to learn more, visit safetyactioncenter.pge.com captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, september 5: the cleanup from hurricane ida continues. >> sreenivasan: an afghanistan war veteran on the end of the 20-year war. >> sreenivasan: jeff greenfield on california's recall election. >> sreenivasan: and the healing power of music. next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein mily.

the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington mayo- smith. the leonard and norma klorfine foundation. the rosalind p. walter foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. barbara hope zuckerberg. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercellular.tv. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcastng, a private corporation funded by the

american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thank you for joining us. one week after hurricane ida made landfall on louisiana's coast, power is still out, thousands of people have damaged homes, and officials say the recovery work ahead will last for months. this morning fema's administrator said the speed and strength of the hurricane gave officials little time to respond, and she warned more storms of this magnitude are likely as the climate warms. >> i think this is going to be our w normal. we saw intense weather events in 2017. last year we saw a record number of hurricanes and a record wildfire season. the u.n. report just released their climate report and they said this climate crisis we're facing and it's only going to continue to get worse. >> sreenivasan: in new york, residents continued to can up

debris left after the remnant of hurricane ida flooded the region. in queens, a memorial was set up for a mother and son, tara and nick ramskriet, who died while trying to escape their basement apartment. >> it hit us really hard. the government needs to do something about affordable housing so that people don't have to live in a basement, they can afford a first floor apartment. they are essential workers, they are immigrants, ey work here and they don't deserve this. >> sreenivasan: on tuesday, president joe biden plans to visits queens and the town of manville in new jersey. in afghanistan today, domestic flights resumed for the first time since the taliban took control of the country. the couny's state-run airline is now operating flights between kabul and three afghan provinces. taliban special forces are guarding kabul's international airport, where some humanitarian aid is being flown in from qatar and the united arab emirates. in kabul, banks have reopened but there are strict limits on withdrawals as local residents face steep increases in the cost

of basic goodsike oil, rice, and flour. the campaign to vaccinate all eligible americans against covid-19 is still moving forward but slowly, as the biden administration presses forward with a plan to offer booster shots latethis month. to date, 62 percent of all vaccine-eligible americans have received at least one shot and 53 percent are now fully vaccinated. covid-19 booster shots for those who have gotten the pfizer vaccine will be available starting september 20. the f.d.a. has not yet approved moderna or johnson and johnson booster s. in israel today, prime minister naftali bennett announced two- and-a-half million israelis have now received a booster shot ahead of gatherings and celebrations for rosh hashanah-- the jewish new year-- which begins tomorrow night. bennet warned that unvaccinated children should not be brought to synagogues this year. capacity at houses of worship will be limid to small groups

of adults who can prove they are vaccinated. in japan today, the closing ceremony for the 13-day-long paralympics marked the final act of the tokyo games. a record 4,400 athletes competed in this year's paralympic events. china won the most medals, followed by great britain and the united states. on friday, the u.s. won gold in the first-ever four-by-100 universal relay at the paralympics, setting a new world record of 45.52 seconds. at the closing ceremony, the paralympic flag was handed off to the mayor of paris, the host of the 2024 summer olympics. for more national and international news visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: last week's u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan, the taliban's rapid takeover, and the death, chaos and confusion that ensued caught many americans by surprise. fosome of the millions of u.s. service members who went to

afghanistan since 2001, the events of last week also come with mixed feelings about their service there and the allies left behind. i spoke with rodger pinto,ho deployed to both afghanistan and iraq as an infantry paratrooper in the army's 82nd airborne from 2008 to 2014. he is also a member advocate for the non-partisan group i.a.v.a.- - iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. >> sreenivasan: so, rodger, you were in the 82nd airborne, served as infantry in afghanistan, what were the kinds of things that you were doing on the ground with afghan allies? >> you know, just like your brothers and sisters in arms, our afghan allies are risking as much, if not more, than we are. >> sreenivasan: what do you

