captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, buying time-- senate democrats and republicans strike a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, avoiding a financial crisis, for now. then, democracy in crisis-- lawmakers spar in a heated hearing on election integrity, as an alarming new report reveals then-president donald trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 results. and, abortion battle-- we explore the real world impact of texas' controversial new law, amid ongoing court challenges. >> the vast majority of women, by the time they even know they're pregnant, will not be

eligible for an abortion in the state of texas at this point. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> at fidelity, changing plans is always part of the plan. >> the kendeda fund. committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas.

more at kendedafund.org. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by conibutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: after weeks of

stalemate, senators have reached agreement to temporarily raise the u.s. government's debt ceiling, averting a possible economic crisis, for now. for more on all this, i'm joined by our congressional correspondent, lisa desjardins. lisa, what a week. >> reporter: yes. >> woodruff: so is this deal finally done? have they averted the crisis? >> the deal is done. the senate needs to vote. we expect that vote tonight to pass this deal. all day long there are complications even over the timing of voting on this deal but, yes, it does look like we'll avert the debt ceiling crisis. i want to talk about what's in the deal specifically. it's a dollar figure. the senate will vote tonight to increase the debt ceiling by $480 billion, that just sounds like funny money to most of us. what does it mean? it means the debt ceiling will be lifted till at least decembee treasury department has extraordinary measures they can

use, it may be past december 3. this buys about two months of time for the congo the act again and hopefully figure out a more permanent solution here. the timing is important because the republicans said they offered this deal to allow democrats enough time to go through the full reconciliation process, with i is the 50-vote process, that's how republicans want this done. democrats say they don't want to do it that way, so that problem still exists and we will probably be talking about it more in a month and a half. >> woodruff: and as you have been telling us, lia, this whole thing is as much about strategy, about politics as it is about the policy here which is important. what are we learning this week about the dynamics of this very closely divided senate? >> reporter: what a fascinating week. up till know mitch mcconnell was seen as the master of this modern senate, but chuck schumer stared him down this week and mitch mcconnell was backing down, as i said, republicans and

mcconnell allies present what happened this way, they say mcconnell called schumer's bluff and is offering more time to schumer to do the reconciliation process, see if he takes it or not. however, there are republicans who are not firm allies of mitch mcconnell, who say something else. one of those, our former president. president trump wrote this statement last night, he wrote mitch mcconnell is folding to the democrats. sure enough, i talked to republican senators today who openly said we do feel mitch mcconnell may have been caving. so this is an issue on both sides to have mitch mcconnell as he tries to get members together for the next larger confrontation ahead. >> woodruff: interesting to see the split in the g.o.p. rank. lisa i always end up asking you this question, what's next? >> reporter: first we have to pass the bill tonight, then the house has to come back into session to deal with it. then the calendar ahead is busy. first of all, the deadlines set up, october 31 highway trust

fund expires, that expansion was just passed last week then december 3 we have two deadlines government funding runs out, that's the shutdown we were talking about a week ago that didn't happen but december is the next deadline, and december 3 is about when we think the debt ceiling will be reached and, on top of all this. democrats are trying to pass what would be the largest single spending bill in american history the bill back better act. it's an important time. >> woodruff: lisa desjardins, thank you. >> reporter: you're welcome. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, the short-term debt ceiling deal triggered a rally on wall street. the dow jones industrial average climbed 338 points to close at 34,755. the nasdaq rose 152 points, and the s&p 500 added 36.

pfizer has officially asked the f.d.a. to authorize its covid-19 vaccine for emergency use for children ages 5 to 11. that amounts to roughly 28 million american children. the f.d.a.'s advisers will meet to debate the evidence behind the request later this month. meanwhile, president biden traveled to a construction site outside chicago today to tout the importance of vaccination requirements. >> my message is: require your employees to get vaccinated. with vaccinations we're going to beat this pandemic finally. without them, we face endless months of chaos in our hospitals, damage to our economy, and anxiety in our schools. and empty restaurants and much less commerce. >> woodruff: also today, a new study published in the medical journal "pediatrics" found that more than 120,000 american children have so far lost a primary caregiver during the pandemic.

more than half of those childr were either black or hispac american. we'll take a closer look at the covid surge in alaska later in the program. there were more signs today that the u.s. job market is improving, even as the pandemic lingers on. the u.s. labor department reported the number of new jobless claims fell last week, for the first time in a month, to 326,000. that's down 38,000 from the previous week, and the biggest drop in claims since late june. flash flood warnings are in effect for much of the southeastern u.s. after a slow- moving storm dumped as much as 13 inches of rain across alabama. at least four people died when their vehicles were swept away. roads near a grocery store in east brewton were inundated with water. and overnight in hoover, rescue crews helped stranded drivers escape the floods. in southern california, u.s.

