captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, getting the vaccine-- what the new federal vaccination requirements, and the looming deadline, mean for workers and large businesses. then, biden agenda battle-- congress moves closer to passing a revised version of the president's major infrastructure and spending legislation but questions remain about the bills' fate. and, frozen in time-- how ice samples collected from endangered glaciers help us understand earth's atmospheric history, and could provide clues to the severity of climate change. >> it is a wonderful recorder. it keeps what it captures. it's the only place that we have these records of the gaseous composition of the atmosphere.

>> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> fidelity is here to help you work through the unexpected, with financial planning and advice for today, and tomorrow. >> the kendeda fund.

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>> woodruff: the united states has now lost 750,000 americans to covid-19, another tragic milestone in the pandemic. today, the biden administration spelled out how it will require private businesses to ensure employees get vaccinated against covid-19, or submit to regular testing. the rule, which would go into effect january 4, impacts some 84 million private sector workers. amna nawaz has the details. >> nawaz: judy, that rule comes from the department of labor's occupational safety and health administration, and applies to private businesses with 100 or more employees. it mandates that workers who don't get fully vaccinated, get tested weekly. and by that same january 4th deadline, 17 million health care workers in filities that receive medicare or medicaid funding must get vaccinated. marty walsh is the secretary of labor and joins me now.

secretary walsh, welcome back to the newshour. thank you for making the the time. so you're not requiring vaccines for those 84 million private sector employees who choose to get tested weekly. if we know the shots work, slow the spread of the virus and save lives, why not just require them? >> because what we want to do here is get as many people vaccinated as possible and we have the option for testing there as well, and testing, and also masks. so we looked apt-- we didn't do a mandate. the emergency temporary standard, at least it recognizes people in different situations and hopefully will be able to address all the different situations people might have. >> nawaz: but you did require them for the healthcare workers, the 17 million who work in those facilities. why requirement there? >> because it's a whole different case when we're talking about people working around other people with illnesses, and there was a different set of rules there. >> nawaz: what if those employees who are required, who don't have the option to just get tested, what if they refuse to get vaccinated? >> in the first e.t.s.?

>> nawaz: no, the second, with the healthcare work required to get vaccinated by the january 4 deadline, if they refuse, what then? >> employers will be able to take the action they think is right. and also, they're working with osha right now, and they've done-- they've had a 50-year history of making these rules work. >> nawaz: so let me ask you about what we've seen so far from private companies because some have taken up their own vaccine mandates. united airlines is one we often cite as an example, but others have not. walmart, for example, one of the nation's largest employers. i'm curious why you think they have not put into place stricter regulations when it comes to requiring employees to get vaccinated. >> i think a lot of people have concerns about how do we move forward here? this is kind of unchartered territory in the last two years with the coronavirus, and there's been different ways of virus increases and the delta variant was another one. i think a lot of employers didn't exactly know how to proceed. and part of today with the emergency temporary standard, i

think it will give some employers a road map on the best way moving forward. you mentioned united airlines, and other companies have put in mandates. this is not a mandate, but they put in mandates. and they've seen 85%, 90% compliance. what we're hoping here is we'll see a high compliance rate in companies that might not have any type of vaccine program. this will allow them the opportunity to institute it. and we want to-- the bottom line here is creating a safe work environment for workers to go to work. >> nawaz: mr. secretary, what about penalties? if companies aren't able to comply, meet that january 4 deadline, financial penalties? how do you actually enforce that? >> osha has a 50-year history of doing these, of compliance and working with temporary standards as we move forward here. so i'm confident that in the osha process, and we'll be working with employers as we move forward here, educating them on what will be their responsibility. >> nawaz: but to clarify, there could be financial penalties ahead for companies who don't comply, correct? >> yes, there could be, yes. >> nawaz: you mentioned the

lawsuits. republican attorney generals in a number of states are ramping up, they call it overreach into the private sector. they call it unconstitutional. they say it's an imposition on personal choice. are you confident these rules will stand up in court? >> yeah, we are confident. it was a well-written rule and put together, a lot of thought went into it. and, again, i think some of the companies around the country have already begun something like this and has put, in some cases, a mandate. we were very thoughtful when we put this together that it's an encourage-- we're encouraging people to be vaccinated and businesses, obviously, to encourage people to be vaccinated. but there are other options in there, such as testing and masks. >> nawaz: what about states where the governor is explicitly directing their state department of labor not to comply, indiana, for example? are you telling those labor offices they are to defy their governor? >> we're not tell them to defy their governor. this lawsuits superseeds their rules in those states. >> nawaz: what is your message to employer in some of those

