>> good evening, judy woodruff is away. 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 vaccine. a former fda commissioner on the test strategies to ramp up america's low vaccination rates. and saving the sequoias. crews in california scramble to contain wildfires threatening to torch some of the oldest trees in the world. >> 2000 years of living history. ey are ancient beings and they are dying before our very eyes. what really gets to me is that we are not acting fast enough. >> all that and more on

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>> it's a high-stakes puzzle that the white house and key congressional democrats are still 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. early today, some holdouts among house progressives, unsatisfied with the status of another larger bill that's still in the works. that could put trillions more towards climate, health care and other domestic initiatives. as the president himself gets more involved in these talks, yamiche has been following it all. e joins us now from thewhite house. 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 that he's doing right now to try to unite democrats? yamiche: well, there is an intensifying feeng of urgency here at the white house toght, as president biden is scrambling to try to get democrats united between these two big infrastructure bills, $1 trillion as the bipartisan bill, and then, of course, a $3.5 trillion bill that

is democrat-supported right now, even though not all the democrats are on the same page. the president was supposed to be in chicago today talking about vaccine mandates, talking about companies that have adopted vaccine mandates, but, instead, he postponed that trip, signaling that he needed to be here to talk to lawmakers. in just the last hour, he was talking to both house speaker nancy pelosi, as well as senate majority leader chuck schumer. and i'm told in those meetings with lawmars, including senator sinema and senator manchin, that the president is really doing two things. he's, one, explaining to senators and to lawmakers, here's what my legacy is. here's what my agenda is. here's what my wants for the american people are. the second thing he's doing is saying, what can i do to try to get you to yes? what can i do to try to get you on board with this plan for these two big bills to pass together? then come the white house staff. now, they were on the hill today meeting with senator sinema. and some of the white house staff are white house chief of staff ron klain, as well as top aides steve ricchetti, brian deese, louisa terrell. these are names that might not be familiar to people, but they are really the brain trust that's behind this really effort

to try to get the white house and all of its efforts to get the lawmakers on the same page. i'm also told that senator sinema looks like she's a senator who is more likely to say yes, even though that $3.5 trillion package, it might shrink down $2.5 trillion or even $2 trillion. i'm alsoold that senator manchin is the one that is the harder sell here. and just in the last hour, senator manchin put out a statement that did not sound like he was getting any closer to that reconciliation bill, supporting it. he put, in part, spending trillions of dollars, in his words, is like, quote, fiscal insanity. he also wrote that democrats should not, quote, vengefully tax the wealthy. that, of course, is in stark contrast to what progressives have been saying, so a lot here with the president at the center of it. amna: yamiche, the pressure is building. there is that self-imposed deadline. speaker pelosi said that vote on infrastructure is happening tomorrow. at's the sense in the white house today? yamiche: well, the president is under enormous pressure. the next 24 hours is going to be

critical for whether or not president biden can really get this done, because nancy pelosi has said that she wants to bring that bipartisan infrastructure bill to the house floor because she's promised that, if it has the votes, it will go to the floor. now, here's what the house, here's what the white house press secretary, jen psaki, said just a few hours ago, talking about the intensity of this moment. >> the president, just to give you an update, is going to be working around the clock the rest of today, overnight, into tomorrow morning. and we're going to be working in lockstep with speaker pelosi. the president has been clear about his commitment to getting both pieces of legislation passed, both of them through. so, right now, what we're navigating through and we're working through is how we can get agreement, of course, 50 votes in the senate on a reconciliation package. yamiche: press secretary jen psaki also said that this was a precarious and important time in the biden presidency. this, of course, is his whole agenda hanging in the balance. he has promised transformational change. he ran on the idea that he was the dealmaker, that he could use

his decades in service in government to get a deal done. now whether or not that actually happens will be the biggest test of his presidency here. so, you heard in the white house press secretary really doubling down on this idea that the president understands the moment and wants to get this done. amna: big day at the white house. yamiche is covering it all. thanks, yamiche. to get now a perspective from capitol hill. i'm joined by senator dick durbin of illinois. he's the number two democrat in the senate. he joins us now. senator durbin, thanks again for making the time. welcome back to the newshour. let's starwith where we are right now. you have heard the latest on the statement from your colleague senator manchin, saying he's not convinced that money needs to be spent right now. and you have also, we have a statement from the house progressive leader, pramila jayapal, saying, after senator manchin's statement, she thinks even more people would vote against the infrastructure bill tomorrow. so, i will ask you, where are things now? is there any chance this passes tomorrow? sen. durbin: well, there's a certain amount of turmoil here. and it has to do with the fact that we have four major pieces