coast guard investigators boarded a massive german cargo ship today to dermine whether its anchor may have ruptured an oil pipeline nearly a week ago. officials are focusing on the ship's g.p.s. tracking data prior to the spill off huntington beach. they're looking into whether its anchor snagged and bent the pipeline. the governors of four northeastern states agreed today to share data on firearms purchases to help curb gun crime. the democratic governors from new york, new jersey, pennsylvania, and connecticut said the data will only be used by law enforcement. current federal law prohibits the u.s. government from collecting gun sales records into a national registry. in pakistan, a 5.9 magnitude earthquake killed at least 23 people before dawn, and injured 200 more. it shook a remote district in the southwest province of balochistan. as many as 100 mud homes in the

mountainous region collapsed, leaving behind piles of rubble and burying residents in their sleep. >> ( translated ): everyone including women and children were running here and there. we were scared and didn't know what to do. later the ambulances arrived and took the injured to the hospital. >> woodruff: the area is also home to a number of coal mines, one of which collapsed during the quake, killing at least four miners. and, this year's nobel prize for literature honored a tanzanian novelist whose writing explored the effects of colonialism. abdulrazak gurnah, who is based in the u.k., has penned 10 novels. most examined the plight of refugees. gurnah is the first african to win this award in nearly two decades. still to come on the newshour: why alaska's doctors are forced to ration care amid an overwhelming covid surge. haitian migrants face an uncertain future, as thousands more are expected to arrive at the u.s./mexico border.

lake charles louisiana emerges as a case study in the unequal effects of climate change. plus much more. >> woodruff: it's been nearly a year since voters cast their ballots in the 2020 presidential election, but its results, and the violent aftermath, are still at the center of investigation and debate in washington. amna nawaz starts our report. >> nawaz: on capitol hill today, a now familiar fight, over election integrity and former president trump's baseless claims of voter fraud. >> who won the election in arizona? donald trump or joe biden? >> we don't know. >> nawaz: that false claim from arizona republican congressman

andy biggs was shot down by a slate of state officials and election security experts, confirming joe biden won both arizona and the nationwide count. >> the 2020 election in maricopa county the general election was the best election we've ever run in maricopa county. >> nawaz: that's jack sellers and bill gates, the republican chair and vice-chair of the maricopa county board of supervisors. >> was there any fraud or corruption materially affecting the outcome of the election in arizona in 2020? >> no. >> nawaz: still, republicans on the committee called for more investigations... >> there are still problems. there are inconsistencies. there remain question marks with the arizona results. >> nawaz: ...and accused democrats of sweeping concerns under the rug. >> why do democrats hate audits? >> you'd have to ask a democrat. i don't know why they hate audits. >> nawaz: former republican secretary of state ken bennett argued additional vote reviews were warranted, like the one by the “cyber ninjas” private firm... but even bennet admitted that

review led to the same outcome. >> the most significant finding of the audit is that the hand count of the physical ballots very closely matches the county's results in the presidential and u.s. senate races. >> nawaz: nearly a year after the election, baseless republic messages on voter fraud still resonate. in a cnn poll last month, 78% of republicans said they do not believe president biden was legitimately elected. >> willfully ignorant. >> nawaz: election experts gowri ramachadran of the brennan center and david becker of the center for election innovation and research said the threat to democry is as high as it's ever been. >> sham partisan review are serving up innuendo and baseless suspicion ready for deployment by superspreaders of lies. >> i'm concerned as i've never been before about the ongoing threats to american democracy. >> nawaz: that concern was echoed in today's senate judiciary report, with new details of just how far then- president trump went to undermine the 2020 election results in the lead-up to the january 6th insurrection. the report details a trump plan

to replace top justice department officials with loyalists he believed could overturn his election loss. trump proposed ousting jeffery rosen, his then-acting attorney general, and putting in his place jeffrey clark, a d.o.j. official who backed aggressive federal action to invalidate the 2020 election. in testimony to the committee, rosen said then-president trump called a meeting on january 3 and made his intentions known, saying: “one thing we know is you, rosen, aren't going to do anything to overturn the election.” rosen's colleagues talked trump down, threatening to resign en masse if he was removed. white house counsel pat cipollone called the deal a“ murder-suicide pact.” in response to the committee's report, ranking member senator chuck grassley stressed trump's restraint. >> the president rejected it the president did the right thing. >> nawaz: grassley and committee republicans drafted their own report, writing: “in all known instances where president trump

