judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, getting the vaccine. what are the vaccination requirements and what the deadline means for workers and businesses. biden agenda battle. congress comes closer to passing a version of the president's infrastructure and spending legislation, but questions remain about the bill's fate. and frozen in time. how ice samples 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 is the only place we have these records of the gaseous

composition of the atmosphere. judy: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs has been provided by -- >> fidelity dedicated advisors are here to help you create a wealth plan with tax sensitive investing strategies, planning focused on tomorrow while you focus on today. that is the planning effect, from fidelity. >> johnson & johnson. bnsf railway. consumer cellular. financial services firm raymond james. bdo accountants and advisors. the kendeda fund, committed to

restorative justice through movements in transformative leaders and ideas. carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the investment of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and 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.

judy: 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 that 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. >> that rule comes from the deferment 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. by that same january 4 deadline, 17 million health care workers and facilities that receive medicare or medicaid funding must get vaccinated. marty walsh is the secretary of labor. he joins me now.

welcome back to the newshour. you are not requiring vaccines for those 84 private sector -- 84 million private sector employees. if we know shots work and slow the spread of the virus, why not just require them? >> because what we want to do is get as many people as possible -- get as many people vaccinated as possible. testing and also masks. we did not do a mandate. the emergency temporary standard recognizes people in different situations. >> but you did require them for those health care workers, the 17 million who work in those facilities. why the requirement there? >> because that is a whole different case when we are talking about people working around people with illnesses. >> what if those employees who are required to get vaccinated refused to get vaccinated?

specifically people who are required to get vaccinated by the january 4 deadline. if they refuse, what then? >> employers will take the action they think is right. they are working with osha right now. they have a history of making these rules work. >> let me ask you about what we have seen so far from private companies. some have taken up their own vaccine mandates. united airlines had high compliance, but others of not -- have not. walmart, for example. i am curious why they have not put into place stricter regulations when it comes requiring employees to get vaccinated. >> a lot of people have concerns about how we move forward. this is uncharted territory with the coronavirus. there have been different waves of virus, increases in the delta variant was another one. a lot of employers did not know exactly how to proceed. today, it will give employers a

roadmap on how to move forward. you mentioned united airlines and other companies have put in mandates. we are seeing 85%, 90% compliance. we hope we will see a high compliance rate in companies that don't have any vaccine program. this will allow them to institute it. bottom line is creating a safe work environment for workers. >> what about penalties? if companies are not able to meet the january 4 deadline, financial penalties -- how do you enforce that? >> osha has a history of compliance and working with temporary standards. i am confident that in the osha process we will be working with employers, educating them on their responsibility. >> but there could be financial penalties for companies that don't comply? >> yes. >> we know republican attorneys

general are already ramping up to sue the federal government. they have called this overreach into the private sector. they say it is an imposition on personal choice. are you confident that these rules will stand up in court? >> we are confident. it was a well-written rule. some other companies around the country have already begun something like this. in some cases, with a mandate, we were thoughtful when we put this together. we are encouraging people to be vaccinated. there are other options such as testing and masks. >> what about states where the governor is directing the department of labor not to comply? indiana, for example, are you telling the labor offices to defy their governor? >> this precedes the rules in those states. >> how can you support them if

they are trying to put these regulations in place? >> i have done a few interviews today. everyone keeps focusing on the others, employers that don't want to put these cases in. i feel that there are more employers in this country that want to institute these rules. now we have the ability to do that. i think there are more people in this country that are supportive of vaccines and testing than not. i will stay positive on this and continue to work with businesses and individuals and encourage people to get vaccinated until we are on the others of this virus. >> secretary of labor marty walsh, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. ♪ >> we will return to the full

