♪ judy: good evening. tonight, biden agenda. progressive's forced to sacrifice some of their priorities as democrats scramble to make a deal, then a turbulent weather system threatens millions of americans as a store makes its way across the country. floods, tornadoes, and hurricane force wind. and rethinking college -- how jobs requiring four-your degrees are fueling income inequality or disproportionately affecting people of color and rural americans of all races. >> you exclude almost 70% of

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judy: congressional democrats spent this tuesday in a rush trying to work out the contours of a major proposal backed by president biden that will steer federal dollars toward climate initiatives, expand the u.s. social safety net, and change some aspects of the american tax system, but if progressives and moderates fall in line behind a single proposal remains up in the air tonight. lisa: on capitol hill, house democratic leadership insists a historic deal remains within reach, despite distance between the party's modates and progressives. >> we have people who have different perspectives. all those perspectives are being heard and respected. at the end of the day, i think we will land in a manner that brings everyone along. lisa: but as negotiations where on, a number of key issues remain open. those include world four weeks

of paid family leave, medicare expansion, and expansion of medicaid in states without it, and taxes, including energy taxes. on the house floor, members of the progressive caucus made their pitches for a more sweeping piece of legislation. >> we cannot tell those families who finally received the child tax credit that the clock has struck midnight and they can no longer receive it. >> altogether, the build back better agenda will make sure that millions of people in this country and in my home state of texas gain affordable healthcare coverage. [trt :10] lisa: on the senate side, democratic leadership remained upbeat about reaching a deal soon. majority leader chuck schumer. senator schumer: democrats will keep working until we're able to reach an agreement and pass this transformational legislation. lisa: senate democrats need all 50 votes in their caucus because republicans remain in lockstep opposition to the reconciliation plan. minority leader mitch mcconnell. senator mcconnell: this is a

50/50 senate, a 3-seat majority in the house. the american people are not asking for any of this. lisa at the white house, press : secretary jen psaki was optimistic, despite democrats' slim margins. press secretary soccer -- press secretary psaki: i think what we're talking about here is the realities of governing, negotiating, having 50 members of the senate, not 60 members of the senate who are democrats, and the fact that we are still on track to get a historic package through congress without precedent in history. lisa: one of the most difficult of those 50 senate democratic votes to secure has been joe mansion of west virginia. -- joe manchin of west virginia. he torpedoed some of the proposals in the earlier $3.5 trillion dollar plan, calling for a much narrower package. today, manchin acknowledged he felt pressure as the democrat's swing vote. senator manchin: this position, i guess, i wouldn't wish it on anybody. lisa but when asked about both : the reconciliation and

infrastructure bills passing in the next few months, he was hopeful. senator manchin: i sure do think there's a high probability that's going to happen. lisa: what exactly happens and how long it takes are still unknown. judy: and lisa is here with me now to report on where things stand. it was just a few weeks ago democrats said they had a framework within days. you're talking about her getting more complicated. lisa: that's right. we thought there were just a new open issues. now there are many. i'm going to redo this list of things i read about today. family leave, medicare vouchers could in play for the dental component of that, medicaid, prescription drugs, housing money, universal pre-k, state and local taxes -- all of those are things in open discussion over how big or small they go, so i think democrats have opened up more areas. still, i think they will come up with a deal, but it has gotten a little more difficult. one thing they did come out with

tonight -- they have made a decision on taxes, corporate taxes. democrats say they have agreed on a 15% minimum corporate tax. that's just one piece of a larger tax proposal that shows you how much is ahead, and there are still questions about if that infrastructure bill will be attached to this or not. speaker pelosi in the progressives seem to have a difference of opinion on that tonight. judy: interesting, and it could be significant. democrats are talking about either a framework or vote on build back better this week. lisa: this has been a strange time. some of these estimates have seemed almost like fantasyland to many of us who have covered congress for a long time. i just do not see how all of it is possible in the senate this week. a framework perhaps, but they still have a long way to go. to give you a picture of how unusual these negotiations are, usually, there's one or two meetings of key gears.

