captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> nawaz: good evening, i'm amna nawaz. judy woodruff is away. on the newshour tonight, high stakes-- the president's economic agenda hangs in the balance, as negotiations intensify between democrats on capitol hill and the white house. then, getting the ccine-- a former f.d.a. commissioner on the latest strategies to ramp up america's low vaccination rates. and, saving the sequoias-- crews scramble to contain wildfires threatening to torch some of the oldest trees in the world. >> 2,000 years of living history. they're ancient beings and they're dying befo our very eyes. and what really gets to me is that we're not acting fast enough. >> nawaz: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> nawaz: it's a puzzle that the white house and key congressional democrats spent this wednesday trying to solve: how to secure enough votes in the u.s. house to pass a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill tomorrow, as speaker nancy pelosi had promised. going into today, some house progressives were still holding out; unsatisfied by the status of another bill that's still being worked out, that could put trillions more toward climate, health care and other domestic initiatives. our own yamiche alcindor is joining us from the white house, as the president himself gets more involved in these talks. yamiche, good to see you, thanks for being here. so let's talk about what the president's doing. what are some of his efforts right now to try to unite democrats? >> reporter: well, there is an intensifying feeling of urgency here at the white house tonight as president biden is scrambling to try to get democrats united between these two big insurrection b infrastructure bills, $1 trillion is the

bipartisan bill and $3.5 trillion bill democratic supported though not all the democrats are on the same page. the president was supposed to be in chicago talking about vaccine mandates and talking about companies that adopted vaccine mandates but postponed the trip signaling he needed to talk to lawmakers, and in the last hour he was talking to house speaker nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, and i'm told in the meetings with senator sinema and manchin, the president is explaining to senators and lawmakers, here is what my legacy and agenda is, here's what my wants for the american people are. the second thing he's doing is saying what can i try to do to get you on board for the plan for the two big bills passed together. then come the white house staff, they were on the hill meeting with senator sinema and some of them are ron klain as well as top aides that might not be familiar to people but they are

e brain trust behind this effort to try to get the white house and all of its efforts to get lawmakers on the same page. i'm also tern senator sinema los like she's the senator more likely to say yes though the $3.5 trillion might shrink to 2.5 or $2 trillion. i'm also told senator manchin is the harder sell. in the last hour senator manchin put out a statement that did not sound like he was getting any closer to the reconciliation bill. he put in part spending trillions of dollars are in his words fiscal insanity and wrote the democrats shou not vengefully attack the wealthy, that, of course, is in stark contrast to what progressives have been saying. so a lot withthe president at the center. >> nawaz: the pressure is building. speaker pelosi said the self-imposed bill is tomorrow. >> reporter: the next 24 hours will be critical for whether or

not president biden can get this done because nancy pelosi said she wants to bring te bipartisan infrastructure bill to the house floor because she's promised if it has the votes it will go to the floor. here's what white house press secretary general sakeé did talking about about this home. >> the president is going to be working around the clock. the rest of the today, overnight into tomorrow morning, and we're going to be working in lock step with speaker pelosi. the president has been clear about getting his commitment to getting both pieces of legislation passed, both of them through, so right now what we're navigating and working through is how we can get agreements, of course, 50 votes in the senate on a s.e.c. silliation package. >> reporter: press secretary jen p sakeé said this is a

precarious time. the president ran on the idea he can use his decades in government to get a deal done. that will be the biggest test of his presidency. you heard the white house press secretary doubling down the idea the president understands the moment d wants to get this done. >> nawaz: big day at the white house. thanks,ia might have been. i'm joined by senator dick durbin of illinois, the number two democrats in the senate and joins us now. senator durbin, welcome back to the "newshour". you heard the latest from your completely senator manchin saying he's not convinced the money needs to be spent, and then a statement from house progressive leader saying after senator manchin's statement she thinks more people will vote against the infrastructure bill tomorrow. is there any chance this passes tomorrow? >> well, there's a certain amount of turmoil here and it has to do with the fact we have four major pieces of legislation

hanging over us in capitol hill. first and foremost to keep the government open, i think that will happen tomorrow. there will be constructive votes in the senate and i think we'll get it done. the debt ceiling has a mid october deadline to it. so we have a little time but i hope we get behind this default strategy of senator mcconnell holding this up that impacts the american economy. the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed handily in the senate which sits in the house waiting for the outcome on the reconciliation bill so nay pelosi can put together a coalition of all to pass both. two senators are holding up the reconciliation bill. i don't know what's closer, not the latest negotiations directly face-to-face with them but i will say to my colleagues you have the power now use it to do something constructive for