of legislation that are hanging ov us on capitol hill, first and foremost, to keep the government open. i think that's going to happen tomorrow. there will be some constructive votes in the senate. and i think we're going to get it done. the second one, of course, is the debt ceiling. and that has an october, mid-october deadline to it. so we have a little time. but i certainly hope we get beyond this default strategy of senator mcconnell, holding up this important measure that directly impacts the american economy. then we have the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed handily in the senate, which sits in the house waiting for the ultimate outcome on the reconciliation bill, so that nancy pelosi can put together a coalition of all democrats to pass both. what's holding up the reconciliation bill? two senators, and you have identified them in your story already. i don't know which is closer, not in the latest negotiations directly face to face with him. but i would 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'd say to both of them. amna: so, senator, do i understand you correctly? you are not directly talking to either senator manchin or senator sinema? is that right? sen. durbin: the president is directly talking to both of them. and the leaders are talking to them. and members of the leadership and staff are addressing issues 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. amna: so, where are you now in terms of where a top-line number could end? do you have any sense of what they would back? they're kind of setting the ceiling, right? $3.5 trillion is too high for them. what's your floor? how low would yogo? sen. durbin: that's, that really is, we had a meeting this week

to discuss just what that meant. and each time we drop that number, and this is over 10 years, incidentally, and it's all paid for by increasing the tax rates on the wealthiest in america, those making over $400,000 a year and corporations that are not being taxed. so we pay for it. but the net result of dropping that number from 3.5 to 3 or 2.5 or even lower means that we have to make an evaluation of the programs that are included in reconciliation. what do we invest in? what do we give up on? are we going to have child care, which workers, particularly women and mothers, across this country tell us they desperately need? are we going to have pre-k education for kids to get them ready in school? are we going to extend it to the k-14, so people are equipped that have the talents and skills to have a productive life in our 21st century economy? each one of these decisions means we have to change it. for example, on medicare, are we going to expand it to dental care, eyeglasses? amna: right. nator, if i may, it doesn't sound like you're any closer to a top-line number in those talks? sen. durbin: no, i'm not, i can't tell you that i have heard that number.

we're waiting for it, because everything follows from it. amna: let me ask you while i have you about that debt ceiling vote that you mentioned. we know your colleagues in the house are working to pass a clean debt limit vote. even if they do, once makes it to the senate, you need 10 of your republican colleagues to break ranks to back it. have you talked to any of them who have said they wld do that? sen. durbin: well, of course, we have talked to them, and particularly, for example,he senators from louisiana, both republicans. there's disaster in this bill. anthey desperately need it, and i wa them to have it. we asked them to join us. and, so far, they're still considering it, but haven't done it. aid for the afghan refugees. how many speeches were made by republicans, as well as democrats, about standing behind these men and women who risked their lives for america? those are basic things that we need to do in this bill. i will just tell you this. this is the first time i can remember that the republicans have imposed a filibuster on the debt ceiling. this is unconscionable to think that that extraordinary vote is needed for something that should be that basic in terms of our responsibility. amna: senator, before i let you

go, i need to ask you about this texas abortion law. i know you called it outrageous when it first came out. and you have called for hearings in the senate judiciary committee on that law, but also more broadly about this shadow docket, right, the emergency decisions the court often makes. what do you hope to accomplish in a hearing? shouldn't you be moving forward on legislation to codify some of those abortion rights? sen. durbin: well, i can tell you that the committee is going to consider legislation. but, remember, it's an 11-to-11 membership on that committee. and we're working on bipartisan bills where we can. and on the hot topics, like abortion and gun control, obviously, there's 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 decisions, life-changing decisions, and don't issue any opinion to justify what they have 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 that we shouldn't give an

automatic stay, so that they can proceed with the appeals. so we brought up the particulars on the texas abortion statute today. interestingly enough, not a single republican defended the specifics of that texas statute on its merits. they were all arguing the issue of abortion, which, of course, is very controversial. amna: that is senator dick durbin, democrat from illinois, joining us tonight. senator durbin, thank you. always good to see you. sen. durbin: thank you. >> we will return to the stepped up its covid-19 warnings for pregnant women with a formal advisory urging vaccinations. it underscores what agency officials announced tuesday, that only 31% of pregnant women have had their shots and rates