states, where leadership may not support the rules and regulations? how can you support them if they're trying to put these rules and regulations in case? >> you know, i've done a few interviews today, and everyone keeps focusing on the other side, employers that don't want to put these cases in, and employers who don't want to run these. i actually feel there are more emplemployers in this country tt want these rules and want to institute these rules and now we have the ability to do that. and i think there are more people in this country supportive of vaccines and supportive of testing than not. as we move forward here, i'm going to stay positive on this and continue to work with business and work with individuals and encourage people to get vaccinated until we're on the other side of this virus. >> nawaz: secretary of labor marty walsh joining us tonight. secretary walsh, thank you so much for your time. good to have you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, a judge in kenosha,

wisconsin, dismissed a juror in the kyle rittenhouse murder trial. rittenhouse killed two people and wounded a third, during protests last year. he says it was self-defense. kenosha's unrest erupted after jacob blake was shot by police. today, judge bruce schrader announced a white juror had joked about blake. >> it's clear that the appearance of bias is present, and it would seriously undermine the outcome of the case. the public needs to be confident that this is a fair trial. and i think even at the at the very most. it was bad judgment to tell a joke of that nature. >> woodruff: meanwhile, in brunswick, georgia, a nearly all-white jury will be seated tomorrow for three white men accused of murdering ahmaud arbery. we'll return to this, later in the program. a russian analyst was charged today by a special counsel probing the origins of the trump-russia investigation.

igor danchencko is accused of lying to the f.b.i. he provided information for a democratic-funded dossier on ties between russia and then- candidate donald trump in 2016. later, federal officials used it to justify surveillance of a former trump aide. at the u.n. climate summit, more than 20 countries pledged to phase out coal use within the next two decades. they include several heavy users: chile, indonesia, south korea, ukraine and vietnam. the u.s. and others committed to curbing financial support for coal-fired power plants. >> coal financing has been well and truly choked off. we know that this transition must be just, and new tools for delivering the transition are emerging. development banks, governments, philanthropies and the private sector are coming behind it, helping countries across the world. >> woodruff: some environmental groups complained the pledges

are not ambitious enough. in iran, thousands of people turned out for anti-american rallies that were canceled last year because of the pandemic. crowds gathered in tehran and other cities to mark the 1979 takeover of the u.s. embassy. they chanted "death to america" and burned u.s. flags. the embassy crisisasted 444 days before 52 american hostages were released. back in this country, the u.s. senate confirmed robert santos for director of the census, the first person of color in that job. the 2020 census struggled with the pandemic and president trump's bid to identify people in the u.s. illegally. in economic news, new claims for jobless benefits fell again last week, to 269,000. but the trade deficit hit a record high in september-- nearly $81 billion. and, on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average

lost 33 points to close at 36,124. the nasdaq rose 128 points, to another record finish. the s&p 500 added 19, also hitting a closing high. and, three new inductees have joined the national toy hall of fame. they are american girl dolls, the war strategy game "risk," and... sand. the hall of fame says children have played with it since prehistoric times. still to come on the newshour: the controversy over the jurors selected in the trial of white men accused of killing ahmaud arbery. georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger discusses voting laws and his standoff with former president trump. ethiopia teeters on the brink of civil war as the situation in tigray rapidly deteriorates. plus much more.

>> woodruff: with narrow margins in congress, democratic leadership continues its struggle to build a coalition to pass president biden's "build back better" agenda. as lisa desjardins reports, with new details about how it will be paid for, democrats are hoping to push it over the finish line. >> good morning, thank you for your patience. >> desjardins: squarely on the shoulders of house speaker nancy pelosi today, the pressure to pass the biden agenda. >> this is the greatest monumental historic piece of legislation that any of us will ever be a part of. >> desjardins: she means the build back better act-- the sweeping legislation that expands child care funding and would launch universal, free

pre-k. it also would invest billions in climate change iniatives and expand health care access, including by lowering some drug prices. but the bill again hit speed bumps, with questions around its cost. some answers and pages of hard numbers came today from the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation, which estimated that the bill raises at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade. democrats said hundreds of billions more are in sections the committee did not score, meaning it would cover the bills costs. pelosi highlighted the finding within minutes. >> it's not democratic, it's not republican, it's an objective view that it is solidly paid for. >> desjardins: all this as house democrats work overtime. >> we are talking about a multi- trillion dollar bill with over 2,000. >> desjardins: holding an eight hour rules committee meeting last night to move the current version to the house floor, even as republicans expressed opposition. >> it is frustrating to be dealing with something that is