had the opportunity to direct d.o.j. to take steps to try and overturn the election, he chose not to do so.” but committee chair, senator dick durbin, said the report revealed a nation on the verge of a constitutional crisis. >> this president, former president donald trump, would have shredded the constitution to keep his office and the presidency. >> committee will be in order. >> nawaz: meanwhile another group, the house select committee led by representative bennie thompson, continues to probe trump's role on january 6th. today marked the deadline for four trump administration officials to submit documents subpoenaed by the committee: senior white house aid dan scavino; chief of staff mark meadows; former counsel steve bannon; and kash patel, chief of staff for the acting defense secretary. trump urged all four to defy the order, and none are expected to comply. for the pbs newshour, i'm amna nawaz. >> woodruff: for more on efforts to undermine election integrity, and what can be done to stop it, i'm joined again by rick hasen.

he's an professor at the university of california-irvine, and author of the book "election meltdown." rick hasen, welcome back to the "newshour". so many fresh elements to this story today. we just heard amna nawaz reporting. let's just pull out one piece and that's the senate judiciary committee report on what former president trump did to try to put his own person in charge at thdepartment of justice. what are the consequences of that? >> well, i think you have to see it as just one of three main paths that trump was pursuing to try to overturn the results of the election. one path which we knew about was trying to pressure local and state election officials like the secretary of state of georgia where he called up for him to manufacture 12,000 votes to overturn the results. one was his attempt to convince his supporters, millions of supporters that the election was stolen, and now we learn more detail today in this report about the third path which was

through the department of justice. this trump loyalist, jeffery clark, was ready to send letters out saying that the georgia legislature and potentially six other legislatures should reconvene and should announce rather than accept the results that biden had won those states that, instead, trump had won those states, and then alternative sites lectors would have been sent to congress and a fight there. no exaggeration to say had the letters been sent out we could have been emerged into a political and constitutional cry sis. >> woodruff: so you have that going on and in the antime efforts in texas, arizona, georgia, to call into question the results of the vote count of 2020. now you have candidates running as we do, governor of virginia, who are saying there should be an audit of results.

what are thse ongoing questions about the integrity of elections? what do they do to the overall electoral process and voters-confidence in it? >> well, we know from many polls that a majority of republicans and a huge majority of republicans or trump supporters believe the false claims from trump that the election was stolen. now, certainly we should be having audits of election results, that's a best practice. after the elections are over, then you have a procedure where you make sure that the votes were actually counted. those things happened. we also had election contests and protests where there were official ways through court cases and administrative ways to try to find out if the election results were correct. all of those confirmed the results to have the electio what happened recently in arizona and is happening in other states like wisconsin and pennsylvania can't accurately be called an audit. this is really a public relations attempt to convince

millions of people that there's something to worry about about the last election, and i'm much more worried about the ramifications of that from the next election. what's going to mean if we have people in power who are supposed to be counting votes who parrot the lie that the election was stolen, will we be able to trust the results of the election? it could lead to an actual stolen election the next time. >> woodruff: which party controls state legislatures, which party, a governor of a state belongs to, for example. >> well, if you rememb, last time, there were many republicans who held the line. i mentioned rathlingsburger in georgia, but there was the governor of arizona dug doocy, republican, republican state legislators in wisconsin and pennsylvania, there were republican judges on the third circuit and elsewhere who rejected trump's claims. the problem is that those

republican heroes, the last time around, who would not bend or break the law to try to overturn the results of the election, many of those people are being replaced. rath lyricsburger by jody heiss, who parroted the claim the election was stolen. if he's the chief election officer in georgia how will we know the election will be fairly done? what will happen if trump leans on him next time if there's another narrow loss to claim there's a loss and claim there should be a different slate i lectors that could be selected by kevin mckathy and he's in the speaker of the house and he's in charge of running the house and counting the electoral college votes, so a lot of it depended not on our laws but on norms of complying with the rule of law and following fair election results. if we don't have the right people in place next time, people are going to adhere to

the rule of law, we are going to be in a lot of trouble. >> woodruff: what are some of the kinds of safeguards you have been calling for? in fact, you have been critical of the democrats so far. you have said they should have made more attention to this, already, since the last election, but what are some of the political and the legal changes that you think need to be made in order to ensure that these future elections, whether it's 2022, '24 and beyond are fair and free? >> right, i do think the democrats right after biden was inaugurated should have looked for a bipartisan package on this danger of election subversion. it's not too late but it's harder now because positions have hardened on both sides. i would point to things like requirement of paper ballots. about 12% of american voters in 2020 voted on fully electronic voting ma machines. just imagine how many more people would believe trump's lies about the election being stolen if there wasn't a piece of paper that couldn't be verified? we also need to change the