program after the latest headlines. the justice department is suing texas over its new voting law, stating the new provisions for mail-in voting and voter assistance violate federal civil rights protections. opponents of the bill accuse the republican backed measure of disenfranchising minories and those with disabilities. in kenosha, wisconsin, at the murder trial of kyle rittenhouse, two defense witnesses testified that the first man rittenhouse shot and killed had threatened to kill him, bolstering rittenhouse's claim that he acted in self-defense. rittenhouse killed two people and wounded a third during protests last year that erected after police shot -- erupted after police shot jacob blake. the judge dismissed a white jur or in the trial, claiming he joked about it. >> it would seriously undermine the outcome of the case. the public needs to be

confident that this is a fair trial. at the very most, it was bad judgment to tell a joke of that nature. >> in brunswick, georgia, an nearly all-white jury will be seated for three men accused of murdering ahmaud arbery. a russian analyst was charged today by a special counsel, probing the origins of the trump-rush investigation. he is accused of lying to the fbi. he provided opposition research to democrats on ties between russia and then-candidate donald trump in 2016. federal officials used the dossier to justify surveillance of a former trump aide. at the u.n. climate summit, more than 20 countries planned to phase out coal use. they include's -- include several heavy users. 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 this transition must be just, and new tools for delivering the transition are emerging. banks, p's, and the -- philanthropies, and the private sector are helping countries around the world. >> some environmental groups complain the pledges are not ambitious enough. in iran, thousands turned out for anti-americanes 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. the embassy crisis lasted 444 days before 52 american hostages were released. back in this country, the nba is investigating the owner of the phoenix suns for making racist and massage are listed -- for allegedly making racist and

misogynistic comments. employees claim saver repeatedly used the n word and made lewd comments about women. sarver said the report was inaccurate and that the n word is not part of his vocabulary. 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. in economic news, new claims for jobless benefits fell again last week to 269,000, but the trade deficit hit a record high. still to come on the newshour, the controversy over the jurors selected in the trial of white men accused of killing ahmaud arbery. georgia's secretary of state discusses voting laws and his standoff with former president trump. ethiopia teeters on the brink of civil war, as the situation

rapidly deteriorates. plus, much more. >> this is the pbs newshour, from weta studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at ariza state university. ♪ judy: with narrow margins in congress, democratic leaders continue their struggle to build a coalition to pass president biden's build back better agenda. new details about how it will be paid for. democrats are working to push it over the finish line. rep. pelosi: good morning. >> squarely on the shoulders of house speaker nancy pelosi today was the pressure to pass the biden agenda. rep. pelosi: this is the greatest, monumental, historic piece of legislation that any of

us will ever be part of. >> she means the bill back better act, -- build back better act, that would launch universal free pre-k. it also would invest billions in climate change initiatives and expand health care access, including lowering some drug prices. but the bill 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 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 bill's cost. pelosi highlighted the funding within minutes. >> it is an objective view that it is solidly paid for. >> all this as house democrats work overtime. >> we are talking about a multitrillion dollar bill with over 2000 pages. >> holding an eight hour rules committee last night to move the

current version to the house floor. >> it is frustrating to be dealing with something that is so large, the biggest bill ever passed. do we understand exactly how this is going to work? the language is a little confusing. there is a lot of it, and it is detailed. >> house democrats made key revisions, adding work permits and illegal status for undocumented immigrants, as well as apa leave compromise. still unclear is whether a key moderate, democrat joe manchin, will accept the changes when the bill reaches the senate. judy: for more on the state of play on capitol hill, lisa joins me now. our viewers may feel they have seen this movie before. eith bill so far having a vote on the floor. lisa: as of this hour, we do not know what the rest of tonight will look like. it is possible the house could

vote on the build back better bill tonight. house speaker nancy pelosi is trying to pressure those moderates who are holding out to get them on board. as of this moment, they don't have the votes. they may have to wait till tomorrow. the moderates want to see the full bill. there are some items still being negotiated. state and local tax provision, immigration, prescriptive drugs -- prescription drugs. what is going on is a problem of trust. think of it as a wedding. two people getting married. one of them has cold feet when the other is ready. that is progressives. now the moderates have cold feet. at this moment, we are waiting to see if both sides in the house democratic office will say "i do" to what is the most important vote of many of these democrats' career. judy: when you mentioned still