so large-- the biggest bill ever passed the united states house of representatives, the biggest bill. >> desjardins: house democrats have also made key revisions in their bill, adding work permits and a legal status for many undocumented immigrants and a paid leave compromise to give four weeks of time to care for family. still unclear is whether a key moderate, democrat joe manchin, will accept the changes when the bill reaches the 50-50 senate. >> woodruff: and for more on the state of play on capitol hill, lisa joins me now. so, lisa, our viewers may feel they've seen this movie before ( laughing ) neither bill so far having a vote on the floor. where do we stand? >> as of this hour, we do not know what the rest of tonight will look like. it is possible the house could still vote on the "build back better" bill tonight. house speaker nancy pelosi is trying to pressure those moderates who are now the ones

holding out to get them on board, but as of this moment they don't have the votes tonight. they may have to wait until tomorrow. the moderates are saying they want to see the full bill, they're skeptical about some items. there are items being negotiated. state and local tax provision, immigration, prescription drugs, methane-- all of those have small snags. we can get into that. judy, what's really going on here is a problem of trust. and think of it sort of like a wedding-- two people getting married. one of them has cold feet when the other is ready-- that was progressives. then progressives said, "okay, we're ready to get on board." now the moderates have cold feet. literally at this moment, we are waiting to see if both sides in the house democratic caucus will say "i do" to what is a massive and e most-important vote potential of many of these democrats' years. >> woodruff: no question. lisa, when you mention still concerns over the cost, what specifically are the concerns? >> you know i like talking numbers. so i think in the days ahead, we'll delve more into the

numbers as we see the exact bill that gets passed. but when you look at this bill and what we learned today from the joint committee on taxation, $1.75 trillion, the important message they believe the democratdo pay for that. the biggest parof those pay-ifs, are taxes on the wealthy and also the corporate tax. now, those are still items that could have problems in the senate potentially. it seems like everyone is on board. one of the important points i want to make about this, wever, is that it's paid for in part because some of these programses don't last for 10 years. some of the most popular programs, including the child care tax, child care tax credit, as well as that universal pre-k., those end in three to six years. so some of this-- it is paid for. but when you look on deeper inspection, it's assuming that those programs won't last, when in fact, democrats want them to be permanent. >> woodruff: they agreed to phase some things out that had been 10 years. so immigration, you mentioned

that as one of the things still being debated. where does that specifically stand? >> okay, so let's talk about the proposals on the table for house democrats. this is an issue that many democrats are wrestling with right now, if they want to get on this bill or not. here's where we stand: option one. this is an option having to do with the registry of immigrants in this country, and it would allow essentially for green cards and a path to citizenship for those who arrived in this country after 2010-- who have been here-- sorry, who arrived before 2010. let me make sure i get this straight. it's confusing. moderates are concerned. that would be millions of undocumented people in this country now. anyone who got here before 2010, essentially. the option two, though, that moderates like better is status, not a green card, not a path to citizenship. it's something called "parole." it would be 5-10 years of technical immigration parole.

it would be extended to five years if people ade by the conditions. but progressives, of course, don't like that. so how do you square that circle? those are the two ideas on the table now. progressives say something's better than nothing. all of them concerned, judy, because it's not clear either of these ideas can pass the senate muster, or the senate parliament aryan, as our viewers now, have to say anything in this bill is budgetary. and there's nervousness across the house democratic caucus if any immigration can pass and do they vote for this without knowing or not. >> woodruff: you were reporting yesterday this could take weeks, even after the house passes it. so there is some cushion in expectation. but the house vote-- >> this is a big moment. if the house does not get this done this week, they have a very serious problem with scheduling, and the senate, pelosi knows that. so the next two days are critical. >> woodruff: lisa desjardins, once again, on top of it all. thank you very much. >> you're welcome.

>> woodruff: just before opening statements are set to begin tomorrow, there are new questions about jury selection in the trial of the men charged with killing ahmaud arbery. three white men are accused of murdering arbery, who is black, in southeastern georgia last year. cellphone video showed the men chasing arbery down, and it spawned nationwide protests. as john yang reports, jury selection added even more questions about race into this trial. >> yang: judy, in a county whose population is nearly 30% black, only one african-american is on the jury of this racially charged case. the judge in the case said there appeared to be "intentional discrimination" on the part of the defense, but said he didn't have the legal authority to do anything about it. paul butler is a professor at

georgetown law and a former federal prosecutor. thanks for being with us. what do you make of how this jury ended up? >> you know, it almost sounds like a relic of the old south. we have a case in which an african american man was hunted down and killed by three white men. those men have been charged with a number of crimes, including murder, false imprisonment, and aggravated assault. now they have virtually an all-white jury-- 11 white people and one african american. it doesn't sound like something that should happen in 2021, especially in a jury district that is almost one-third african american. >> yang: you talk about a relic of the old south, and the relic of the old south, it would have been the prosecution that had done this. but here it was the defense. remind us how this process works

