♪ judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, tense talks. president biden holds a virtual meeting with vladimir putin, amid rising fears over a potential russian invasion of ukraine. then, investigating the insurrection. the inquiry into the january 6th attack on the capitol intensifies as more trump officials refuse to cooperate. and, a history of discrimination. many black farmers still struggle to receive compensation after being excluded from federal government agriculture programs. >> we weren't able to pass on wealth, we weren't able to pass on a farm. and so to look at it and say, now your field is level? no. judy: all that and more on

tonight's "pbs newshour." ♪ >> major funng for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymond james financial advisor taylor's advice to help you live your life. life well planned. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer no contract plans and our u.s.-based team can find one that fits you. visit consumer cellular.tv. >> johnson & johnson. bnsf railway. ♪

>> the john s and james l knight foundation, fostering informed and engaged communities. >> 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. stephanie: i'm stephanie sy with newshour west. we'll return to the full program after the latest hdlines. president biden has put russian president vladimir putin on notice tonight, that the u.s.

will impose strong new sanctions if russia invades ukraine. the leaders held a 2-hour virtual summit today. it came as russian troops have been building up along the ukrainian border. we'll focus on that high-stakes meeting right after the news summary. china issued its own warning today that the u.s. will, quote, "pay a price" for a diplomatic boycott of the winter olympics in beijing. the chinese gave no specifics, but they said the move violates the olympic spirit, and that there could be fallout. >> the united states should stop bringing politics into sports, and stop interfering in the beijing winter olympics with hurtful words and actions. otherwise, it could harm a series of important bilateral dialogues and cooperation for international and regional issues. stephanie: under the boycott, u.s. officials will not attend the games in february, but american athletes will still compete. and today, australia followed the u.s.' lead, announcing its own diplomatic boycott of the games.

prime minister scott morrison says china has not responded to his country's concerns over alleged human rights abuses. like the americans, australian athletes will still compete in the games. there's word that french authorities have arrested one of the suspected killers of saudi arabian journalist jamal khashoggi. news accounts today say a former member of the saudi royal guard was detained at an airport near paris. it's believed that khashoggi was murdered at the saudi consulate in istanbul, turkey, in 2018. the u.s. house of representatives moved this evening to clear the way for raising the national debt ceiling. the legislation provides for a simple majority vote in the evenly divided senate on raising the government's borrowing limit. senate leaders in both parties agreed on the need to act to prevent a national default. sen. schumer: we want a simple majority without a convoluted, risky, lengthy process, and it looks like the republicans will help us facilitate that. so we feel very good about where

we are headed on debt ceiling. it's not done till its done, but the idea of letting democrats carry it ourselves is what we've always said. sen. mcconnell: i believe we've reached here a solution to the debt ceiling issue that's consistent with republican views of raising the debt ceiling for this amount at this particular time, and allows the democrats to proudly own it, which they are happy to do. stephanie: we'll get more of the details on this, later in the program. former trump white house chief of staff mark meadows has reversed himself, and now says he will not give testimony about the u.s. capitol assault last january. his attorney complains that a congressional panel wants to ask about matters covered by mr. trump's claim of executive privilege. hawaii is under a state of emergency as a major storm stalls over the islands, dumping more than a foot of rain. the rain has poured down cliffs onto highways, and

50-mile-an-hour winds knocked down power lines. still, pearl harbor today marked the 80th anniversary of the japanese attack that brought the u.s. into world war ii. about 30 elderly survivors attended. the senate confirmed chris magnus to lead u.s. cuoms and border protection. cbp, the federal government's largest law enforcement agency, had not had a senate-confirmed leader since 2019. currently the police chief in tucson, arizona , magnus will be the agency's first openly gay commissioner. he tak over amid a surge in arrests along the mexican border. rohingya refugees from myanmar are suing facebook's parent company, meta, for more than $150 billion. the suit was filed in california. it alleges that posts on facebook incited violence against the muslim rohingyas in mostly buddhist myanmar. tonight, amazon reports many services have been recovered, after a major outage at amazon

web services disrupted a number of popular online services as well as amazon's own deliveries. the problem was mainly focused on cloud computing services in the eastern u.s. it affected sites and apps from delta air lines annetflix to npr. workers at kellogg cereal plants have rejected a 5-year contract, and the company says they're now planning to permanently replace most of the 1400 workers who are on strike. they've been off the job for 2 months. and the u.s. formally returned a 3,500-year-old clay tablet to iraq today, after it and thousands of other antiquities were looted during the 1991 gulf war. it bears part of the epic of gilgamesh from the ancient sumerian civilization. the artifact was put on display in baghdad at the foreign ministry, along with many other returned treasures. still to come on the "newshour", a hawaii military community seeks answers on how its water was contaminated with petroleum.