today, meetings were happening everywhere ad hoc. in order to speak, senator warren came up with her with senator wyden, two key figures on tax policy to talk to her in the chair of the senate. senator manchin, senator sanders found him on the subway and talked to him going down the escalator, so things are happening in a very impromptu, unpredictable way. the energy is high to get there, but at the same time, people are getting tired and have to keep that momentum going if they want something done in the next few days. judy: whatever happened to behind closed doors in a smoke-filled room. lisa desjardins following it all. thank you. lisa: you are welcome. vanessa i'm vanessa ruiz at

: "newshour west" in for stephanie sy. we'll return to the full program after the latest headlines. fda advisers recommended that the agency approve pfizer's covid-19 vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds. they said the benefits outweigh a rare side effect of heart inflammation, mostly in boys. also, deborah birx, who was former president trump's covid coordinator, now says he was distracted by the election and that pandemic response efforts suffered as a result. she's told a congressional panel that this led to more than 130,000 avoidable deaths. meanwhile in california, contra costa county has suspended in 'n out's food permit, saying the burger chain is "a public health hazard" for refusing to enforce vaccine mandates. the pentagon is warning that the "islamic state" in afghanistan could be able to strike at the u.s. within 6 to

12 months. undersecretary of defense collin call gave that assessment at a u.s. senate hearing today. he said it's unclear if afghanistan's taliban rulers can take on isis. in sudan today, the new military ruler defended monday's coup -- claiming his actions helped prevent a civil war. general abdel-fattah burhan said officials in the deposed government could face trial for fomenting discontent and trying to incite rebellion in the army. >> this issue reached a deadlock , and the armed forces had a clear choice, so we took the decision to return back to the popular revolution its luster and laurel and the possibility of achieving their hopes. we want to continue achieving the demands of the people, and achieving the state of freedom, peace, and justice. this issue reached a deadlock and the armed forces had a clear

choice. vanessa: meanwhile the ousted , prime minister has been allowed to go home, under heavy security. meanwhile, protesters returned to the streets of khartoum today to demonstrate against the takeover. several people were killed yesterday in clashes with security forces. state media in iran say a cyberattack closed gas stations across the country today. fuel pumps were turned off as frustrated drivers waited in long lines for stations to reopen. the disruption affected those trying to use smart cards to buy cheaper, subsidized fuel. there was no word on who might have carried out the hack. an early nor'easter brought heavy rains and intense winds to the northeast today. -- the clock is ticking. the commission's gap is a result of a leadership gap, but leaders can still make this a turning

point for the future instead of a tipping point to climate catastrophe. vanessa: the united nations' climate report reports existing emitters still are responsible for much of the emissions. john an early nor'easter brought : heavy rains and intense winds to the northeast today. governors of new york and new jersey declaring emergencies. >> look at this strong tornado. john in the midwest, residents : in missouri and illinois were only beginning to assess damage from a string of tornadoes that touched down sunday. all as the west coast also tries to recover from two storms that converged this past weekend, bringing record-setting rains to an area suffering historic drought. one was a bomb cyclone, a storm

that intensifies quickly as the atmospheric pressure drops. the other was an atmospheric river, a long plume of moisture pulled in from the pacific ocean. with them came high winds, sounding an eerie whistle from san francisco's golden gate bridge, heavy rains, which downed trees and knocked out power to 380,000 customers -- >> they hit our master bedroom in the corner and dropped over the house on our cars. john and flash flooding that : blocked cars on highways and streets and lead to rock and mudslides. >> we live here 20 years, never seen it is high. >> my whole garage is up to my kneecaps. everything is floating around. john electricity to most of : those california customers has been restored, and in the short term, the rains may have helped douse some of the state's wildfires. but it's unclear how much they'll help with the long-term drought. scientists say more -- long-term drought. scientists say more frequent and severe weather like this is a symptom of a warming planet and likely to continue.

for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. vanessa: also today, president biden has rejected a second attempt by former president trump to invoke executive privilege in a probe of the u-s -- u.s. capitol assault. select committee of the u.s. house of representatives sought documents on the january 6 attack. the president already blocked mr. trump's initial attempt to invoke executive privilege. and in hockey, an investigation into sexual assault allegations has rocked the chicago blackhawks. an unidentified player claimed in a lawsuit filed in may that an assistant coach sexually assaulted him in 2010, soon after the blackhawks made the stanley cup final. general manager stan bowman resigned in the wake of an indepentent report released today, and the nhl fined the team $2 million dollars for an "insufficient and untimely response" to the allegations. still to come on the "newshour," what is at stake for families as

