judy: on the newshour tonight, buying time. senate democrats and republicans strike a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, avoiding a default, 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. a federal judge temporarily blocks texas' controversial new restrictions, as supporters defend the law. >> 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. judy: all that and more on

tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> johnson & johnson bnsf railway. financial services firm raymond james the kendeda fund

carnegie corporation of new york and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. >> this program was made thank you. judy: 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. lisa: yes. judy: so, is this deal finally done? have they averted the crisis? lisa: the deal is done. the senate needs to vote. we expect that vote tonight to pass this deal. all day long, there was complications even over the timing of voting on this deal. but, yes, it does look like we will avert this 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 that the debt ceiling will likely be lifted until at least december 3. but because the treasury does have some extraordinary measures, as they're called, that they can use, there's some wiggle room there. it may be past december 4, after. basically, this buys about two months of time for the congress

to act again and figure out hopefully a more permanent solution here. now, the timing is important because the republicans say they offered this deal to allow democrats enough time to go through the full reconciliation process, which is that 50-vote process. that's how republicans want this done. democrats, again, say they don't want to do it that way. so that problem still exists. and we will probably be talking about it morin a month-and-a-half. judy: and, as you have been telling us, lisa, 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? lisa: what a fascinating week. up until now, mitch mcconnell was really seen as the master of this modern senate, but it was chuck schumer who was able to stare him down this week. and mitch mcconnell was able to, was backing down. as i said, republicans and mcconnell allies, they present what happened this way. they say mcconll called

schumer's bluff. he's offering more time to schumer to do this reconciliation process, see if he actually 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. and president trump wrote last night this statement as this deal was coming together. that's notable. he wrote: "mitch mcconnell is folding to the democrats." sure enough, judy, i talked to republican senators today who openly said, we do feel that mitch mcconnell may have been caving. so, this is an issue on both sides for mitch mcconnell, as he tries to keep members together for the next larger confrontation ahead. judy: interesting to see the split in the gop ranks. so, lisa, i always end up asking you this question. what's next? lisa: well, first of all, we have to pass the bill tonight. that's expected. then the house has to come back into session to deal with it. then let's talk about the calendar ahead. it is busy. first of all, now these deadlines that are set up, october 31, judy, highway trust fund expires. that extension 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 of this, democrats are trying to pass what would be the largest single spending bill in american history, the build back better act. so it is an important, pivotal and very intense time. judy: and a very full plate. lisa: yes. judy: lisa desjardins, thank you. lisa: you're welcome. ♪ stephanie: we will return to the full program after the latest headlines. late tonight, the u.s. senate voted 50-48 to find the debt ceiling through december. the bill now goes to the house of representatives for final passage. pfizer has officially as the fda

to authorize its covid-19 vaccine for emergency use for children ages 5-11. that amounts to roughly 28 million american children. the fda's advisors will meet to bate the evidence behind the request later this month. nemo president biden traveled to a construction site outside chicago today to tout the importance of vaccation requirements. >> my messages require your employees to get vaccinated. th them, we face endless months of chaos in our hospitals, damage to our economy and anxiety in our schools. and empty restaurants. much less congress. >> also today, a new study published in the medical journal "pediatrics" found more than 120,000 american children lost a primary caregiver during the pandemic. more than half of those children were either black or hispanic americans. 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 by 38,000 last week, for the first time in a month, to 326,000. and the biggest drop in claims since late june. flash flood warning's 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 were inundated with water and overnight in hoover, rescue crews helped stranded drivers escape the floods. in southern california, u.s. coasguard investigators boarded a massive german cargo ship today to determine whether its anchor may have ruptured an oil pipeline nearly a week ago. officials are focusing on the ship's gps tracking data prior to the spill off huntington beach. investigators are also examining video that showed a thin crack

on the pipeline and critics -- could explain why the leak was not detected sooner. indigenous groups are lauding a biden administration decision to restore the original boundaries of two national monuments in utah. the trump administration had downsized them, paving the way for potential resrce extraction. the sprawling sites are considered sacred to native american tribes previewed utah's republican governor said he is disappointed with the decision. the governors of four northeastern states agreed today to share data on firearms purchases to help curb gun crime. the demoatic governors from new york, new jersey, pennsylvania, and connecticut said the data willnly be used by law enforcement. current federal law prohibits the u.s. government from collecting gun sales records into a national registry. tesla ceo elon musk announced today that his company's headquarters will move to austin, texas.