this country. make your mark on this negotiation. you have that opportunity. but close the deal. it's time to close the deal, i would say to both of them. >> nawaz: senator, do i understand you correctly you are not directly talking to senator manchin or sinema, is tha right? >> president is directly talking to them and leaders are talking to them and members of the leadership and staff are addressing issue that they raise. so it isn't as if all of us are in the room together, pounding this out. there are conversations on the floor with each of them about the status of things, but the actual negotiations are most important, so the president's own meetings with these people, and this president is committed to this in a way i haven't seen since the affordable care act under president obama. >> nawaz: so where are you now in terms of where a top line number could end up? do you have any sense of what would they'd back? they're setting the ceiling three and a half trillions too high for them. how low would you go >> we had a meeting this week to

discuss just what that meant and each time we dropped that numben years, incidentally, all paid for by increasing the tax rates on the wealthiest in america, those making over $400,000 a year, in corporations that are not being taxed. so we pay for it, but the net result of dropping that number from 3.5 to 3 or2.5 or lower means that we have to make an evaluation of the programs that are included in reconciliation. who is do we invest in, what do we give up on? are we going to have childcare which workers and mothers across the country tell us they desperately need? are we going to have pre-k education to get kids ready for school? extend it to k-14 so people are equipped to have the talents and skil to have a productive life in our 21st century economy? each one of these decisions means we have to change it. medicare are we going to expand to dental and eyeglasses. >> doesn't sound like you're

closer to a top line number. >> i can't tell you i've heard the number. >> nawaz: let me ask you about the debt ceiling vote. blow colleagues are working to pass pa clean debt ceiling vote. even if they do you need 10 republican colleagues to break ranks to back it. have you talked to any of them who said they'd do that. >> of course, we've talked to them. particularly the senators from louisiana, both republicans. there's disaster aid in this bill and we dperately need it and i want thm to have it. we asked them to join us, they so far haven't done it. aid for afghan refugees. how many speeches were made about standing behind these men and women who rizics their lives for america? these are basic things to do in the bill. this is the first time i can remember that the republicans imposed a filibuster on the debt ceiling. unconscionable to think a

extraordinary vote is needed on something that basic. >> nawaz: i need to ask you about the texas abortion law. you called it outranges when it first came out and called for hearings in the senate judiciary committee on that law but more broadly about the shadow docket, the emergency decisions the court often makes. shouldn't you be moving forward on legislation to codify some of those abortion rights? >> i can tell you the committee will consider legislation, but remember it's an 11 to 11 membership on that committee, and working on bipartisan bills where we can and hot topics like abortion and gun control, obviously very little chance of bipartisanship. but the point of the hearing today was the fact that the supreme court is increasingly using the shadow docket, which means they make momentous, life-changing decisions and don't issue any opinion to justify what they've decided, and that has been taken to task not only by the three liberals left on the court, but justice roberts. he said this texas statute was

one we shouldn't give an automatic stay so that they could proceed with the appeals. so we brought up the particulars in the texas abortion statute today. interestingly enough, not a single republican de-- republican defended the specifics of the texas statute on its merits. they were all arguing the issue of abortion which, of course, is very controversial. >> nawaz: senator dick durbin, democrat from illinois joining us tonight. senator, thank you, always good to see you. >> thank you. >> nawaz: in the day's other news, the c.d.c. issued a formal health advisory urging that women who are pregnant, or hoping to be, get vaccinated against covid-19. the agency says only 31% of pregnant women have had their shots, and rates for minorities are even lower. c.d.c. officials also say the

vaccine carries no increased risk of miscarriages. u.s. military leaders spent a second day, today, trying to explain to congress what happened in afghanistan. at a house hearing, general mark milley blamed bad decisions going back years. defense secretary lloyd austin agreed that the u.s. pullout hurt afghan morale, but he said american troops could not stay on. >> i support the president's decision to end the war in afghanistan, i did not support staying in afghanistan forever. there is no, was no, risk-free status quo option. i think the taliban had been clear that if we stayed there longer, they were going to re- commence attacks on our forces. >> nawaz: democratic lawmakers defended president biden's decisions. republicans again accused him of lying when he said no one urged him to keep 2,500 troops in afghanistan. the biden administration says

north korea's latest missile kim jong un says there's been no change in u.s. policy and offers of new talks are just a cover. (that comes after the north fired a north korea's state media says it fired a hypersonic missile out to sea on tuesday. that kind of weapon can fly at five times the speed of sound. but south korea says indications are the north's missile is still early in development. in japan, former foreign minister fumio kishida is now in line to become prime minister. the ruling liberal democratic party chose him today as its new leader. that sets him up to replace prime minister yoshihide suga, who is stepping down. in tokyo, kishida vowed to do more to fight the covid pandemic that has crippled japan's economy. >> ( translated ): coronavirus measures-- i will put my all into it and work very hard to tackle it. the hearts of the japanese people have been broken into pieces because of the coronavirus. i want everyone to regain a will where they can feel that they can work hard and be one team to take on the national coronavirus crisis.

