captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: the masking question. parents remain divided on face-coverings in schools, as more states repeal their requirements amid declining covid infections. then, america addicted. a new report details the scale of the opioid crisis, and the daunting challenge of cracking down on drug trafficking. and, rising prices. how inflation is disproportionately affecting senior citizens, but also young professionals trying to make ends meet. >> you look at your electrical bill, you look at your gas bill, you look-- now, especially now, food bill. it's ridiculous. >> woodruff: all that and more,

on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> fidelity wealth management. >> care.com. >> consumer cellular.

>> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention, in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> 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. >> woodruff: three more large states-- new york, massachusetts, and illinois--

are joining the move to end indoor mask mandates. new york state announced today that its mask requirement expires tomorrow-- except at health care sites and public schools. illinois will do the same, at month's end. in response, the c.d.c. said that it is working on new national guidance, and wants to be flexible. >> we've always said these decisions are going to have to be made at the local level, and that policies at the local level will look at local cases, they will look at how local hospitals are doing, they will look at local vaccination rates. and they, as i understand it, in many of these decisions, are using a phased approach. not all of these decisions are being made to stop things tomorrow. >> woodruff: also today, massachusetts announced plans to lift its public school mask mandate at the end of the month. we return to masking in schools, after the news summary. canadian officials insisted today that anti-vaccine protests at u.s. border crossings must end before they do serious economic damage. traffic is now stalled between

port huron, michigan, and sarnia, ontario, and the busy ambassador bridge between detroit and windsor, ontario has been clogged since monday. the mayor of windsor said today, it has to stop. >> there will have to be a resolve one way or the other. and i'm not saying that to suggest that, you know, it's going to go in battering rams and 1,000 police officers. that may not be the solution. but there has to be a resolution to get this border crossing open. >> woodruff: a border crossing in alberta is also blocked, and trucks have paralyzed downtown ottawa for 13 days. amid the protests, several canadian provinces have announced plans to roll back covid restrictions. russia's military moves kept the pressure on ukraine today. moscow released video showing a convoy in belarus, transporting an air defense system. the russians plan joint military exercises with belarus tomorrow. meanwhile, the british foreign

secretary flew to russia, in the latest diplomatic effort to defuse the situati. iran has unveiled a new long- rae missile, reportedly capable of reaching israel. state tv said today that the weapon is highly accurate and can defeat missile shield systems. it can fly 900 miles, putting it in range of u.s. bases in the middle east, as well as israel. in madagascar, the death toll has reached 92, with more than 100,000 people displaced, after a tropical cyclone last weekend. most of the casualties came in an isolated, rural district of the island nation, some 330 miles from the capital city. many homes in the area were made of earth, and collapsed in heavy flooding from downpours. now, survivors are pleading for help. >> ( translated ): our tv, my cd player, all of our clothing, all the kitchenware, everything is

gone. moreover, we don't have anything to eat, and i'm jobless. i call on the international community to help us, because the government won't be able to find solutions to our problems. >> woodruff: this was the second powerful storm to strike madagascar since the year began. back in this country, a congressional committee subpoenaed peter navarro, who was president trump's white house trade adviser. navarro pushed false claims of electi fraud, and the committee says he has information directly relevant to the causes of the nuary 6 attack on the u.s. capitol. lawmakers in congress have agreed on a spending framework for the fiscal year that began four mons ago. there were no details today, but the bipartisan deal could jump-start legislation on defense and domestic spending. currently, the government is operating on temporary, stop-gap funding. the owner of pro football's "washington commanders," dan snyder, is facing a new sexual harassment investigation. an independent probe announced

today will focus on a former team employee's claim that snyder groped her. a previous investigation found a toxic culture at the franchise. on wall street today, tech stocks led another rally. the dow jones industrial average gained 305 points to close at 35,768. the nasdaq rose 296 points-- 2%. the s&p 500 added 65. and athe winter olympics, the u.s. claimed its first gold medal at the beijing games. lindsey jacobellis won gold in snowboard-cross-- her first, after competing in four previous olympics. but, american mikaela shiffrin was disqualified from her second event this week, after missing a gate in the slalom. still to come on the newshour: a divided congress finds common ground on post office reform and other major legislation. a sharp rise in murders of

journalists in mexico prompts calls for change. a group of black scuba divers investigate the wreckage of slave ships. plus, much more. >> woodruff: so far, at least seven states announced this week that they will lift mask mandates for schools. the timing of the changes varies considerably, but it is clear that by the end of march, many school districts will no longer require masks. as amna nawaz tells us, some public health experts and parents are concerned those decisions are being made too quickly, without clear metrics for doing so. >> nawaz: judy, massachusetts is one of those states. governor charlie baker spoke today about the decision to lift mask mandates for k-12 schools there on february 28.

