan government?

rep. meijer: i have a lot of respect for jon. i know he has been involved in special employment visa issues for close to a decade and has been a leader in the space. i think the issue is not some of the hard-working individuals who have been on this, but the fact that the problem starts at the top your this is not an issue that president biden ever prioritized. i was part of eight bipartisan group of lawmakers that were trying to raise the attention. in just the scenario we feared, we make sure we did everything we could as soon as we could get these special visa applicants out. there are a lot of hard-working folks who are trying to make that happen, but frankly, this is an issue that president biden did not want to have to deal with. you can only spin optics f so long. you cannot spin away this reality. judy: congressman, do you see this as a optics and that the president did not want to deal with this question of getting afghan civilians and others out of the country? rep. auchincloss: i agree with

mr. meijer that this starts at the top. this president came into office and made a clear eyed decision. either go big or go home. and he had the integrity to tell the american people the hard truth, that a counterinsurgency in afghanistan could not succeed without a political endgame, and we would have to do a withdrawal. i know you agree with this. you said so in april. a withdrawal from a country monitored the graveyard of empires is going to be rocky. what is critical is this president and his administration have adapted in real time. we have commercial and military evacuations taking thousands out every day, and we have committed that american personnel will be secure. judy: and what about that? again, you heard from jon finer and others in the administration , we're watching this unfold. we are still in the middle of this evacuation. i mean, have you concluded already that it is going to be a failure? rep. meijer: i don't think you

need to conclude that. i think it is readily apparent. i would respectfully tell my colleague that there is an arguable debate on the merits of withdrawal. in the president's speech on monday, he spent the entire focus defending the with scission to withdraw. the criticism does not come by large from that decision, it comes from how that withdrawal was handled. the way in which we missed intelligence signals about afghan government and afghan security forces, the way in which that did not tie into negotiations going on in doha, and the way in which we lost all of our leverage within the span of 1.5 weeks, that we had spent 20 years building up. i agree a negotiated clinical settlement is the way to go, but how quickly this collapsed, this is a failure, and i think that is plainly evident by the images coming out of afghanistan. it was never going to be prett but we are in a nightmare scenario and there were plenty

of worlds in which this sad reality was not the conclusion. judy: can you -- you can respond to any of it, but i am particularly interested in your take on the intelligence failures, the accusation the administration just did not have the information it should have had about what was going on inside the afghan government, the afghan military. rep. auchincloss: well, what i heard from mr. meijer here was this idea of a political settlement as the basis for withdrawal. the challenge here is that was not a negotiated political settlement. the trumpdministration in doha with the taliban a sickly committed to a unilateral withdrawal. not a conditions-based withdrawal. that is what grants, an administration the kind of leverage to use intelligence that they have to adapt on the ground. but a conditions-based withdrawal was never going to work in afghanistan.

a conditions-based withdrawal works in a settlement like colombia, were you have an arms into plows program, were you have a reconciliation process where victims can seek redress and where low-level fighters are allowed to reenter civil society. where you have a political solution for problems like land-use or voting or power-sharing in a government. none of that was in existence in afghanistan. the colombian president was a nobel laureate for what he was able to negotiate. the afghan president fled at the first sign of trouble. that gives you an indication any kind of conditions-based withdrawal that would have made use of intelligence on the ground was just not viable. judy: what about that, the argument that never wergoing to be the condions on the ground in afghanistan for there to be a satisfactory conclusion here? rep. meijer: i think if that was

the case, then we would not have seen all of the investments in diplomatic negotiations that were starting around the trump administration, b were also continued under the biden administration in doha. i mean, there's not a lot i can discuss on this because of the nature of it, but there were certainly conditions, there were certainly ongoing negotiations. and the idea that if a conditions-based withdrawal does not work then we should just withdraw unconditionally, i find really hard to accept. we had leverage as long as there was an afghan military. we had leverage as long as there was an afghan government. the challenge was the erosion of those took pce far more rapidly than anticipated. all the intelligence assessments in july were saying six to nine months. remember, that was starting august 31, post-withdraw. in the beginning of august that was moved up to 30 to 90 days.