concerns over the cost, what specifically are the concerns? lisa: in the days ahead, we will delve more into the numbers. when you look at this bill and what we learned from the direct committee on taxation, $1.5 trillion, the important message is they believe democrats do pay for that. the biggest parts are the taxes on the wealthy and also the corporate tax. those are still items that could have problems in the senate potentially. seems like everyone is on board. one of the important points is it is paid for in part because some of these programs don't last for 10 years. some of the most popular programs, including the childcare tax credit as well as universal pre-k end in three to six years. some of this -- it is paid for, but when you look on deeper inspection, it is assuming those programs won't last when

democrats want them to be permanent. judy: they agreed to phase some things out that had been 10 years. immigration is still being debated. where does that specifically stand? lisa: let's talk about the proposals for house democrats. here is where we stand. there is option one. this is an option having to do with the registry of immigrants in this country. it would allow for green cards and a path to citizenship for those that arrived at this country after 2010, that have been here before 2010. moderates are concerned, because that is a large population. it would be millions of undocumented people in this country, anyone who got here before 2010 essentially. the option two that moderates like better is status, not a

green card. that is something called parole. it would be five to 10 years of immigration parole. progressives of course don't like that. how do you square that circle? those are the two ideas on the table. progressives say something is better than nothing. it's not clear either of these ideas can pass the senate mustard, where -- muster, where the senate parliamentarian has to say anything in this bill is budgetary. there is nervousness across the house democratic caucus if any immigration can pass and vote for this without knowing or not. judy: you were reporting this could take weeks even after the house passes it. there is some cushion, but the house vote. >> if the house does not get this done this week, they have a serious problem with scheduling. pelosi knows that, so the next

two days are critical. judy: lisa on top of it all. thank you very much. ♪ 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 shows the men chasing arbery down. it spawned nationwide protests. as john yang reports, jury selection added more questions about race into this trial. john: in a county whose population is nearly 30% black, only one african-american is on the jury of this case. the judge said there appeared to

be intentional discrimination on the part of the defense, but said he did not have the legal authority to do anything. paul butler is a professor at georgetown law and former federal prosecutor. thanks for being with us. what do you make of how this jury ended up? paul: 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 way people and one -- white people and one african-american. it does not sound like something that should happen in 2021, especially in a jury district that is almost one third african-american. john: you talk about a relic of

the old south. it would have been the prosecution that would have done this. here it is the defense. remind us how this process works and what leeway the judge had to do something about this. paul: during jury selection in a criminal trial, after the judge has found that potential jurors are qualified to sit on the cas e, both the prosecution and defense get a certain number of strikes they can use to remove jurors for any reason, other than race or gender. if one side believes the other is improperly striking jurors because of race or gender, they can acquire the judge to hold a hearing. in that event, the person who is removing the jurors has to identify a raca neutral -- a race-neutral reason why they

struck those jurors. it could be how they entered a particular question. in the situation, the judge held that hearing yesterday and found that the reasons offered by the defense for getting rid of 11 out of 12 perspective african-american jurors were race-neutral. john: even though he said in open court that he suspected there was intentional discrimination, how unusual is it for a judge to say that and yet do nothing about it, let the jury proceed and not start all over again? paul: i have never heard of another case in which the judge has found intentional discrimination, but then declared there is nothing they can do about it in the jury selection process. what the judge said was the reasons that were offered by the defense, including that some of

the jurors knew some of the prospective jurors, had formed opinions or talked with family members about it, the judge found all of those were race- neutral. if you look at white folks who were allowed to remain on the jury, they answered some of the same questions the same way. one white juror said she thought mr. arbery had been racially profiled. she is still on the jury. another joker said she had long conversations with her husband about the case -- juror said she had long conversations with her husband about the case. there was concern the defense used those answers to strike african-american jurors. if they are treating african-american and white jurors differently, that is