electronic count act which details how you counted the electoral college votes coming into the states. remember, there were over 100 members of congress and u.s. senators who rejected both arizona and pennsylvania's electoral college votes for biden on no basis during 2020. so we need to make that harder to do. there has to be an actual reason to be rejecting those. there's lots that can be done on the the federal level. this can be fought state by state. we need to be organized. as a country, democrats, republicans and independents need to come together and stand for the rule of law and make sure we have fair elections so they don't benefit democrats or republicans but accurately reflect the will of the people. >> woodruff: going back to what you said earlier about audits, you're saying some audits are appropriate, but how are the voters to tell the difference between an audit they can trust and one they can't?

>> well, the audits that happen and kind of the gold standard are called risk limiting audits, these happen, it's part of the governmental process and there are outside observers that can watch the process, there are all kinds of transparency measures. these happens within the weeks after the election being finalized. it doesn't happen nine or ten months later. it doesn't happen a partisan basis. the state legislators aren't involved, you don't bring in outside groups like cyber ninjas to do it. there are procedures and professionals running the election and the professionals need to comply with the rules, we need to watch them, they should be making sure the results are accurate but they have procedures in place so that we can have confidence if you just follow the facts that our election results accurately reflect the will of the people. >> woodruff: rick hasen, law professor at the university of california at irvine. thank you so much, we appreciate it. >> thank you.

>> woodrf: a federal judge in texas last night temporaly blocked the enforcement of the state's new, restrictive law that bans abortion as early as six weeks. president biden's department of justice had requested the injunction against the law known as "sb 8". in his 113-page order, judge robert pitman called the law quote, "an urecedented and aggressive scheme to deprive its citizens of a significant and well-established constitutional right." with the state of texas appealing the order, abortion access in the state remains in question. stephanie sy recently traveled to austin, and found that since it was enacted, the law had already had an immediate effect on hundrs of women. >> sy: in the last five weeks sb-8 made texas the hardest place for a woman to get an abortion in america. >> the vast majority of women,

>> to basically be an enforcer of a rule that i don't agree with, it's been extremely >> sy: marva sadler is the director of clinical services for the non-profit whole woman's health in texas, an abortion provider. with, it's been extremely emotional taxing on our staff and doctors. >> sy: “sb 8,” which was enacted lastonth, bans abortion as soon as a flutter of cardiac activity can be detected in an ultrasound-- that's as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. most women may not even know they're pregnant by then. the texas law gives women an extremely narrow window to legally get an abortion. >> this just happened to a patient today who was here last week. she'd had a positive pregnancy test at home. she came in. we could not see anything on her ultrasound, we could not find it an intrauterine pregnancy, which means that she was just too early. so i was not able to continue forward with the patient last week. she came back today for a follow up exam. not only can we see her pregnancy, but there are fetal heart tones. and so we did have to turn her away. >> sy: she got caught in a place where she was too early last week and now she's too late?

>> she was too early last week and six days later, she's too late. >> sy: on a typical day, before sb 8, this whole women's health clinic in austin would be packed. today, it's been pretty quiet. there's been a 70% drop in abortions procedures in clinics across the state, compared to this time last year. some women are now crossing state lines to seek abortions. >> oftentimes they're tired, they're exhausted. but at the same time, they're so relieved that they can still get an abortion even if they can't get it in texas. >> sy: dr. joshua yap is a physician at planned parenthood in tulsa, oklahoma. >> we have one patient who got off work at 10:00 p.m. and then at midnight, got in the car drove from houston off area l the way to here, which is about a nine hour drive. >> sy: since the texas law went into effect, 300 women from the lone star state have sought abortion care at the two oklahoma clinics, leading to a bottleneck.

>> huge number of texas patients, often over 50% of our panel, which means that there's not a lot of space for oklahoma patients who live here. some days we'll stay as late as two and a half hours after clinic hours to make sure we can accommodate them. >> sy: but for many women, travelling out of state is not an option. >> a single mother who is working at a job at $8 an hour, who doesn't have p.t.o. or days to take off of work, who doesn't have an infrastructure or a support system already, the feat of getting out of state is impossible for her. it will affect women of color and low income women the most. >> we want to see pre-born children and their mothers protected from abortion. >> sy: rebecca parma works at texas right to life, which opposes abortion. they helped draft the bill. >> we believe this bill is superior. >> sy: the law empowers private citizens, anyone can report violations and sue a fellow citizen in civil court. it's this legal maneuver that experts say allowed the law to deflect its first challenge at the supreme court.