again, starting august 31. we did not even make it to august 15. so they were clearly failures on that end, where all these pieces that were intended to move in concert, that machine just broke down. judy: you want to pick up on that? i'm interested to know whether you believe the administration could have foreseen what was going to happen. rep. auchincloss: this was absolutely one of the scenarios, a complete taliban takeover of the country. a lot of focus has been put on taliban horsepower. more salient is the lack of afghan willpower. here is where i have to disagree with my friend from michigan. the idea that we have leverage with the afghan military or the afghan government has been pretty disproved but watching them cave in a matter of days. these are frontline troops i know from personal experience were good fighters who care about their homeland, but are watching their political leaders

line their own pockets instead of serving the people. that is a recipe for the frontline to crack. so we had no leverage in this. and the pace of the taliban advanced here was less critical important than the fact that there was not going to be a political counter push to what the taliban was offering in this country. judy: congressman, do you want to respond? rep. meijer: i would just say i am by no means making the allegation that the afghan government was stronger, that afghan military leaders were strong. they were weak. that is 100% the fault of the 20 year american effort in that region. the challenge here is we did have leverage. we still had forces that were there. we were so set on not violating the conditions of agreements that were struck, when we had arguable violations on the taliba side where we did have recourse. i think if this scenario, if

this total taliban takeover and collapse was one of the contingencies that the biden administration, that president biden had first seen, then how come this plan went to seige so incredibly rapidly? if this was the plan, god help us. judy: let me ask both of you how well you think this process is going to work at the end in getting the afghan allies, afghans o helped americans, out? what do you see coming? rep. auchincloss: i spoke with the white house national security officials in the last 48 hours and they made clear missions one, two, and three are these evacuations. those who were prominent advocates for women and girls, journalists, those who interpreted or otherwise helped the u.s. military. we made promises and we should absolute lee kiefer them. i will hold the -- we should absolutely keep them. i will hold the administration accountable for that.

the legacy in afghanistan is complicated. literacy is twice what it was. infant mortality is half what it was. there are 10 times as many kids in schools as there were 20 years ago. the taliban are taking over a very different country, and it is my fervent hope they have to adapt somewhat to the progress made. looking forward, it will be incumbt on veterans and mbers of congress like peter and i, e next time a bush-like president tries to bluster into a war of choice, we have to stand up and say no. judy: we have to leave it there. we appreciate it. thank you both. ♪ stephanie: i am stephanie sy at newshour west. we will return to judy woodruff and the rest of the program after the latest headlines.

-- facebook has temporarily removed the ability of people to view friends lists of users in the country and created a one click tool for anyone in afghanistan wanting to lock down their account. both twitter and linkedin are also making efforts to reduce risks to users in afghanistan. covid vaccinations in the u.s. hit their highest levels in nearly seven weeks. more than a million doses were administered in just the past 24 hours, and half were first-time vaccinations. meanwhile, three u.s. senators who had been fully vaccinated have tested positive with mild symptoms. they are senators roger wicker of mississippi, john hickenlooper of colorado, and angus king of maine. e governors of washington and oregon announced all teachers and staff in k-12 must be vaccinated against covid by october 18 or face firing. and in san francisco, the chronicle reports the city will

pursue suspensions for 40 employees in e police, sheriffs, and fire departments because they refused toisclose their covid vaccination status. we will focus on surging infections in low-vaccination areas, later in the program. in haiti, hospitals have reached a crisis point, five days after an earthquake that killed nearly 2200 people and injured well over 12,000. aid workers appealed today for medical gear. in. supplies arrived wednesday at the airport in hard-hit lakay, but quake victims said the help is not reaching them. >> people don't get any help. we have nothing. we a abandoned here. we are asking for aid for all the people who are here. i want to find some aid and get out of here. stephanie: one hospital in port-au-prince closed today for two days after two doctors were kidnapped. back in this country, northern california spent another long day facing wildfires amid warnings of high winds and high heat. today officials said the cache