he cited silicon valley's high cost but said tesla will resume operations in california. in pakistan a 5.9 magnitude , earthquake killed at least 23 people before dawn, and injured 200 more. it shook a remote district in one southwest province. as many as 100 mud homes in the mountainous region collapsed, leaving behind piles of rubble and burying residents in their sleep. >> 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. >> the area is also home to a number of coal mines, one of which collapsed during the quake, killing at least four minors. and this year's nobel prize for literature honored at tanzania and novelist. he is based in the u.k. and has written 10 novels, most examine the plague of refugees.

he is the first african to win this award in nearly two decades. still to come, why alaska's doctors are forced to ration care amid an overwhelming covid surge. patient 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 effects of climate change, plus much more. >> this is the "pbs newshour." judy: it's been almost a year since voters cast their ballots in the 2020 u.s. 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.

amna: 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. amna: 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 election was free, fair and accurate. >> the best election we've ever run in maricopa county. amna: 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? man: no. amna: still, republicans on the committee called for more investigations. >> there are inconsistencies. there remain question marks. amna: and accused democrats of sweeping concerns under the rug.

>> why do democrats hate audits? >> you would have to ask a democrat. i don't know why they hate audits. amna: former republican secretary of state ken bennett argued additional vote reviews were warranted, like the one by the cyber ninjas private firm, but even bennett admitted that review led to the same outcome. ken bennett: the hand count to the physical ballots very closely matches the county's official results in the president and u.s. senate races. amna: nearly aear after the election, baseless republican 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. amna: election experts gowri ramachandran of the brennan center and david becker of the center for election innovation and research said the threat to democracy is as high as it's ever been. gowri: sham partisan review are serving up innuendo and baseless suspicion ready for deployment by super-spreaders of lies. david: concerned as i have never

been before about the ongoing threats to american democracy. amna: 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 6 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 jeffrey rosen, his then-acting attorney general, and putting in his place jeffrey clark, a doj official who backed aggressive federal action to invalidate the 2020 election. in testimony to the committee, rosen said then-president trump called a meetingn 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. sen. grassley: the president rejected it. the president did the right thing. amna: grassley and committee republicans drafted their own report, writing, quote, "in all known instances where president trump had the opportunity to direct doj to take steps to try and overturn the election, he chose not to do ." but committee chair senator dick durbin said the report revealed a nation on the verge of a constitutional crisis. sen. durbin: former president donald trump would have shredded the constitution to keep his office and the presidency. amna: meanwhile, another group, the house select committee led by representative bennie thompson, continues to probe trump's role on january 6. today marked the deadline for four trump administration officials to submit documents subpoenaed by the committee, senior white house aide dan scavino, chief of staff mark meadows, former counsel steve bannon, and ka patel, chief of staff for the acting defense secretary. trump urged all four to defy the

order. whether any of them comply remains to be seen. for the "pbs newshour," i'm amna nawaz. judy: and for more now on efforts to undermine election integrity and what can be done to stop it, i'm joined again by rick hasen. he's a law professor he's a law professor at the university of california, irvine, and the 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 the department of justice. what is, what are the consequences of that? rick: 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,effrey rosen, jeffrey crk, excuse me, 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, that trump had won those states. and then those alternative slates of electors would have been sent to congress and there would have been a fight there. i think it's no exaggeration to say that, had these letters been sent out, we could have been emerged into a political and constitutional crisis. judy: so, you have that going on. and then, meantime, you have these ongoing efforts in states like arizona, texas, georgia to call into question the results of the vote count in 2020.