there's even a cash incentive to encourage citizens' actions. plaintiffs who successfully sue are awarded $10,000, an enticement that supreme court justice sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion effectively“ deputizes the state's citizens as bounty hunters.” the citizens enforcement part of the law is one reason judge robert pitman gave for blocking its enforcement last night. he also wrote that “sb 8 was a deliberate attempt by lawmakers to preclude review by federal courts that have the obligation to safeguard the very rights the statute likely violates.” he was referring to the constitutional right to an abortion protected by the 1973 supreme court ruling roe versus wade. this austin clinic and others across the state have already lost staff, who fear legal ramifications. anyone from the physician to the uber driver taking the patient to get an abortion could be

legally culpable under sb 8. o is the real target of sb 8? is it women tryingo get an abortion in texas? > absolutely not. women in texas who seek an abortion or obtain an illegal abortion, a lawsuit cannot be brought against them, so they are protected under this law. the target is the abortion industry, those who are profiting off killing preborn children. >> sy: the law provides an exception only for women facing medical emergencies. there is no exception for women who are victims of rape or incest. no exceptions. how do you justify that ethically, to force a woman to have the baby of her rapist? >> yeah, those situations are heartbreaking and tragic. and i yeah, so traumatic and so, at the end of the day, the question we ask at texas right to life and what applies in this law is, it all comes down to, what is the preborn child? there are human beings from that moment of feilization worthy

of moral and legal protection, and that is regardless of the means of conception. >> sy: the divide in beliefs on abortion in america is deep, but on how to enforce restrictions, much less so. a new pbs newshour/npr/marist poll shows one third of americans support a law that bans abortion once cardiac actity is detected, but 74% of americans oppose allowing private citizenso enforce such a law. outrage over sb 8 among women's reproductive justice activists has spread across the country. from washington to san francisco, and back in austin, texas... >> pro choice! >> sy: ...where zoraima pelaez lives. she's a reproductive rights advocate who had an abortion a decade ago. >> i was working full time, going to school part time in community college and i learned that i was pregnant. and in that moment, it just was - i thought of my sisters immediately. my sister, my older sister and many of my loved ones were young mothers.

and i saw how much they struggled to raise their children as single young mothers in safe, sustainable environments. and i knew that i wasn't ready emotionally, financially to be a mom. >> sy: she says, she never regretted her decision. when pelaez had her abortion, in texas, the procedure was stigmatized, but accessible. >> i mean, i was passed six weeks, definitely. i would not have been able to get abortion care in the state d i don't know if i would have been able to afford to go out of state. >> sy: the new texas law is effectively a ban on almost all abortions in the state, and that's what the people behind it intended. >> we're estimating that between 100 and 150 pre-born children and their mothers are being spared from abortion every day in texas while this law is in effect. >> sy: for now, the law is on hold. the ste of texas is appealing. whole women's health tells the newshour it is making plans to resume abortion care for women up to 18 weeks pregnant as soon

as possible. >> we opened our schedule to expand beyond that six-week limit in our texas clinics, already. >> reporter: advocates for women's right to choose are holding their breath during what may be only a temporary reprieve. how do you think things would have been different for you if you had been unable to terminate your pregnancy? >> i >> i know almost for a fact that i would not have become the first person in my family to graduate from college, that i would not be in law school right now. and i would probably not have met my husband and on the verge of starting a family of my own on my, on my own terms. >> sy: instead, for millions of texas women of child bearing age, the terms will be set by how the next court, and likely, eventually the supreme court, interprets sb 8. for the pbs newshour, i'm stephanie sy in austin.

>> woodruff: the country's overall battle against covid is improving. new cases continue to fall around the country-- neay 25% over the past two weeks. deaths have dropped as well, by more than 10%. but there are still far too many losing their lives. more than 1,800 people died in the past 24 hours. and a number of states are still struggling with overcrowded hospitals. as william brangham reports, alaska is among the most impacted right now. >> brangham: alaska is experiencing the nation's worst outbreak right now. the surge there is made worse because of the state's huge size, and that its limited health care system largely relies on major hospitals in anchorage, the state's largest city. so far, 20 hospitals and health facilities in the state have

triggered so-called "crisis standards of care," because they're so short on beds and staff. alaska has flown in nearly 500 medical workers to assist over the next few months. just 58% of the population is fully vaccinated. jeannie monk is the senior vice president of alaska's state hospital and nursing home association. jeannie monk, thank you so much for being here. i wonder if you could give us a quick snapshot of how things are going there right now. >> thanks, grad to have a chance to chat today. well, while things seem to be improving in the resof the country, alaska is facing the worst surge of the pandemic, and we're really struggling as a health system. starting in august, we saw case counts and hospitalizations really increasing, and clinical care is extremely limited, and we're really having to make difficult decisions on how to allocate scarce resources and provide care to a very large