for minorities are even lower. the agency says the vaccines carry no increased risk of miscarriages. will focus on vaccine misinformation after the new summary. u.s. military leaders been a second day trying to explain to congress what happened in afghanistan. general mark milley lame years of bad decisions, defense secretary lloyd austin agreed the u.s. pull out her afghan morale, but he said american troops could not stay on. >> i support the president's decision to end the war in afghanistan. i do not support staying in afghanistan forever. there was no risk-free status quo option. i think that the taliban had been clear that if we stayed there longer, they were going to recommence attacks on our forces. >> didn't -tim credit lawmakers defended the

president's decisions. republicans again accused him of lying when he said no one urged him to keep 20 500 troops in afghanistan. the house select committee investigating the attack on the u.s. capitol in january issued new subpoenas today. the committee is seeping -- seeking depositions and records from 11 individuals tied to the rallies leading up to the insurrection. the u.s. and other world powers called for an emergency close meeting of the un security council on north korea's recent missile tests as north korean leader kim jong-un issued a statement condemning the biden administration and u.s. military policy. tuesday, the north fired what it called a hypersonic missile. those can potentially fly five times the speed of sound, but it's not clear that the north korean missile actually did. 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. in tokyo, he vowedo do more to fight the covid pandemic that has crippled japan's economy. >> 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 feel they can work hard and be one team to take on the national coronavirus crisis. >> parliament is expected to vote him 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 thought guns, knives, and explosives. some of the victims were beheaded. it's the latest in a series of bloody prison riots in ecuador this year. cities across china or 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. the power cuts are also closing factories and threatening more global supply chain chaos. a los angeles judge decided today that britney spears father, jamie spears, should be suspended as conservator of her estate. the singer had been petitioning to end her father's control over her fortune and personal life after 13 years. the judge called the conservatorship a toxic environment. still to come, closer look at the president's plan to increase taxes on the wealthy. crew scrambled to contain wildfires threatening california's sequoias. scientists raise the alarm as the u.s. declares multiple species extinct, and much more.

>> youtube announced today it will remove videos that spread false information about the safety and efficacy of the covid-19 vaccine and any other commonly used vaccine. accounts aociated with several prominent figures, such as robertennedy jr., who spread false claims, will also be removed. it's part of an ongoing fight against misinformation. william: that's right,mna. 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 he 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, ok, we're going to start cracking down on these sites, we're going to kick them off for anyone that is 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? dr. gottlieb: well, look, i think it's late to be doing th. i think that the social media platforms do have a responsibility to provide some editorial supervision on what goesn their sites. i applaud the move thathey're taking. we need to recognize that this information isn't just being exchanged between individuals. there are deliberate efforts under way to spread obctively false information and information designed to confuse people and deceive them about the vaccines. there was a report earlier this year about the russian government being behind some of these efforts. and so this is quite deliberate,

quite organized in certain respects. and i think the social media platforms have a responsibility not to be conduits for this kind of deliberate misinformation. william: and, as i mentioned, we know that this is having some effect on people's hesitancy to take the vaccine. the biden administration, when they looked at our relatively low vaccination rates, said, i mean, after a long time of resisting mandates, they said, ok, we are going to institute mandates, employer mandates. did you think that that policy made sense, policy-wise, to get more americans vaccinated? dr. gottlieb: well, look, we first should recognize the extraordinary accomplishment, including of the biden administration, getting people vaccinated. fully 78% of people over the age of 18 have at least one dose of vaccine. most of them will complete the series. so we have done a lot of good work getting people vaccinated. vaccinating the next 2% of the population is going to be a lot more difficult than it was to vaccinate the first 20%. the people who are holdouts are holdouts for a reason. some of them are more reluctant to take the vaccine. some of them are harder to reach. so this is going to be a hard campaign getting additional

americans vaccinated. in terms of the mandates themselves, i think the administration is well within their prerogative to mandate vaccination among the federal work force. i also think health care workers should be required to get vaccinated, given the risk that it could pose to those they're trying to provide care for. i think when you're putting mandates on private businesses, that gets into territory where we're going to start to create divisions across society. people are going to oppose those kinds of mandates when you're mandating on private businesses. that turns something that's furtively political, the issues, the debate around vaccination, into something that's subjectively political, where now you're going to a politicians literally running against those mandates. so, just as i don't believe governors should be preventing private businesses and local communities from imposing mandates, i don't think the federal government should be stepping in to impose those requirements on small businesses. i thk that this is going to become too much of a tense ground now that we're mandating this on smaller and medium-sized businesses. william: i mean, thus far, we have seen, at least in the initial reports, that most of the companies that have enacted this mandate, even though it's not fully out yet, have had