and then you now have candidates running, as we do for governor of virginia, glenn youngkin, who's saying that there should be an audit of results. what do these ongoing questions about the integrity of elections, what do they do to the overall electoral process and voters' confidence in it? rick: well, we know from many polls that a majority of republicans and a huge majority of republicans who are trump supporters believe the false claims from trump that the election was stolen. now, certainly, we should be having aits 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 accurately 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

electoral results were correct. all of those confirmed the results the election. what happened recently in arizona and what's happening now 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 for the next election and what it's going to mean if we have people in power who are supposed to be counting the votes who parrot this big lie that the election was stolen. are we really going to be able to trust the results of the election? so we had this fake claim of a stolen election last time that could lead to an actual stolen election the next time. judy: and how much of that, rick hasen, is going to depend on who's in power, which party controls state legislatures, which party a governor of a state belongs to, for example? rick: well, if you remember last time, there were many republicans who held the line. i mentioned raffensperger in georgia.

there was the governor of arizona, doug ducey, who's republican. there were republican state legislators in wisconsin, in pennsylvania. there were republican judges on the third circuit and elsewhere who rejected trump's claims. the problem is that those republican heroes of 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. raffensperger is being primary by jody hice, who was featured in the report just before i came on. hice has parroted the claim that the election was stolen. if he's the chief election officer in georgia, how are we going to know that the election is going to be fairly done? what's going to happen if trump leans on him next time, there's another narrow loss, to claim that there was fraud and provide the predicate for the state legislature to go forward and claim that there should be a different slate of electors that could en be accepted by a kevin mccarthy if he is the speaker of the house, and he's in charge of running the house and counting those 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 the next time, people who are going to adhere to the rule of law, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. judy: well, what are some of the kinds of safeguards that you have been calling for? you have been, in fact, you have been critical of the democrats so far. you said they should have paid more attention to this already, since the last election. but what are some of the political and the legachanges that you tnk need to be made in order to ensure that these future elections, whether it's 2022, '24 and beyond, are fair and free? rick: right. i do think that 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 harned 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 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 could be verified. we also need to change the electoral count act. that's the arcane set of rules going back to 1887 which detail how you're supposed to count those electoral college votes from 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 federal level. on the state level, these have to be fought state by state. and we need to be politically organized. we need to, as a country, democrats, republicans, independents, come together and stand for the rule of law and make sure that our elections are going to be run fairly, so that they don't benefit democrats or

republicans, but that the election results accurately reflect the will of the people. judy: and just to be clear, going back to what you said earlier about audits, you're saying some audits are appropriate. but how are voters to tell the difference between an audit they can trust and one they can't? rick: well, the audits that happened, and the kind of the gold standard are what are called risk-limiting audits. these happen. it's part of the governmental process. and there are outside observers that can watch that process. there are all kinds of transparency measures. these happen within the weeks after the election being finalized. it doesn't happen nine or 10 months later. it doesn't happen on a partisan basis. the state legislatures a not involved in this. you don't bring in outside groups like cyber ninjas to do it. there are procedures. there are professionals who are running our elections. and those professionals, certainly, they need to comply with the rules. we need to watch them. they should be making sure that the results are accurate. but they have procedures in place, so that we can have confiden, if you just follow the facts, that our electoral

results accurately reflect the will of the people. judy: rick hasen, law professor at the university of california at irvine, thank you so much. we appreciate it. rick: thank you. judy: a federal judge in texas last night temporarily blocked the enforcement of the state's new law that bans abortion as early as six weeks. president biden's department of justice requested the injunction against the law, known as sb-8. in his 113-page order, judge robert pitman called the law, quote, "an unprecedented and aggressive scheme to deprive its citizens of a significant and well-established constitutional right." as the state of texas appeals, some abortion providers have resumeabortion care that the law had banned. stephanie sy recently traveled to austin and found that, in the

