judy: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. the pandemic persists. the u.s. approach is 900,000 covid deaths, with the mortality rate far higher than other nations as campaign action stagnates. a former nfl head coach suing after being fired by the miami dolphins. and a silent outbreak, scientist uncover rampant covid infections in white tailed deer, raising bastions about the future of the pandemic. >> it's the first time they have been devastated.

it changes the way we ought to understand this pandemic. judy: all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ consumer cellular. skoll foundation the lemelson foundation supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to

building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. 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. vanessa: we will return to the full program after the latest headlines. president biden has ordered several thousand u.s. troops to take up new positions in eastern europe as russian forces crowd ukraine's borders. the pentagon said today that 2000 soldiers will deploy from fort bragg, north carolina, to poland and germany. another 1000 will move from germany to romania. >> these troops will not be going to ukraine to participate

in the defense of ukraine. the president has been very clear about that. these forces are going to reassure and to bolster capabilities inside nato's eastern flank. >> russia called the u.s. deployments destructive. meanwhile, the pentagon confirmed the validity of documents linked to a spanish newspaper that indicate the u.s. has agreed to talks on reducing this'll deployments and europe if russia backs away from ukraine. in congo, militia fighters attacked a refugee camp overnight with machetes and guns. local officials say at least 60 people were killed. it was the latest violence in the eastern part of congo in a long-running conflict between ethnic groups. back in this country, a sprawling winter storm pushed east, closing highways and canceling 5000 lights until tomorrow. part of interstate 70 was shut down in missouri at the foot or more of snow falling. freezing rain and ice reached as

far south as texas. all told, nearly a third of the u.s. population was under winter weather alerts. the fbi has identified as many as six possible suspects in bomb threats against historically black colleges and universities. news accounts today said all of those being investigated are juveniles. at least 18 schools received threats on monday and tuesday. no bombs were found. the cdc warned today it is too soon to start lifting covid-19 restrictions. that came amid reports that the u.s. death rate is running higher than in other wealthy nations, due in part two lagging vaccinations. the cdc's director acknowledge that infections are down sharply, but she said there are still too many hospitalizations. >> are hospitalization rates are still quite high and certainly having hospital capacity challenges in many parts of the country still. so we have to look to

hospitalization and death rates to look to win is time to lift some of these mitigation efforts. we will continue to reevaluate we know people are anxious. judy: she said it is still true that most patients hospitalized with covid are unvaccinated. four men have been charged with nor conducts conspiracy in the overdose of actor michael k williams. federal prosecutors in new york said today the men were involved in a drug crew that sold heroin laced with fentanyl. williams was best known for his role in the tv series, the wire. in a lead figure in u.s. television news, jeff zucker, resigned today as president of cnn. he acknowledged she had failed to disclose a consensual romantic relationship with another senior cnn executive. it came out one month before chris cuomo was investigated and fired for advising his brother

andrew in a sexual harassment scandal while he was governor of new york. the world's major oil producing companies, opec and its allies have agreed to raise output by another 400,000 barrels a day, part of an ongoing plan to restore deep cut made when the pandemic hit. the increase is not expected to do much to cut down on oil prices, now at their highest since 2014. competition has begun for the beijing winter olympics. and curling, u.s. makes doubles team won in the opening round against australia and qualifying round for skiing and hockey are underway. the opening ceremony will officially kick off the games friday. still to come on the newshour, examining the president's pledge to diversify the federal judiciary. would be goldberg is suspended from the tv show the view, following remarks about the holocaust, and professor explores the history of the american south in a new book. plus, much more.

this is the pbs newshour, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism in arizona. judy: more than two years into this pandemic, the u.s. death toll is the highest in the world. the country is closing in on 900,000 deaths. and its death rate is alarming, particularly given that the u.s. was one of the first to have the vaccine. geoff bennett looks at why the u.s. is struggling, compared to much of the world. geoff: judy, those troubling statistics have been persistent since covid first spread. and, today, an analysis by the new york times underscores just how deep these problems are. it compared the u.s. death rate for covid to other wealthy industrialized countries. america had the highest rates. and, as you can see on this simplified chart of the times' data, the u.s. rate was higher than britain, germany, canada, and japan, just to name a few.