relative success. like, they have seen their numbers tick up. do you think, i mean, partisanship aside, that it might actually have the goal as intended, which is to save more lives? dr. gottlieb: look, i think it will save more lives, and i think you will get more people vaccinated. but to the extent that these are collective decisions, and i believe the decision to get vaccinated isn't just an individual choice. there's a collective element to it, because your decision not to get vaccinated is putting at ri people in your community. so, tohe extent that they are collective decisions, i think the far preferable approach would be let the communities make those decisions. so let businesses make that decision their own, because they believe the only way to protect their work force or their customers is through vaccination. let a local school board make that decision. i recognize that that's not always feasible, that you have a lot of holdouts, you have a lot of businesses resisting this. so i understand why the administration stepped in to try to force these decisions. but to the extent that they're doing that, they're now creating a political battleground around vaccinations, that you're going to have other people opposing it.

and the question is, how much are we going to pick up in terms of increased vaccination? i said we're at 78% of adults right now. i believe we would have gotten easily to 80% just on a normal trajectory. so, where are we going to end up, maybe at 85%, a little bit higher? so you might pick up a couple of extra percentage points in terms of the amount of americans, adults, that are vaccinated, but you're going to pay a consequence for that in terms of turning this into more of a political debate. so, we have to carefully weigh those competing interests. william brangham: i want to ask you about vaccinating kids. we know pfizer, on which you, on the board which you sit, just submitted its data for 5-to-11-year-olds. holikely do you think that that will be approved? and when do you think kids might start getting vaccinated in this country? dr. gottlieb: 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 on, 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 fda's careful review of that data and the agency agreeing that the data supports authorization of the vaccine. william brangham: all right, dr. gottlieb, former head of the fda, thank you very much. dr. gottlieb: thanks a lot. >> president biden's ambitious economic agenda is still taking shape on capitol hill. expanded medicare and health care coverage, it also calls for tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations. we get two views now on what this could all 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.

and 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 will come to you first on this. the details of the plans are still being worked out. wherever they end up, we're talking about a massive amount of spending, 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? prof. stiglitz: 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 is, actually was declining in the years before the pandemic, but has taken a real fall. we have one of the lowest labor force participation rates, the fraction of the population who is actually working, of the

working age 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. amna: and so you see the spending as it's outlined here, that would address all the problems you just laid out? prof. stiglitz: it would be a beginning of addressing them. i don't make any pretense that really fully addresses them, but it, 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. amna: michael strain, what's your view? do you agree this is necessary right now? michael: i don't 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. take 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 poverty line, including households that are making $200,000, $300,000, $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 st not sure this plan addresses those challenges in an efficient way or in the best way. amna: well, michael, let me just follow up on that. what about this argument that some of those investments that you see as excessive right now, child care, the tax credits, for example, the health care coverage, that those are short-term investments now that will also lead to long-term economic growth? do you agree with that? michael strain: i don't think that 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 by

putting more money into the medicare system. there are, there are goals in this program that would contribute to the economy. so, one of the program's objectives is to increase the accessibility and affordability of child care. that would help people to participate in the workforce, and that would help the economy to grow. i think we need to, we need to debate the specifics of the child care proposal. what the president wants to do is essentially subsidize demand for commercial daycare. that's one way to increase access to child care. i would be much more interested in seeing how we can increase the supply of providers, to see how we could help families to have child care in the evenings and on weekends, when many lower-income americans work and when commercial daycare centers are not open. amna: professor stiglitz, i'd love you to respond briefly to one point that michael raised, which was this idea of no limits

on some of this spending, child care tax credits, for example. should there be more limits on those kinds of investments in the bill? prof. stiglitz: well, the basic thing is that in the bill that was passed when biden first became president that provided child care, child credits, tax credits. and that one provision enabled 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, for such a large fraction 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 couldo 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 future. amna: professor, what about how to pay for this? we see that the biden administration wants to raise taxes on people who make more than $400,000 a year and on corporations. is that going to cover this kind of investment? prof. stiglitz: yes. so, there are other provisions, like closing some of the loopholes which undermine the effectiveness of our tax rate. 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. well, 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. amna: michael, what do you say to that? what are your concerns about raising taxes in that way to pay for these investments? michael: 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. amna: michael strain, before we