democrats weigh dropping family leave from the president's spending bill. congress takes social media giants to task over how their platforms impact the mental health and privacy of children and teens. one afghan woman's emotional journey from escaping the taliban to resettling in rural america. and much more. >> this is the "pbs newshour," from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state diversity. judy: as we reported, democrats are trying to whittle down the price tag of their social spending bill, and among the ideas that could be cut is a national paid family leave program. president biden originally proposed 12 weeks. as we reported, democrats have tentatively agreed to cut that to 4 weeks and even further cuts are still under consideration. as this hangs in the balance, we checked in with people across

the country about how this issue has impacted their lives. >> hi, i'm raena boston. i am from tampa, florida, and i work in human resources for a professional services firm. >> my name is kris garcia. i live in denver, colorado, and i am a mechanical assembler, and i am also a ram agent for a major airline company. [00:00:24][8.6] >> my name is nya marshall. i am a restaurateur from the great city of detroit, michigan. >> my name is christina hayes. i'm from inkster, michigan. at my previous job, i was working in a call center for a cable company, and i did not have access to paid leave at that time. so i had to work and struggle because i'm a lupus warrior. >> between both jobs, i maybe have three weeks total, but not

necessarily concurrently. >> i am two weeks postpartum, so i have a two week old and i am on my second week of paid leave. we have, i believe, a total of 14 weeks paid total. we can go up to six months unpaid after that point, and it's been a huge difference between my previous postpartum experiences. i have two other children. >> i am a small business. i own a restaurant in the city of detroit called ivy kitchen and cocktails. we do not offer paid leave currently. we simply cannot afford it. restaurant margins are already small, and since the pandemic, they've even gotten more narrow, if you will. >> in 2009, actually had to take my dad off of life support while i was at work. at the te, i worked as an assistant manager for an auto parts company, and i had been requesting some time off for several months to try and go down and be with my father. unfortunately, i kept getting denied. [00:28:52][25.2] >> treatment for lupus includes

, like, regular doctor visits, chemo treatments, steroid treatments, so do -- so due to not having paid leave, i was not going to my doctor appointments and getting my check ups that i needed, and it came down to the point where my health made the decision for me, and i ended up passing out at work and had to be taken out on a stretcher. >> i didn't even get to see them really bury my father because i left to come back to work. so all in all, i ended up out of work for almost a week, about a week and a half, and financially, it took me almost six and a half months to recover. >> going into this leave, knowing that i had 14 weeks paid, not only did it reduce the stress, but i also felt valued as a person who just happens to be a part of a partnership that gives birth, that my time in my contributions are valuable. >> most small business owners, we are not rich, we are not wealthy, you know what i mean?

we do what we do because we love it. i know my restaurant is a labor of love for my community. you know what i mean? i'm not getting rich off of it at all, and so if i were forced to do something like that and i would really strongly have to evaluate the total cost of limiting that program, and it might even actually close my doors. i'm not sure. judy: those personal stories are a good illistration of what this debate over paid family leave is all about. let's widen out now to look at the larger situation in the u.s. jody heymann studies this as part of her work at the world policy analysis center at ucla. give us a sense of how much of the developed world already does offer some sort of paid leave for employees. >> nearly the entire world. not just high income countries, but low and middle income countries offer paid leave. 180 five offer paid maternity

leave. about half as many, paid leave for dads. it is overwhelmingly what countries do. judy: there is still a lot we don't know about what congress is discussing and certainly not what they will end up with, but the reporting is that it in the original proposal, 12 weeks of paid family leave, they are looking at cutting that possibly to four weeks. how much difference would that make? >> going down to four weeks would be a huge loss. we just have to think about the circumstances. first, someone getting sick. if someone has cancer, they are not going to be treated and welcomed four weeks later. if someone has a heart attack, being able to return to physical labor that fast, not likely, and importantly, we know we can afford it. again, over 130 countri actually offer 12 weeks or more. how can they afford it? because it saves money to do it, among other things.