unconstitutional. john: what does the fact that this jury is largely white say to you? paul: it says that we have a long way to go for all americans to realize equal justice under the law. the supreme court has said it is important to have african-americans in cases that involve race, because that makes the verdict more legitimate. in this case, if there is a verdict of not guilty or even a hung jury, almost certainly the fact that the jury was all white will be blamed. another interesting comparison to the derek chauvin composition, in a lot of cases in the black lives matter era, to the public they are about race, but race did not come up in the courtroom. it is unlikely to come up in the trial of kyle rittenhouse that is going on right now. in this trial, race will be

front and center. it is part of the prosecution's theory about why and how these m en came to take the life of mr. arbery. john: opening arguments begin tomorrow. paul butler of georgetown university, thank you very much. ♪ judy: in the days and months following donald trump's presidential reelection defeat, several american election officials were subjected to threats and an intense pressure campaign by the outgoing president, desperate to stay in power. perhaps none more so than georgia's secretary of state. in his new book "integrity counts," he explains his experiences and how close our democracy came to being dismantled.

he joins me now. thank you for being here. you did step into history when president trump attacked you after the election and asked you to change the results. you said no. your book includes this transcript of that hour-long plus phone call you had with president trump. you took that call to include threats from him. how so? sec. raffensperger: that was something our office was well prepared for. when i stepped into the office in january 2019, the first thing was the question of a stolen election claim concept. itas not based on the truth, which was voter suppression. we knew we had the facts on our side. i just needed to continue to respectfully let the president know that he did lose the election and this is why.

we explained that all the data he had was just wrong. judy: what you say in the book is you took what he said as threatening to prosecute you. the president essentially was asking you to break the law. sec. raffensperger: asking us to find 11,800 votes. they just were not there. he said there were 5000 dead people. there were less than five. he said there were thousands of felons that voted. there were less than 74. he said there were underaged voters, there were zero. there is no underaged voting in georgia. we had the data. i factually laid that out. that is what i do in my book. judy: you and every one of the republicans who stood up for integrity, the title of your book, who deny that the election was fraudulent, and the republicans who have opposed the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol, every one of you is now

being primary by a republican supported by president trump or is leaving politics altogether. i can name liz cheney and others. what has happened to this republican party? this is now the party of donald trump. sec. raffensperger: for my reelection, i will stand on the truth. i know that integrity comes. i --integrity counts. i will lean into the goodness of the average republican voter. that is why i wrote the book, so they have all the facts. i know it is the brutal truth, but president trump came up short in georgia. judy: my point is the republican party is now turning against you and others who refuse to do what president trump asked. i want to ask about the law georgia passed after the election. sweeping new set of election laws. if the election was fair, which you argue it was, why was it

necessary to institute a whole new set of election laws in georgia? sec. raffensperger: the best thing i believe we did with sb-202 is moved away from signature match, which is subjective. i said in 2018 we need to go to photo voting. we did that this year. we have been sued by both the democrat and republican party over signature match. they said it is subjective. i agree. now we go through an objective measure, drivers license number and birth date. this is something they have been doing in minnesota for 10 years. texas is doing the same thing. it is an objective measure. i think objective measures make more sense and help restore voter confidence. there will be less squabbling afterwards when it is done by objective measures. judy: what about those individuals who have to work late, may not have a drivers license?