let you go, i need to ask you about the debt ceiling, because you have spoken directly to republicans in your latest op-ed about this who are not joini in the effort to raise that ceiling right now. your latest op-ed was titled: raise the debt ceiling, republicans. you'll be glad you did. why should they listen to you? michael: 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. and 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 promisnot to filibuster a debt ceiling increase that is passed under the senate's regular order process, republicans are making it a little more likely that the president's spending programs is larger, it happens, it happens

sooner then i think would be ideal. so there's an economic argument here, and then there's a political argument. amna: and we will be following both in the days ahead. that is michael strainrom the american enterprise institute and professor joseph stiglitz of columbia university joining us tonight. thanks to you both. prof. stiglitz: thank you. michael: thank you. >> cifornia's famous giant sequoias can live for thousands of years. but scientis say they've rarely seen the kind of intense fires that have swept the state in recent years. the knp complex fire is just 11% 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 kat lies -- cat

wise got a firsthand 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 re, and could have carried the flames up into the canopy of these trees. cat: at the smoke-filled entrance to giant forest in sequoia national park, the proud sentries known as the four guardsmen still keep their watch. christy: they're probably 2,000 to 3,000 years old. these trees ve survived hundreds of previous wildfires. cat: scientists like christy feared the ancient trees wouldn't survive the knp 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 kristi 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. christy: this area was at risk because of how dense this forest is. those branches are 100 feet off the ground. but in this new kind of fire, you can get crown fire into a crown that high. cat: a new kind of fire, with greater intensity and higher claims than she says the mighty trees have had to withstand. christy: 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. cat: farther into the park, we came upon the crown jewel of the sequoias, general sherman, thought to be the largest tree in the world. so, christy, general sherman is still standing. christy: thank goodness. cat: his massive 36-foot base is

also wrapped in the foil. man: it's not just aluminum foil. it's got that fiberglass backing. cat: whileeneral sherman remains safefires have been burning ineveral other sequoia groves in the park, and staff haven't been able to reach those areas yet. christy: 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. cat: it's an alarming trend. christy: 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 changes fire behavior. and that's what we're seeing. cat: those impacts are coming at an unnaturally fast pace. christy: we cannot have huge swathes of land converting from forests to shrubs overnight. the plants and animals can't

adjust to that. 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. cat: 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. christy: when we got the drone footage, the helicopter footage, we all cried. we had never, ever seen anything like that. and when we finay 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 looked from 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. cat: a year later, two sequoias are ill burning from the castle fire.

christy: 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. cat: mark morales has been overseeing efforts to fight this year's knp 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 means resources are limited. >> we're trying to figure out where we can go put lines, what resource is 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. cat: given the challenges, morales is proud of his crew's progress battling the fire. but he says the relentless pace takes its toll. mark morales: they have been at this for an extremely long time.

and so they're at the, not even at the end of a very long season. so, cumulative fatigue is an issue for all of the leadehip on those crews that they have to constantly assess. it's been a tough season. cat: and they aren't yet out of the woods. robert york, berkeley rests: after a fire, it regenerates and then it grows very fast. cat: 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. robert: when i look at this forest, what i'm thinking about is, oh, there hasn't been a fire here in a long time. and, therefore, there has't been a fire that could essentially clean out all of the logs and 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. this is an area that was burned with a prescribed fire in 2012.

cat: 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 droughd hotter temperatures are threatening the viability of those seeds. robert: so, if we continue to have hot and dry springs, even if we do get dispers 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. cat: so, york is looking at ways to do more prescribed burning and even plant new sequoias. robert: they're a strong species in many ways. and it gives me hope that they're going to persist under some pretty variable conditions in the future. but i also think that they will probably need some help. i know that they will need some help. cat: christy agrs that the ancient sequoias will struggle to survive without some help. christy: the 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. cat: out of the ashes she hopes will rise a new sense of urgency to protect these pillars of living history. christy: we do think 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 have been here 2,000 years. but they are being killed. they're being killed by actions that we have taken, by climate change. 2000 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. cat: 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 in sequoia national park.