and what latitude, what leeway the judge had to do something about this. >> so during jury selection in a criminal trial, after the judge has found that potential jurors are qualified to sit on the case, both the prosecution and the defense get a certain number of strikes, which they can use to remove jurors forny reason, other than race or gender. if one side believes that the other is improperly striking jrors because of race or gender, they can require the judge to hold a hearing. and that event, the person who is removing the jurors, has to identify a race-neutral reason for why they struck those jurors. it could be because of how they answered a particular question. so in this situation, the judge held that hearing yesterday and

found that the reason offered by the defense for getting rid of 11 out of 12 prospective african american jurors were race-neutral. >> yang: even though he said in open court that he suspected that there was intentional discrimination going on, how unusual is it for a judge to say that and yet-- and do nothing about it, let the jury-- let it proceed and not start all over again? >> john, i never heard of another case in which a judge has found intentional discrimination, but then declared there's nothing that they can do about it in the jury selection process. what the judge said was that the reasons that were offered by the defense it, including that some of the jurors knew some of the prospective jurors had heard stuff about the case, had formed opinions or talked with family

members about it, the judge found that all of those were race-neutral. but if you look at other jurors, white folks who were allowed to remain on the jury, they answered some of the same questions the same way. for example, one white juror said that she thought that mr. arbery had been racially profiled. she's still on the jury. another white juror said that she had long conversations with her husband about the case. she's still on the jury. so there's a concern that the defense used answers like that from black-prospective jurors to strike them. again, if you're treating african american and white potential jurors differently, that's unconstitutional. >> yang: in this era of black lives matter, what does the fact that this jury is largely white, what does that say to you? >> it says that we have a long

way to go for all americans to realize equal justice und the law. the supreme court has said that it's important to have african americans in cases that involve race because that makes the verdict more legitimate. in this case, if there's a verdict of not guilty or even a hung jury, almost certainly, the fact that the jury was virtually all white will be blamed. another interesting comparison to the derek chauvin prosecution is that in a lot of high-profile cases during the black lives matter era, to the public, they're all about race. but race doesn't actually come up in the courtroom. it didn't in the chauvin trial. it's unlikely to come up in the trial of kyle rittenhouse that's going on right now. but in this trial, race will be front and center. it's part of the prosecution's theory about why these men and how these men came to take the

life of mr. arbery. >> yang: opening arguments begin tomorrow. paul butler of georgetown university, thank you very much. >> always a pleasure, john. >> woodruff: in the days and months following donald trump's presidential re-election defeat, several american election officials were subjected to threats and an intense pressure campaign by the out-going president desperate to stay in power, perhaps none more so than georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger. in his new book, "integrity counts", he explains his experiences and just how close our democracy came to being dismantled. and he joins me now. mr. raffensperger, thank you very much for being here. you did step in to history when president trump attacked you after the election and asked you

to change the results. you said no, and your book includes this transcript of that, what, hour-long-plus phone call you had with president trump. you took that call to include threats from him. how so? >> that was something i think our office, and i was well prepared for. in fact, when i stepped into the office in january 2019, the first thing was stacey abrams had about nine law suits about the stolen election claim concept she had wasn't based on the truth, which was voter suppression. in 2020, it was voter fraud. none of them were based on the truth. we knew we had the facts on our side and i needed to continue politically, respectfully, let the president know he did lose the election and this is why. we gave him data points and explained to him all the data he had was just wrong. >> woodruff: what you say in the book is you took what he said is threatening to prosecute

you. i mean, the president essentially was asking you to break the law. >> asking us to find 11,800 votes. and there weren't 11,800 votes to find. they just weren't there. he said there were 5,000 dead people. there were less than five. he said there were thousands of felons that voted. he said there were underaged voters. there were 0. we had the data. i calmly, factually laid that out. that's what i do in my book, "integrity counts." people finally get the truth for the very first time. >> woodruff: you and every one of the of republicans who stood up for integrity, the title of your book, who denied that the election was fraudulent, and republicans who have opposed the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol, every one of you is now either facing being primaried by a republican supported by president trump or is leaving office, leaving politics all