think that the bargain was that we made with the people of afghanistan when we were there? when you're in these conversations with these peopl that you are working with and fighting with, what did they think was going to happen at the end of this? >> i think that the bargain we struck with them was a recognition of the values we both share. you know, 99 percent of our afghan allies and, frankly, citizens of afghanistan are very similar to us as americans. they have the same values of taking care of their family, ensuring that they provide their kids with as much opportunities as they can afford and putting in the hard work to do s so we kind of presented that american dream to them. and it's very important that we ensure we follow through on the commitments we made. >> sreenivasan:if you can, i know one of the pictures that i saw, tell me a little bit about the afghan soldier that we're looking at there. >> so that's, that's a member of the afghan army, they were partnered with quite a few of

our units in afghanistan and that particular picture, is of our infantry platoon with the 1st special troops battalion, 82nd airborne division, and they're partnering with us as we provide security for a route clearance package, which is a group of combat engineers that are clearing i.e.d.s off the road to ensure safy not only for u.s. troops, but safe travel for everyday afghans that are going to work and taking their children to school. >> sreenivasan: they knew that putting on a uniform and standing shoulder to shoulder with american and allied forces would mean that they would have a target on their back. >>hey absolutely do, and it's not that they did it for two or three months, in many cases, they've done it for five, ten and 20 years. not only that, but unlike u.s. troops who know that their family is secure, safe and sound at home in the united states, theirs are often still in the village and they can expect a knock on their door from the taliban any day.

so in order to serve the united states, in order to partner with us in afghanistan, our afghan allies made sacrifices every single day to ensure our safety. >> sreenivasan: do you think at the past few weeks and the exit that the uned states had from afghanistan will have an effect on either the culture of the u.s. military or recruiting for the military? >> ihink it will have an impact, certainly on the culture in the u.s. military. it hasn't been the first time in the past several years where we've seen these kind of commitments falter. we saw in regards to our allies in kurdistan, we saw it in regards toome of our allies in the fight in iraq. and now we're seeing it in afanistan on an entirely different scale. if i were a recruit joining the military today and i were seeing these images on tv and i was

reading the reports that are coming out in the news, i would be really concerned at i would go into combat potentially and have allies that regnize that the u.s. has not followed through on its word. for , it's been like watching our country turn its back on our neighbor. these are members of our community at this point. they've served alongside us for cades. and while culturally afghanistan may be very, very different, there armany, many shared values that i just don't think have been translated to the average u.s. citizen. >> sreenivasan: veteran rodger pinto, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> sreenivas: vice president kamala harris will head to california on wednesday to campaign for governor gavin newsom ahead of the september 14th recall election there. the recall attempt is both a simple and complicated political event. "newshour weekend" special correspondent jeff greenfield joined us from santa barbara

today to sort out the issues and the way the california system works. >> sreenivasan: jeff, how does california find itself in this position? >> well, under califnia law, you only need 12 percent of the statide turnout to sign petitions to trigger a recall. and with paid petition gatherers and with a couple of million dollars in ad money that the republicans threw into this process, the recall qualified. but it's the way this happens that's so bizarre. if i can use that term, it's a two-part ballot. first, should governor newsom be recalled, yes or no? if 5percent say yes, he's out. then part two is triggered. which of the 46 candidates on the ballot should be the next governor? and whoever finishes first wins. there's no runoff, which is why conservative talk show host larry elder, with about 20 or 22 percent of the vote, could be the next governor, even though newsom got 49 percent of the vote in the first recall. >> sreenivasan: how did gavin newsom get into this bind in the first place? >> first, the reemergence of the pandemic.

the economy stalled, new restrictions. so that hurt. and then newm himself committed quite a blunder by, after imposing a lockdown, showing up maskless at a birthday party and one of the most expensive restaurants in the state. now, in recent days, newsom has rebounded. he has tried to turn this recall into aight between democrats who dominate the state and the odds of a pro trump right wing talk show host becoming governor. and as i say, the polls are showing the recall will fail. but you've got a september election and a very odd process. so i think any strong, solid predictions are for the foolhardy. >> sreenivasan: you know, i feel old now, but i lived in california the last time this happened, this isn't the first. >> no. in fact, in 2003, governor gray daviwas recalled and removed just one year after being reelected. you'll remember that the n governor was arnold schwarzenegger. he won, by the way, in a landslide. but the broader point is this is