it makes people healthier, but we would not have had the kind of shutdowns with covid if we had had better paid sick leave. judy: again,e don't know how much remit subsidy could end up being involved, but as we heard from small business owners like nya marshall, one of the americans we heard from a few moments ago, they are concerned it could cost so much they might not be able to keep their business open. >> i think it is incredibly important to speak to small businesses on this. here is what i would like to say to our colleagues who own and run small businesses. again, nearly all the world covers small business, without exception, for size. why? because government helps. the restaurant tour -- the restauranteur we heard from, she should not have to pay the paid leave. that is what the social system is for and that is how the rest of the world does it. they do it in ways that government support for the

insurance system means it is not coming out of the pockets of small business. importantly, small business can save money because their workers will be healthier. because there will be less spread of infectious disease, less chronic illness. their health care costs can come down. judy: one of the arguments we have heard from some republican members of congress is they might willing to go along with parental leave, a parent leaving to take care of a child, but not so much for family leave for caregiving for another family member. what about making that distinction? >> i think it is important we talk about all three elements. the parental leave you already mentioned. the paid sick leave, i will highlight again. we just came out this pandemic trillions of dollars because of the spread. all the countries that did not have national sick leave did worse in the pandemic. there's a lot of savings in pandemic years but also in regular years with influenza,

diarrheal disease, lower rates of chronic conditions. the third kind of leave, leave for a family member who is sick, one thing we can think about is if that can be shared across multiple family members, so for each family member, it is shorter, but the total amount of leave is there. judy: no question, we are looking at many cases of individuals lower in the income scale, the ones who most need this kind of support. jody heymann with the world policy analysis center, thank. >> thank you very much, judy. judy: a senate committee is widening its investigation into the impact social media platforms have on children, teens and young adults, with more apps facing congressional scrutiny.

william brangham has our coverage, beginning with this report. and a warning -- this story contains sensitive subject matter including discussion of suicide. >> i don't think parents are going to stand by while our kids and our democracy become collateral damage to a profit game. william on capitol hill, : executives from youtube, snapchat and tiktok were grilled by lawmakers on what these wildly popular platforms are doing to protect children online and exactly what kinds of material kids are able to access. >> kids as young as 9 have died doing viral challenges on tiktok. william today marks the first : time representatives from tiktok and snapchat have appeared before congress. among the many issues lawmakers asked about -- how to prevent dealers selling counterfeit pills and illegal substances to

young people. >> if a kid had just walked in to, say, a pharmacy, they wouldn't be able to buy that or get that. >> this is not just happening on our platform. it is happening on others, so we need to work collectively. >> i think there's other ways to do this too - as creating liability when this happens so maybe that will make you work even faster so we don't lose another kid. william for much of the hearing, : lawmakers pushed the executives to further limit certain features available to kids, such as autoplay of videos, targeted ad content, and the like and dislike buttons, which can keep children online longer and potentially expose them to bullying. executives stressed they have systems in place to flag harmful content and illegal activity, and that efforts to combat misinformation have been expanded. the executives also pledged to share more data and research on how their platforms impact teens and young adults, but they often

fell short of pledging their full support for a number of bills already introduced. lawmakers continued their calls for more transparency. >> what's your response to the "wall street journal" article that describes in detail how tiktok's algorithm serves up sex and drug videos to minors? >> we disagree with that being an authentic experience that an actual user would have. william: another point of contention was how these platforms can ensure that children only see content that's appropriate for their age. >> the content that appears on snapchat is appropriate for the page group of 13 and above. >> i beg to differ. i had my staff create a snapchat account for a 13-year-old -- for a 15-year-old child. they were immediately bombarded with content that i can most politely describe as wildly inappropriate for a child, including recommendations for , among other things, an invite to play an online sexualized

videogame and articles about porn stars. >> any online sexual video game should be age-gated to 18 and above, so i'm unclear why that content would have shown up. >> we heavily invest in making sure that all of our users, but particularly kids on the platform, have a safe experience. >> i'm quoting from searches that we've done -- "songs to slit your wrists by, vertical slit wrist. do the self harm and suicide videos violate youtube's content guidelines? >> senator, i would certainly welcome following up with you on the video you might be referencing. william legislators also wanted : to know what data was being collected about children by these apps. >> tiktok actually collects less in many categories than many of our peers.