five weeks that the law was enforced, it impacted hundreds of women. stephanie: in the last five weeks, sb-8 made texas the hardest place for a woman to get an abortion in america. >> to basically be an enforcer of a rule that i don't agree with. stephanie: marva sadler is the director of clinical services for the nonprofit whole woman's health in texas, an abortion provider. marva: it's been extremely emotional and taxing on our staff and our doctors. stephanie: sb-8 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. marva: 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 an 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. stephanie: she got caught in a place where she was too early last week, and now she's too late? marva: she was too early last week, and, six days later, she's too late. stephanie: on a typical day, before sb-8, this whole woman's health clinic in austin would be packed. today, it's been pretty quiet. they have seen a 70% drop in abortions procedures at clinics across the state compared to 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. stephanie: dr. joshua yap is a physician at planned parenthood in tulsa, oklahoma. dr. joshua yap: we have one patient who got off work at 10:00 p.m. and then, at midnight, got in

the car, drove from houston all the way to here, which is about a nine-hour drive. stephanie: 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. marva: huge number of texas patients, often over 50% of our panel,hich means that there's not a lot of space for oklahoma patients who live here. some days, we will stay as late as two-and-a-half-hours after clinic hours to make sure we can accommodate them. stephanie: but for many women, traveling out of state is not an option. marva: a single mother who is working at a job at $8 an hour, who doesn't have pto 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. stephanie: rebecca parma works at texas right to life, which opposes abortion. they helped draft the bill. >> we believe this bill is

superior. stephanie: 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 vs. 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. who is the real target of sb-8? is it women trying to get an abortion in texas? rebecca: 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 pre-born children. stephanie: 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? rebecca: yes. yes.

those situations are heartbreaking and tragic. 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 a pre-born child? there are human beings from that moment of fertilization worthy of moral and legal protection, and that is regardless of the means of conception. stephanie: 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 activity is detected, but 74% of americans oppose allowing private citizens to 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, 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. 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. stephanie: she says she never regretted her decision. when pelaez had her abortion in texas, the procedure was stigmatized, but accessible. zoraima: i was past six weeks, definitely. i would not have been able to get abortion care in the state, and i don't know if i would have been able to afford to go out of state. stephanie: the new texas law is effectively a ban on almost all abortions in the state, and that's what the people behind it intended. rebecca: 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. stephanie: for now, the law is on hold. but the state of texas is appealing. and whole woman's health resumed abortion care for women up to 18 weeks pregnant today. amy: we have reopened our schedule to expand beyond that six-week limit in our texas clinics already. stephanie: advoces 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? zoraima: 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 own terms. stephanie: instead, for millions of texas women of childbearing

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. judy: the united states' overall battle against covid is improving. new cases continue to fall around the country, nearly 25% over the past two weeks. the number of deaths have dropped as welby more than 10%. but many americans are still dying from covid, more than 1,800 in just the past 24 hours. and many states are still struggling with overcrowded hospitals. as william brangham reports, alaska is among the most impacted right now. william: alaska is experiencing the nation's worst outbreak

right now. e 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, which is 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 there is fully vaccinated. jeannie monk is the senior vice president of alaska's state hospital and nursing home association. and she joins me from juneau. jeannie monk, thank you so much for being here. i wonder if you could give just us a quick snapshot of how things are going there right now. jeannie: right. thanks. glad to have a chance to chat today. well, while things seem to be improving in the rest of the country, alaska is facing our 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. william: and is it your sense that the bulk of the covid patients in medical facilities around the state are primarily unvaccinated? jeannie: unfortunately, yes. they are primarily, the sickest patients are generally unvaccinated. however, this surge, because of alaska's health care system, is impacting everybody who needs to receive medical care in the state. william: right, because it's not just covid patients filling them up. jeannie: right. william: i imagine there's people with medical needs all over. jeannie: right. william: are you guys having to delay procedures and surgeries and things like that? jeannie: we really rely on the three largest hospitals in anchorage to take care of the sickest people. so, in anchorage, hospitals are

really evaluating on a day-to-day, even hour-by-hour basis what procedures they can do, and are having 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. and some things that people might call elective really are not elective and are urgent. some of those 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 decision, place. william: one of the things that we have been hearing a lot down here is that medical staff, doctors and nurses, are having, they're just, they're burned out, they're stressed out, they're overworked. and they're also having very difficult interactions with patients who are also similarly stressed out. are you guys seeing the same kind of thing there too? jeannie: we are.