>> given the extremely low risk for young people, the widespread availability and the proven effectiveness of vaccines, and the distribution of accurate test protocols and tests, it's time to give our kids a sense of normalcy and lift the mask mandate on a statewide basis for schools. covid, like many other respiratory diseases that we're familiar with, will be with us for the foreseeable future. >> nawaz: as we heard earlier, c.d.c. director dr. rochelle walensky said some of these moves are happening too quickly. let's hear more from that perspective. mercedes carnethon is vice chair of the department of preventive medicine and a professor of epidemiology, pulmonary and critical care at northwestern university feinberg school of medicine. she joins me now. professor, welcome to the "newshour". thanks for making the time. as you saw there, massachusetts, the latest in a growing list of states to announce when they will end those mask mandates in the weeks ahead, not immediately. is this the right call for them to be making right now? >> i have significant concerns

about the timing for making this call. what i'm hearing are lowered rates of disease in the community as a justification when, really, the c.d.c. announced that there are very many communities across the united states that still have high transmission and our schools are not separate from your communities but are part of them. and, so, if we see spread in the community, it is also likely nat we will see spread in schools, particularly when we take away the one strategy that we have and know works to prevent spread. >> reporter: c.d.c. director walensky said indoor masking should continue in areas where high transmission persists. when you look at the map across the wasn't and see county by county transmission rates, the red demarks hgh transmission, it's almost the entire country,, 99.1% to have the counties.

what metrics do you think leadershould be paying attendance to on if and when to lift the mandates. >> certainly. and i do support an offramp for masking, but it needs to be based on the data. as you point out, one of the metrics needs to be the rate of transmission in the community. another metric needs to be the percent of the population who are vaccinated, not just children, but across the age range because, again, children live in communities. if they contract illness in their schools, they can bring it back out to community members who may be more vulnerable, and the third metric i think is critically important is how well our medical systems can manage if there's a surge. >> reporter: if they're not looking at those metrics and are making the decision to move ahead to end mask mandates, what are you worried can happen? >> i worry very much that we will see a repeat of what we saw in the southeastern regions of the united states in september and august of 2020, repeated in 2021, when we had the delta

surge, and that was we saw outbreaks in schools. when these outbreaks happen, it compromisings the progress we have been making towards lowering our overall rates. i fear if we do this now when we're starting to see a glimmer of hope and have to revert going back to mask wearing, we'll further frustrate and confuse the public and inconvenience a great number of families and compromise educational continuity tore our children. >> reporter: let me put to you what some folks pushing to end the mask mandates in schools sooner say. they hear this argument and they they but we're not in 2020 or 2021 anymore, that we have layers of protection we have today that we didn't have back then, vaccines for kids, higher vaccination rates across the country, higher quality masks, more testing, and they also say because we now know the obviouswhelming majority of kids who get sick are not severely ill, why mandate masks for all kids. are they wrong? >> i have concerns about that

sentiments and it's driven by what we actually do see. certainly, we are in a better position than we were before primarily because we do have vaccines available to most children who fall through the range of k-12 education. however, what we do not have is widespread uptick of families with children that age. the vaccination rates are lowest in young age adults and middle age adultsd who are most likely to have children in this age range. furthermore, removing mask protection in schools, a place where children spend eight to nine hours a day, really puts them at risk of contracting it. while most healthy children won't suffer extreme illness requiring hospitalization, there are children in schools who are immune compromised or who have family members who are vulnerable. we need to consider the risk by making children vectors to reinfect our vulnerable members of our community and our school

staff. >> reporter: i'll putto to you what i heard from other folks in this debate in response to that, they say those parents should continue to have their children masked, teachers who are worried should mask but not all children should mazic. what do you say to that? >> let's say how much children value the input of their peers. if i were to send my middle school age children to school and have them wear masks, and they see the majority of the class is not, do i place on the teacher to follow my wishes? that's not fair to teachers and staff who do not have a voice. >> reporter: in the few b seconds we have left, professor, this is a difficult moment for the parents to navigate. the c.d.c. says we continue to mandate masking inside, governments are lifting. how do parents navigate this moment if they want to keep children safe? >> the voices we are hearing