part of california's commitment to so-called direct democracy. in 1910, a progressive governor, hiram johnson, got major changes in how the state politics works. we now have an initiative process where voters can put their own laws or constitutional amendments on the ballot. we have a referendum where voters can undo what the state legislature has done, and we have a recall in which any statewide official can be subject to this process. >> sreenivasan: th was something that was supposed to help progressives, but it's been used by both sides. >> indeed, in 1964, the voters repealed every local fair housing ordinance. in 1978, they imposed a very strong lid on property taxes. in 1986, voters threw three supreme court justices off the bench for their lack of support for the death penalty. and in 2008, voters voted to ban gay marriage, well, the courts knocked that out. and just last year, lyft, uber and doordash spent $200 million to override a

state law that said you have to treat your drivers as employees. >> sreenivasan: what's the consequence here? if gavin newsom is recalled,nd if larry elder is elected? >> for one thing, elder is committed to repealing any kind of mandate in terms of vaccinations and masks, he has called global warming essentially mythological. but there's another very awkward point. dianne feinstein, the united states senator from california, is 88 years old. and in recent years, her performance has concerned democrats who have been urging her to resign. if larry elder becomes governor and if dianne feinstein has to leave the senate, he has said he will appoint a republican in her place to serve the remainder of her term, which would make the u.s. senate no longer controlled by democrats. so there's potentially a lot at stake here. >> sreenivasan: jeff greenfield joining us from california, thanks so much. >> thank you.

>> sreenivasan: it's no secret that music can evoke emotion and influence someone's moodbut musicians and scientists are advancing studies on how it can help with healing. during the pandemic, one diverse set of musicians added their creative talents to the study of therapeutic music, teaming up as a "drone ensemble" to make music for healing. "newshour weekend" special correspondent mike cerre has the story. >> reporter: what do you get when you cross opera star renee fleming with rock star mickey hart of the grateful dead and indian classical music virtuoso zakir hussain making music for healing in the middle of a pandemic?

it's called drone music, and embraces ancient healing and meditation traditions. >> music and medicine goes back as far as history goes back, you know, shamanism, people lived by that. >> we are taught that when somebody got sick in the house, we were told to play our tambour, which is the drone instrument. >> when you think about these types of therapies and interventions, they're non armaceutical, they're very low cost, and they really are working. >> reporter: the power of music to heal, or at the very least promote well being, is well documented in most cultures. but it's only been in the past two decades that the sentific and medical communities have

me together in an effort to prove its efficacy and possibilities of including it in medil protocols. >> suddenly these things that were simply left to speculation, into theory, we now have measurements on it, we have data, we have the ability to actually observe the human brain doing these remarkable music and artistic tasks. >> reporter: dr. charles lb is the co-director of the sound health network at the university of california san francisco. it's a collaboration with scientists from the national institutes of health, and artists from the national endowment for the arts and the kennedy center for the performing arts. >> so one thing i've notic in all of the musical experiments i've done is that when you listen to a musical stimulus and you look at the brain while that's being listened to, the entire brain is really engaged. the music is a robusstimulus for the brain.

>> reporter: advances in m.r.i. technology has allowed researchers to scamusicians' brains while playing music to observe how music affects different brain functions. >> it surprised the scientists as well, not just me, that the most powerful effect on my brain in this experiment, which had me singing, imagining sging and speaking, was imagining singing. >> reporter: renee fleming spent much of the past year working with scientists and medical experts on how best to advance the music and healing connection with her series of podcasts called "music and mind." >> the discovery, for instance, that there's a music room in the brain, that it's distinct from speech was really key, very important. >> reporter: daniel levitin, the mcgill and stanford universities neuroscientist, music composer and best-selling author o“this is your brain on music,” believes the most likely

therapeutic uses of music will be for treating the less functioning cognitive parts of the brain caused by alzheimer's and other brain diseases. >> in parkinson's disease, music is helpful because it sets a pace or a tempo and often parkinson's patients can't walk because they're frozen. and the music gives them a pulse that causes neurons in their brain in the basal ganglia, the cerebellum, the motor action centers, to synchronize with the tempo. and that helps them to start walking and to keep walking. you can't repair broken neural connections, but you can make new ones. any time you learn something new, those are new neural pathways. practicing an instrument, learning an instrument, develops these pathways. >> my grandmother who had alzheimer's, and she was fading and she hadn't spoken about three or four years, and i started playing the drum and she was smiling, you know, as best she could. and then she said my name.