and the disparity has been even worse during the spread of omicron. so, why are we continuing to struggle? we dig into that now with jennifer nuzzo, who studies epidemiology and global health at the johns hopkins center for health. it's good to have you with us. and we will start there. what accounts for this high death rate, the u.s., as compared to its peer nations? dr. nuzzo: i mean, first of all, we have to acknowledge that it's a complete and utter tragedy, because the vast majority of the deaths have been preventable, because many of them have occurred, in fact, most of them have occurred since the development of the covid-19 vaccines. but what we're really seeing is the effect of the united states not making enough progress in vaccinating adults against the virus. and people who are not protected from severe illness by vaccine are, unfortunately, the ones most likely to die. geoff: what accounts for that lack of progress on vaccination? dr. nuzzo: sure. so i think, in some places,

people still do have a hard time getting vaccinated, in part because maybe they work hours that are not conducive to going to get vaccines. but i think we also have not done enough of an effort to emphasize the benefits of vaccines, the fact that they prevent you from severe illness and death. many people, i think, are probably focusing on the fact that they know somebody who've gotten vaccinated and they still got covid. but the fact of the matter is, if you're vaccinated against covid, the likelihood that you will wind up in the hospital is very, very low, comparedo people who are not vaccinated. so we alsoave an information environment where people are trying to do their research on vaccines. and, for many people, it's much easier to find lies about the vaccines than the truth and to find information about the benefits of these vaccines. so, we really need to do more. and we also need to make sure that we protect the people who are most likely to suffer the severe outcomes of covid. that includes people who are in the nursing home who may benefit from having a third dose. we have really lagged there compared to other countries in

terms of getting third doses out to particularly people over the age of 60. but, really, all adults, if you're not yet vaccinated, you haven't protected yourself against the worst harms that this virus can cause. geoff: the public health response in this country, as you well know, has in many ways been so politicized, just the idea of wearing a mask, the notion of getting vaccinated for lots of people is a partisan issue now. have you been able to quantify the impact of that on the overall u.s. death rate? and how does the politicization of the public health response in this country stack up with our industrialized peer nations? dr. nuzzo: well, there was an interesting study that just came out today in "the lancet" or just came out recently in "the lancet" looking at probably the single biggest predictor of how countries have performed in terms of covid outcomes. it really comes down to public trust. and, unfortunately, when political leaders make a political issue out of simple biology, which is that the virus is deadly and the vaccines protect people, it unfortunately

deters people from getting vaccinated. i have spoken to lots of people who are not yet vaccinated. and they come to me with, earnestly, but armed with lies, lies that they have seen online, unfortunately, lies that they have heard repeated from political leaders. and if you spend a lot of time talking to people, you can unpack it, and you can change minds. but it takes time and it's a really hard thing to scale when we're in the midst of a crisis. so, what we need to do is make sure that people have access to the right information, that they can talk to people that they trust, and that we can make vaccines available to them. we should not assume that people who are not vaccinated don't care about covid. i know lots of people who are scared about the vaccines because of things they have seen online, but are worried about contracting the virus. but we have to continue to have these tough conversations with people and do so in a nonjudgmental, empathetic way, so we can get to that point of their feeling of trust in the message and the benefits the vaccines offer. geoff: can you point to some things that other countries are doing right when it comes to

managing this pandemic? dr. nuzzo: well, i think one of the things that we have failed to do in the united states is to help people comply with public health recommendations. we know that there are barriers for people to comply. masks are expensive. getting tested is hard. when people do test positive, that may mean they get shut out of work for 10 or more days. and that's very difficult for some people. we haven't appropriately supported them financially or socially to make sure that they can comply with public health recommendations. and that's one thing that we have seen a number of other countries do, and it really helps people comply in a way that they feel supported and not perhaps put upon or feeling as though they, their rights or freedoms have been restricted. geoff: as we enter year three now of this covid crisis, where are we in the life of this pandemic? are we any closer, as close as we need to be, to having covid be endemic? dr. nuzzo: well, everyone should understand that this virus is not going away. it's going to be with us for a

long time. so, any hope that you can sort of sit it out and ride out the storm is an unrealistic one, again, another reason why it's great to arm yourself against the virus, your first contact with the virus, through vaccines. the virus is not going away. but we're still very much in a, more of an emergency response period, because the case numbers that we're seeing are still unprecedentedly high. and even if people are protected because they have been vaccinated, or maybe they have gotten covid before, we're still seeing high case numbers that wind up in the hospitals, where that's a strain othe health system. so, i think we have a ways to go. the good news is, at least here in the united states, is that the case numbers are coming down, the hospitalizations are going down. and i expect, in a few weeks, we will see the death numbers go down. but we have to remember this is not just a u.s. problem. this is a global pandemic. and so really our concerns about this virus and every other greek alphabet letter variant that still could yet emerge is not going to be over until we make