loudest are saying unmask our children. we need to hear from the parents who want children to stay in school safely, we want to hear from the parents who would be grossly inconvenienced either financially or for health reasons when their children are out on frequent quarantine and isolation due to contracting illness. it's a privileged position to say, well, if they're only out five days, it's not that much of a problem, put, you know, it is a problem for people who are paid and work hourly or people who can not work from home or do not have the capacity to educate their children. it becomes an issue of educational equity, so even if ther a argument around masking for reducing severe illness isn't compelling, let's lean on the educational equity argument as well. >> reporter: that is professor mercedes carnethon of northwestern univer university'sfeinburg school of medicine. thank you for your time. >> thank you very much for the opportunity.

>> woodruff: this week in congress, something relatively rare in recent years-- an outbreak of bipartisan agreement on large and difficult issues. bills tackling a major demand of the "me too" movement, and the financial struggles of the u.s. postal service, are moving forward with overwhelming, bipartisan votes. for more, i'm joined by congressional correspondent lisa desjardins. lisa, is it really true? is this happening? >> reporter: it's really true! >> woodruff: let's talk first about the piece of legislation that does seem to be moving e addressing sexual that is the harassment, sexual assault. tell us what's in it and what's bringing the two sides together for it. >> reporter: judy, this is an important bill in many ways, not least of which the fact that it is not marginal. this is a sweeping bill that addresses one of the major issues raised by the #metoo

movement, workplace sexual harassment and sexual assault, and i wt to help viewers understand the system as it sits now. in america, right now, many countries require their -- many companies require their employees, who enthey sign up for the job, to ree that any harassment claims will go through something called arbitration, that that employee is signing away their right to take those claims to court. that is called forced arbitration. the employee is silenced, their claims are not heard in public, and it is clear that what has happened in many of these workplaces is that that culture of harassment has just grown in that kind of silence. meanwhile, those who have been harmed by it, we know by the american association of arbitration, one of the arbitration groups, they say 1.6% of the time do those people claiming harm get any payment from it because they are not permitted to go to court. this is a system right now and it is a problem that many have

raised. congress just last night in the house passed a bill that would wipe away that system. here's what this bill would do -- first, it would ban the ideaof forced arbitration in sexual assault and sexual harassment claims, and it would allow any of those people who were making such claims to sue in court. now, it also would cover not just workplace harassment but it would also cover contracts you and i sign every day perhaps when we take a ride using a phone app or some of the agreements people sign when they are hiring moving companies. this would mean that no one could force someone into arbitration over these kinds of claims. now this is something that has made a lot of headlines, but i want to bring it home to what this has meant to some of the people who were affected. i want to play a sound byte of a woman who spoke at a hearing last year about what she went through in the workplace when the founder of her company, the company affinity, harassed her

and, in fact, actually assaulted her, and she was not able to speak out publicly until she was subpoenaed by congress. here's the sound byte from last year. >> forced arbitration is the reason chishti is able to carry out this ongoing campaign of retaliation against me, my family, and probably other victims. today, as i speak here, i am afraid of the consequences for my family that will arise from my speaking out. i have p.t.s.d. i have nightmares. i used to be a very social person, and i no longer am. the person who changed my life forever continues to abuse me, because forced arbitration gives him the power to do it in secret. >> reporter: now, how did this happen? i want to show you the deal-maker who negotiated across parentsen lines to reach a deal on this. in the house we have sherry bustos of illinois, she reached out to virginia republican republican morgan griffin, and the senate side kirsten

gillibrand of new york. why did republicans get on board? gretchen carlson of fox news reporting was a major factor. she had a problem with forced arbitration herself at fox news and she reached out to republicans including lindsey graham who knew her and said this is something congress has to deal with, we expect tis bill to pass the senate and move to the president as soon as tomorrow. >> woodruff: very very interesting. lisa, another bill receiving bipartisan support, postal reform. tell us where that stands and what it would do. >> reporter: i'll run through this quickly, but the -- here is what's going on with this bill pass the house this week. it would save the post 8 service $50 billion and move postal retirees into the medicare system. it would protect six-day delivery which a lot of americans rely on. this bill has good prospects in