a new film details the detention and torture of an alleged al qaeda mastermind. and much more. ♪ >> this is the pbs newshour from w eta studios in washington and in the west, from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. judy: president biden's meeting today via video conference with russia's president, vladimir putin, was the fourth time the leaders have spoken or met this year. russia now has more than 100,000 troops stationed on the border of ukraine, and mr. biden gave putin a, quote, "crystal clear" message, according to white house aides, that russia faces significant economic reprisals if it were to invade. here's nick schifrin. >> good to see you again. nick: in a virtual meeting

president biden and putin started with smiles. but the national security advisor said biden delivered a firm warning. >> the president was crystal clear about where the united states stands on these issues. nick: senior officials tell pbs newshour, the administration is threatening economic sanctions including removing pressure from the international swift banking system, freezing russian banks' international assets and locking international transactions. the u.s. hinted any russian invasion could written russia's oil pipeline, and ukraine's military is stronger than it was the last time it faced invasion in 2014. biden told putin the u.s. would increase military support ukraine just as ukraine deployed hundreds of american made missiles in -- and turkish made drones to target russian tanks. the administration said biden told putin nato's eastern allies

would receive more u.s. training. for weeks, russian military drills and regular deployments note they are ready for -- signaled that they were ready for escalation. there is a massive buildup along the russian-ukrainian border. u.s. intelligence produced a map that shows technical groups north of ukraine, two groups in the northeast, more troops on the southeast where russia has invaded in the past, and additional tanks andrtillery for the potential of 175,000 forces. inside eastern ukraine, russian backed separatists maintain control of territory in world war i style trenches. the ukrainian military's trenches, the ukrainian president tried to reassure troops he had their backs. he said the country faced an existential threat from a single enemy. >> freedom is the greatest value

for us. it is a symbol of our country. all of ukraine, the servicemen of the armed forces and the ukraine, will continue to fulfill the mission to defend the freedom and soveignty of the state of -- from the state of the russian aggressor. nick: the kremlin said putin demanded fixed guarantees that ukraine never host u.s. missiles or join nato. >> how close to russian borders is the infrastructure of the alliance? we take it seriously. nick: sullivan said biden rejects that requests. >> we will make no such concessions. he stands by the preposition the country should be able to choose who they associate with. nick: biden called his counterparts in the united kingdom, france, germany and italy to present a united front. olaf schultz will be germany's chancellor as of tomorrow. >> just like everyone in europe and the united states, we are worried about the troop movements we are seeing on the

border with ukraine, which is why it must be absolutely clear that it would be an unacceptable situation if ukraine was threatened. nick: for more on this, we turn to victoria nuland, undersecrtary of state for political affairs. she joins me from capitol hill, where she was testifying today. welcome back to the newshour. let's start by talking about the path to diplomacy president biden laid out. what is the offramp president putin was offered? >> with regard to russia's invasion of eastern ukraine, there is a set of agreements on the table for de-escalation called the minsk agreements, which essentially involves giving a special status, having elections out there in exchange for russia pulling out all of its forces, and returning the sovereign border to ukraine. those talks, which were pretty active in 2015 and 2016, have gone stale so the u.s. is offering to play a diplomatic

role in getting those reinvigorated. president putin also has a number of concerns that he likes to voice about the actions of nato being destabilizing to russia. we are obviously prepared him as the president said, president putin, and the national security adviser sullivan said publicly, to have a conversation with russia along with our allies and partners, about any strategic concerns they have. but that is a different matter than whether russia gets a veto over ukraine's future, which it does not. nick: let's talk about the first aspect, the minsk agreements signed in 2015 and 2014 calls on kiev to allow unoccupied territory some degree of autonomy. kiev resisted that. will they push the ukraine to follow through on those promises? victoria: these agreements were entered into by both ukraine and

russia under the auspices of france and germany. they call for don bosse to be de-occupied for all the foreign forces and mercenaries to come out, and for russia to return control of the border. in the process, for ukraine to grant more self-governance. ukraine has offered a high degree of self-governance all of its other provinces, so this province would have to catch up and there could conceivably be some additional things, but those would have to be subject to negotiation. it would be kiev's sovereign decision, what level of special status to offer for the province. nick: on nato, which you referred to, why not consider preventing ukraine from joining nato, since there is no momentum right now for ukraine to gain membership? victoria: first of all, the nato