>> nawaz: parliament is expected to vote kishida in as prime minister on monday. an overnight battle at a prison in ecuador has left at least 100 people dead. officials say rival gangs fought for hours with guns, knives and explosives. some of the victims were beheaded. it was the latest in a series of bloody prison riots in ecuador this year. the british government rolled out a reserve tanker fleet today to deal with a fuel shortage. and, officials ordered soldiers to start driving tankers, to compensate for a driver shortage and panic buying. there were indications that gasoline is finally arriving at some filling stations. many others still had long lines of cars waiting for gas. cities across china are now in a second week of electric power cuts. the ruling communist party ordered them in a bid to rein in soaring power consumption and meet targets for carbon emissions. a number of cities are under rolling blackouts, including shenyang in the northeast. that's left shop owners and

others looking for ways to cope. >> ( translated ): our store didn't suffer as much as others because we don't use as much electricity. but, it's very inconvenient if we don't have water. the power and water supply is integrated. so, when power is cut off, it does affect our lives. >> nawaz: the power cuts are also closing factories and threatening more global supply chain chaos. and, back in this country, wall street struggled again to make headway. the dow jones industrial average gained 90 points to close at 34,390. the nasdaq fell 34 points. the s&p 50gained six. still to come on the newshour: a closer look at the president's plan to increase taxes on the wealthy. crews scramble to contain wildfires threatening california's sequoias. scientists raise the alarm as the u.s. declares multiple species extinct. and much more.

>> nawaz: youtube today announced it will remove videos that spread false information about the safety and effectiveness of the covid-19 and any other commonly used vaccines. accounts associated with several prominent figures, such as robert kennedy, jr., who spread false claims, will also be removed. as william brangham reports, it's part of an ongoing fight against misinformation. >> brangham: that's right, amna. misinformation has certainly increased vaccine hesitancy in the u.s. it's partly why america now lags behind many industrialized nations in vaccine uptake, with just 56% of the country fully inoculated. for the latest on our vaccination efforts, i'm joined now by dr. scott gottlieb. he ran the food and drug administration from 2017 to

2019, and is a member of pfizer's board of directors. he's just out with a new book called "uncontrolled spread," about why the virus hit america so hard, and what we can do to stop it doing so again. dr. gottlieb, great to have you back on the "newshour". so youtube says, okay, we're going to start cracking down on these sites, we're going to kick them off, for anyone published published -- publishing misleading or false information about the vaccine. what do you make of the move? is this going to help or is the horse already out of the barn? >> i think it's late to be doing this. i think that the social media platforms have a responsibility to provide some editorial supervision on what goes on their sites. i applaud the move they're taking. we need to recognize this information isn't just being exchanged between individuals. there are deliberate efforts underway to spread objectively false information. that information designed to confuse people and deceive them about the vaccines. there was a report rlier this

year about the russian government being behind some these efforts. this is quite deliberate and organizationed in certain respects. i think the social media platforms have a responsibility to not be conduits for this sort of misinformation. >> reporter: this is having an effect on some people's hesitancy to take the vaccine. the biden administration when they looked at our relatively low vaccination rates said, after a long time of resisting mandates, they said we are going to institute mandates, employer mandates. did you think that policy made sense policywise to get more americans vaccinated? >> well, look, we first should recognize the extraordinary accomplishment including of the biden administration of getting people vaccinated. fully 70% of people over age 18 have at least one dose the vaccine and most will complete the series. the last percentage will be more

difficult to vaccine. some harder to reach, some reluctant. it will be a harder cam peen to get adaysle americans vaccinated. in terms of the mandates, the administration is well within their progressivity to mandate vaccination within the workforce. healthcare workers should get vaccination given the risk to those they're providing care for. when you're putting mandates on private businesses that will create divisions across society. that turns something that's furtively political, the debate around the vaccination, to subjectively political. you will have politicians running against the mandates. offas i don't believe governors should prevent communities from imposing mandates, i don't think the federal government should impose the requirements on small businesses. i think this will become too much of a tense ground we're manning this on smaller and medium-sized businesses. >> reporter: thus far, we have seen at least in the initial