the senate. no timing onhat again. this is a difficult issue that congress is moving on quickly. >> woodruff: lisa, other significant bipartisan bills this week. >> reporter: you reported on one. the spending bill. the ombudsman appropriation bill, t there was a deal on tha, vital to many administrations including thmilitary, agring on how much to spend on defense. the violence ainst women act sat in limbo, in fact languished three years unauthorized and now there is a deal also to renew the violence against women act. that announced today. >> woodruff: and finally, lisa, as all this coming together is happening, we know that on a personal level there have been some tensions at the capitol. >> reporter: that's right. yesterday, representative joyce beatty, the head to have the congressional black caucus, asked republicans hal rogers of

kentucky to put on a mask when they were riding on a subway car. he refused, poked her in the back, and said to her kiss my -- and used a word beginning with an a and has three letters. she was insulted. demanded an apology. hal rogers did apologize later. but this is the kind of disrespect and cultural change i really had not seen in congress until recently, how rogers someone, generally polite to reporters in the hallway, the fact he was so disrespectful to a high ranking member is significant to me. so these personal tensions are very real. >> woodruff: lisa desjardins reporting on all of this. thank you, lisa. >> woodruff: the opioid overdose crisis, which killed more than 100,000 americans in one year,

is being called one of the most pressing national security and public health challenges facing the u.s. and these overdoses cost the nation an estimated $1 trillion per year. william brangham talks with one of the chairs of the national commission that's looking for solutions. >> brangham: judy, a majority of those overdoses are being driven by the highly-potent synthetic opioid, fentanyl. manufactured abroad and trafficked into the u.s., it is then sold by itself, or mixed into various street drugs or counterfeit pharmaceutica, where its potency often turns deadly. overdoses now kill more people than car crashes, firearms, suicide, or homicide. so, how do we address this? representative david trone, democrat from maryland, is co-chair of the national commission on combating synthetic opioid trafficking. congressman trone, great to have you on the "newshour".

your report lays out ways to address the supply of these drugs and the the demand for these drugs. i want to talk about the supply issue first. as your report points out, mexican cartels are largely manufacturing this fentanyl and shipping it into the u.s., but they are relying on a steady stream of precursor chemicals to make those drugs from china. what do you think we ought to be doing vis-a-vis china to try to stop that flow? >> well, we certainly can disrupt the flow, and we need to get china to enforce customer laws. they have a huge petrochemical industry, a handful of middlemen buying these drugs and shipping them to the two major cartels n mexico. we can put pressure on china to know where the product is going, but unfortunately the precursors and pre-precursors can be found readily elsewhere if we do

slowdown from china. eth like whac-a-mole,f we stop it there, it can move to india which has a major chemical industry there or elsewhere. so we end back up in mexico who has vertically integrated this whole business, the cartels. >> reporter: as you mentioned, thcartels in mexico have enormous political power, they are an incredibly intimiding force in mexican society. do you think the mexican government itself is doing enough to address this? >> the mexican government has had a very difficult time with corruption, it's a major issue. it's a $100 billion business, the drug business there. it's over a third of the mexican gross domestic product is controlled by the cartels. so mexico, unfortunately, has adopted, for survival of the individuals, a hugs not bullets approach. they are not going after the cartels because they don't want

a civil war. the cartels are armed to the teeth, and there are 36,000 -- there were 36,000 murders last year in mexico, less than 1% were solved. >> reporter: let's turn to the demand side, which your report addresses very specifically. these drugs are coming because there is some appetite for them here in the united states. and your report talks about the need to beef up and to ramp up proven medically assisted treatment for people suffering from addiction. but we have been making this argument as a society for years. i wonder why have you think we have been so slow to ramp up that treatment, that we know can work? >> a lot of folks are concerned about, you know, getting the drug to stop the craving for another drug. but medically assistive treatment works. we have to empower more doctors and even nurses to prescribe these m.a.t. drugs. they can be a big win, and now

as covid begins to recede, we've got to turn our attention to this or it will be another million deaths by 2029, according to the latest research effort from stanford. that's kind of scary. >> reporter: like many of us, i know this issue is deeply personal for you. your nephew ian struggled for many years with addiction and eventually died of an overdose. yes. >> reporter: and as you have commented publicly, this touches so many people in this country -- republicans, democrats and everybody else. do you think that the bipartisan nature of addiction will help us finally start to address this for real? >> i think you hit the nail on the head. i come out of the business world, and in the business world we never ask republican, democrat, independent, who cares, it's how we get the job done, how to have a laser focus on the commission. this commission was formed to be