why not make it easier for them to vote rather than harder? sec. raffensperger: we had photo id in person voting for over 10 years. studies have shown that neither democrat or republican's or other demographic group are hurt by photo id. they understand it helps ensure who that is who is showing up to vote when they use photo id. all absentee voting will be with drivers licenses. we increased the number of early voting days from 16 to 17. that includes two sundays. any county that needs it can have two days of sunday voting. that is more than new york, new jersey and delaware. judy: one provision of the law has to do with not allowing food or drink to be provided to people standing in line. we know sometimes in georgia and

some parts of the state, precincts, long lines are necessary because of timing, because of where people work, what their availability is. how do you explain that it is wrong to give people a bottle of water or a snack if they are standing in a long line and we know this in particular will be affecting voters of color? sec. raffensperger: number one, we put in sb-202 that all lines need to be shorter than one hour. if they are, next election, you have to bust that precinct in half or add additional equipment. last november, the average wait time was three minutes in the afternoon. the longest wait time i saw on our board was 50 minutes. we worked hard with the counties to defeat that issue. we had for time immortal a

no-politicking rule of 150 feet. outside of 150 foot, if you want to give people water or something like that, you are allowed to do that. within that 150 zone, no electioneering. all states have different zones. some have 100, some have 125. that is standard operating practice in an election. judy: my understanding is in very few states is this the practice. it just seems to be singling out those voters who may have difficulty getting to the polls and may have to stand in line r a long time. paul: we have up to 19 days in our metro population centers. that is 19 days of early voting. we have no excuse absentee voting for everyone. judy: georgia's secretary of state out with a new book, "integrity counts."

thank you very much. sec. raffensperger: thank you, judy. ♪ judy: 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. the conflict is on the brink of all-out civil war that threatens to tear apart the country. and a caution, images and accounts in this story may disturb some viewers. >> on the one-year anniversary of the conflict, ethiopian soldiers and officials lit candles for those they called martyred heroes. while some protected flames from the wind, the prime minister fanned the flames of war. >> we will bury this enemy with our blood and bones and uphold

the glory of ethiopia. >> government airstrikes targeted civilian infrastructure in tigray's capital. the humanitarian crisis there is acute. 5 million need aid to survive. a senior official at the u.s. agency for international development tells pbs newshour the ethiopian government and its alli have blocked all eight for two w-- all aid for two weeks into tigray. tigray forces are headed south. the crisis began exactly one year ago, when tigrayan forces attacked a federal outpost. federal forces and their allies from never bearing -- from neighboring eritrea waged a scorched-earth campaign in parts of tigray. in june, tigrayan forced ethiopian soldiers out and kept going. now toward the capital.

they captured two key towns and allied themselves with a militia. throughout, it has been a year of what the u.n. calls unprecedented brutality. >> we believe war crimes and crimes against the amenity have been committed by all -- against humanity have been committed by all parties. >> the commissioner on human rights released the first official account of the war's horrors in joint investigation with the ethiopian government. >> the team was looking into summary arbitrary killings and violence against women, gang rape, and multiple sexual violence against boys, the disruption of property, livelihoods, the destruction of medical centers, and the fact that humanitarian has not reached those in need. >> the atrocities were 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 violations were committed by ethiopian defense forces, the eritrean defense forces. >> since then, the report lists tigrayan forces killing civilians, sometimes with axes and machetes. >> we have documented incidents where tigrayan forces have caused tremendous suffering. >> the u.n. said its investigators were harassed and blocked from visiting the sites of massacres. one was expelled by the ethiopian government. >> the intimidation of the team was unacceptable. it was by regional authorities, sometimes by the population. >> because you and 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 to continue working with them? >> absolutely not. we don't getnvolved in the political conflict, but we are not neutral to the suffering of the victims. the intention of this report is to put a legal obligations on the authorities of ethiopia to take the steps for legal, criminal investigations. without the joint investigation, we would not have been able to access the victims. >> today, a u.s. envoy is there. the ethiopian military's second-highest officer. >> 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. >> there are fears the ethiopian

military cannot protect the capital. the u.n. warns the stability of ethiopia and the region is at stake. >> countries already have their unstable situations. the conflict can seriously destabilize the entire horn of africa. >> the ones who have any to r -- any territorial control in this country need to step up, because otherwise there will be no ethiopia anymore. >> tonight, there is real fear the capital could be overrun. the tigrayan rebel army is advancing, and there is little to stop them. ♪ judy: as negotiators at the climate change conference in scotland continue their work, the impacts of a warming world are more evident every day.