one of the worst thing that's happening right now is the hostility towards health care 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 are 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. william: 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. jeannie: yes, 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 new 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 health care workers that are completing orientation and are beginning to bring relief to our tired work force. so that is really a welcome addition to help the care system. william: and, lastly, as we reported earlier, we are starting to see signs of cases and deaths and hospitalizations down in the lower 48 declining, which we all hope continues. does that give you any hope that that might make it up to you as well, that you might be near the end of this? jeannie: we really hope so. we have 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're just now entering the seasonn alaska where everybody moves indoors, and it starts to

get darker and colder, and really worried about another surge both in alaska in and in other places, and want more people to get vaccinated, people to continue to wear masks, and do the public health mitigation efforts that we know can help. but we're optimistic that, eventually, we will get through this surge. whether there'll be another surge, we're very afraid. william: well, fingers crossed, of course. jeannie monk of the alaska state hospital and nursing home association, thank you so much for your time. jeannie: thanks for looking out for alaska. judy: thousands of 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 oureport. yamiche: 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 nation. >> 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, just like the rest of us. yamiche: in mid-september, 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 firsthand. thank you so much, guerline, for being here. today, a senior administration official said as many as 20,000 haitians are on their way to the united states making their way through south america. talk about what conditions lead haitians to flee haiti and try to come to the united states. guerline: 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 haitians, who are being forced to leave their homes, their homeland, all 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, really making it a very unstable space for people to survive. and, in addition to that, we have seen people who have left haiti in 2010 also making their way to the u.s.mexico border. and we people who have been in mexico for up to five years waiting for a chance to get protection, a chance to ask for asylum. yamiche: and you have been working with migrants so closely. today, we heard from the former special envoy for haiti, daniel foote. he resigned amid deportations. he called them inhumane and counterproductive. today, he said that sending haitians back to haiti is harmful and dangerous to the country and to haitian migrants. what do you make of his assessment? guerline: absolutely. he's 100% correct. and it's why we have been asking for them to stop deportation,

because we see deportation as a form of violence upon iti 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 haitians, they are deporting. and i want to highlight that they are deporting pregnant wome little children, little black boys, little black girls in need of protection are ing deported to haiti right now. it is, as ambassador foote mentioned, unacceptable, inhumane and a complete disregard for haitian lives. yamiche: and you just called deportations violence against haitian migrants. i wonder, what do you want to see changed as it relates to the haitian policy and the biden administration? what do you want the president, president biden, to do differently as it relates to haiti? guerline: we want them to make sure that policies that are

impacting people in haiti and the haitian migrants, to be providing humanitarian care for em. we are asking president 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 haitian national and an american citizen, a haitian-american woman, descendant of slaves, enslaved people, it is unacceptable for the united states to continue the same policies that continues to dehumanize haitians as a people and 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 both internal violence from haiti government and violence from the hands of the u.s. government. yamiche: and what is life like for haitians who have been deported back to haiti, as well as those who are being forced to

remain in mexico? guerline: yamiche, i spoke with people who were deported. i cannot tell you how painful it is. suicide is rampant among people who have been deported. and many of them who are able to survive are lookinfor a way to escape. yamiche: well, thank you so much, guerline jozef. i really appreciate you joining the program tonight. guerline: thank you for having me. ♪ judy: it has been nearly six weeks since hurricane ida better louisiana as a category four storm. survivors there are still facing a very 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 on low-income communities. community reporter roby chavez has our story. it's part of our coverage of race matters. >> this house on the north side of lake charles has been in this family for generations. when hurricane laura ripped through here in august of 2020, it was one of the strongest storms ever to make landfall in louisiana. the aftermath was devastating. do you think you will have to got this or rebuild it? >> i just want to got it, keep the frame and keep it how i remembered as a kid. >> after 13 months, he is still living in a trailer from the federal emergency management association, or fema. politicians have visited lake charles, but he said in neighborhoods like his, little has changed. >> it's like a spit in the face,