bipartisan. we have senator tom cotton a conservative republican and myself a progressive democrat, and we have been clear-eyed and great partners. senator cotton has been there every step to have the way, 76 recommendations on supply but mostly demad, because i don't think we can stop the supply. that's what we came to. it's demand, and we have been right there with the senator, and now we've got to give this report life, not let it sit on a shelf. take it out and move actions through congress and also executive actions. >> reporter: i don't mean to sound pessimistic about this, but these kinds of ideas have been circulating for a very long time, anone of the recommendations you make is to elevate the drug czar to a cabinet-lel position to give that position more muscle. why do you think it has taken us so long and so slowly to get really starting to address this issue? >> to hit the nail on the head,

we can't get the consistent focus to keep our eye on the prize as john lewis talked about. it was a cabinet level position till 2008. '93o '8 was in the cabinet. president obama took it out, i don't understand why. since then an l-shaped increase on deaths across our country, so it's shouting. snrd biden when he was on record supporting it to be a cabinet-level position and that's an important recommendation to organize all of government response and that's what our commission was, an all-over government response, executive, outside experts, republican, democrat, and you know what? we're better than what we've shown so far. we cannot just let this continue and continue, have another million deaths by 2029. that's not who we are, and we owe it to each other to really step up and take action and put

the talk to the side and work as a team, as a country. >> reporter: all right, representative david trone of maryland, thank you very much for being here. >> thank you very much, appreciate it. trone. >> woodruff: we're going to get the latest u.s. government report on inflation tomorrow, and once again, many economists believe the spike in prices is going to be quite high compared with a year ago. inflation's bite has been particularly pronounced on some groups of americans. that includes seniors living on fixed incomes, and millennials who had already lost ground during the financial crisis and the great recession. economics correspondent paul solman reports. >> oh, prices has gone way out of control. >> reporter: at the south end senior center in hartford,

connecticut, rising prices have seniors like 67-year-old hyacinth yennie feeling the burn. >> you look at your electrical bill, you look at your gas bill, you look now-- especially now, food bill. it's ridiculous. >> i like hamburger. >> reporter: retired utility worker mark demaio. >> it's up a dollar a pound. so, i cut back. >> reporter: in kennerdell, pennsylvania, where backwoods broadband is intermittent? >> i live in the country, that happens sometimes. >> reporter: 34-year-old hannah schall says she c't cut back on formula for her nine-month-old. but the price... >> it used to be, you know, $35. now we're paying $50. so that's $15 in nine months. that's crazy. >> reporter: and in greenville, south carolina, schall's fellow millennial, non-profit development manager amanda rice, got a rude awakening in december shopping for a used car. >> so, i didn't realize how expensive it was until i saw the 2021. i was like, hold on, that's around the same price that

they're selling the 2015. >> reporter: car she needed for her side gig as a ride-share driver. >> to tide myself over to that next paycheck, because of what's happening in our economy right now. >> reporter: what's happening is inflation: in economics, more money bidding up fewer goods a services. and right now, covid inflation: the government printing and doling out more money to prevent a pandemic collapse; covid-clogged supply chains providing fewer goods; workers afraid to catch covid staying home, providing fewer services. no surprise prices have shot up. and no surprise that folks who live paycheck to paycheck, especially the old and young, are the hardest hit. >> the cost of living has become more diffilt to-- to sustain myself. >> reporter: in riverside california, antonio najarro said his two part-time jobs-- in retail, and for the county-- were paying less than his

pre-pandemic job as a state election worker. so, you've been blindsided by the increase in prices? >> in hindsight, yes, thinking that i would still be able to get by or manage myself the same way in the past. >> reporter: in that regard, najarro, age 30, is a typical millennial. >> they're used to stable ices, really, for their entire working career. >> reporter: economist aliolf, herself a millenal. >> really, for the past 15 years, they've had roughly 2% inflation, and that's what they're usedo. so, costs go up a little bit, but their wages go up a little bit, and so their purchasing power has roughly been stable. and then the pandemic hit, and it really st turned the dynamics upside down. >> reporter: case in point: 38-year-old alexandra upton. she shares an apartment in santa fe, bikes to her job as a restaurant server, yet struggles to make ends meet. >> i'm angry. i'm very angry. but the fact of the matter is, i'm still in this situation,