fire burned about 50 mobile homes and destroyed almost 160 vehicles. we will take a closer look later in the program. a man parked his pickup truck on a sidewalk near the u.s. capitol today, claimed he had a bomb inside, and forced evacuations of government buildings. officials said floyd roseberry of north carolina stayed in the truck, while bomb-sniffing dogs and snipers took up positions. he surrendered after five hours, leaving police searching for answers. >> we do know that mr. roseberry has had some losses of family, i believe his mother recently passed away, and we spoke with members of his family and there were other issues he was dealing with. there will be more on that before -- at a later time. stephanie: for a time, roseberry live-streamed a video, criticizing president biden and saying, quote, the revolution's on. i'm ready to die for the cause. this evening, police said they found possible bomb-making materials, but no bomb in the

truck. a state judge in delaware agreed today to let the boy scouts of america settle sexual abuse claims in a deal worth $850 million. the money goes to a fund for 70,000 men who say they were abused by adults in scouting. the judge refused to let the boy scouts pay millions in legal fees for the plaintiffs. the u.s. education department will forgive student loan debt for more than 300,000 americans with disabilities. today's announcement says the change affects people who are totally and permanently impaired and cannot en any significant income. it erases nearly $6 billion in debt. and, the artist chuck close died today in oceanside, new york after suffering severe dementia. he gained renown in the 1970's and 1980's for giant photo-realist portraits of himself, family members, and fellow artists. late in life, he was accused of sexually harassing women who posed for him.

he said he'd meant no harm, and apologized. chuck close was 81 years old. still to come on the “newshour”" covid hospitalations skyrocket in southern states, overwhelming already strained icu's. the struggle to contain wildfires burning hundreds of thousands of acres in california. renowned ballet collaborators share their brief but spectacular take on communicating through movement. plus, much more. >> this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. judy: the delta variant continues its spread, now accounting for more than 98% of new infections in the u.s. states, particularly those with low vaccination rates, are scrambling to care for an influx of sick patients in their

intensive care wards. as william brangham reports, more texas hospitals are reporting a shortage of icu beds than at any point in the last 18 months. william: that's right, judy. texas is experiencing its fourth covid surge. right now, less than half of the people in texas are fully vaccinated. 96% of icu beds are full, leaving just over 300 available across the entire state. the state's health department has had to recruit personnel from out of state to address staffing shortages, and to request additional mortuary trailers from fema, in anticipation of more lives lost. dr. joseph chang is chief medical officer for parkland health and hospital system in dallas, texas. very good to have you on the “newshour.” thank you. i wonder if you could just give us a sense of what it's like in your hospital right now. dr. chang: well, i mean, the situation at the hospital right

now is as serious as it has been in any part of this pandemic. i mean, the fatigue right now among our front-line caregivers in terms of nurses, environmental techs, doctors, is something i really can't adequately describe in words. william: and do you have enough staff? i know that the state has requested some sort of backup, but are you ok, staffing-wise right now? dr. chang: no, we are in a dire shortage. in fact, we are about 450 full-time equivalent of nurses down from our optimal staffing levels. we've had to transfer patients away from the hospital and where normally we are that city on a hill that accepts everyone else's patients, we've actually had to transfer patients away. it's a serious situation here. and if we don't get some help in terms of less covid patients coming in, it's ally going to cause a big problem. william: i understand that the vast majority of people in your icu's are people who are unvaccinated. dr. chang: absolutely.