>> which of your competitors or other companies you're aware of collect more information? >> facebook and instagram, for example. >> being different from facebook is not a defense. that bar is in the gutter. william: while the companies tried to separate themselves from each other, lawmakers from both sides agreed more action is needed to ensure kids are safe online. for more on how these platforms are affecting kids' mental health, we turn to jean twenge. she is a professor of psychology at san diego state university and the author of "i-gen: why today's super-connected kids are growing up less rebellious, more tolerant, less happy--and completely unprepared for adulthood." great to have you back on the "newshour." as we heard, a lot of concern on capitol hill expressed about the potential for these platforms to be causing harm in young people. what do we know about the actual research as to if these things do cause harm?

>> generally speaking, the more time a kid or teen spends in front of the screen, the more likely they are to be depressed, anxious, to harm themselves. there's gradations to this. watching videos is not as strongly linked as being on social media. but when kids spend a lot of time online, it leaves less time sleep, less time for interacting with people face-to-face, less time for running around outside and exercising. perhaps as a result, what we have seen is a huge increase in teen depression right at the time these platforms became very popular. william: do you feel that that -- is this causal or a correlation? do you feel confident that it is

these platforms themselves or simply, as you are describing, opportunity cost, that if you put a screen in front of your face, you are not doing other things that we know are healthier for kids? >> this is complex. there's many issues at stake here. one is that time spent. when it is excess of 24, 5, 6, 7 hours a day, it crowds out time for things that are more beneficial. then there is the question of content, which was discussed a lot today. there's a lot of negative content kids get exposed to on these platforms, and as to if it is causal, that has been a really hard question to answer. there have been some studies that have, say, had college students cut back on social media use. they found that students once they cut back on social media use, work more healthy.

that really points in the direction that at least some of it is going from using these platforms many hours a day toward depression and many other health issues. william: how does this body of research translate -- if i'm a parent debating what to do with my child and devices and social media, what is the current best advice for parents? >> this is one reason we need more policy and regulation in this area. because you have the fear that if your kid does not use social media, then they will be left out, and if you do use social media, they face negative health issues, negative content, and so on. i think there's two important things. first, stall when your kid gets on social media as long as you

can. 10 is too young to be on social media. 13 is the legal limit, but even 13 kind of young. the second aspect is to make sure that they are using social media and video platforms in moderation, that it is not taking over their life. if they want to spend an hour or two a day outside school on these platforms, not a big deal. it is when that use gets to 4, 5, 6 hours and beyond, that it is much more concerning for mental health and other issues. william: really is a remarkable social experiment working out there right now. always good to see you. thanks for being here. >> thank you. judy: thousands of afghan

refugees are now in the united states, following their evacuation as the taliban took over afghanistan. those refugees are mostly scattered among eight military bases around the united states, but some 10,000 have been released and resettled into different communities. nick schifrin has one of their stories. nick: on the morning of august 15, when the afghan government still led the country, muqaddesa yourish was where she always was on sunday, a workday -- in her office as the commissioner of afghanistan's civil service. >> i was in my office when my mom called me and told me she wanted me to be home. i told her, listen, i have to be in office because i have to wrap up a couple of things so i might be home around 6:00, and then she told me, it is over. nick: for 20 years, yourish had worked to create a modern, conclusive afghanistan. she'd been a public servant, a

former deputy minister of commerce, an ngo leader, a voice of her generation. but that day it all unraveled. the taliban seized the presidential palace, the city, and the country. muqaddesa and her family moved from house to house to avoid taliban fighters now on patrol. did you feel like your life was in danger if certain members of the taliban found you? >> once they took over, reports started coming in about trying to identify former government officials. we left our entire house because we didn't have the time to pack it. i wish i had just taken a final look at our house and not my -- our house and my room, my books. i just did not have the chance. you know, i only have a couple of minutes to pack my entire life in a suitcase, and i just i

was overwhelmed. nick like so many, she rushed : for the airport. she was one of the lucky ones. she got through the chaos at the gate, and onto a flight destined to the u.s. >> when we got very close to the airplane on the on the ramp, i think that's when it hit me that you know, i was i was leaving and i was flying out and leaving my soul back in the country. so everybody that i knew who was boarding the plane with us were crying. every single person. it is the first time i'm talking about this, and it is not easy. it's not easy to try to leave home, everything, and nobody does it, unless and until they fear for the safety of