state. >> and is it your sense that the bulk of the covid patrons in medical facilities around the state are primarily unvaccinated? >> unfortunately, yes, they are primarily -- the sickest patients are generally unvaccinated. however, this surge, because of alaska's healthcare system, is impacting everybody who needs to receive medical care in the state. >> reporter: right because it's not just covid patients filling them up. i imagine people with medical needs all over. >> right. >> reporter: are you guys having to delay procedures and surgeries and things like that? >> we really rely on the three largest hospitals in anchorage to take care of the sickest people, so in anchorage, hospitals are evaluated on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis, what procedures they can do and have to stop doing anything that isn't very urgent. in rural areas, they have less capacity, but may not be quite as full. so it really is a

hospital-by-hospital, day-by-day decision as to what they can do. some things people call elective really are urgent, and some of these things may be treatment surgery, diagnostic care for cancer, cardiac care, things that maybe you could put them off for a few days but are very urgent needs and that puts hospitals in a really difficult place. >> reporter: one of the things that we have been hearing a lot down here is that medical staff, doctors and nurses are having -- they're burned out, they're stressed out, they're overworked, and they're also having very difficult interactio with patients who are also similarly stressed out. are you guys seeing the same kind of thing there, too? >> we are. one of the worst things that's happening right now is the hostility towards healthcare workers, and this is by a very vocal minority, but hospitals and medical providers have been receiving harassing phone calls,

threats. they are getting demands for treatments that have been proven ineffective or not approved. sometimes even patients that are being treated for covid in the hospital are being very hostile and denying they even have covid. so it can be a really difficult place to be providing care right now. >> i mean, i can't imagine having to deal with that on top of having been fighting this fight for a year and a half-plus. >> yeah. the caregivers are really exhausted, they're exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally. but we, yesterday, for the first time, i heard hope in the voices of our hospital leaders. we have no relief workers that are arriving in alaska, they have been arriving over the past week and a half. so far, we have about 300 new contract healthcare workers completing orientation and beginning to bring relief to our tired workforce, so that is really a welcome addition to help the care system.

>> reporter: lastly, as we reported earlier, we are starting to see signs of cases an deaths and hospitalizations down in the lower 48 declining, which we all hope continues. does that give you any hope that that might make up to you as we, that you might be near the end of this? >> we really hope so. we've seen in the past few days a slight decline in the number of hospitalizations. it's too soon yet to know if this is really a trend, but we are hoping that we will follow the rest of the country. we do remain worried because we are just now entering the season in alaska where everybody moves indoors and starts to get darker and colder and really worried about another surge both in alaska and in other places, and want more people to get vaccinated, pele to continue to wear masks and do the public health mitigation efforts that we know can help, but we're

optimistic that eventually we'll get through this surge, and whether there will be another surge we are very afraid. >> fingers crossed, of course. jeannie monk of the alaska state hospital and nursing home association, thank you so much for your time. >> thanks for looking out for alaska. >> woodruff: thousands of mostly haitian migrants gathered at the border town of del rio, texas last month hoping to gain asylum. while the migrants have been removed and the encampment cleared, the crisis is far from over. yamiche alcindor has our report. >> alcindor: for the first time since he resigned as special envoy for haiti last month, daniel foote spoke publicly, briefing the house foreign affairs committee. foote, who left his position

amid mass deportations of haitian migrants on the southern border, told lawmakers it is wrong to send haitians back to the struggling island tion. >> deportation in the short term is not going to make haiti more stable. in fact, it's going to make it worse. nobody asked me about the deportations. i found out about it on the news, like the rest of us >> alcindor: in mid-septembe more than 14,000 haitians, many from south america, came to the u.s. southern border seeking asylum. many ended up in squalid conditions camping under a bridge, in del rio, texas. as many as 12,000 haitians were released into the united states to await immigration proceedings. but thousands of others were sent back to haiti. meanwhile, beyond covid-19, the island nation is still reeling from a major earthquake in august. and it remains in political crisis, after president jovenel moise was assassinated in july. i am joined now by guerline jozef.