william: have you gotten a sense from them of why they didn't get vaccinated? dr. chang: most of them have an extreme amount of regret. and what they'll tell you is i just didn't think it would be me. that's really i think the majority of the folks that are out there not vaccinated, they just didn't think it could happen to them. because i'll tell you, right now in the hospital, there are more 40-year-olds in there right now than 70-year-olds. and that in really lies the problem, is that right now, still the perception is that, hey, if i'm young and healthy, i can't get covid. and so they aren't getting out and getting vaccinated. with school starting up, i'm really, really worried about what that means. william: do you find yourself and your staff, find yourselves, trying to persuade people that, look, when you're done and you can get out of here, please get your vaccine? dr. chang: 100%. in fact, i do see it as my job and a vital part of my job to educate the public on what these

vaccines mean and what they can do. they are our only way out of this pandemic. they are our finest, and really only real weapon against covid-19. i would remind everybody that's watching this program that when you get sick with covid and you are in my hospital, i have exactly zero treatments for you that can kill this virus. zero. nothing we have discovered in the last 18 months and dealing with covid-19 can kill this virus. only your immune system can. and so when you get here, i'm going to support your immune system as best i can. but i cannot take this cross from your shoulders. your body is going to have to fight it yourself. so really, really, what you've got to dis prevent yoursf from getting it in the first place. and that, my friends, is the vaccine remember, there are vulnerable portions of our population that cannot get vaccinated, or if

they do get vaccinated, it's not going to be as effective f them. it behooves all of us, and it is our public duty to go out, have compassion for those individuals, and do our part to keep them well by getting ourselves vaccinated. william: there are some small hints that the vaccination rate is starting to tick up. maybe people are just becoming terrified of the delta variant. but as you know well, half your state is still not there. dr. chang: absolutely. william: are you confident we're going to get our hands around this in time? dr. chang: i'm not. i have to be honest. i'm not confident. you know, i've said from the very beginning that this is going to be a race, is going to be a race between how fast we get people vaccinated and how fast covid can mutate. and we have already seen one such variant, the delta, show up, that is getting a hold of all of our folks before we can get them vaccinated. again, i would remind people the reason we have variants is because we have active

infection. if we could stop active infection, i.e. with the vaccine, we would not be speaking about variants at all. there would be nthreat to decreasing the effectiveness of our vaccines. so we must go out there and get people as vaccinated as we can. william: all right, dr. joseph chang, chief medical officer of parkland health and hospital system in dallas. thank you very much and best of luck to you. dr. chang: thanks a lot. appreciate it. judy: hot and dry conditions continue to fuel more than a dozen wildfires in california, mostly in the northern part of the state. fire officials said they are seeing a generational destruction of forests. as lisa desjardins reports, at the current rate, fires this year are expected to burn more land than they did last year. li: dozens of homes reduced to ashes.

burned out cars. firefighters sorting through the rubble. this is the devastation left after the cache fire tore through a mobile home park in clearlake, california yestday. >> your house? >> it's gone. all gone. up here, it's ash. i don't even recognize it. lisa: the historic drought and high winds are fueling more than 100 large wildfires across the american west. they have burned across some 2.5 million acres so far. in california, more than a dozen fires are threatening tens of thousands of homes. in the north, the dixie and caldor fires are continuing to burn through forests and small, rural towns. >> nearly every acre of california has the potential to burn these days. lisa: daniel berlant from california's state fire agency says firefighters are devoted but stretched. >> many of them haven't seen their family in weeks. and so that takes an emotional toll on our firefighters. and the fact that we're having

this nonstop activity in july and august is going to be a major problem because this activity may not stop for many more months to come, at least until the rainy season starts, which based on drought conditions, may not come until december, january, february, if we're lucky. lisa: the dixie fire, the largest single fire in california's history, has been burning for more than a month. while climate change and other factors are making the state's wildfire season longer and more intense every year, the pace at which the dixie fire has spread is unprecedented, according to state officials. the fire has forced thousands of people to evacuate, and destroyed at least 1200 buildings so far. >> it was a beautiful, close, small, vibrant community of -- community. it's nothing now. >> we're talking about very fast-moving fires, very unpredictable fires, very dangerous fires. lisa: jill tucker reports for