sure that the world has access to vaccines, so that people can protect themselves and that we reduce the likelihood of mutations occurring across the globe that could sort of undermine the progress that we have made to date. geoff: jennifenuzzo is an associate professor at the jns hopkins school of public health. we appreciate your insights. dr. nuzzo: thank you. judy: well over half of the players in the national football league are black, but you could count on one hand the number of top head coaches or general managers who are. that has been a problem for many years. but a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court yesterday has cast a stark new spotlight on it, alleging racism in hiring and recruitment. william brangham has the latest. william: former miami dolphins head coach brian flores took to the morning shows today, explaining why he's suing the nfl and its 32 teams over

alleged racist hiring practices. >> we didn't have to file a lawsuit for the world to know that there's a problem, from a hiring standpoint, in regards to minority coaches in the national football league. the numbers speak for themselves. >> right. we filed the lawsuit so that we >>we filed the lawsuit so that we could create some change. william: flores said the league is, quote, "rife with racism," pointing to stark racial disparities in players vs. management. the lawsuit alleges that, out of 32 nfl teams, none has a black owner, only one has a black head coach, only four have a black offensive coordinator, and only 11 have a black defensive coordinator. that's against the backdrop of nfl players, where 58 percent of them are black. flores was fired last month, after three years leading the dolphins, the last two being winning seasons. he was interviewed for the head coach job with the new york giants, but flores alleges he wasn't really being considered. as evidence, his lawsuit includes text messages between flores and new england patriots

coach bill belichick that were sent three days before flores' scheduled interview for the giants job. belichick said he'd heard from the other team that flores was, quote, "their guy." but belichick then realized he'd texted the wrong brian and admitted to flores it was bria daboll who'd already been chosen. daboll, who is white, was officially named the new giants head coach last week. in a statement, the gits said flores was, quote, "in the conversation to be our head coach until the 11th hour," but hired the individual the team felt was the most qualified. flores argues the giants' interview process is typical of how the nfl carries out the so-called rooney rule. that rule was created nearly 20 years ago to give more minority candidates oppornities to become nfl head coaches. it was amended in 2020 to say that teams must interview at least two minority candidates

not associated with their team for any head coach openings. brian: it was humiliating, to be quite honest. there was disbelief. there was anger. there was a wave of emotions for a lot of reasons. william: the nfl, in response, said it would defend against the lawsuit, and that diversity is, quote, "core to everything we do, and there are few issues on which our clubs and our internal leadership spend more time." flores' suit, filed as a putative class action, will need certification from the court to proceed. to unpack more on this, i'm joined by kevin blackistone. he is a columnist at the washington post and a frequent guest on espn. kevin blackiston great to have you back on the "newshour." so, brian flores has two straight winning seasons. he's fired by the dolphins. and then he says that he is humiliated by the fact that he knows he's now interviewing for a job that's already been given to another, a white coach, and

he says this makes an absolute mockery of this rooney rule. do you agree with that? kevin: oh, absolutely. the problem with the rooney rule is not the rule. the problem with the rooney rule are the people who have been entrusted to carry out the moral and ethic responsibilities embedded in the rooney rule. and that is what has let brian flores down d a number of other coaches down as well. i mean, how could the new york giants, their executive office, actually bring him in for an interview, for a job that they had already decided to give to someone else? it is the ultimate embarrassment for brian flores, which he does not deserve, and it was the trigger, obviously, for him to file this scorched-earth lawsuit not just against the giants and the broncos and a couple of

other teams he named, but against all of the owners inhe national football league. william: i mean, the giants, in their defense, say they did consider flores seriously. maybe they interviewed him very late in the process, but that they chose to go with somebody else, and that is still their legal right to do. if, as you argue, that this is about the people who are entrusted with enacting that rule, we can't force people to hire people of certain minority status. so how do we level this playing field? what's the path forward? kevin: well, in the very beginning, on the first page of the lawsuit that brian flores filed against all of these owners, he quotes martin luther king talking about the difference in legislating morality and regulating morality. and i think that speaks to what brian flores and other black coaches, aspiring coaches of

color, are concerned about. and it's having the same opportunities to get these jobs that their white counterparts have. it's also abouteing able to stay on those jobs and prove yourself for as long as your white counterparts. and it's being able to get another job again if, in fact, you are released or decide to leave a job that you already had, which is something that's not afforded to coaches of color as readily as it is to white coaches who may fail or, for whatever reasons, want to seek employment elsewhere. so it's the way that the league goes about handling this situation that the lawsuit is seeking to change, making things more transparent, so that you don't walk into interviews that