reports that most of the companies that enacted this mandate even though not fully out yet have had relative success they've seen the numbers ticked up. partisanship aside, will it have the goal intended which is to save more lives. >> i think it will save more lives and get more people vaccinated. to the extend these are collect i've decisions and i believe the decision to get vaccinated isn't an individual choice, there is a collective element because your decision not to is putting people at risk in your community. so the far better approach would be to make the community to make the decision. let businesses make that decision on their own pause they believe the only way to protect the workforce and customers is through vaccination. let a let school board make the decision. i recognize that's not always feasible. yyou have a lot of holdouts. so i understand why the administration stepped in to try to force the decisions, but they're creating a political

background around vaccinations that you're going to have other people opposing it. the question is how much are we going to pick up in terms of increased vaccination. we're at 78% of adults now. i believe we would have gotten easily to 80% on a normal trajectory. we'll end up maybe 80, 85% a little bit higher, so you may pick up a couple extra percentage points in the amnt of american adults vaccinated but you will pay a consequence of turning it into more of a political debate. we have to carefully weigh those competing interests. >> reporter: i want to ask you about vaccinating kids. we know pfizer submitted its data for 5 to 11-year-olds. how likely do you think that will will be approved and when do you think kids might start getting vaccinated in this country? >> right, so the company started submitting clinical data yesterday. they're going to continue to submit data to the agency. it's sort of a rolling submission. i think that you could see a

vaccine available for children ages 5 to 11 as soon as the end of october. if it slips a little bit, i think sort of the base case may be by mid-november. obviously it's subject to f.d.a.'s careful review of the data and the agency agreeing that the data supports authorization of the vaccine. >> reporter: dr. scott gottlieb, former head of the f.d.a., thank you very much. >> thanks a lot. >> nawaz: president biden's ambitious economic agenda is still taking shape on capitol hill. but the plans call for unprecedented spending-- new energy infrastructure, more child care help, and expanded medicare and health care coverage. it also calls for tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations. we get two views on what this could mean for the u.s. economy. joseph stiglitz is a nobel prize winning economist. from 1997 to 2000 he was senior

vice president and chief economist at the world bank. he now teaches at columbia university. michael strain is the director of economic policy studies at the american enterprise institute. he's also an opinion columnist for bloomberg. welcome to you both, gentlemen. thanks for being here. professor stiglitz, i'll come to you first on this. the details to have the plans are still being worked out wherever they end up. we're talking about a massive amount of spending that the president says is necessary for the country, necessary for the economy right now. do you agree? is it necessary or is this just something democrats want? >> no, it is necessary. you know, there are many things about america that are different from other advanced countries. we have the lowest life expectancy, a life expectancy that actually was decning in the years before the pandemic but has taken a real fall. we he one of the lowest labor

force participation rates, the fraction of the population who is actually working, of the working alien population of any of the advanced countries. the median income, the people in the middle, is lower than in other advanced countries. so there are many problems that we're facing, and, unfortunately, we have not confronted them for a very long time. anybody that visits other countries and sees our infrastructure relative to the other countries' infrastructure realizes that we have a lot of gaps there, too. >> nawaz: and, so, your see the spending as its outlined here, that would address all the problems you just laid out? >> it will be a beginning of addressing them. i don't make any pretense that it really fully addresses them, but we have postponed addressing some of our key issues for a very long time, and i'm really

welcoming this effort to begin doing something about these huge problems that we face. >> nawaz: michael strain, what's your view? do you agree this is necessary right now? >> i don't think think it's necessary. i certainly agree that addressing some of the problems that professor stiglitz enumerates is necessary. the united states has serious challenges. the question is whether or not president biden's plan would address those challenges and would address those challenges in the best way. they can one part of the plan that's received quite a bit of attention, a program that would give a monthly income to households with children, this program would help low-income americans to pay the bills, but the vast majority of the money that would be spent would go to households above the port ofy line including households making the 200, 300, $400,000 a year. it is not necessary to give a

household making 300-grand a year a check every month. another big part of the plan would be to expand the medicare program. we should be trying to provide health security to americans, but simply putting billions and billions of dollars into medicare, a program whose finances are already unstable, doesn't really bring health security to the americans who really need it. so i think there are some good goals here, and i agree with professor stiglitz that america has challenges that need to be addressed, i'm just not sure this plan addresses those challenges in an efficient way or in the best way. >> nawaz: michael, what are about some of the investments you see as excessive, the childcare, the tax credits, the healthcare coverage, that those are short-term investments that will lead to long-term economic growth. do you agree with that? >> i don't think long-term economic growth would be strengthened by giving a monthly check to households making a

comfortable six-figure income, and i don't think economic growth would be strengthened putting more money into the medicare system. there are goals in this program that would contribute to the economy. so one of the programs' objectives is to increase the accessibility and affordability of childcare, that would help people to participate in the workforce, and that would help the economy to grow. i think we need to debate the specifics of the childcare proposal. what the president wants to do is essentially subsidize demand for commercial daycare. that's one way to increase access to childcare. i would be much more interested in seeing how we could increase the supply of providers, to see how we could help families to have childcare in the evenings and on weekends when many lower-income americans work and when commercial daycare centers are not open.