charter, signed in 1949, says the alliance is open to any european democracy that can meet the standards of membership. frankly, that would be an option for russia, if it were to change manifestly, which it has not expressed an interest in doing. but we are not going to change nato possible open-door policy or more than 70 years of policy. we are not going to give russia a veto over the alliances of a sovereign country. those are decisions for ukraine to make and for nato to make, not the kremlin. nick: are you willing to provide assurances that u.s. missiles won't be based on ukraine as the kremlin has asked? >> you know, in 1998 and again in 2003, in the context of nato negotiating its partnership agreement with russia and then

renewing it again, nato made certain assurances that we would not station substantial combat forces along russia's borders. nato has lived up to those agreements. i can't say that russia has lived up to its side of the agreements, but that would obviously continue to pertain, as long as russia was prepared to honor its side. nick: we talked about carrots, let's talk about the stick. how specific did president biden get in threatening further action like removing russia from the swift banking system, freezing russian assets and blocking russian banks' assets to international markets? victoria: the president was crystal clear about what russia and the kremlin will confront if they move aggressively on ukraine again, and the impact on the russian economy and on its status in the global economic system.

nick: another one of the sticks, you said today germany is prepared to, quote, suspend north stream two in the event of an invasion. has the incoming german government made that commitment? do you think president putin considers that important enough to be part of his calculus when it comes to what he does with russian forces into ukraine? victoria: it is very hard to imagine that in the context of russia moving aggressively on ukraine, that europe would want to increase its dependency on russian energy. nick: are you considering targeting president putin's personal assets and-or his most senior advisors? victoria: i'm not going to get into specific's here or negotiate this in public but we have not been shy in the past about our sanctions with regard to folks close to president putin and the things that matter to him. nick: on bolstering ukraine's

military, i spoke to senior republican officials who say the administration isn't moving fast enough specifically on the delivery of weapons. you feel you need to send more and more quickly? victoria: this year alone the u.s. has provided more than $450 million in security assistance to ukraine. we are obviously open to doing more if the situation requires. nick: does that mean the administration is committed to increasing speed with which those defensive weapons would be delivered? victoria: there are a number of things already delivered to ukraine that they need to be thinking about how to use in the context of self-defense, and we are talking to them about that. we are open to other things they may need. nick: you said this is a moment of testing autocrats and our friends will watch closely what we do. why is this moment so important? victoria: because president putin may be aspiring once again to change global geography by

force, to violate the sovereignty of independent territories, independent nations. if the democracies stand by and allow that to happen, it will embolden autocrats everywhere. nick: victoria nuland, thank you very much. victoria: thank you, nick. ♪ judy: the clock has been ticking on the next potential fiscal crisis for the u.s. government. the nation's debt ceiling could be reached, and government might not have the funds to pay its bill, as soon as next week. but as we reported, today, a breakthrough between republicans and democrats means they may have found a way out. for more on this, i'm joined by our congressional correspondent, lisa desjardins. here we go again. for a long time, for the last many months, there was a lot of

vision -- bitter division over the debteiling. what happened? lisa: this was a problem many on capitol hill where the most worried about. i will take you through what happened today. i will start with the policy. it is an unusual solution that our leaders came up with today. here's what they want. they want to craft a bill that would combine a few things. it would include a block on medicare cuts that would automatically happen without congressional action, and with that it would also create almost a new rule allowing for a simple majority in the senate pass a debt increase. that bill is now in the house. what would happen next is the path clearing bill as i call it would need to get 60 votes in the senate. we expect that to happen this week. that would then free up the ability of the senate to pass a debt increase with a simple majority vote. and it would be a political way of saving face for everyone, especially senate minority leader, the republican leader

mitch mcconnell. we remember well, he said democrats will have to do this on their own, we will not help them raise the debt ceiling and he did however say he wanted them to do the process called reconciliation. democrats say it is a reversal on his part, it is at least a five point turn but clearly the politics were on democrats' side. they stuck it out together on this. chuck schumer had his first stare down with senator mcconnell over this and he pulled out a win. i also want to talk about how this actually came about because we have talked many nights about all the gridlock, 50-50 senate, very difficult to get anything done. it was simple, they sat down, mcconnell and schumer, day after day after day but didn't leak it. they talked to each other and i think senator schumer sensed senator mcconnell had boxed himself in. senator mcconnell has a political problem, there are republicans who are unhappy with this. they wanted more of a showdown.

they think the debt ceiling is one of the few pieces of leverage they could have used to maybe have spending caps or make a bigger statement. they think this was a mistake, but now senator mcconnell has to get 10 republicans to vote with him to clear the path for the debt ceiling. watch that closely. it feels likely he will get those votes. i expect him to be one of them. judy: very interesting. the ice seems to be cracking. lisa: for now. lawmakers are speaking with each other about important things and that is good. judy: lisa, thank you once again. also at the capitol, new headwinds for the select committee in the house of representatives charged with investigating january 6. it's been 11 months since the attack on the capitol, and since then, the house committee has issued more than 40 subpoenas. a number of those subpoenas are aimed at former trump administration officials and allies, and today, we got new details about who is cooperating and who is fighting back.