she is president of the haitian bridge alliance, which advocates for haitian immigrants. she recently visited del rio, texas and saw the migrant crisis first hand. thank you so much, guerline, for being here. today a senior administration official said as many as 20,000 hatians are on their way to the united states making their way through south america. talk about what conditions lead hatians to flee haiti and try to come to the united states. >> thank you so much for having me, yamiche. the reality is the conditions in haiti are unstable, and we need to look at root causes of migration of hatians who are being forced to leave their homes, the homeland they know to make a dangerous journey to the united states. as we all know, there have been years of political turmoil, the recent assassination of the president, extreme kidnapping. on top of it, we had an earthquake followed by a storm, really making it a very unstable

for space for -- unstable space for people to survive. in addition, we have seen people who left haiti in 2010 making their way to the u.s.-mexico border and people who have been in mexico for up to five years waiting for a chance to get protection, a chance to ask for asylum. >> reporter: you have been working with migrants so closely. today we heard from the former special envoy for haiti daniel foot. he said sending hatians back to haiti is harmful and dangerous to the country and hatians migrants. what do you make of his assessment? >> absolutely. he's 100% correct and is why we have been asking for them to stop deportation because we see deportation as a form of violence upon haiti and the haitian people. as we see haiti unable to recover from all this turmoil, yet, today, the united states

have decided instead of providing protection to hatians, they are deporting. and i want to high light that they are deporting pregnant women, little children, little black boys, little black girls in need to have protection of being deported to haiti right now. it is as ambassador foot mentioned, unacceptable, inhumane and a complete disregard for hatians lives. >> reporter: you just called deportations violence against haitian migrants. what do you want to see changed as relates to the haitian policy and the pierkz. what do you want president biden to do as it relates to haiti? >> we wanthem to make sure that policies that are impacting people in haiti and the haitian migrants to be providing humanitarian ce for them. we are asking present biden to keep his promises to the haitian community and to be able to provide protection for those people who have come to our

shores. as a hashern national and an american citizen, a haitian-american woman, descendent of slaves, enslaved people, it is unacceptable for the united states to continue the same policies that continues to dehumanize haitian, as a people in haiti, as a country. the haitian government who have agreed to receive those people knowing they do not have the capacity, they do not have the infrastructure to receive them, that's internal violence. so we are dealing with internal violence from haitian government and from the hands to have the u.s. government. >> reporter: and what is life like for hatians who have been deported back to haiti as well as those forced to remain in mexico? >> yamiche, i spoke with people who are deported. i cannot tell you how painful it is. suicide is rampant among people who have been deported, and many who are able to survive are

looking for a way to escape. >> reporter: well thank you so much, guerline jozef, i really appreciate you joining the program tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> woodruff: it's been nearly six weeks since hurricane ida battered louisiana as a category 4 storm. and survivors are still facing a difficult road ahead. in lake charles, louisiana, thousands are still waiting for relief from a string of natural disasters that began more than a year ago, long before ida. some say it shows the inequality of climate change, and the disproportionate toll it can take on low-income communities. community reporter roby chavez has our story, part of our coverage of "race matters." >> reporter: this house on the

north side of lake charles has been in romante lewis's family for generations. so when hurricane laura ripped through here in august 2020, as one of the strongest storms ever to make landfall in louisiana. the aftermath was devastating. do you think that you'll have to gut this or rebuild it or...? >> i just i just really want to gut it, keep the frame and just gut it and keep it how it was, how i remember it as a kid. >> reporter: after 13 months, lewis is still living in a trailer from the federal emergency management agency, or fema. he's seen politicians visit lake charles, but in neighborhoods like his, heays little has changed. >> it just feels like a spit in the face, honestly, like why you came if you wasn't going to help us? what was, what was your purpose? just to show your face and say, oh, yeah, we came and we helped out? no, you just came, you seen it and you left and it's, you know. >> reporter: stays the same. >> yeah, it's been over a year and they still got houses like this.

>> reporter: six weeks after laura hit, hurricane delta made landfall just 12 miles to the east. it left billions of dollars in damage. then in february, a rare winter storm burst pipes and knocked out power for thousands. and in may, a pounding rain storm led to major flooding in the city. a lot of folks will mention lake charles as the poster child for climate change. do you feel that that fits you? >> i will say that what has happened to us over the last year certainly must be more than just a string of bad luck. >> reporter: nic hunter is the republican mor of lake charles. he spent the last year pleading for more federal disaster aid, some of which did pass last week as part of the government funding bill. >> we haven't seen that same level of concern for people within our community that we have seen our federal government show to people within other communities. that's been a very tough pill to swallow.