>> nawaz: professor stiglitz, i want you to respond to a point michael raised as no limits on some of the spending, childcare tax credits, should there be more limits on those kinds of things in the bill is this. >> the basic thing, in the bill that was passed when biden first became president, that provided childcare -- child tax credits, and that one provision enable to the reduction of childhood poverty by 50% in one year. but that was only a one-year provision. and, so, i'm giving this as an illustration that we -- you know, for such a large frction of american young people growing up in poverty, inadequate conditions to make them productive in the future, if in one year we could reduce that poverty rate by 50%, imagine

what we could do if we made a commitment to do this over the long term, and that is the basic core of what is being proposed in biden's plan. let's make sure that fewer american children grow up in poverty, and if that happens, we will have a more productive economy in the fute. >> nawaz: professor, wh about how to pay for this? we s the biden administration wants to raise taxes on those who make more than 400,000 a year and corporations, is that going to cover this kind of investment? >> yes, there are other provisions like closing some to have the loopholes which undermine the effectiveness of our tax rate. you know, one of the striking things about our tax code is that it's not progressive. the people at the very top are paying a tax rate of just over 8% on their total income. you know, while ordinary people

are paying a much higher tax rate. so there's an awful lot of money that can be raised by making our tax system fairer. >> nawaz: michael, what are your concerns about raising taxes in that way to pay for these investments? >> the president has a few goals, he wants to spend a lot more money. to his credit, he wants to raise taxes to pay for that spending rather than run up deficits, and he wants to combat climate change. it seems to me that an obvious way to advance all three of those goals is to put in place a carbon tax. a carbon tax would raise a lot of revenue, a carbon tax is, in my view, the best way we have to address climate change and to encourage innovation in alternative sources of energy, and a carbon tax could fund many of the programs the president wants to -- wants to spend money on without the negative effects that come from increasing taxes

on income. >> nawaz: michael strain before we let you go, i need to ask you about the debt ceiling because you have spoken directly to republicans in the latest op-ed who are not joining in the effort to raise the ceiling. your last effort was raise the debt ceiling, republicans, you will be glad you will. >> i think republicans have a responsibility to raise the debt ceiling. the debt is a bipartisan problem. both parties are responsible for the fact that there's a gap between federal spending and federal revenue, so i think it's the responsibility of both parties to increase the debt ceiling. moreover, i think by putting so much pressure on democrats to increase the debt ceiling on their own without any republican support whatsoever including a promise not to filibuster a debt ceiling increase passed under the senate's regular order process, republicans are making it a little more likely that the president's spending program is

larger. it happened sooner than i think would be ideal. so there's an economic argument here and there's a political argument. >> nawaz: and we'll be following both in the days ahead. michael strain from the american enterprise institute and professor joseph stiglitz from columbia university joining us tonight. thanks to you both. >> thank you. >> nawaz: california's giant sequoias can live for thousands of years, but scieists say they've rarely seen the kind of intense fire that's swept the state in recent years. the k.n.p. complex fire is just eleven percent contained, and is burning across nearly 50,000 acres, including treasured groves in sequoia and kings canyon national parks. and another fire is blazing in sequoia national forest to the south. the national parks are closed to visitors, but special correspondent cat wise got a

first-hand look on a recent media tour with officials. >> we're standing up on the slope, and the fire came from below, and those are the conditions that, if the weather had been bad, would have generated running crown fire, and could have carried the flames up into the canopy of these trees. >> reporter: at the smoke-filled entrance to giant forest in sequoia national park, the proud sentries known as the four guardsmen still keep their watch. >> they're probably two to 3,000 years old. these trees have survived hundreds of previous wildfires. >> reporter: scientists like christy brigham feared the ancient trees wouldn't survive the k.n.p. complex fire, which has been burning dangerously close to the trees for weeks. fire crews wrapped the bases of the guardsmen in a flame- retardant foil to protect them. and brigham says longer-term efforts of prescribed burning-- where crews set controlled fires to help thin the forest and clear debris-- helped save these national treasures from

destruction. this is a place of majestic giants. these trees are some of the oldest and largest living organisms on the planet. and today, the air is thick with smoke from fires all around us. while some areas of the park have had prescribed burns for the last six decades, others are a tinderbox. >> this area was at risk because of how dense this forest is. those branches are one hundred feet off the ground. but in this new kind of fire, you can get crown fire into a crown that high. >> reporter: a new kind of fire, with greater intensity and higher flames than brigham says the mighty trees have had to withstand. >> what we're seeing is 100 foot flame lengths, what's called running crown fire, where the fire gets into the crown and moves from crown to crown instead of on the ground, and that is crazy. >> reporter: farther into the park, we come upon the crown jewel of the sequoias: general sherman, thought to be the largest tree in the world.