josh gerstein joins me now to bring us up to speed. he's the senior legal affairs reporter for politico. josh, thank you very much for being with us again. i think the main information we got today has to do with mark meadows, the former white house chief of staff, to former president trump. after initially saying he wouldn't cooperate, last week he said he would, now he is saying again he will not cooperate, not in a live interview. what is the significance of this? josh: it is definitely a setback for the committee, because the fact that meadows had agreed to cooperate, at least partially, served as a signal for people down the line, from that one -- the trump white house and orbit, that maybe it would be ok to cooperate, there wouldn't be any terrible repercussions. within a matter of days, to have meadows reversed himself and said he wouldn't testify, i think it is a problem for the committee because people are

looking for signals by indicting steve bannon for not cooperating, the committee was hoping to send a signal, and now they have sort of a confusing set of messages going out to potential witnesses. judy: what do you make of what his attorney is saying among other things, saying the committee doesn't appear to respect former president trump's assertion of executive privilege? he is saying the committee is asking for what he calls intensely personal communications. josh: i don't know how meadows' lawyers could really be surprised by the fact that the committee doesn't respect president trump, former president trump's assertion of executive privilege. they have set as much as they have gone to court to essentially fight back against that privilege. i am not surprised by that. i think what might've happened is a chain of -- a change of heart on meadows park. when he decided to cooperate it was pretty clear that trump wasn't happy with that decision.

we had some conflict between them about meadows' book that came out and some unflattering stories about president trump that are in there, in particular his handling of his covid diagnosis during last year's political campaign season. it wouldn't surprise me that meadows has decided in fact there is no way to cooperate with the committee and remain in trump's good graces. i know he is looking for a reason to do an about-face. judy: his attorney says he may be prepared to sit down, or may be prepared to answer questions in writing, and potentially provide documents? he already provided some. what does that mean? how different would it be if he is saying i will answer some questions in writing versus doing it in person? josh: i think it would be very different and i would be surprised to see the committee take him up on that option. generally, investigators like to have a live witness in front of them, to be able to go back and forth and do follow-up.

what usually comes out if you have written questions is actually the person's attorney's response to the questions rather than the person themselves and often times, the detail and anything that might be interesting is kind of ironed out in the statement before it makes it to the committee. so i would be surprised if they thought that was an adequate substitute for having in person live testimony. judy: josh, what do we know if anything about the documents that he has already turned over, and what more the committee wants in the way of written records? josh: it is a little unclear, because the committee is trying to also get trump white house records directly from the national archives that have custody of the records. one of the complaints meadows' lawyers put forward about why they no longer think he should be testifying is that there has been an effort to secure meadows' phone records directly from telephone companies. there may have been efforts to

secure people's email records or under -- other forms of correspondence. that is one of the explanations they are giving for why they do want to cooperate. they may be afraid they could be surprised at a potential deposition by things they haven't seen or haven't expected. so i am curious about how that will eventually be resolved. i think the simplest way would be for him to try not to testify, but of course, that risks criminal prosecution just like steve bannon is currently being prosecuted. judy: and that is the committee's recourse, that is mething they can do if they choose. we received word today that the former vice president, mike pence's chief of staff, mark short, is saying he will cooperate with the committee. how do you read that? josh: mark short, i put in a somewhat different category from a lot of other trump officials. he was already somebody that had been critical of president trump's response to the events on january 6. he was someone who has seen more

as being in more of vice president pence's camp. the fact that he would cooperate i don't think will be taken as a signal by other trump allies that they should go one way or the other. i view it as a fairly unique circumstance, and given mark short's track record and his position and his allegiance is to mike pence, i'm not surprised he would step forward and say i will cooperate with the committee. he has told a lot of his story publicly already. judy: that is a reminder that vice president pence was the subject of much of what the mob that attacked the capitol was there looking for. josh with politico, thank you very much. josh: thank you, judy. take care. ♪ judy: for decades, black farmers

have been excluded from federal farm programs, a systematic pattern of discrimination that the u.s. department of agriculture acknowledged decades ago. and yet proposals to compensate farmers for past wrongs have languished in controversy and red tape. the most recent include the biden administration's efforts to earmark such funds in its american rescue plan, and now build back better. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro begins his report in northwest kansas, as part of our ongoing series, race matters. fred: walking down this dirt road bris bernard bates back to the highest, and lowest, points of his 84 years. so this land behind you goes back for generations in your family? bernard: yes, it goes back to slavery in the beginning. karla: dad was a good farmer. he was one of the best ones in graham county. fred: dating way back to the 1940s, karla bates adams says her father was a prolific producer here in nicodemus, kansas, a rare enclave of black