together. and i could name liz cheney, adam kinzinger and others. what happened to the republican party? this is the party of donald trump. >> my election i am going to stand on the truth. i have truth on my side, and i know that integrity counts. i'm just going to lean into the goodness of the average american, the average republican voter that are good, upstanding citizens. and that's why i wrote the book so they have all the facts. i know those are cold hard, it's the brutal truth, but president trump came up short in georgia. >> woodruff: and my point is that the republican party is now turning against you and others who refused to do what president trump asked. but i want to ask you about the law that georgia passedar the election. sweeping new set of election laws. if the ection was fair, if you argue that it was, why was it necessary to institute a whole new set of election laws in georgia? >> well, number one, the best thing we did with sb-202, is we

moved away from signature match, which is subjective. in fact, i said in 2018 we need to go to photo i.d. for absentee voting like in-person voting. we have been sued by both the democrat party and republican party over signature match. they said it's subjective. i agree. now we have gone through an objective measure, which is driver's license number and birth date-- day, month, year. this is something they have been doing in minnesota for 10 years now, and texas has copied us and is going to do the same thing. it's a nonpartisan, bipartisan objective measure. and i think objective measures make a lot more sense and really help restore voter confidence, and there will be less squabbling afterwards when it's done by objective measures. >> woodruff: what about those individuals who have to do long hours, may have to work late shifts, may not have a driver's license. why not make it easier for them to vote rather than much harder? >> we have had photo i.d. for

in-person voting for over 10 years, and both parties and all demographic groups support it because they understand it helps ensure you know who that is who is showing up to vote when they use photo i.d. we incorporated that with the secretary match moving away, and now all absentee voting will be with driver's license. we have increased the number of early voting days from 16 up to 17. that includes two sundays. and any county that needs to have it can have, at their choice, two days of sunday voting. that's 19 days. that's more than new york, new jersey, and delaware. >> woodruff: i want to ask you about another couple of provisions of that georgia law. mr. raffensperger, one you know, has to do with not allowing food or drink to be provided to people who are standing in line. we know sometimes in georgia, in some parts of the state, in some counties, precincts, long lines are necessary because of timing,

because of where people work, what their availability is. how do you explain that it's wrong to give people a bottle of water or a snack if they are standing in a long line? and we know this is in particular will be affecting voters of color, african americans. >> well, number one, we also put in sb-202, all lines need to be shorter than one hour. if they are longer than one hour, the next election doesn't solve the problem with that election, but next election, you have to bust the precinct in half or add additional equipment. last november, the average wait time was three minutes in the afternoon, and the longest wait time i saw on our board was 50 minutes. we have already worked hard with the counties to defeat that issue. but also, we have had for time immemortal, no politicking within a 1 if i felt-foot zone.

outside of 150 foot, if you want to give people water or something like that, then you're allowed to do that. it's just within that 150-foot zone, no politicking, no electioneering. and states all have that. they have different zones. some have 150, some have 100, some have 125. that's standard operating practice in elections. >> woodruff: my understanding is in very few states is this the practice. and so it just seems to be sing ling out those voters who may have difficulty getting to the polls and may have to stand in line for a long time. >> well, like i said, we have up to 19 days in our large metro population centers. so that's 19 days of early voting. and then we have no-excuse absentee voting for everyone. >> woodruff: we're going to leave it there. brad raffensperger, who is georgia's secretary of state, out with a new book, "integrity counts." thank you very much. >> thank you, judy.

>> woodruff: the u.s. state department is now allowing non- essential workers and family members to leave ethiopia as rebel forces from the northern tigray region approach the capital. the two sides and their allies have been fighting for exactly one year, and as nick schifrin reports, the conflict is on the brink of all-out civil war that threatens to tear apart the country. of images and accounts may disturbing some viewers. >> schifrin: on the one-year anniversary of the conflict, ethiopian soldiers and officials lit candles for those they called martyred heroes. and while some protected flames from the wind, prime minister abiy ahmed fanned the flames of war. >> ( translated ): we will bury this enemy with our blood and bones and uphold the glory of ethiopia. >> schifrin: government airstrikes target civilian infrastructure in tigray's capital, mekelle. and the humanitarian crisis in

tigray is acute. 400,000 face famine. five million need aid to survive. but a senior official of the u.s. agency for international development told pbs newshour the ethiopian government and its allies have blocked all aid for two weeks, by barring these trucks from entering tigray. and now tigrayan forces are advancing south. analysts warn the country's fate is at stake. the crisis began exactly one year ago when tigrayan forces who used to run the country attacked a federal outpost. federal forces and their allies from neighboring eritrea, and the amhara region, waged a scorched earth campaign and occupied parts of tigray. but in late june, tigrayan forces pushed federal ethiopian soldiers out, and kept going, from tigray into neighboring amharra and afar. and now, toward the capital addis ababa. they captured two key towns and allied themselves with a small militia from the oromo ethnic group, to which abiy also belongs. throughout, it's been a year of