so i just have to make do, get a second job, pare down. eat one meal a day at the restaurant. >> reporter: so, you eat one meal a day on your night shift at the restaurant, and that's it? >> yeah. well, and we have had pounds of rice and pasta, and we have some beans, you know? >> reporter: but you can't afford the fruits and vegetables. >> no. no, absolutely not right now. nope. and i'm a vegetarian-- these aren't abstract issues to me. >> reporter: some millennials have resorted to even more desperate measures. >> last month, i was kind of in dire straits. i had to donate plasma twice a week to afford rent. >> reporter: how much do they pay for plasma? >> for newcomers, you get a bonus, anywhere between $100 to $150 per-- per donation, but after the first month, it will drop to $50 to $60 per donation. >> we're pre-planners, so we stock up pretty well. >> reporter: even the most self-sufficient millennial we found was feeling the pinch. >> ammunition is super-duper expensive right now.

i hunt with a-- a 30-30. whereas a box of shells used to be maybe 20 bucks, they're $40 now. >> reporter: what do you hunt? >> deer, bear, turkey. in our backyard. >> reporter: wait a second, you don't kill bears in your backyard, do you? >> you betcha. >> reporter: and you eat the bear meat? >> yes. it's not my favorite, but if you skin it correctly, get all the fat off of it, it's not too bad. >> reporter: what about deer? >> it's absolutely delicious. we've actually shot deer out of our living room window. >> reporter: you mean, you see a deer, you open the window and just shoot the deer? >> yep. >> reporter: but it's now more expensive because ammunition has gone up in price. >> welcome to the country. >> reporter: but, wait a second. schall drives into town to work as a nurse. has your salary gone up? >> not to match the prices. >> reporter: schalls' plight is representative of average american workers. incomes rose nearly 5% last year, but inflation was at 7%. >> wages are going up, but they're not going up as much as we've seen the inflation rate.

>> reporter: and inflation isn't just outrunning worker paychecks. how about retired seniors, living on so-called fixed incomes-- paychecks that never rise? >> they can't just get out and get themselves a big job that can pay them a lot of money. >> reporter: some do get small jobs. 71-year-old inilda pena works part-time at the hartford senior center to help cover her rising food costs. >> i'm diabetic and i have to have a certain diet. lettuce and vegetables. those things are expensive. >> reporter: but the social security payment went up this year. >> yeah, but not-- not that much. >> reporter: in fact, payments from social security-- which provides most of the typical senior's income-- went up 5.9% in january, the largest cost of living adjustment in 39 years. but again, inflation was 7% last year. and therefore, says the senior citizens' league mary johnson:

>> their cola, or their cost of living adjustment, isn't keeping up with those other rising costs. >> reporter: rising costs like a $21.60 increase in the monthly medicare part b premium-- from $148.50 to about $170, a 15% increase, deducted directly from social security checks. >> medicare part b has increased over the years, three times faster than the annual social security cola. that's been true for decades. >> reporter: but decades in which prices for other essentials didn't go up as rapidly as they're increasing now, putting the squeeze on seniors. like 76-year-old retired housepainter robert deray. his social security? about $1,300 a month. mortgage? $835. plus... >> my gas bill is $200 a month.

my electricity is about $100, $150 a month, and the water's been about $100 a month. but i'm hoping that goes down since i fixed the toilet. >> reporter: subtract his medicare part b premium of $170? he's underwater by more than $100 a month, sustained by snap benefits-- food stamps. he says he can't even afford the $2 lunch at the senior center. of course, all these folks want to know just what we all do: how long wilthe current inflation last? and it provokes furious debate among economists, including a famous one, loudly unconcerned a year ago: >> i was relaxed about the inflationary outlook. >> reporter: nobel laureate paul krugman has been humbled in retrospect. >> i was wrong. it turns out that inflation is coming way higher than-- than i expected. >> reporter: but krugman himself now asks: what's the cure? >> is it simply, let up on the gas, maybe tap the brakes, or is it slam on the brakes? >> well, there are simply too

many unknown unknowns to know, it seems. >> reporter: but then, as people from hollywood producer samuel goldwyn, to physicist neils bohrto baseball's yogi berra, supposedly all said:“ forecasts are difficult, especially about the future.” but hey, we'll be living that future, sooner and later. for the pbs newshour, i'm paul solman. >> woodruff: in the first 40 days of this year, four mexican journalists have been murdered in targeted killings. even for a country that was already the world's deadliest for journalists, the surge has sparked calls for better protection and fundamental reforms. ni schifrin reports on a war on truth, and why mexico is unable to stop it.