you know are just to check a box, as brian flores pointed out, so that you know that you have a real opportunity. and that's the problem here. and so, good, he has filed a lawsuit. i mean, this lawsuit is stunning. and he's going to try and bring the nfl to its knees to reckon with this situation. i have said it before, i have written it before, but the progeny of enslaved africans in this country have rarely gotten anything unless we have threatened to burn the house down, or, in brian flores' case, actually start the fire. william: it reminds me a little bit of that famous quote of john thompson from georgetown university, the famous black basketball coach, who said black coaches never get the opportunity. they have to be perfect every single time. they never get to fail, and then try again, like so many white coaches get. kevin: sure. and you think about condoleezza rice's book, where she quotes what has been said in black

households many times, right, twice as good. so, brian flores has to be twice as good in order to get the job that daboll would. and i should point out about the new york giants, they can say that in their defense, but, as long as they have been around in their cornerstone franchise in the nfl, they have never had a black head coach. brian flores is from the brownsville section of brooklyn, where the saying is, never ran, never will. well, he's very present to want to be the coach of a giants team that he grew up in the shadow of. william: i want to turn to this other racially fraught piece of nfl business in the news. and that is the washington football team, which for many, many years was named after what many argue is a racist slur about native americans. they have now changed that name. they are the washington commanders announced today to great fanfare. you have watched this for a very

long time. i know you have studied this issue in pticular. what do you make of how the washington team has handled this? kevin: very poorly. it is with great disappointment. and i grew up in washington, d.c. i grew up in a family that had five season tickets, when they were very hard to get, to go see this team play. i was a big fan of the team maybe up until about 10 years ago. and when i learned in the '90s about how dangerous, how racist the name was, i begin to study it. i began to try and remove it from my speech, from my writing, and began to side with native american activists like suzan shown harjo, who have been fighting to get this name

removed since as far back as 1972, 50 years now. and so to hear dan snyder some years ago almost sound like -- william: this is the owner of the washington team. kevin: the owner, yes, the owner of the team, almost sound like george wallace standing in the schoolhouse door when he said he would never, and put it in all caps, change the name of this team, it was very disheartening, knowing that people are being hurt by this. and i have documented this in a film that will be released and premiered in april, "imagining the indian," about just how hurtful this name and this imagery is. so, nothing was done here altruistically. this was done because of economic pressure brought on by fedex, which is the name sponsor of the washington football team stadium. it was brought on by the

protests in the streets in the wake of the george floydurder, when people begin to try and reconcile with this long history of white supremacy in this country, which is very much a part of the washington football team history. in fact, if you read through brian flores' suit about the history of racism in this country, he cites the original owner/founder of this franchise, george preston marshall, and how he kept this team all white until the very end, when the federal government forced them to change the name, change to an integrated team. william: all right, we should say that the documentary of yours that's coming out soon is called "imagining the indian." kevin blackistone of the washington post, always good to see you. thank you. kevin: thank you very much. ♪ judy: it is a big week in the

u.s. senate for another major push by president biden, this time to reshape american courts. as a candidate, mr. biden pledged to diversify the federal bench. his decision to appoint a black woman to the supreme court has dominated recent headlines, but the president also is trying to change the face of the federal court system. for more, i'm joined by our congressional correspondent, lisa desjardins. so, lisa, hello. we know the democrats on capitol hill have a very full agenda already, but, as you have been, and you have been reporting a lot about it. but tell us about how big a priority this desire to change the courts is. lisa: this is a very high priority for democrats and, for them, a bright spot in what has been a difficult last two months. how high of a priority? the only thing the u.s. senate is doing this week is voting on nominations. now, some of that is because democrats' agenda, where that sits, but a lot of that is because this is what they feel is important. i want to talk to you about how

quickly president biden and democrats have been moving through to get judicial nominees confirmed. look at these numbers. president biden in his first year in office was able to get 42 federal judges confirmed. compare that with former president trump, in his first year, 23. that biden number, by the way, is a record for the last 60 years. we know that president trump went on to confirm many, many federal judges. there's three more years left for president biden, but out of the gates, that's a big number. and that is part of what's happening this week. i want to look at four photos of some of his nominees. three of those, the three on the right, were just confirmed yesterday to the district court in ohio, the other one, leonard stark, could be confirmed by the end of the week for the circuit court. and you notice something else about those photos, judy? that is a diverse group of judges. and that is what the president is submitting to the senate. and those are the kinds of