themselves and their family. nick: 6800 miles away in rural wisconsin lies sparta, a town of 10,000, where american flags fly on main street and nearby fort mccoy has stood sentry for more than a century. it became yourish's temporary home, a spartan sanctuary, disconnected from the life she had to leave behind. recently, fort mccoy invited a pool camera to film afghan refugees' life on base. there -- on base. there are more than 12,000 refugees here, half children. they take classes, eat food now certified how law, and -- eat food now certified halal, and live in barracks usually reserved for service members. >> the spaces are certainly

shared. we you don't get to have your private room, you know, so you have to put up with the fact that you will be sharing your space with other families. it certainly took all of us a while, including the officials and the administration here at the fort mccoy to, you know, put their heads around everything because it was a very unexpected move for all of us, but i think this is slowly feeling home and becoming home, and we certainly feel grateful for the generosity and the warmness and the hospitality that we have received here. [32.8] the bigger question for all of us here is how do we what will the future hold for for every one of us? and to try to think of just equipping yourself with the with the right tools to start a new life over when you already had one. nick the old way of life is : being attacked. some taliban fighters have beaten women for protesting. the taliban detain afghans they accuse of being criminals, sometimes parade them in the streets, and in the central

square of the western city of herat last month, hanged a man from a crane. >> every day it brings a new, something new, a new atrocity that the taliban have committed. nick and now, a second : catastrophe: economic meltdown. banks don't have cash. families are selling furniture, so they can buy food. the taliban government can't pay people's salaries, and the u.s. and its allies are refusing to release billions of dollars in reserves. >> the fear of hunger, i think, is always there. and just using this platform, i would like to call on the world to tell them that the people of afghanistan don't deserve being punished like this and that, if anything, in the past 20 years, the people of afghanistan have shown the resilience that the world might not have known. nick: resilience in two decades

of progress. in 16-year-old maram atayee's piano virtuosity. millions of afghan girls who embraced education as soon as the taliban were overthrown in 2001, an independent tv channels watched by millions. this weekend, after our interview, yourish and her family resettled in washington, d.c. >> we feel very lucky to have muqaddesa yourish. nick and she received an award : from former secretray of state hilly clinton for being a changmaker. >> joined me in my desperate hope for the country, because to do anything, you first need to believe in something, and i still believe in my country. nick she insists that she and : other afghans who had to flee are not victims, and on that final day in kabul, she realized she needed to either get busy living or get busy dying.

>> dying is not always physical. if i would have been back home right now, i just would have been a silent observer. to me, that is a gradual death in itself. when the taliban took over, i think i had two choices -- to stay and die, or try to leave and keep my voice. be here, on this show, and try to continue, you know, to do my work and advocate for an afghanistan that i think the people of afghanistan deserve to live in. i chose to stay alive and i chose my voice. one clarity that i have is that anything that i will do will be in the hope that that will take me back home someday. nick: for the "pbs newshour," i'm nick schifrin. judy: it has long been a given that a four year college degree is a prerequisite for moving up

the economic ladder, but for some, that requirement is having unintended consequences. paul solman has the story for our series on rethinking college. >> i type in c-o-n-s-t space port -- paul: in durham, north carolina, software engineer tony byrd is so sure of his skills, he was game to try to teach me how to code. >> and the spaces and the format is very particular. >> i love understanding systems. paul white hat hacker oscar : anaya, who grew up dirt-poor in a texas bordertown, is pretty confident himself. >> because i've always been good at computer hacking. paul in cumberland, maryland, : the heart of appalachian coal country -- >> my high school mascot was a coal miner. paul: cybersecurity engineer john hartman isn't bashful either.

>> there was no better candidate than me for that job. paul but hartman didn't have a : college degree. neither did anaya or byrd. and that -- that alone -- kept them out of good jobs for years. byrd, quarterback of his high school football team, let his chance for an athletic scholarship slip away. >> i just kept procrastinating and pushing it off and didn't put in the application form like i should have. nick instead, he wound up : working as a barista for seven years. his current colleague mariana perez, also now a software engineer, toiled as a manicurist for nine years as she struggled to pay for community college. >> i had to stop, work, make sure i had the money and then continue because i did not want to have loans. paul in john hartman's second : year of community college -- >> my car just broke down. i had a 1988 ford bronco.