what the u.n. calls“ unprecedented brutality.” >> there are reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed-- by all parties to the conflict. >> schifrin: maarit kohonen sheriff is the africa director for the united nations high commissioner on human rights, which yesterday released the first official account of the war's horrors-- a joint investigation with the ethiopian government. >> the joint invesgative team was looking into executions, summary arbitrary killings, into arbitrary detentions, into violence against women and gang rape, multiple sexual violence against boys. the destruction, the looting of property, livelihoods, the destruction of medical centers and the fact that humanitarian aid has not reached those in need. >> schifrin: that list of atrocities, according to our reporting, was committed almost entirely by ethiopian defense forces and their allies. do you acknowledge that? >> yes. in the period of the specific investigation report between

november and june, the majority of the violations were indeed committed by the ethiopian defense forces, the eritrean national defense forces, as well as the amhara regional forces and their allies. >> schifrin: but since then, the report details tigrayan forces advancing and killing hundreds of civilians-- sometimes with axes and machetes. >> we have indeed documented several of those incidents where tigrayan forces have caused tremendous suffering, whether it's to amharans or other ethnic groups in the region. >> schifrin: the u.n. says its investigators were intimidated, harassed, and blocked from visiting the sites of massacres. one was expelled by the ethiopian government. >> the intimidation over the team was unacceptable. it was by regional authorities, by sometimes even by the civilian population. >> schifrin: but because u.n. investigators teamed up with ethiopian officials, tigrayan officials called the report “an affront to the notion of impartiality.” are you withholding some criticism of the ethiopian government in order to keep working? >> absolutely not.

we are impartial to the parties. we don't get involved in the political conflict. but we're not neutral to the suffering of the victims. the intention of this report is precisely to put a legal obligation on the duty bearers, that being the government and the authorities of ethiopia to take the steps for legal criminal investigations to establish accountability. but to be honest, without the joint investigation, we would not have been able to access the victims. >> schifrin: the world is calling for an immediate ceasefire. today, u.s. envoy jeffrey feltman is in addis. but international pressure isn't working. the ethiopian military's second highest officer, general bacha debele: >> ( translated ): we don't need to heed the advice of foreigners about how to deal with this conflict. this is our war against those who attempt to enslave us. >> schifrin: but there are fears the ethiopian military can't protect the capital. and the u.n. warns "the stability of ethiopia and the wider region is at stake." >> ethiopia borders on countries that already have very unstable

situations. so the conflict, as it is escalating, can seriously destabilize the entire horn of africa. the ones who have any territorial control in this country need to step up, you know, for the love of the people, for the love of the country, because otherwise there will be no ethiopia anymore. >> schifrin: tonight there's real fear the capital could be overrun. the tigrayan rebel army is advancing, and there's little to stop them. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin. >> woodruff: as negotiators at the climate change conference in glasgow, scotland continue their work, the impacts of a warming world are more evident every day. many of the earth's tropical glaciers are in jeopardy because of what humans have already put into the atmosphere. william brangham brings us this profile of a couple in columbus,

ohio who have dedicated their scientific careers to preserving and studying these crucial, endangered parts of our planet's ecosystem. >> brangham: this is one of the rarest, most unusual collections in the world: row upon row of long, silver tubes, full of ice. where we're about to go, i've gotta dress like i'm ready for the arctic. to see them requires some suiting up. lonnie thompson and his wife, ellen mosley-thompson, created this archive, here at the ohio state university's byrd polar and climate research center. >> we have a collection of ice cores from glaciers from all over the world. we've been fortunate to drill in 16 different countries and this is the archive, frozen at minus 30 degrees fahrenheit. >> brangham: you heard that right... minus 30. it's what's needed to preserve these cores, which have been drilled down into the world's

glaciers. they come out as these cylindrical, layered records of the past. >> this is what an ice core looks like. when it comes out of the drill we label it so we know exactly where we are. this core goes back 13,500 years. >> brangham: so this is going backwards in time. >> it is. >> brangham: the thompsons have been collecting and studying these cores since the 1970's. lonnie works on the high, tropical glaciers around the equator, while ellen focuses on the polar regions. did you really intentionally divide up the world where you get the top and bottom, you get the middle? >> we had a daughter at home and his field seasons working in the low latitudes are june, july and august. if i'm working in antarctica, i'm working december, january, february. >> brangham: i see-- so you can co-parent. >> living the dream!