judges that are getting confirmed. judy: so, those are four. give us the larger picture of what the biden nominees look like, compared to previous slates of judges. lisa: to help people understand this universe, there are about 800 federal judges in this country. they all have a lifetime appointment to the court. that is an incredibly important group of theme in this country. so let's look back. and i want to show you, using some excellent graphics from the washington post, over what the different slates of nominees look like. here are the slates of nominees from president obama in two terms, president trump in one. now, at the bottom, the bottom half there, those are nominees who were white nominees. it appears in purple on your screen. those are the bottom numbers. you can see those are the largest ones. the top half there, those are minority nominees. and then, if you look in the upper, there you go. there's the white nominees there at the bottom, minorities at the top. if you look at the upper left, those are minority women. that is the smallest group for both presidents obama and trump. now let's look at what biden has been nominating, the kinds of judges he's nominated. look at that. it's flipped, minority women the

single largest category by quite a lot. and you can also see that, rather than white nominees being the vast majority, two-thirdto 80%, it's gone the other way. now, under president biden so far, white federal nominees are about a third of what we see being proposed. judy: and, lisa, you are talking to people on capitol hill every day. what has been the reaction to all this? lisa: this is what we were just hearing from william in the last segment, the playing field. how do you even it? and some republicans, they are divided, believe that this is a form of affirmative actionhat they say is reverse discrimination. i'm going to start with some sound bites from two of those senators, ted cruz of texas and roger wicker of mississippi, specifically talking to the idea that president biden would like a black female as his next supreme court justice. sen. cruz: the fact that he's willing to make the promise at the outset that it must be a black woman, i got to say, that's offensive. man: right. sen. cruz: black women are,

what, 6% of the u.s. population? he's saying to 94 percent of americans, i don't give a damn about you. you are ineligible. sen. wicker: the irony is that the supreme court is at the very same time hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination, and while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota. lisa: but, of course, this is not new. in fact, i want to pull up a quote by former president reagan when he was a candidate for the presidency in 1980, when he promised himself: "it is time for a woman to sit among our highest jurists." and, of course, he appointed sandra day o'connor. on the other side of this debate, there are those who say diversity isn't just something that is visual. it is something that makes a difference. and i want to play some sound from an interview we did today with maya sen, she is with harvard's kennedy school of government, about the value of diversity on our courts. >> important for the federal court system is that there are a lot of studying, studies showing

at judges of different backgrounds decide cases differently. so, to give you an example of this, there are a number of studies that have shown that white and black judges sometimes sentence criminal defendants differently, and, in particular, that white judges tend to be harsher than black judges, especially against black defendants. lisa: this is a lot of information, but to sum this up, judy, president biden is moving more quickly, in a historic way, and by far with the most diverse slate of federal judges to occupy the american bench in history. judy: and, finally, lisa, i want to ask you about president biden making his decision in coming weeks on who he's going to pick for the supreme court. tonight, he was meeting with the senate democratic leader, chuck schumer. i know you weren't in the meeting, but what can you tell us about it? lisa: if they want to invite me, i'd love to go. we haven't heard anything yet from that meeting. but i will tell you some important news i can tell you regarding senator ben ray lujan of new mexico. as we reported, he suffered a stroke. he is not going to be in the senate. his vote is critical to the

50/50 senate. his staff tells me that he is expected to return within four to six weeks. that is good news for democrats, who may need his vote in that supreme court fight. and i think we should watch that four-to-six-week timeline as a potential timeline for when we will see a supreme court nominee making it to the senate floor, one month to two months. judy: well, we certainly wish him well. we know a lot of the focus is on the supreme court, but everyone wishing him well, in terms of his health, too. lisa: right. judy: lisa desjardins reporting on it all. thank you, lisa. lisa: you're welcome. ♪ judy: the history of the holocaust has been part of school curriculums for decades, but how it is taught and how much americans really know about the mass genocide of european jews and other minority groups has changed in recent years.