honestly. it's like, what was your purpose, just to show your face and say we came and we helped out? no, you just came, you seen it, and you left. it's been over a year and they still have houses ke this. >> six weeks after laura hit, hurricane delta made landfall just 12 miles to the east. it left millions of dollars in damage. then in february, a rare winter storm burst pipes and knocked out power for thousands. and in may, a pounding rainstorm led to major flooding in the city. >> a lot mentioned lake charles as a poster child for climate change. >> what has happened to us over the last year certainly. >> nic hunter is the republican mayor of lake charles. he spent the last year pleading

for more federal disaster aid, some of whh 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 of other communities. it's been a very tough pill to swallow. there's a lot of people who were vulnerable before hurricane laura, who are today still 10 times as vulnerable. >> experts say global warming will likely increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, but the impacts will be uneven. the environment protection agency has said that african americans and those with lower income will bear the brunt of climate change with nearly 50% of the residents of lake chaes are african-american, and the poverty rate hovers at 23 percent, that's twice the national average. >> i hate to say they don't care about us, but you can see they

haven't come to fix our stuff. >> he's been called the father of environmental justice. >> just because you live physically on the wrong side of the tracks are on the wrong side of the levee or the river, doesn't mean somehow that you should receive less protection. >> he says the 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. >> they are at ground zero. if you look at fema's recovery dollars, where they go, money follows power, money follows whites. in communities of color generally are further mainalized, storm after storm afr storm. >> fema says it has provided more than a billion dollars in aid for all the storms in southwest louisiana. the agency also says 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 region six, which includes louisiana. >> the focus is really on helping survivors, meeting survivors where they are, and providing our services in an equitable manner for all survivors. we still have work to do. >> for many residents here, the inequities go well beyond fema's respse. sheas lived for 20 years in a neighborhood hard-hit by the recent disasters. this is a low-lying, largely black neighborhood in lake charles. it sits next to a waterway and every time there's heavy rain, the area floods. tell me what your house has been through? >> i would say i've been in hell

on earth. >> her house flooded during hurricane harvey in 2017 and sustain structural damage after laura. but then came hurricane delta. >> i was actually in my home when the water came in and literally knocked the shoes off my feet. i am 6'1", the water was halfway up to my hip area. it was like, ok, that's it. >> she rebuilt her house after delta, only to have it flood again during the storm in may. >> you have to replace everything again. you have to gut the houses again. you have to take up all the flooring, take out all the furniture, all your clothing, everything times three within the past year and a half. >> she has repeatedly contacted local officials for assistance. she can't help but wonder what the role of race plays in her

community struggles. >> they are not paying attention to you. >> she is now in the process of accepting a buyout for her house . the state has set aside $30 million to move some of the residents out of the terrace. >> even my two-year-old comes and cries to me saying, 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. that's his perception of living in this house. that's the only reason why the buyout makes sense, because of my two-year-old grandson. he is part of my world and he is my everything. i want to make sure that he is ok. >> i see it as something that

exists, though i do believe progress has beenade. i still think there is progress. >> and environmental justice professor says the nation must make more progress on its approach to disaster recovery. >> the strategy that fema and the federal government follows in terms of where the money goes , we have to use additional metrics, low income status, lack of health insurance, whether or not the community has flooded repeatedly. you put it all together and come up with these measures. you can take that measure and added to cost-benefit analysis and you will start to track more of the resources of money following need. >> for now, he finds himself waiting along with the 4000 residents still displaced here. how do you figure out what to do next? >> that's the question right

there, what do i do next? who do i call? i don't know. judy: so important to go back to these places as roby has done in lake charles. today mark 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. that's the newshour for tonight. join us online and here again tomorrow night. thank you, please stay safe, and we will see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by --

>> johnson & johnson bnsf railway the ford foundation bdo, accountants and advisors. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. and friendsf the newshour.

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(music plays) i have to do another egg opening? can't you just replay the first one? eggs, part deux. (laughs). (theme music plays- the avett brothers "will you return") i'm vivian and i'm a chef. my husband, ben and i were working for some of the best chefs in new york city when my parents offered to help us open our own restaurant. of course, there was a catch. we had to open this restaurant in eastern north carolina, where i grew up and said i would never return. (theme music plays- the avett brothers "will you return") (theme music plays- the avett brothers "will you return") so this is my life.