many of the earth's 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. william: this is one of the rarest, most unusual collections in the world. row upon row of long silver tubes full of ice. where we are about to go, i have to dress like i am ready for the arctic. to see them requires suiting up. lonnie and his wife created this archive here at the ohio state university's polar and climate research center. >> we have a collection of ice bars from glaciers around the world. we have been fortunate to drill in 16 other countries in addition to greenland.

we keep this archive frozen at -30 degrees fahrenheit. william: you heard that right, -30. it is what is needed to preserve these cores. they come out as these cylindrical, layered records of the past. >> this is what an ice core looks like. we put it in a plastic bag. this core goes back 13,500 years. >> so this is going backwards in time. >> it is. william: the thompsons have been collecting and studying these cores since the 1970's. lonnie works on the high tropical glaciers around, the equator while -- aorund t -- around the equator, while ellen works on the polar regions. >> we have a daughter adam. -- a daughter at home. i am working in antarctica

december, january, february. [laughter] william: it is a division of labor and love that has worked well in their 50 year partnership, one that began at college in west virginia. >> this is when ellen and i got married. william: look at you two. how old were you? >> we were married in june and turned 23 in may. you were still 22. i robbed the cradle, right? [laughter] william: i was not that much older myself when i first met these two. that is me over 20 years ago, a young producer and brand-new father, 19,000 feet on mount kilimanjaro, filming with the thompson's colleagues in their connection to climate change. from africa to antarctica to south america, the thompson's

expeditions have taken them to some of theost remote locations on the planet. they both admit, at first, they did not set out to study climate change. >> we started in the 1970's. people were concerned about the earth getting colder and going into another ice age. william: and you thought this is a growth opportunity. [laughter] >> right. we had little idea what we were getting into. the purpose was to go into places where we had no records. >> it is a wonderful recorder. the unique thing about it is it keeps what it captures. it is the only place that we have these records of the gaseous composition of the atmosphere. >> we can relate the records from kilimanjaro to the rise and fall of cultures. climate has played a big role. william: the 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 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 is one example. 20 years ago, i stood next to this glacier, where all these symbols came from. now, because of climate change, that glacier is gone. this is all that is left. >> i 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. william: their latest drilling expedition was in 2019 to peru, before the pandemic brought travel to a halt. some of the cores from that trip are now coming out of cold

storage and being started by french postdoctoral students. emily is now taking samples to study what was captured inside that ice. william: does it ever strike you when you are holding something like that to think this is 7000 or older years ago, the atmosphere on earth? >> every single time i process a piece of ice, i connect with that thought. it is mesmerizing. there are many things to see in ice. you could say it is just a piece of solid water. it makes you think about your next research question. william: she and her colleagues then melt the samples and 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 here up a mountain at high altitude, keeping those cores frozen solid all the way back to ohio, even playing something of a cultural ambassador when under the threat of being shot with arrows. >> in what used to be new guinea, it is the only icefield between the himalayas and the andes. one tribe attacked us. there were 150 of them. william: literally attacked you? >> attempted. >> we were drilling in the clouds. william: why were they so upset you were there? >> in their religion, the arms and legs of their gods are the mountains and the valleys. the head of their god is the glacier. in their words, we were drilling into the skull of their god to steal their memories.