farmers whose ancestors settled here after they were freed from slavery. so there was more land, you owned different chunks of land? bernard: north of the cemetery, there's another 80 acres. fred: in the early 1980's, amid the historic agricultural recession and crop disasters that hit the midwest, many farmers fell behind on their loan payments, including bernard bates. bernard: bugs, hail, wind and rain, freeze and everything. three, four years in a row. fred: when he approached the u.s department of agriculture for relief, karla bates adams says not for the first time, he was treated differently. karla: we know that the white farmers were getting the assistance, and the black farmers were not. bernard: they were getting all kinds of loans. fred: the bates then witnessed, and even photographed, the dismantling of their livelihood in foreclosure. that must have been very painful to witness. bernard: tell me about it.

karla: they truly took our livelihood, and left my parents to have to go on foodstamps. fred: their land was subsequently sold off to white farmers. the bates farmstead is among millions of acres of land that black farmers have lost over the decades. in the 1920's, 14% of all farmers in the united states were african american. that number is down to less than 1.5% today. dr. holmes: there are men like bernard that would still be farming because that's what he loves and that's what he wanted to do. fred: nicodemus resident johnella holmes is a retired professor and director of the kansas black farmers association. for decades, she says, they've been excluded from federal agriculture programs, like price subsidies, disaster relief, and especially loans, the financial backbone of american agriculture. dr. holmes: the loans are

pivotal. equipment is so expensive anymore that one single farmer, especially the small farmers, they can't afford that equipment. fred: in 1999 and again in 2010, black farmers were offered limited compensation after a class action suit. but the settlement was marred by allegations of fraudulent claims on one hand, and the exclusion of possibly thousands of legitimate claimants on the other. bernard bates was a plaintiff. bernard: i myself haven't got one dime. not a dime. fred: the biden administration has included several billion dollars in loan forgiveness and other relief for distressed and disadvantaged farmers in its build back better plan. sec. vilsack: we know for a fact that socially disadvantaged producers were discriminated against the united states department of agriculture. we know this. fred: earlier this year, agriculture secretary tom vilsack unveiled a similar $4 billion relief plan for minority farmers in the american rescue plan. that triggered several lawsuits on behalf of white farmers

claiming reverse discrimination, and it succeeded in suspending the program, pending the outcome of the litigation. jon: so if a black farmer lived across the road, and this bill went through, i see him get his mortgage paid off. it would tick me off, because that was money stolen from me. and given to him. fred: jon stevens is a fifth generation farmer in pine county, minnesota, and is a well-known advocate of the environmentally friendlier regenerative farming. fred: do you think that discrimination exists today against black farmers? jon: as as a federal system? i would say no. now, when you go to your local office, sure. and that would go anyway, whether it's white to black, black to white. there's racist people all over this country. fred: what are these plaintiffs not understanding? dr. holmes: oh, i think they understand. i think they just don't want to acknowledge the history. fred: professor holmes says that history of discrimination has taken an enormous toll on black farm families that's still felt

today. dr. holmes: we weren't able to pass on wealth, we weren't able to pass on a farm. and so to look at it and say, now your field is level? no. bernard bates' family, where they were denied the opportunity to continue to farm, that didn't level the field. fred: jon stevens says white farmers are as likely today to face rejection at the usda or at private lenders. he says the key is to persevere. jon: i don't want to hear your victim story. so what if i discriminated against you on something? is that going to stop ya? fred: if you're the government, possibly, or you're the banker? jon: go to another bank. postpone it a couple years. if you want to be a farmer, if you want to be anything, just pick your bootstraps up and forget the rest of the world and do what you need to do. angela: well, i made my own straps and my own boots. and i'm pulling them up. fred: angela dawson farms just a

few miles north of stevens. four years ago, she moved here in a career switch, back to a family tradition that ended when her grandfather lost his farm. angela: i found that you have to have at least 1000, maybe 2000, 10,000 acres in order to really be a sustainable farm, right? and that's something that i definitely didn't have access to. fred: so she tried to join the booming business of organic farming, whose humanely-raised meat commandhigher prices and therefore is feasible on a small farm. but when dawson, who has a degree in business administration, presented her business plan with her loan application, she says the usda agent was not convinced. angela: i was really enthusiastic about the pigs, and she said, "what are you doing here?" fred: what do you think they were really asking you? angela: i felt like they were asking me what makes me think i could do this. fred: despite an appeal, her application was rejected in a process that took 18 months, she