>> brangham: it's a division of labor and love that's worked well in their 50-year partnership, one that began at college in west virginia. >> this is when ellen and i got married. >> brangham: oh my gosh, look at you two. >> and we're just kids. >> brangham: how old were you? >> we were married in june and you turned 23 in may and you were still 22. i was just, yeah, well, i robbed the cradle. >> brangham: i wasn't that much older myself when i first met these two. that's me, over 20 years ago-- a young producer, and brand-new father, 19,000 feet up on mount kilimanjaro in tanzania, filming with the thompson's colleagues who were studying those glaciers and their connection to climate change. from africa to antarctica to south america, the thompson's expeditions have taken them to some of the most extreme, remote locations on the planet. and they both admit, they didn't set out to study climate change.

>> we started in the 1970s, in the 1970s, people were concerned about the earth getting colder and going into another ice age. >> brangham: and you thought, oh, this is a growth opportunity! >> yeah, right. little idea what we were getting into. the purpose was to go into places where we had no records. >> it is a wonderful recorder, and the unique thing about it is it keeps what it captures and it's the only place that we have these records of the gaseous composition of the atmosphere. >> on huascaran we didn't expect to find 20,000 year old ice. we were looking maybe get 4,000, and climate has played a big role. >> brangham: the quelccaya ice cap in peru is one lonnie has returned to over and over again. and it, like so many tropical glaciers on earth, are disappearing right before our

eyes. in some cases, this archive at the ohio state university may be one of the last records of those glaciers left on earth. here's just one example. 20 years ago when i was on kilimanjaro i stood next to this glacier, the furtwangler glacier, where all these samples came from. now, because of climate change, that glacier is gone. this is all that is left. >> i've often thought that if we had a glacier in ohio that people would see every day and watch how it is behaving we would have very few climate deniers. >> brangham: their latest drilling expedition was in 2019 to huascaran in peru, before the pandemic brought travel to a screeching halt. some of the cores from that trip are now coming out of cold storage and being studied by french postdoctoral student emilie beaudon. she was in peru when these cores

were collected, and now she's taking samples to study what was captured inside that ice. >> brangham: does it ever strike you when you're holding something like that to think this is 6,000, 7,000 or older years ago, of the atmosphere on earth back then? >> every single time i process a piece of ice, i connect with that thought and it's mesmerizing. i really have to make sure i look at it. there are many things to see in ice, you could see oh it's just a piece of solid water, it makes you think about your next research question. >> brangham: beaudon and her colleagues melt down the samples and then examine what was frozen inside centuries ago: dust, minerals, volcanic ash, even samples of our ancient atmospheres, trapped inside tiny bubbles. the thompson's trips to collect these cores come with their own challenges: moving heavy drilling gear up and down a mountain at high altitude,

keeping those cores frozen solid all the way back to columbus, ohio, even playing something o a cultural ambassador when under the threat of being shot with arrows. >> papua indonesia, new guinea, what used to be new guinea, and it's the only ice field between the himalayas and the andes. the monme tribe. you know, they attacked us while we were drilling-- 150 of them. >> brangham: literally attacked you?. >> yes. attempted to... >> attempted. we were drilling up with the clouds. i mean, this is the rainiest place on earth. >> brangham: why were they so upset you were there? > in their religion, the arms and legs of their gods are the mountains in the valleys, the head of their god is the glacier. and in their words, we were drilling into the skull of their god, to steal their memories. and i told them, that is exactly what we're doing. and i said that the day will come very soon when the only memories of your god will be in

the freezer at ohio state university. >> brangham: its true: as soon as two years from now, that very glacier will likely be gone. satellite images show its rapid shrinkage over the last 30 years. for the thompsons, the ultimate challenge is getting the world to recognize the very real impact humans are having on the planet. >> climate change is no longer in the future. it's here now. but i take hope in the fact that we do change and we can change and we can change on a dime. i mean, i, you can look at our history. i mean, we've gone through energy transformations. i mean, you know, we didn't leave the stone age because we ran out of stones. we found a better way to do it. >> you know, on the back end, bp and exxon are working on renewable energies, but they're not going to give up on the big fat cow that they've got right now. and so it's going to take time,

and it's going to take the political will. people will have to change because mother nature isn't going to change. >> brangham: the thompsons hope to keep their work going. their next drilling operation is already planned, and to keep climbing those high peaks, lonnie got a heart transplant. now, it's the freezer's turn-- they say they need a bigger and newer one to preserve all that ice, and the many discoveries still frozen inside them. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham in columbus, ohio. >> woodruff: as we reported, the u.s. passed another tragic pandemic milestone: three quarters of a million americans have died from covid-19. doctor sanjay gupta is focusing in part on what we could have