>> schifrin: to report on corruption, cartels, and violence in mexico, is to risk your life. 49-year-old photographer margarito martinez, killed by gunmen on january 17, outside his home in tijuana. one week before, in veracruz, jose luis gamboa, stabbed to death. in michoacán on january 31, cameraman and editor roberto toledo, shot to death. and on january 23, broadcast journalist lourdes maldonado lopez, found murdered in her car. back in 2019, she warned mexico's president andres manuel lopez obrador, her life was in danger. >> ( translated ): i come here as well to ask for your support, help and justice at my workplace. because i even fear for my life. >> schifrin: today, lopez obrador announced three people had been arrested in her murder, but of the 133 journalists killed since 2000, more than 90% have gone unpunished. and, when journalists recently held a vigil, the names and faces of their murdered colleagues filled the gate in front of the interior ministry.

and to discuss this, i'm joined by from mexico city by jan-albert hootsen, the committee to protect journalist's mexico representative. welcome to the "newshour". so why do you think we've seen this spike in violence against journalists? >> well, i think what we're seeing right now is the logical result of many, many years of negligence by the mexican state both in being able to protect journalists and human rights defenders and in combating impunity. mexico's long suffered from the proliferation of organized trial in much of its national territory and journalists are in a uniquely vulnerable position, they cover crime, corruption, human rights abuses. usually in the smaller areas and towns and communities, there are a small pool of journalists so they're easily identifiable and often local authorities colluding with organized crime are also involved in these attacks. so for them it's incredibly difficult to report these crimes and to turn to anybody who might

protect them. >> reporter: localization of violence is something that i asked a security expert in mexico city alejandro hope later today in an interview. let's see what he had to say. >> the journalists who are more at risk in mexico are the ones covering local news stories about local corruption, about local ties. organized crime in mexico has become much more of a local issue and dangerously so. 20 years ago, drug trafficking and organized crime in mexico was interchangeable terms. now you have a much more diversified set, a much more fluid ecosystem. >> reporter: those more localized and varied sources of violence, does that make journalists' work more dangerous? >> absolutely. we get a lot of reports from reporters like the photographer killed in tijuana spend their days basically chasing violent incidents, shootouts, bodies

dropped next to roads, accidents, et cetera. what we hear very often is when these reporters are covering these kinds of incidents that they are threatened by gangs, they are threatened by family members of victims, by police officers, sometimes followed, and in some cases these may lead to attacks near their homes. so i think it's right what alejandro hope was saying and especially given the fact that many mexican organized criminal groups have fractured and become much smaller, it becomes increasingly more difficult for the authorities o combat these groups groups and journalists to even know where the dangers might be coming from. >> reporter: police investigations, prosecutions, they are often weak and corrupt in mexico. is that why we're seeing a near impunity in terms of those who commit venus against journalists? >> absolutely. i think there are two things going on in here. first, there's the very obvious conclusion between agents of the state and organized crime or the simple fact that many

authorities in mexico are willing to use extreme violence against journalists up and human rights defenders. but, on the other hand, there's also just the lack of interest from authorities both federal, state and municipal to properly investigate these crimes. many of the cases that we have been investigating have these elements of police officers no showing up, not taking reports seriously, not applying even the most basic due diligence work that you would expect authorities to apply, and all of that leads to a situation in which it's almost guaranteed that a crime against a journalist is never solved. with disappearances and murders, it's almost 100%, it's the same thing with nonlethal crimes. >> reporter: and what about protection? is the government doing enough to try and prote journalists? >> there are a few institutions both on the state and federal level that have been ostensibly created to protect journalists and human rights defenders. while most of the state agencies

are only rudimentary, they exist in many states in name only, don't have any budget, hardly have any staff, and have to work together with many of the police officers, nor example, often accused of being the ones behind attacks on the reporters. on the federal level, slightly better. even there we're talking about a federal institution, mechanism it's called, that has very little money, resources, few staff, works from mexico city meaning it has no regional spread or representatives and very often doesn't have the knowledge, t the know-how to del with these situations. >> reporter: i wonder i terms of lopez and his senior officials is how they talk about and treat journalists creating a culture that makes journalists' lives and work more dangerous. >> i think the relationship between president lopez in the press has been strained and stressed since the beginning of