says. agriculture department officials declined to comment specifically on this case. dawson found a new passion, as lucrative as it is controversial. angela: this one is a good one. fred: hemp. the plant is now legal to grow in all states, its extracts sold for medicinal use. angela:my decision to go into hemp was driven by economics. for cbd hemp, the average farmer makes about $50,000 per acre. fred: dawson's farm is now the home base of a 33-member cooperative of minority-owned farms across the u.s. >> this is the brain of the operation. fred: the co-op guides members growing hemp on how to monitor the crop so it meets licensing standards. for medicinal cannabis. angela: we use regenerative practices, but we also use technology, and we don't want people to get into farming to be poor. fred: business has been great, she says. but that raised a red flag at one local bank, which closed her accounts. angela: the bank said that they

thought i could be trafficking. so the criminal image that's associated with hemp and black people is really difficult for me to overcome. that is the resin and the medicine. so, it's ever after. but we're still working on the "happily" part. fred: is it something you would like to get back? bernard: yes. fred: also waiting for happily ever after, the bates family, hoping by legal action or reparation to buy back the land and legacy that they say was unjustly confiscated. for the pbs newshour, i'm fred de sam lazaro, in nicodemus, kansas. judy: fred's reporting is in partnership with the under-told stories project at the university of st. thomas in minnesota. ♪

judy: u.s. military families stationed in hawaii, and others working in and around the base there, are dealing with tap water contaminated with petroleum. the cause is unknown, but investigators say a leak from a nearby fuel storage facility, operated by the navy, may be to blame. on monday, secretary of the navy carlos del toro issued an apology. but as stephanie sy reports, there were warning signs. stephanie: for days, active duty soldiers at joint base pearl harbor-hickam in hawaii have been distributing water to their own, thousands of military families without clean drinking water due to fuel contamination. >> i am a single active-duty mom of two special needs kids. stephanie: at several town halls in the last week, resident after resident reported harrowing medical problems, in their children -- >> on sunday, my children took a bath, and for 45 minutes after

-- afterwards, they complained of burning skin. stephanie: and in their pets. >> we made the heartbreaking choice to put my beloved dog down after a mysterious illness. stephanie: the navy-run water system serves some 93,000 people. about a thousand households reported smelling fuel in the water starting in late november. it took the navy almost a week to acknowledge the problem. residents like audrey lamagna had been smelling the fuel for days. audrey: i decided, let me just fill up a cup like a plastic cup full of water. and what do you know? that cup smelled like fuel. stephanie: lamagna, a military spouse, has a baby and a 7-year-old. what went through your mind when you tested the water and you realized you had been bathing your children in it, and that there was signs of fuel in it? audrey: now i'm poisoning them, and i didn't even know. how sad is that? stephanie: the contamination was found in the navy-run red hill well, which sits close to an underground fuel storage facility built during world war ii.

the facility has had a history of leaks dating back to 1949, with 27,000 gallons of jet fuel accidentally released in 2014. just two months ago, hawaii's department of health fined the navy $325,000 for violations at the facility, including failure to maintain corrosion protection of the metal tanks and piping. the 20 tanks with the capacity -- have the capacity to hold 250 million gallons of fuel, and they sit above the island's most important aquifer, which supplies groundwater to 20% of honolulu residents. as a precaution, civilian water authorities shut down a shaft near red hl that serves customers in honolulu. governor david ige issued an emergency order requesting the navy come up with a plan to empty the fuel tanks, but it's unclear he has any enforcement authority. navy secretary carlos del toro apologized on monday during a visit to the base and announced operations were suspended at red

hill. sec. del toro: as long as i'm secretary of the navy, i pledge to you that we will address all the issues that you just mentioned with sincerity, transparency, and the complete dedication to try to fix this problem. stephanie: for now, many families are finding alternate housing, including audrey lamagna's. they've moved to a hotel, which the navy says they'll pay for, later. does that work for you? audrey: no, it does not, because we live paycheck to paycheck. we're on a single income. stephanie: the navy says it is flushing clean water through its system, which can take up to ten days. audrey: even if they were to ve us the all clear, quite frankly, i don't trust what the navy has to say anymore. stephanie: joining me now to discuss the wider implications of the water contamination is the manager and chief engineer of honolulu's water supply board, ernest lau.

aloha and thank you for joining us. when did the navy notify you about the contamination at the red hill shaft, and what was your reaction? ernest: stephanie, actually, the navy did not noty us about the drinking water contamination. our state department of health notified us on sunday evening. that was a sunday after thanksgiving. but we actually got no official notification from the navy. stephanie: you shut down the halawa shaft, which supplies water to 20% of honolulu's water customers. did you find contamination in water in that well? ernest: just to be clear, we have not found contamination by fuel in the halawa shaft. halawa represents 30% of our supply capacity, so we took that progression of shutting it down because we saw what was happening to the navy, from their drinking water source at red hill, red hill shaft.