done differently. here's the second part of my conversation with him about his bok, "world war c: lessons from the covid-19 pandemic and how to prepare for the next one." welcome to the newshour. we appreciate your joining us. you spent several hours last month talking to joe rogan, who say talk show host, part of his podcast, essentially trying to change minds, to explain to people what the vaccine is. did you come away from that with a better understanding of why people have this reluctance, of how ingrained these views are? >> well, you know, i have a better understanding that it is very real, the skepticism. i think sometimes you think that, look, logic will prevail, right. i mean, this is a vaccine that can save lives. it was the moon shot of scientific developments. that should win the day, ultimately. but you come to find out, that there is a significant amount of

resistance, reluctance, hesitancy-- whatever you want to call it. there are two things that really came out of my conversation with joe rogan. as we've democratized information more and more, it's really hard for people to tell good information from bad information. good information from misinformation. and there is true disinformation out there, which is purposeful misinformation. and it's really hard for the average opinion to sort of parse it out. if you were to just google anything right now-- "vaccines can kill you--" if you were to google that, you would find a few papers and lots of web sites to sort of validate your beliefs. what are we going to do going forward, especially in situations like this, when the quality and the veracity of that information really matters? the second thing is, you know, who do we trust, and why has there ( an erosion in trust in pharmaceutical companies in

mainstream media, in large institutions overall? and as a result, when you suddenly say, you know, you get these vaccine requirements that are coming out, there is a significant push-back, because there's already this distrust there that's been festering to begin with. those two things in combination, judy, can make a very, very toxic, you know, environment for people who are trying to sort of navigate this through. it's not everybody, and maybe it's not even the majority of people, but it's enough people out there who have the distrust, fueled by bad information, to lead them to these decisions. >> woodruff: and in connection with that, just quickly, the reluctance we're seeing now on the part of many parents of young children, now that the vaccine has been approved, the pfizer vaccine for young children, is that a different argument to be made to them? >> yeah, i think so. i think the change in the thinking has to be, look, we know children are less likely to get sick, they're less likely to be hospitalized, less likely to die.

and that's all good. but there is still significant risk there, and how people sort of balance that risk. when the chicken pox vaccine came out a couple of decades ago, it was a big deal. it was really heralded as a big scientific achievement. prior to the chicken pox vaccination in the united states, about 100 children died of chicken pox every year. that was unacceptable and we needed to have this vaccine. and now we know over 700 children have died of covid over the last year and a half, and because we're putting it in the context of adults, we're saying this doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal. it is a big deal for those children and overall, for all of us, the more people that are vaccinated the more likely we are to bring this to an end. >> woodruff: one other thing i wanted to ask you about, and this brings it back to the book, and i found it interesting, your advice to people, pretty simple advice, it is to stay healthy in order to fight off the next pandemic or whatever it is that's like the pandemic in the future. spell that out for us.

>> yeah, you know, we always note these pandemics disproportionately affect certain countries, and that happened here as well. but almost in the exact opposite way that you'd expect. wealthier countries were hit much harder as a general rule than poorer countries. and if you drill down on that, a lot of it had to do with the fact that there are lots of diseases of afluness, if you will, in wealthier countries-- diabetes, heart disease, obesity. these same diesels that put people at much higher risk of of developing severe covid if they were to get infected. you know, we've known, obviously, for some time, that there's great value in staying healthy. but oftentimes the argument, judy, has been eat right and exercise and you can avoid a heart attack decades from now. what i think this pandemic put into clearer focus was the real benefit of maintaining good health right now. people who are healthier when they got infected were much likely to do a lot better in

terms of their outcomes. >> woodruff: dr. sanjay gupta, really good to see you. thank you so much. >> my honor, judy. great to see you. >> woodruff: really fascinating stuff in that book. on the newshour online, colin powell will be honored in a funeral service tomorrow afternoon at the washington national cathedral. our own nicole ellis sits down with a panel of guests for a look back at the life and legacy of the first black secretary of state and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. that's tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. eastern on pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: the rules of business are being reinvented, with a more flexible workforce, by embracing innovation, by looking not only at current opportunities, but ahead to future ones.

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hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour & co." here is what's coming up. >> both pieces of legislation are critical. i expect them to become law. >> my conversation with u.s. treasury secretary janet yellen on president bides economic lls, the climate and bono. all right, virginia, we won this thing. >> big wins for republicans, alarm bells for democrats. we will unpack the key election results and what it all means for america's future. no more empty promises. no more empty summits. no more empty conferences. >> making waves and demanding action. young climate activist vanessa nakata on her fight to bring a new africance