>> the u.s. fish and wildlife service proposed moving 23 animals and plants off the endangered species list, because they are now extinct. perhaps the most best known of >> the species now deemed to be gone forever is the ivory-billed woodpecker. for decades, it had been thought to be already extinct and was chased throughout the american south by bird watchers and hunters. other species on the list, he bachman's warbler songbird and a group of birds and bats found only in the pacific islands. the list also includes some fish and freshwater mussels. tierra curry is a senior scientist at the center for biological diversity, a nonprofit 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? tierra: so this is the single largest batch of species that are being proposed for delisting 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 all 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 was kind of their downfall. john: what are the implications of species going extinct like this? tierra curry: well, it means we have made a mistake that can never be corrected. we have 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 the riverbanks. they do so many ecosystem services for us. and now we have diminished that capacity because we have lost them. john: are there natural forces that lead to extinction? i mean, you talked about sort of the manmade efcts that have led to the extinction of these 23. but are there natural forces as well? tierra: 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 1,000

times more rapidly than they would in the natural rate because of changes we have made to the environment. john: 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? tierra: 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. john: since the endangered species act was passed in 1973, i believe that 54 species have been removed frothat list because their populations have recovered, and 48 others have

been moved from endangered to threatened. is the endangered species act working? tierra: 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 amazin given that it's never gotten the funding that it needs to fully recover species. so, yes, the law works, and it needs mo funding. john: you also talked about, in the causes, you listed climate change as one of them. how big a factor is that? tierra: 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. john tierra curry of the center : for biological diversity, thank you very much. tierra: thank you.

>> as the saying goes there's no , business like show business, but for 18 pandemic months, there was basically no business in broadway theaters. it's part of our arts and culture series, canvas. jeffrey: the green suit, worn by lin-manuel miranda in the musical hamilton. miranda told the costume designer it should be, quote, 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. >> what i think is so great about this is that when you're sitting in the fifth row or the

10th row or in the balcony, you're never this close. jeffrey: yes, that's for sure. brian blythe: 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. jeffrey: brian blythe helped put together this exhibition called showstoppers! he's a founder of the costume industry coalition, a group of more than 50 small businesses that make these amazing garments, like this dress from wicked. can i touch it? brian blythe: i will let you touch it, yes. jeffrey: why do you do all of this underneath in such exquisite detail? brian blythe: 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. jeffrey: but starting in 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 have come back 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 inspiring. >> we are just thrilled for broadway, and we cannot wait to see six. and we will be back to see a bunch of shows. jeffrey: six is one of 15 broadway shows reopening throughout september. twenty 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 fm 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, we're secure, and all of

the magic they loved about broaay is still there. jeffrey: magic and money. broadway is a business with a large behind-the-scenes ecosystem fed by ticket sale with every production employing scores of workers crucial to making the show go on. and then there's its wider impact on the city. charlotte st. martin: 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. brian: we lost over $26.6 million in gross revenue in 2020. and we have incurred an immense amount of debt during the pandemic. jeffrey: showstoppers!, occupying an out-of-business sporting goods store on 42nd street, was conceived as a fund-raiser, with ticket sales benefiting costume workers. according to blythe, they face a collective debt of $3.5 million. in an indust where nothing but the best will do, some of the

people who make these costumes took part in the exhibition. camilla chuvarsky is a theatrical milliner -- she makes hats. camilla: 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 value. jeffrey: the panmic, she says, forced some to leave the industry or retire early, revealing just how fragile some of the costuming trades are. camilla chuvarsky: there are a lot of techniques and skills that really are passed down through training on the job and that a lot of people don't know and would honestly be lost. if some of these shops closed, there's knowledge that would just vanish, because it is so particular to the industry. jeffrey: another

behind-the-scenes art form, fabric painter. hochi asiatico has worked on broadway for 25 years, painting everything from the most detailed patterns a character's swt. a painter for a brdway show, most people probably don't know there is such a thing. >> no, people 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. jeffrey: asiatico hand-painted these robes, set in e early 19th century, for the play golden child. hochi asiatico: so, we had to research the colors that were available at the time and the style of 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. jeffrey: 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, broadway league has a

new $1.5 million ad campaign narrated by oprah. oprah winfrey: this is the return of something truly spectacular. jeffrey: 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. so, yes. >> and please let broadway open, please. jeffrey: for now, at least, it is. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in new york. >> that is the newshour for tonight. join us online and again here tomorrow evening for all of us at the p newshour, inc. it joining us. please stay safe, and we will see you again soon. >> the rules of business are being reinvented by a more flexible workforce, looking not only at current opportunities, but ahead to future once.

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