they ended up pumping fuel into the water system and delivering it to their customers. as a precaution, and i do not want to put our water customers from the board of water supply and the public at risk by pumping fuel into the drinking water, s we shut down that shaft before we detected any amounts of fuel. in the water. stephanie: you have been looking at this issue i understand since 2014, when there was a massive leak of 27,000 gallons of fuel from one of the tanks. does it frustrate you that not more has been done to secure this water source? ernest: we've been working for eight years to ring the alarm bells that this facility needs to be addressed, and needs to be either upgraded to double wall tanks, or completely removed, but for the last eight years our voices haven't been heard.

we have urged the regulators, the department of health, u.s. epa, and the navy to take action to prevent a disaster that would impact heavily our drinking water resource. stephanie: the navy has now stopped operations at the red hill fuel storage tanks, which is what you had been calling for , and the congressional delegation had called for that. the governor has said he wants to see those tanks emptied of fuel. is that satisfactory to you? ernest: you know, this gives us hope that suddenly, the key decisionmakers are voicing their concerns about the facility. what remains though, stephanie, his actual implementation. are they going to carry through, is the emergency order issued by the health director for the state of hawaii gotta be enforced strictly and hold the navy accountable? we have seen in the past, letters, strongly worded letters

from the department of health and epa to the navy, but we haven't really seen the follow through and those regulators holding the navy accountable. so now's the time to not do that anymore. we really need to get this thing addressed right away, as soon as possible. and for the border water supply the immediate removal of the fuel out of red hill is the only real way to reduce this risk , this massive risk to our drinking water aquifer. the navy is experiencing it firsthand right now. and that's very unfortunate. i feel so terrible for their customers, having to endure this and drink the fuel compared -- contaminated water. i do not want that to be repeated with the general public -- the almost over 400,000 people that we serve water, and the city of honolulu itself. we cannot let that happen. so i need the regulators to hold the navy accountable. i need the

navy to step forward and not fight us anymore. we've been fighting with them for eight years to do the right thing, to protect the water resource. we've always said to them, you also depend on the resource itself for joint base pearl harbor hickam and they've told us that the red hill shaft supplies 24% of their supply for their base. so now unfortunately we see firsthand how important clean drinking water is to our community and to the base itself. stephanie: ernest lao, chief engineer with honolulu's water supply, thank you so much for joining newshour. >> mahalo. ♪ judy: a new hbo documentary that debuted this week tells the story of a man once thought to be a top al qaida operative, and of u.s. attempts to justify

torture in the name of protecting americans. amna nawaz recently sat down with the filmmaker, alex gibney. it's part of our arts and culture series, canvas. amna: abu zubaydah was the first high-value detainee subjected to the cia's program of enhanced interrogation techniques , practices denounced as torture both here in the u.s. and around the world. after being captured in a firefight in pakistan in 2002, zubaydah was shuttled among so-called black sites, secret prisons run by the cia all over the world. he has never been charged with a crime, but for the past 20 years, has remained imprisoned, mostly at guantanamo bay. while a team of lawyers fights for his release. a new hbo documentary called "the forever prisoner" debuts and explores his story and u.s. actions in the name of national security. the filmmaker behind it is academy award-winner alex gibney, and he joins me now. welcome to the newshour. thanks for being here. alex: goodo be here.

amna: abu zubaydah is considered a high-value detainee to the u.s. tell us a little bit about him. what did the u.s. believe that he knew that made him high value? alex: well, certain members of the cia believed that he was the number three in al qaeda. that made him a high value detainee. other members of the cia actually felt he was more of a kind of independent facilitator, which is actually what he was. he was flown to a secret site, which we now know was in thailand, northern thailand. and he was interrogated at first by fbi agents, and then later by a group from the cia, ultimately by a gentleman named james mitchell. amna: when the fbi is leading the questioning, does he offer any information that is helpful? alex: almost immediately. it was about an impending attack, in this case is on

israel, funded by people in saudi arabia, and the cia was able to prevent that attack. so immediately, he was offering valuable, actionable intelligence, through traditional rapport-building techniques which had nothing to do with torture. amna: then the cia remains convinced he's withholding information. we don't exactly understand why, but they decide to ramp up the pressure. this man that you mentioned, james mitchell, becomes much more central to this operation. i just want to play a quick clip here. here is how you introduce him in the film. >> mitchell was the inventor of eit, the acronym for what the cia called enhanced interrogation techniques, and what the rest of the world called torture. >> if my boss tells me it's legal, especially if the president has approved it, i'm not going to get into the nuances about what some guy in the basement or what some journalist thinks about it, because they're free to trade places with me any time they think they can do a better job of protecting americans. amna: alex, how does that man,