it was a startling discovery and it kind of lit my light. >> reporter: grateful dead drummer mickey hart has been working with u.c.s.f. neurologist dr. adam gazzaley to determine which rhythms might be more effective than others for treating damaged parts of the brain. >> my brain, you know, rhythm central. so seeing how, how it reacted to certain beats, loud, soft, fast or slow was a revelation. >> reporter: perhaps onef renee's most revealing music therapy experiences was with army capt. luis avila, who lost his ability to speak after an i.e.d. explosion in afghanistan. intensive muc therapy helped him regain his voice and eventually his speech. >> and to see that that was such an extraordinary gift to him

through melodic intonation therapy, which is the name of this particular therapy, to regain some speech, to regain his ability to communicate. that's an incredible gift. >> the one thing that i've noticed about making music in the time of this pandemic, when you are isolated, that there's that much more deeper connection with what you're trying to achieve. >> reporter: zakir hussain, mickey hart and renee fleming'“" pandemic drone ensemble” of sorts was one of the ten pieces drone music recorded remotely for meditation and healing practices. the music was recently released on commune, an online well-being and healing network, accompanied by mickey hart's paintings with rhythm. >> so they call it vibrational expressionism, whereas it is vibrated into existence. i use a bass speaker and i control it with the beam, with the monochord and things rise that

you had never suspected from underneath the many layers of paint. >> i think if we think about the things that make us feel calm and relaxed, any kind of folk music very often has a drone involved. it has been shown actually at mit to clean up amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain. >> reporter: mickey hart has intuitively been discovering music's power to heal the past half century, performing the grateful dead's versn of music therapy in concert to tens of thousands at a time. the lifting of covid restrictions is allowing him to tour again this summer with dead & company and take his music therapy back out on the road. so, "dr. hart,” do you take medicare payments at your performances for all of us? >> oh, yeah. well, you know, hey, in many states, doctors can write a script for music therapy, so it's not far off with music that can be prescribed.

>> this is "newshour weekend" sunday. >> sreenivasan: next saturday, we'll commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11 with a special program covering the day's ceremonies, and reflections from eye-witnesses and first responders. here's an excerpt. into the world trade center here in new york city. >> at 8:46 a.m. american airlines flight crashed into world trade center building one. one that was hijacked by 19 al qaeda terrorists that day. it seemed off course. >> trying to figure out do i have to go to work? the second plane hit and i saw it on tv and that was it. >> all i seen was this ge fire ball coming out of tower 2, the

south tower. and for a second, i didn't know what it was. i thought maybe just a buiing blew up. >> i ran downstairs and i'm looking south and both towers are on fire. around it was stunning. >> with the second catastrophic strike it became clear that the country was under attack. new york city mounted its largest rescue effort in history, dispaxg more than 2,000 firefighters, medical workers and police officers to lower manhattan. >> it was a little hard getting around the streets because there was debris ail over. something from the building from the plane hitting it. >> you got to remember, the north tower is fully engulfed. people are jumping out of the windows. i did not look, i was not going to look. i was very protective of my psyche. i only need to see what i need to seize in situations like this but you couldn't close your ears. >> rescue workers rushed in to help the more than 16,000 people

inside putting their own lives on the line. that's all for this edition of "pbs newshour weekend." for the latest news updates visit pbs.org/newshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. stay healthy and have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip lstein family. barbara hope zuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine foundation. the peter g. peterson and joan the rosalind p. walter foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural

differences in our communities. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your you.tation from viewers like thank you. you're watching pbs.

(slow dramatic music) - it's a place shaped by fire, ice, and time. a sprawling landscape that's about as diverse as it gets. so the road has met the point at where beautiful, lush, green forests meet a big pile of lava. with massive conifer forests, snow-covered peaks, alpine meadows, and caves carved by this region's volcanic past. definitely a funky smell down here, hey, boomer? this national park in california is unique when compared to the state's other top parks because of this, the world's largest plug dome volcano that last erupted not so long ago and today it still shows off plenty of its fiery past.