i told him that is exactly what we are doing. i said the day will come very soon when the only memories of your good will be in a freezer at ohio state university. william: it is true. as soon as two years from now, that glacier will likely be going. satellite images show its rapid shrinkage. for the thompsons, the ultimate challenge is to get the world to recognize the real impact humans are having on the planet. >> climate change is no longer in the future. it is here now. i take hope in the fact that we do change. we can change on a dime. look at our history. we have gone through energy transformations. we didn't leave the stone age because we ran out of stones, we found a better way to do it. >> ont he back end, bp and exxon

are working on renewable energies, but they will not give up on the big fat cow that they've got right now. it is going to take time. it will take political will. mother nature is not going to change. william: the thompsons hope to keep their work going for years to come. their next drilling operation is already planned. to keep climbing those high peaks, lonnie got a hard -- got a heart transplant. now they need a new freezer to hold their discoveries. ♪ judy: as we reported, the u.s. has passed another tragic pandemic milestone.

three quarters of one million americans have died from covid-19. dr. sanjay cooped up is focusing in part on what governments and people could have done differently. here is the second part of my conversation with him about his book aut the covid-19 pandemic. welcome to the newshour. we appreciate you joining us. you spent several hours last month talking to joe rogan, who is a talkshow host, 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? dr. gupta: i have a better understanding that it is very real, the skepticism. sometimes you think logic will prevail. this is a vaccine that can save

lives. it was the moonshot of scientific developments. that should win the day, but you find out there is a significant amount of resistance. there are two things that came out of my conversation with joe rogan. as we democratized information more and more, it's really hard for people to tell good from that information. good -- from bad information. good information from dis-information. there is purposeful misinformation. it is hard for the average person to parse it out. if you were to google "vaccines can kill you," you can find papers to validate your beliefs. globally do in situations like this, when the quality and veracity of that information really matters? the second thing is, who do we

trust? why has there been an erosion of trust in pharmaceutical companies, in mainstream media, in large institutions overall? when you get these vaccine requirements coming out, there is a significant pushback because there is already this distrust that has been festering to begin with. those two things in combination can make a toxic environment for people trying to navigate in this. it's not everybody. maybe it is not even the majority of people, but it is enough who have the distrust to lead them to these decisions. judy: in connection with that, the reluctance we are seeing on the part of parents of many young children now that the pfizer vaccine has been approved for young children, is that a different argument to be made to

them? dr. gupta: i think so. we know children are less likely to get sick and be hospitalized, less likely to die. that is all good, but there is still significant risk there. when the chickenpox vaccine came out decades ago, it was a big deal. prior to that chickenpox vaccine in the u.s., about 100 children died of chickenpox every year. that was unacceptable. now we know over 700 children have died of covid over the last year and a half. we think this does not seem like that big a deal in the context of adults. it is a big deal for those children and all of us. the more people that are vaccinated, the more likely we are to bring this to an end. judy: this brings us back to the book. i found especially interesting your advice to people, to stay

healthy in order to fight off the next pandemic or whatever it is that is like the pandemic in the future. spell that out for us. dr. gupta: these pandemics disproportionately affect certain countries. that happened here as well, but in the opposite way you woul expect. wealthier countries were hit harder than poor countries. a lot of it had to do with the fact that there are diseases of affluence in wealthier countries, diabetes, heart disease, obesity. these same diseases that put people at much higher risk of developing severe covid if they were to get infected. we have known for some time there is great value in staying healthy, but often the argument is "eat right and exercise and you can avoid a heart attack decades from now." what this pandemic put into clearer focus is the benefit of

maintaining good health right now. who are healthier when they got infected were likely to do better in terms of their outcomes. judy: thank you so much. dr. gupta: my honor. great to see you. judy: fascinating stuff in that book. on the newshour online, colin powell will be honored at a funeral service tomorrow at the washington national cathedral. our own nicole ellis sits down with a panel of guests for a look at the life and legacy of the first black secretary of state and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. that is tomorrow starting at 11:00 a.m. eastern on pbs.org/newshour. that is the newshour for tonight. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you. please stay safe and we will see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> the roles of business are

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and friends of the newshour. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station by viewers like you. thank you. this is pbs newshour west, from weta studios in washington and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪

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