his massive 36-foot base is also wrapped in the foil. >> it's not just aluminum foil, it's got that fiberglass backing. >> reporter: while general sherman remains safe, fires have been burning in several other sequoia grovesn the park, and staff haven't been able to reach those areas yet. >> the wrapping that we saw today and the raking, those are all things we never had to do because we did not have high severity fire before 2015. >> reporter: it's an alarming trend. >> we really are seeing impacts of climate change that these parks and models did not predict until 2050 or 2080 at the earliest. and they are happening now. the drought that california had, 2012 through 2016, it was incredibly severe in the southern sierra where we are right now, killed 5.8 million trees. that many dead trees really change this fire behavior. and that's what we're seeing are >> reporter: those impacts are coming at an unnaturally fast pace. >> we cannot have huge swaths of land converting from forests to

shrubs overnht. the plants and animals can't adjust to that. the things we care about, clean air, clean water, they will be detrimentally affected. they will be negatively affected by those rapid, large scale, abrupt changes. >> reporter: last year's castle fire killed 10 to 14% of the entire population of giant sequoias, which only grow in california's sierra nevada mountains. >> when we got the drone footage, the helicopter footage, we all cried. we had never, ever seen anything like that. and when we finally hiked out there in the spring and saw it in person, people were hopeful, like, oh, maybe it won't be as bad as it lookfrom the helicopter. and we hiked out there eight miles, no trail. and it's devastated. black dirt, almost no seedlings, entire sequoias turned to sticks. that is what can happen if we do not prepare beforehand and then

>> reporter: a year later, two sequoias are still burning from the castle fire. >> we used our helicopter. we dumped water on them. they're still burning. and if unless we get a heavy winter, a regular winter, that really dumps snow, cools them down, gets the wood fully saturated, i don't know when they're going to stop burning. that is climate change. >> reporter: mark morales has been overseeing efforts to fight this year's k.n.p. complex fire. he says the decades of prescribed burning in the park are paying off. but the sheer number of wildfires that have burned across the west this year means resources are limited. >> we have very large fires we're trying to figure out where we can go put lines, what resources are needed, whether it's a bulldozer, a hand crew, an engine crew. and so if you don't have those resources available, you have to decide, where can we go? so you may not be able to put people in the highest priority areas. >> reporter: given the challenges, morales is proud of his crew's progress battling the fire. but he says the relentless pace takes its toll.

>> they have been at this for an extremely long time. and so, you know, they're not even at the end of a very long season. so cumulative fatigue is an issue for all of the leadership on those crews that they have to constantly assess. it's been a tough season. >> reporter: and they aren't yet out of the woods. in a sequoia grove used by u.c. berkeley for research, that hasn't burned in 100 years, robert york points out the potential for the kind of destructive fire that happens when too much fuel piles up on the forest floor. >> when i look at this forest, and what i'm thinking about is, oh, there hasn't been a fire here in a long time and therefore there hasn't been a fire that could essentially clean out all the all of the logs in the sticks that are on the ground. i also think about how difficult it might be to have a good fire at this point because there's so much fuel that's going to create more intensity for when a fire does occur.

>> reporter: it's a paradox: bad fires that burn too hot and too high can be lethal for sequoias, but the trees do need some fire to release seeds from their cones. and the years-long western drought and hoer temperatures are threatening the viability of those seeds. >> if we continue to have hot and dry springs, even if we do get dispersal of seeds, if they don't have adequate soil moisture, they're not going to survive and there's going to be failures of giant sequoia seedlings. >> reporter: so, york is looking at ways to do more prescribed burning and even plant new sequoias. >> they're a strong species in many ways. it gives me hope that they're going to persist under some pretty variable conditions in the future. but i also think that they'll probably need some help. i know that they'll need some help. >> reporter: christy brigham agrees that the ancient sequoias will struggle to survive without some help. >> action has to happen before the wildfire comes. and the problem is when it's not burning, people don't feel the urgency.

we need to do the prescribed burning and the restorative thinning before the fire gets there. >> reporter: out of the ashes, brigham hopes will rise a new sense of urgency to protect these pillars of living history. >> we do thi of them as being immortal, and that is one of the things we love about them. they're like superheroes, right? nothing can kill them. they live forever. they've been here 2,000 years, but they are being killed. they're being killed by actions that we have taken by climate change. 2,000 years of living history. i mean, they're ancient beings and they're dying before our very eyes. and what really gets to me is that we're not acting fast enough. >> reporter: a reminder that even some of the world's most resilient organisms can be casualties of climate change. for the pbs newshour, i'm cat wise in sequoia national park.