concerns about that very issue were triggered this week by remarks from whoopi goldberg. the comedian, actress, and talk show host made the comments monday on abc tv's "the view." goldberg and her co-hosts were discussing a school district's book ban on a graphic novel about the holocaust, "maus." here is some of what goldberg initially said during her conversation. the holocaust isn't about race. >>the holocaust isn't about race. woman: no. whoopi goldberg: no, it's about race. well, they considered jews a different race. whoopi goldberg: but it's not about race. it's not about race. joy: well, what is it about? >> because you, it's about man's inhumanity to man. that's what it's about. judy: those remarks were widely condemned, and, in response, a number of experts detailed the nazi'racism against jews. the next day, goldberg invited the head of the anti-defamation league on the program to explain the historical record. and she apologized. oopi goldberg: i said that the

holocaust wasn't about race, and it was instead about man's immunity to man. but it was indeed about race, because hitler and the nazis considered jews to be an inferior race. now, words matter. and mine are no exception. i regret my comments, as i said. and i stand corrected. i also stand with the jewish people, as they know and you all know, because i have always done that. judy: afteard, abc suspended goldberg for two weeks. the episode has raisedarger questions. and we want to spend a few minutes looking at those. ethan katz is the co-director of the berkeley antisemitism education initiative, and he is an associate professor of history and jewish studies at u.c. berkeley. ethan katz, welcome to the "newshour." first of all, what was your reaction to whoopi goldberg's initial comments that the holocaust was not about race? >> thank you for having me on the show.

this was a shocking thing for someone to say, someone who is well-educated, someone who has many, many jewish friends and has for decades. and so the holocaust was all about race, right? the historical record of the nazis is so clear they thought they were fighting a race war primarily against jews, also against slavs, and roma and other groups. and so to make this statement reflects tremendous lack of historical, sort of basic knowledge about the nature of the holocaust and also the nature of anti-semitism as primarily a racial hatred of jews because it sees jews as a racial, biological group. you can't change your race, whereas people can convert religiously, right? but the nazis didn't care if you had grown up christian. if you had three or four jewish grandparents, you were jewish, and you were supposed to be annihilated. judy: i'm wondering, ethan katz, how many people you think there are out there who believe that the holocaust was not only an

attempt to eliminate the jews because of their religion, but also because of their race? i'm asking because there was a poll done we know of just a couple of years ago showing a surprisingly high number, large percentage of young people aged 18 to 39. almost a quarter of them didn't have a clear memory of what the holocaust was about. what's your sense of the public's understanding of all this? ethan: right. so, that study from the claims conference from the fall of 2020 is very disturbing in terms of the numbers of people who didn't know how many people were murdered in the holocaust. one in 10 under 40 had never heard the word holocaust before, they said. so, i ink we are in a moment of diminished public consciousness about the holocaust. probably the 1990s, with many anniversaries from world war ii, with the opening and growth of the holocaust memorial museum, was perhaps the height moment. and now we're in a moment where

it is certainly disturbing. and the problem is that you caot understand the nature of anti-semitism without understanding that it was racial from the beginning and that the holocaust was about race and that, for american jews today, their experience of anti-semitism is still profoundly shaped by that. judy: i think we, those of us who are having this conversation, who are listening to it understand the answer to this, but why is it important that people know this history? ethan: the history of the holocaust is history that tells us so much about what can happen when we do not understand how coexist with different groups of people, right? and it's something that happened in what was supposed to be the most sophisticated part of civilization in the middle of the 20th century. so it's partly important just because it tells us that, if we begin to exclude people because of their race, or their

religion, or how they look, that those can be taken to such destructive ends. but it's also important specifically with regard to anti-semitism, because no one could ever think about exclusion of jews the same way again. so if you want to understand why the american jewish community responds the way it does to certain perceptions of anti-semitism today, one of the fundamental reasons is because small kinds of exclusion that had existed for centuries led to an attempt to annihilate all jews and the murder of six million jews. and people said, well, we have to stand up to all the small things now, because we know where it could lead. judy: do you think that these conversations we're having right now around race could change the way we think about anti-semitism, and vice versa? i mean, should we be thinking about the two things in a more, i guess, interconnected way? ethan: yes, that's a great question. and i think we do need to, right? one of the challenges and one of

the things that was exposed in this episode, i think, with whoopi goldberg is that we are in this really important moment of racial reckoning. and it has exposed the fact that the position of jews racially in america is highly complex. most jews in america are ashkenazic, more than 80 perct. that means that we are primarily white-skinned, white-presenting. but most jews in america don't think of themselves as sply white full stop, because of their ethnic distinctiveness, because of the long history of persecution of jews that has been done in racial terms that we have spoken about here. and, unfortunately, we're also in a moment where there is a growing movement of white nationalists who not only don't see jews as white. they actually see them as the primary catalysts in what they depict as a race war against whites. and, at the same time, making it all the more complicated, the fact is, like other people who have white skin, ashkenazic jews