the transmission went out on me twice. i can't afford to go to college now. i need to go get a job. paul: at a local factory, building cabinets. followed by stints as a freight train conductor then shift work , at a paper mill. >> one of the most dangerous industries that there is. there was a lot of dangerous chemicals, moving machinery that anybody could get swept into and hurt. paul oscar anaya also dropped : out of community college for high-risk work on an oil rig. >> in the sun with chemicals and helicopters and things like that. i was breathing in a lot of small, fine particles of granite, so it completely destroyed my nostrils and sinuses, so i had to leave that job. i was like, you know what? i'm good with computers. i should try doing something with computers, so i applied and applied and no one was picking me up. something's happening that is

just not letting me through, and the only criteria i could think of is education, and i honestly started a link into a very nihilistic way of seeing the world where i was like, you know what? this is just how it's going to be. i'm probably never going to make as much as my friends are making because i didn't finish college. paul: you mean you had good reason to believe you were being rejected because you don't have a college degree. that then made you feel inadequate. >> it contributed to my downward spiral emotionally, yes. paul anaya is far from alone, : says economist byron augeeste. >> over the last 40 years we've , come to a place where the vast majority of middle class jobs require a bachelor's degree to be considered. paul: sometimes to the point of absurdity. >> even though 2/3 of

administrative assistance don't have natural or degrees, three quarters of the new job postings byrd ministry of assistance say you have to have a bachelors degree to be considered for the job. 2/3 of the people who currently do the job can't apply for three quarters of the new jobs in the field. paul: but why? >> sometimes a company will require a college degree just because they can. paul: hiring expert nick corcodilos, who runs the "ask the headhunter" website, say the degree hurdle emerged as help wanted ads moved online, and the number of applicants per job exploded. >> sometimes a company will get 10,000 applicants for one job. how do they winnow them out? one of the easiest ways is just require a college degree. paul well this is obviously : discriminatory against people who don't have a college degree, right? >> well, but you can't accuse a company of discriminating because they ask for a college degree, can you? you can't process people through a database, you can process their keywords through a database and a college degree is nothing more than a keyword.

paul but the net effect is : discriminatory. overall, more than sixty percent of american workers don"t have a four-year degree, but says byron auguste -- >> when you put a bachelor's degree screen on a job, you exclude almost 70 percent of african-americans. you exclude almost 80% of latino workers, and by the way, you exclude almost any percent of rural workers of all races. paul: and that, says auguste, has been fueling inequality since 1980, pushing wages for those with just a high school diploma down 13% adjusted for inflation, while wages for those with a four-year degree have risen by 13%. for men, the difference in lifetime earnings is now around a million dollars. >> to say that college can be a bridge to opportunity, that's great, but to make college a drawbridge that pulls up and if you cannot cross it, then you

have no path to opportunity. paul: and you wind up in the low-wage moat. >> so i did a little bit of valet parking. >> i finally got on with ups as a package handler for the, just for like the christmas season. >> i went into retail, i sold computers. >> i'm tired of being at the mercy of all these other jobs. i want a career. >> this simplistic bachelor's degree screen, it's really outlived its usefulness. employers are leaving so much talent on the table. paul: not all employers, however. ibm, for instance, has earn-while-you-learn apprenticeship programs, which have trained the four people you've now met. no experience required. though oscar anaya, now on ibm's top hacker team, already had plenty of skills. >> i've been hacking computers since i was 12 years old. paul because that was the only : way he could get a computer. >> we were extremely poor. so what, what could i afford? paul: an old one for 20 bucks.

locked, so he had to hack his way in. fittingly, during his up into schip interview -- >> he was asking me things about how to break into things. paul like electronic ankle : bracelets. i told them that a lot of the >>i told them that a lot of the attacks could be done with a three dollar screwdriver and a couple of cabl, which is something that your security system would not imagine, and that's how i got accepted into the a printer should. paul as did tony byrd, after : seven years behind the starbucks counter in the ibm lobby. when did it occur to you that you could actually work at ibm? >> that's when my friend dave comes in. >> it happened one day when he asked me how do i go upstairs , and do what you are doing? i'm like, well, you just got to learn how to talk to computers, and he asked me, can you teach me how to do that? i said, what are you doing during lunch. paul: green tutored, byrd