>> nawaz: the u.s. fish and wildlife service today propose moving 23 animals and plants off the endangered species list, declaring them extinct. as john yang reports, these extinctions are part of an accelerating crisis driven by human-led causes: habitat destruction and climate change. >> yang: amna, perhaps the most well-known of the species now deemed gone forever is the ivory-billed woodpecker. for decades, it had been thought to be alrey extinct and was chased throughout the american south by bird watchers and hunters. other species on the list: the bachman's warbler songbird, a group of birds and bats found only in the pacific islands. the list also includes some fish and freshwater mussels. tira curry is a senior scientist at the center for biological diversity, a non- profit group that works to protect endangered species. tierra, thanks so much for being with us. before this, 11 species had been on the endangered list have been declared to be extinct.

and now today, 23, they're proposing to add to that list what has driven the extinction of these 23 species. >> so this is the single largest batch of species that are being proposed for de-listing due to extinction in history, and you can kind of look at them in groups, the freshwater mussels, a lot of them went extinct because of the construction of dams across the eastern u.s. that started a the way back in 1914. but mussels have really long lifespan. some of them can live to be 100. so the dams began the extinction process and then when their habitat shrank, pollution and other things affected the mussels for the hawaii species. we lost eight birds in hawaii. the real story there is invasive species, either goats or pigs that ate the vegetation that they needed or invasive species that preyed on them directly, like rats and mongooses and feral cats.

and then climate change came into play because it brought diseases that are mosquito borne into habitats where they hadn't been before and that that was kind of their downfall. >> yang: what are the implications of species going extinct like this? >> well, it means we've made a mistake that can never be corrected, we've lost beings that we share the planet with that are gone forever, and it means that the ecosystems where they lived are never going to be the same again. like freshwater mussels filter water. they provide food for other animals. they stabilize in the riverbanks. they do so many ecosystem services for us. and now we've diminished that capacity because we've lost them. >> yang: are there natural forces that lead to extinction? i mean, you talked about sort of the manmade effects that that have led to the extinction of these 23. but are there natural forces as well? >> there are and the difference with what's happening now is the natural background rate has been accelerated by 100 to 1,000 times.

so for freshwater species, they're going extinct a thousand times more rapidly than they would in the natural rate because of changes we've made to the environment. >> yang: there's a u.n. study that says a million species are at risk of becoming or at risk in the coming years. what can be done to reverse that or what can be done to protect those species? >> everything. a lot of people hear that a million species are at risk of extinction and they feel hopeless. but we can save a million species and change the tagline to we saved a million species from extinction. a lot of it comes down to funding. their habitat needs to be protected. they need monitoring. we need to address things like water pollution and invasive species and direct exploitation of wildlife. but we can't do all of these things like we don't have to lose any more species to extinction if we act to save them. >> yang: since the endgered species act was passed in 1973, i believe that 54 species have been removed from that list

because their populations have recovered and 48 others have been moved from endangered to threatened. is the endangered species act working? >> it's absolutely working. the endangered species act has prevented the extinction of 99% of the plants and animals on the list and it's amazing given that it's never gotten the funding that it needs to fully recover species. so, yes, the law works and it needs more funding. >> yang: you also talked about in the causes you listed climate change as one of them. how big a factor is that? >> it's an enormous factor, climate change threatens life on earth as we know it, it threatens wildlife and humans. and so other factors also drive extinction, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, overexploitation. but now climate change is overarching. all of those. >> yang: tierra curry, the center for biological diversity. thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> nawaz: as the old saying goes, there's no business like show business, but for 18 months during the pandemic, broadway theaters had virtually no business at all. jeffrey brown recently visited the theater district's artisans who are making sure broadway puts its best face forward and comes back to life. it's part of our arts and culture series, canvas. >> brown: the green suit, worn by lin manuel miranda in the musical "hamilton." miranda told the costume designer it should be “the color of money.” crystals and mirrors on elsa's ice dress from disney's "frozen." from “phantom of the opera”: what else? the mask. they are defining images of contemporary broadway. but even live in the theater you don't get to see them like this. >> when you're sitting in the