in america have benefited from not looking brown or black, and are trying to come to terms with that. so, all those things are going on at the same time. and we have to find a way to think about that complexity. judy: important conversations, for sure. ethan katz, thank you very much for joining us. ethan katz: thank you so much for having me. ♪ judy: scientists have recently discovered what they are calling a silent outbreak of coronavirus among white-tailed deer. william brangham is back now with this report about how one of the most ubiquitous species in north america got covid and what that means for the future of the pandemic. and all morning, -- a warning, viewers may find some of the images in this report distressing. william: they are an elegant

sight dancing through the trees. there are an estimated 25 million white-tailed deer in the u.s., and now scientists have learned some have shockingly high rates of covid infections. >> the level of infectivity we found in these animals was truly stunning. >> gobsmacked is the word i used. william: that's the technical term for it? vivek: that's the technical term, is gobsmacked. it was quite, quite striking. so, these are the penn state deer facilities. william: oh, i see where it gets its name, all the deer. stunning, gobsmacked, striking, not the usual vocabulary for scientists. so, on a cold pennsylvania day, i went out with veterinary virologists suresh kuchipudi and vivek kapur to see some deer up close. this is an enclosed facility at penn state university. and the scientists said it's fine for us to be near them. and some of the deer, like tiny peanut, who was raised in captivity and bottle-fed by humans, wanted to be near us.

it was in kapur and kuchipudi's labs here at penn state that they made this remarkable discovery about widespread infections in deer. and it raises concerns about whether humans can fully control this coronavirus. suresh: this is the first time a widespread natural infection of a wild animal species has been demonstrated, which really changes the way we ought to understand this pandemic and the virus. william: it began with these deer lymph nodes from iowa collected when deer were killed by hunters or cars at various times during the pandemic. researchers in iowa weren't looking for covid. they were tracking what's known as chronic wasting disease. but kapur and kuchipudi took the samples and tested them to see if deer had gotten covid, and when. vivek: september, the first positive there. october, another one shows up. november. william: wow. vivek: and, december, all that positive.

william: wow. vivek: you zoom out into the state, the whole state. you can see this event in different parts. with these samples, about 30 percent of them overall were positive at this stage. suresh: if you look at the spread of these red dots on the map, these are all individual clusters, which also points to the fact that there are multiple spillover events happened. william: spillover, meaning the virus that was circulating in humans spills over into the wild animal population. vivek: so, out of just under 2,000 samples collected, 1,200 were positive. it's just completely amazing. if this were happening in humans, you would just give up, yes. vivek: it's just incredible to see that to see how quickly this occurred. william: and, of course, because there's no interventions, they're not, they don't know to distance or mask or no vaccines. there's no evidence infected deer showed any symptoms of

covid-19. the virus seems not to affect them. the iowa samples showed they got the same variants we got. and by tracking the timing of the infections, and using genomic sequencing, the researchers are certain humans gave the virus to the deer, not the reverse. but how? with the exception of peanut here, who does seem very eager to interact with humans, most humans don't have interactions like this with the deer. so, how is it possible that that we gave the virus to them? suresh: it doesn't necessarily require a direct interaction between a human and the deer. a kid throwing half-eaten apple or leftover food or somebody's feeding deer in their backyard, all it takes is just one or two deer to pick up the infection. they can transmit the virus among themselves very fectively. and once one animal gets infected, the virus spreads among them very, very quickly. vivek: if you look back there,

you can simply see them interacting. quite a lot. they're all huddled up. william: they're all very packed together. vivek: yes. they're alluddled up. and then, if you have ever walked in a forest and seen deer, it's, and they're blowing, you just see plumes of their breath come out. amount of virus that these deer had, it's very easy to see why they were so susceptible and it spread explosively in herds. william: given what your findings in iowa indicate, should we just make the assumption that deer, white-tailed deer all over north america, are carrying the virus? vivek: i think it's safe to assume that that would be the case. william: these human-to-animal leaps by the coronavirus aren't unheard of. while this research is the first known case in a wild population, there are examples with more domesticated animals. in the netherlands, scientists discovered that, when pet owners got covid, their dogs and cats

had a one-in-five chance of getting it too. in hong kong, a pet store hamster got the virus, and officials then killed 2,000 others to stop any further spread. all this leads to a potentially more troubling issue. if humans can mutate the virus and pass diffent variants to deer, could deer do the same in reverse, meaning, could they create new variants and pass those back to us? it's not impossible. in 2020, in denmark, officials killed the country's entire population of farmed mink after a mutated covid strain jumped from mink back to humans. but kapur and kuchipudi say, thus far, there's no evidence that's happening with deer. suresh: this is still primarily a pandemic of a virus that is spreading in human beings across the world.