learned the basics of coding. on his second try, he passed the apprenticeship test. are you sorry you didn't go to college? >> no, not now. paul: and so a final question for philosopher and longtime professor martha nussbaum. do you think every young person in america should go to college? >> yes. well, everyone who wants to. going to college has three purposes -- one is to prepare you for a job. second is to prepare you for a life full of richness and meaning. the third is to prepare you to be a good citizen. paul: as she argues in her book, not for profit, without good citizens, democracy dies. but she adds -- >> the first thing is everyone should have the opportunity to do it without crushing burden of cost. paul that's why ibm's former : software apprentices could hardly believe their ears when ibm's kelli jordan told them: >> we've been partnering with the american council on education and they've actually determined that the software development apprenticeship program is worth up to forty

five college credits, which is the equivalent of three semesters of college. paul putting tony byrd close to : an associates degree. and mariana perez close to a bachelors. though she no longer needs one to get a high-paying job. >> this is one of the guys i kicked off the water station. he was taking a lot of loads of water. >> bandits are stealing millions of gallons of water, driving water tanks, tankards, and pickup trucks, they are tapping into lakes and rivers, firetrucks, and filling stations, siphoning water from homes, farms, and oils, so who is on the receiving end of all this stolen water? local officials say it is off an illegal pot farms, which is an 8 billion dollar industry in california. the desert is now strewn with makeshift pot farms. california allows them with proper per -- proper permits and

local approval, but the penalty for growing even thousands of marijuana plants is only a misdemeanor and a $500 fine. 80% of california's roughly 30,000 pot farms are illegal according to the state water board. >> where these rules are, they do not have running water, so they either have to drill wells or truck in water from other areas, and that is where the incentive to steal water comes from. >> from cisco county on the oregon border to san bernardino county on its arizona border, some california communities are seeing their municipal water being stolen. this local water district hired a private security guard to investigate who was stealing water. the discovery was alarming. >> what we found was a multitude of locations. some of those locations are on

abandoned properties, private properties and the like. >> in addition to outright theft, there is also a black market where residents sell their water to middlemen. a court ruling restricts how much water residents can pump for their own use, but when black-market buyers show up with tanks and cash, landowners cut deals, says kimberly cox. >> wells, in many cases, are now abandoned, or the people living in those houses with the wells will sell their water. >> the state can find bandits up to $1000 a day, but that is a pittance for players in a multibillion-dollar illegal pot industry. the president of hillandale's water services is frustrated. >> there's no teeth in any of the laws. we are at the mercy of whatever. >> local police have started

reading more illegal pot farms to try to reduce demand, but for people like johansson, who has been a victim of water theft, the influx of new users has complicated the mundane task of hauling water to her home. >> i don't know who breaks my waterlines. >> the san bernardino water manager says she is frustrated by the lack of authority to deal with water theft. >> is there a mechanism to cut off water to these farms without having the response be very negative? no one has tried this. we are not enforcement officers. we don't carry guns. >> in the meantime, governor gavin newsom has asked californians to cut water usage. >> there is a reluctance to ask

customers to cut back when this kind of customer seems to be taking water regardless of drought. >> as climate change continues to wreak havoc, causing fires and droughts, california's demand for water shows no signs of easing. judy: yes, all this as the world worries about climate change and heads into a global conference in fact to talk about it. that's "the newshour" for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. joining us -- join us online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you. please stay safe, and we will see you soon. >> major funding for "the pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> the landscape has changed and not for the last time. 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. resilience is the ability to pivot again and again for whatever happens next. >> people who know no bdo -- people who know know bdo. >> consumer cellular. johnson & johnson. financial services firm raymond james. bnsf railway. carnegie corporation of new york, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and international peace and security at carnegie.org. the carnegie -- the target

foundation, committed to racial equality. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. this is "pbs newshour west," from weta studios washington and our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪ [captioning performed by the

-comidas caseras, food that has that taste of home -- comforting, favorites, traditional. in jalisco, i traveled deep into the countryside where those dishes are being kept alive by a prominent food researcher... this tamal is already killing me. ...and visit an haenda where they are being passed down through the generations of a single family. -the family cookbook. -it's such a treasure! and home-style food is what i share with you in my kitchen... this dish that i'm going to show you how to make right now, you'll only find it in a mexican home or in your home. ...when i make these flavor-packed jalisco-style chicken tamales and an irresistible cheesy chile relleno rice with salsa roja. this, to me, is -- ah! -- a thing of beauty!