fifth row or the tenth row or in the balcony, you're never this close to the costumes, to the point where you can see the amount of craftsmanship, the workmanship and the details that go into each one of these. >> brown: brian blythe helped put together this exhibition, called “showstoppers”. he's a founder of “the costume coalition,” a group of more than 50 small businesses that make these amazing garments, like this dress from “wicked.” can i touch it? >> i'll let you touch it. >> brown: why do you do all of this underneath? in such exquisite detail? >> because they're living in this fantasy world. you know, they're in emerald city. and when an actor puts this on, they become the character. that's how they realize their character is through their costume. >> brown: but since march of 2020: no characters, no costumes, no shows. now, gradually, tentatively, the spectacle is coming back. the musical “six” was supposed to open the same day broadway

shut down in 2020. the six, by the way, are the wives killed by henry viii. now, they've come to life onstage. and opening night recently was sold out. >> this is my first broadway show back, which is very exciting. and i think it will be so inspirg. >> we are just thrilled for broadway and we cannot wait to see "six." i will be back to see a bunch of shows. >> brown: “six” is one of 15 broadway shows reopening throughout september. 20 more are set to open before the end of the year, with patrons masked and required to have proof of vaccination or negative test results to enter theaters. charlotte st. martin is president of the broadway league, a trade group representing theater owners. >> we said from day one, we will not open unless we feel we can keep the audience, the cast and crew safe. they might be a little bit sensitive about the delta variant, but we're trying to

spread the message that we're safe, wee secure, and all of the magic they loved about broadway is still there. >> brown: magic, and money: broadway is a business with a large behind-the-scenes ecosystem fed by ticket sales, with every production employing scores of workers crucial to making the show go on. and then there's its wider impact on thcity. >> we're responsible for 97,000 jobs in this city and 80% of the tourists that are coming here for pleasure give broadway as their number one, two or three reason for coming to the city. so we need to be open not just for us, but to bring new york back. >> we lost over twenty $6.6 million in gross revenue in 2020. we have incurred an immense amount of debt during the pandemic. >> brown: showstoppers, occupying an out-of-business sporting goods store on 42nd street, was conceived as a fundraiser, with ticket sales benefiting costume workers. according to blythe, they face a collective debt of $3.5 million.

in an industry where nothing but the best will do, some of the people who make these costumes took part in the exhibition. camilla chuversky is a theatrical milliner-- she makes hats. >> i think there's a bit of a false perception with costumes that they're not as well made as everyday garments. and in fact, the opposite is true. they have to hold up through eight shows a week and still look beautiful the entire time, because when you're going to broadway more than regional theater, what you're paying for is the production values. >> brown: the pandemic, she says, forced some to leave the industry or retire early, revealing just how fragile some of the costuming trades are. >> there are a lot of techniques and skills that really are passed dowthrough training on the job and that a lot of people don't know and would hontly be lost if some of these shops closed. there's knowledge that would just vanish because it is so

particular to the industry. >> brown: another behind-the- scenes art form: fabric painter. hochi asiatico has worked on broadway for 25 years, painting everything from the most detailed patterns to a character's sweat. a painter for a broadway show, most people probably don't know there is such a thing. >> most of the audience, they don't know, and they just get the feeling of something and i think they get into the character. but really, the painting is very important for the development of the character. >> brown: asiatico hand-painted these robes, set in the early 19th century, for the play,“ golden child.” >> so we had to research the colors that were available at the time and the style at the time. also, we wanted them to look a little bit embroidered. so we have to consider the distance on stage, how the lighting works. >> brown: the people we met are now back at work making costumes for productions. but will the audience return? with tourism still down in new york city, the broadway league

has a new $1.5 million ad campaign, narrated by oprah, strategically targeting those within a car drive. and, as we saw recently, those who are coming are glad to be back, even amid continuing uncertainty. >> i'm loving the fact that the shows are back and being able to come and see as many shows as possible. >> please let broadway open. >> yes. >> please let broadway stay open! >> brown: for now, at least, it is. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in new york. (cheers and applause) >> nawaz: and, a news update before we go: a los angeles judge has suspended britney spears' father, jamie spears, from conservatorship of the singer's estate. the judge called it a "toxic environment," and appointed a temporary conservator. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm amna nawaz. join us online and again here tomorrow evening.

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♪ hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & company." here's what's coming up. we have a culture of disbelieving survivors and victims and believing their powerful accusers. >> violence against women, anita hill joins me about her 30-year battle against an epidemic that never ends and her new book "believing". plus -- >> at no time was i attempting to change or influence the process, uthorp authority or insert myself in the chain of command. >> the top general in the hot seat, chairman milley gets a drilling over the afghanistan withdrawal and reports