and, so far, all the animal infections have been opportunistic spillover from human beings. vivek: my personal feeling is, actually, deer are more likely to get the infection from humans than give it to humans. and so i think we also have to be respectful that, when we are going out, we're likely to be transmitting just as easily to deer, animals we love, than getting the infection back. william: we're the problem here, for the most part, not them. vivek: we're the initial problem. and we want to make sure that they don't become a problem for us in the future. william: these scientists say that, given how widespread deer and this virus are in north america today, much more research needs to be done about this potential threat. for the "pbs newshour," i'm william brangham in state college, pennsylvania. ♪

judy: a new book seeks to change how people view the american south. jeffrey spoke to an author who traveled the south and explore the complexities and misperceptions along the way, as part of our ongoing series of race matters, as well as our arts and culture series, canvas. >> it sort of like trying to get to the root and help readers from all over the place understand that it's the root. >> the root of the country for imani perry is the south. on a recent walk, she saw connections everywhere. >> harlem is filled with southern culture. wall street is dependent on the history of the u.s. slave trade. >> her new book takes on trip she made all over the region across the mason-dixon line. it takes on what she sees as a misperception of the south's

continuing role in we are today. it's called "out to america." >> the south is not only where the idea begins of what this nation would become, but it also has moved the country about because it was the bounty of the south that allowed the nation to become wealthy, to become a global power, and has continued to shape our tastes, our habits, our culture in ways that we often deny, in part because it's done the dirty work of the nation in many ways. >> she is a professor at princeton, whose work explores race, law, and history with the dual lens of history that -- culture and cultural figures. her book was written as a letter to her two teenage sons on the perils of growing up black in america. she describes her sense of mission in this way.

>> i'm trying to figure out why we have this choreography of two steps forward, one step back, or sometimes three steps back. americans, the united states. anso i want to use history, tradition, very particularly the history and tradition of african american, are civic culture, to think creatively about how to move toward freedom, notwithstanding the fact that we're trudging the pats over and over again. >> she was born inside of the 1963 birmingham church bombing. birmingham remains the place she calls home. >> i always think, that's the place i learned to walk and talk, laugh, read, dance. so there's a core part of me that i see having been created there.

>> at age five, when her mother and father, she moved to cambridge, massachusetts, returning south regularly to visit a close extended family. but she did something different, to see the present interacting with the past. >> everywhere i went, and i expect this will always be the case to a certain extent, in the south, you feel history and when you feel the ghosts of the past, even when the confederate monuments come down, it is still present. it is present in the way land is used and is present in the sort of qui but collective memories of what happened in those places. >> from her larger perspective, she saw a place people look down on for its racism and backwardness, ignoring how the entire countries history,

economy and culture was shaped and implicated. >> to say, well, that's down there, without acknowledging there, without acknowledging that that is actually what made the wealth and the prosperity for the entire nation, it's just insincere, but it allows for a deep inconsistency between the truth of the nation and the way we narrate it, right? jeffrey this is what you mean by : saying that the south did the dirty work. imani: the south did the dirty work. yes. our habit of being ok with people working hard and suffering or having very little, our habit of people being pushed out of their homes, there are ways of doing things in this country that i argue begin with the ways of that region. and so, in order to fully understand what this place is, and hopefully make it something closer to fair and just and kind to everybody who participates in it, i think we have to

acknowledge, that's us. it's not some other place. that's us. jeffrey: at the same time, she says, that other south, the place where social justice movements began and so much is happening today, isn't celebrated enough. her travels included montgomery, alabama, its profile changed by the work of the equal justice initiative in fighting mass incarceration, including the powerful national memorial for peace and justice. and political and social change in georgia and elsewhere impacting the direction of the country, all of this, of coue, continuing to be fought over. imani: people say, how can you be someone who is hopeful about the future? and i say, it's easy. i'm from birmingham, right? if that place could change, known as bombingham, known as the most racist, violent part of the south, coming from that place, i have to have faith in the possibility of transformation. but the openings are still quite

narrow for people to occupy different social positions. and retrenchment is so common, right, so that every movement forward has to be so jealously guarded, or else there can be almost immediate backsliding. jeffrey the book is "south to : america." imanperry, thank you very much. thank you. >> judy another way to think : about the uth and about the entire country. and restaurants, businesses and schools in new orleans are now requiring all children ages five and older to be fully vaccinated. talk to business owners across the city about how they are managing the transition as mardi gras approaches. you can find that at pbs.org/newshour. please stay

safe, and we will see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by. >> consumer cellular the ford foundation and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪

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