the "san francisco chronicle” and has been speaking to those uprooted. some like this couple loaded what they could into their truck. >> one woman said she just didn't think this was going to happen, so she didn't even bring clothes. and i had to break the news to her yesterday that her home was gone. all that was left was a little rock with a couple of cuddling turtles on top and everything else was mangled metal and ash. lisa: everyone is unsure about the future. >> where is it safe from rising sea levels or earthquakes or fires? do you move out of state? and then what do you face there, tornadoes or hurricanes? so i think that there are a lot of people reconsidering about where they want to live, but there are a lot of people who just want to rebuild. lisa: but for right now, the biggest challenge for fleeing residents is finding a safe place to stay. >> look at all these people that are misplaced now. where are they going to go? lisa: for the pbs newshour, i'm

lisa desjardins. judy: and we'll be back shortly th ballet dancer misty copeland and choreographer kyle abraham on communicating through dance. but first, take a moment to hear from your local pbs station. it's a chan

judy: renowned ballet dancer misty copeland and choreographer kyle abraham share a deep connection that shines brightly through in their creative collaborations. tonight, they offer their brief but spectacular take on communicating through movement, as part of our arts and culture series, canvas. kyle: there's so much that goes into making a new work, especially in this capacity where i get to collaborate with misty. there's so much more to dance thanust phrase making or the steps.

what are you seeing and what are you feeling? it's really important when you're having a relationship with a choreographer and dancer to really talk about what the movement feels like. i'm not the one doing it. misty: that's what's so beautiful about what we do. it's about our interpretation and how we make people feel. growing upn a single parent home, one of six children, ballet gave me a sense of freedom, yet a sense of security as well as opportunity. the more that i share my story and i'm actually in the communities that need to see people like me and people like kyle, i think that's one of the mo important things for me to do at this point, in this stage in my career is to be accessible and to give back what ballet has given to me. kyle: the joffrey ballet actually was the first dance performance i ever saw live. it just changed my life. so many people can relate to going into their room, catching all the feels and just letting it all out through movement.

it didn't occur to me until i saw a ballet that there was so much more that we can do to express ourselves as movers or just as people in general. i think there are a lot of different expectations and assumptions when it comes to people seeing my work for the very first time. they don't know that i started out in classical music. and i think it's really doing a disservice to an audience, to a dancer, to a choreographer to make assumptions that we don't have interests that go beyond what's considered black music or music of a certain culture. misty: especially i think r black people in dance, because we're not given a voice and our stories are not being told, especially in classical works. as much as i love the history and tradition of classical ballet, you don't want to keep continuing on these stories that are, i don't even know how to put it. i don't want to play a slave girl anymore. you know? i want to be able to, to do works that are going to move the art from forward.

so for me, when i think about those voices that aren't being heard or stories that aren't being told, it all relates back to who i'm doing this for and it's the next generation. it's the littlerown girls, the little brown boys. dance is what gave me confidence. it's what gave me a voice. and i think that's what it can do for other young people that feel like they don't know how to tell their stories or to communicate and exprs themselves. i'm misty copeland. kyle: i'm kyle abraham. misty: and this is our brief but spectacular take on -- kyle: communicating through movement. judy: such an inspiration. you can watch all our brief but spectacular episodes at pbs.org/newshour/brief. and that is the newshour for tonight. i am judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, pllease stay safe, and see you soon.

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

(music plays) because of where we are geographically, fish or things from the sea greatly influence the foods we eat here in eastern north carolina. it's the fish episode, y'all. (theme music plays- the avett brothers "will you return") i'm vivian and i'm a chef. my husband, ben and i were working for some of the best chefs in new york city when my parents offered to help us open our own restaurant. of course, there was a catch. we had to open this restaurant in eastern north carolina, where i grew up and said i would never return. (music plays)