there's a lot of people who were vulnerable before hurricane laura, who are today still ten times as vulnerable as they were >> reporter: experts say global warming will likely increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, but the impacts will be uneven. the environmental protection agency has said that african americans and those with low income will bear the brunt of climate change. nearly 50% of lake charles residents are black and the poverty rate hovers at 23%. that's twice the national average. >> i hate to say they don't care about us, but i mean, you see, they ain't coming to fix our stuff. >> reporter: robert bullard is a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at texas southern university in houston. he's been called the father of environmental justice. >> just because you live physically on the other on the wrong side of the tracks, on the wrong side of the levee, on the wrong side of the river, doesn't

mean somehow that you should receive less protection. >> reporter: bullard says communities of color that faced housing discrimination a century ago now live in areas that are more prone to flooding, urban heat islands, and pollution. >> this is not theory. they are on the front line of climate change, they are at ground zero. if you look at fema's recovery dollars, where they go, money follows money, money follows power, money follows whites. and communities of color generally are further marginalized after storm after storm after storm. >> reporter: fema says it's provided more than a billion dollars in aid for all the storms in southwest louisiana. the agency also says it has taken steps to improve the equity of its responses: easing requirements for proof of homeownership, and using data on things like poverty, housing and transportation access to better place disaster recovery centers. tony robinson is the administrator for fema's region

6, which includes louisiana. >> our focus is really on helping survivors, meeting survivors where they are and providing our services in an equitable manner for all survivors. we've made progress. we still have work to do. we're gonna continue to work that. >> reporter: but for many residents here, the inequities go well beyond fema's response. trameka rankins has lived for 20 years in a neighborhood hard hit by the recent disasters. greinwich terrace is a low- lying, largely black neighborhood in lake charles that sits next to a waterway called a coulee. and rankins says nearly every time there's heavy rain, the area floods. tell me what your house has been through. >> i would say i've been-- hell on earth. >> reporter: rankins' house flooded during hurricane harvey in 2017. it sustained structural damage after laura. but then came hurricane delta. >> i was actually in my home when the water came in, it literally knocked the shoes off

my feet. i'm 6'1”. the water was over my knees halfway up to my hip area. that did something psychologically. that was a break. that was like, okay, that's it, >> reporter: she rebuilt her house after delta, only to have it flood again during the storm in may. >> everything you just put in there-- things going to the road with tags on it, you have to replace everything again. you have to gut the houses again. you have to take up all the flooring and take out all the furniture, all your clothing, everything times three within the past year and a half. >> reporter: rankins has repeatedly contacted local officials for assistance. she can't help but wonder about the role of race in her community's struggles. you feel like you're being shortchanged as a community with low to middle income african- american. they're not paying attention to you. >> it's not a pay attention to. >> reporter: rankins is now in the process of accepting a buyout for her house.

the state has set aside $30 million to move some residents out of the terrace. >> even my two-year-old comes and cries to me. he says, "mama, please tell rain, rain go away. please stop the rain. i don't like the thunder. i don't like the rain. it's going to make the house messy again." at two. >> reporter: that's tough. >> that's his perception of living in this house. that's the only reason why the buyout makes sense to me, because of my two-year-old grandson. if he wasn't here, i would sit here, fight, do this, do that. but he's part of my world, you know, he's my everything. i want to make sure that he is okay. >> reporter: lake charles mayor nic hunter says he recognizes the issue of environmental racism in his city. >> i see it as something that exists, though i do believe progress has been made. i still think that there is progress yet to be made. >> reporter: environmental justice professor robert bullard says the nation must make progress on its approach to disaster recovery.

>> the strategy that fema and the federal government follows in terms of where the money goes is using cost-benefit analysis. we have to use additional metrics: low income status, lack of health insurance, whether or not the community has flooded repeatedly-- you can put all that together and come up with this measure. you can take that measure and add it to a cost-benefit analysis and you'll start to track more of the resources: money following need. >> reporter: for now, romante lewis finds himself waiting, along with the roughly 4,000 residents still displaced here. how do you figure out what to do next? >> that's the question, right? what do i do next? you know, who do i call? i don't know. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, i'm roby chavez in lake charles, louisiana. >> woodruff: on the newshour

online, today marks 20 years since the u.s. invasion of afghanistan. the last american troops left weeks ago and we take a look at the sheer numbers and costs behind america's longest war. that's on our website, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the rules of business are being reinvented, with a more flexible workforce, by embracing innovation, by looking not only at current opportunities, but ahead to future ones. >> people who know, know b.d.o. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no-contract wireless plans, designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, vit

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hello and welcome to "amanpour & co." here is what's coming up. how ethiopia used its commercial airline to shuttle weapons. the latest exclusive investigation. i will speak with a former special envoy about the crisis in ethiopia and what washington should do next. life below the poverty line in one of the richest countries on earth. reporter andrea elliott tells the true story of the invisible child. these were people who decided that democracy was not a spectator sport. >> jennifer rubin talks about the women driving the resistance against donald trump. please don