how does james mitchell, end up at the black site run by the cia, where abu zubaydah is being interrogated? what's his background in interrogations? alex: that's a really good question. he had absolutely zero background in interrogation. none. he had never interrogated anybody in his life. however, he did have a distinguished career as a psychologist who had been spending time at the so-called air force sere school. sere stands for survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. so he had observed and was part of a school to teach people how to resist torture, but he had never himself done any interrogations. amna: despite this, mitchell submits a list to the cia. these are suggested techniques that they should be considering. that list includes things like slapping detainees, walling, which is basically shoving them up against a wall. stress positions, cramped confinement, sleep deprivation, waterboarding. to most of us laymen, it sounds like torture. but of course, the u.s. is a

signatory to the geneva convention against torture. doj signs off on all of this. how does that happen? alex: well, that's part of the story of "the forever prisoner." it happens through a kind of excruciating legal exercise, in which they use the rationale, or the rationalization, that because we do these things to our own people, how bad could it be? because indeed, we do waterboard some of our soldiers, to show them what might be in store for them if they're captured by a terrible regime. but those are exercises, and furthermore, these techniques almost always result, not in people telling you what is the truth, but they tell you exactly what it is that they think you want to hear. amna: so the department of justice essentially gives the green light to james mitchell and a team of cia interrogators, who are holding abu zubaydah. what happens next? what does that mean for his interrogations? alex: it means that they engage

in these techniques, including waterboarding, and he's waterboarded 83 times in the course of a few weeks. and indeed, at one point he dies. he literally stops breathing and has to be revived, brought back. and at one point, james mitchell, who, after all, was kind of the architect of these techniques, even appeals to the cia and says, you know, we've waterboarded him consistently and he's undergone enormous pain. we don't think that it's worth doing it anymore. and the cia insists they continue and they continue to waterboard him over and over and over again. amna: people will look at these stories, they will have known about these techniques and they will say in times of war, in the name of national security, the u.s. has always and probably will always do ugly and horrific things. what do you say to that? alex: number one, these tech

weeks are immoral. number two, they do not yield the truth. they're undependable. they tend to yield what the interrogators want to hear. the cia thought he was the number three in al qaeda, which he wasn't. but ultimately, he says, yes, i'm the number three in al qaeda. so you don't have to ask yourself if you're in the intelligence business, what do you want? the truth or somebody to tell you what you want to hear? amna: the man at the center of this we do not hear from. what does the future hold for him? alex: good question. he is in guantanamo. he's never been charged with a crime. he's never been permitted to challenge his detention. and one of the things we discovered as part of doing this documentary was a cable or a series of cables back and forth from the black site in thailand to the cia in langley. and the cia assures the people who are doing the interrogation who are afraid that abu zubaydah may someday tell what haened to him, rest

assured, this is a direct quote, he will remain incommunicado for the remainder of his life. and so far, that's been the case, though interestingly, his name has recently surfaced in the supreme court, and a certain number of justices wondered how is it possible that somebody could be held for 20 years without the ability to challenge their detention? amna: the documentary is "the forever prisoner." it debuts on hbo and hbo max on december 6th. alex gibney, thanks so much for being here. alex: thank you. ♪ judy: on the newshour online right now, watch the u.s. navy possible commemoration ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the pearl harbor attack. the secretary of the navy gave a keynote address at the remembrance in hawaii. and separately, president biden observed the anniversary by visiting the world war 2 memorial in washington, d.c.

you can see all of the days events at pbs.org/newshour. 80 years. 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, stay safe and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ >> consumer cellular. >> johnson & johnson. >> financial services firm raymond james. bnsf railway. carnegie corporation of new york , supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security at carnegie.org. the target foundation, committed to advancing racial equity and

creating the change required to shift systems and accelerate equitable economic opportunity. 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 w eta studios in washington and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪

♪♪ ♪♪ -it's been celebrated in movie classics as one of the greatest thrills of any modern city -- moving through the streets of san francisco. -what does it mean -- "exact change"? [ ahooga horn honks ] -always a city of firsts, san francisco has long been a laboratory for how to move people across a difficult terrain. out of the rubble and a riot, san francisco invented the modern notion of city-owned transit. it was an early battleground for guaranteeing that all citizens had a right to ride and for saving neighborhoods from the juggernaut of freeways. but today, the romance and innovation of moving through the bay area