his administration. he assumed office three years ago and spent most of his time attacking reporters, disqualifying them, calling those who are critical and independent, he calls them corrupt, right-wingers, opponents of his political project, and i think it has two very disconcerting effects. on the one hand, he gives a sign to his own institutions that journalists are not people who should be taken seriously as victims of crimes, and, at the same time, he makes it much harder for organizations likely committed to protect journalists to convey the urgency these creams need to be addressed because, you know, he still has a very large support among the mexican population, anywhere between 40% and 60%, and most of those people, they trust the president more than they trust most media. so, to them, what he says about the media, what he says about journalists is true. >> reporter: jan-albert

hootsen, thank you very much. >> thanks for our meeting. >> woodruff: "the middle passage" refers to the stage of the atlantic slave trade in which millions of enslaved africans were forcibly transported to the americas across the atlantic ocean. one group is taking a literal "deep dive" to discover more of that history, and raise awareness of the implications for people today. jeffrey brown has more for our "race matters," and arts and culture series, "canvas." >> brown: under the sea, a magical world. and also, if you look hard enough-- and you know how to scuba dive-- a living link to america's tortured past. jay haigler has seen it. >> combining the importance of history and ancestral memory, and understanding how that

applies today, combining those things with scuba diving-- that was a match made in heaven. >> brown: haigler is part of“ diving with a purpose,” a group of primarily black divers who love to go under water, but also have a larger mission: to find and research sunken ships from the inteational slave trade. >> the stories that we tell are important. and more importantly, e untold stories. these stories-- the "guerrero" and then many other ships-- as we got more involved in the search for these ships, became exciting because most people haven't heard the story, including myself. >> brown: “diving with a purpose”, or d.w.p., was founded in 2003 by divers ken stewart

and brenda lanzendorf to join an ongoing effort to find the remains of the "guerrero," a ship that wrecked on a reef in the florida keys in 1827 after a battle with a british warship trying to enforce anti-slave trade laws. of the 561 enslaved africans on board, 41 drowned. tara roberts, a "national geographic" "explorer and storytelling fellow," has written of the slave ships, the people on them, and the divers looking for them, in a cover story for the magazine titled,“ hidden no more.” that's jay haigler in diving gear. >> most people know the name of the "mayflower," the ship that brought the pilgrims over to the americas. but, who knows the names of the "guerrero" or the "henrietta marie" or the "sao jose paquete d'africa?" it's helping bring those lost souls back into memory and honoring them and acknowledging

them. >> brown: roberts' life changed, she says, when she first saw a photograph of d.w.p. divers in the smithsonian national museum of african american history and culture in washington, d.c. >> specifically of black women on this boat, in wetsuits. i don't know what it was about them-- it just, they looked so free and so joyous. they reminded me of superheroes. and i wanted to be like them. >> brown: in 2018, roberts quit her job with a d.c. non-profit, and joined the d.w.p. divers. according to slavevoyages.org, a database of cades of research by scholars at a consortium of universities, more than 36,000 transatlantic voyages were made between 1501 and 1867, carrying some 12.5 million captured people to ports in the americas. it's believed 1.8 million lost their lives in the course of the

journey known as the middle passage. around 1,000 shipwrecks have been recorded. yet, fewer than ten have ever been located and studied. "diving with a purpose" is part of the “slave wrecks project,” an international group of researchers and institutions, hosted by the national museum of african american history and culture, combining maritime archeology with training and community engagement. tara roberts recalls coming upon an anchor when she dove what are believed to be the wrecks of two danish ships, "fredericus quartus" and "christianus quintus," that sank off the coast of costa rica in 1710. >> it's very surreal. and then to see this artifact from the 1700s and to know the history attached to that artifact is-- i felt like this is just an amazing moment, to actually put my eyes on this

piece of history. >> it really is something that is actually-- i would call spiritual. >> brown: jay haigler has made more than 1,000 dives at several sites around the world. >> in going down and searching for the ship, we are like wh i would call a crime scene investigator, because slavery is the literally the biggest crime, global crime in the history of mankind. >> brown: one of the best-known wrecks is the "clotilda," burned and sunk purposely by its owners in alabama's mobile bay, to hide the evidence of its illegal voyage in 1860. it's the subject of renewed interest now, with a "national geographic" documentary, a book on its history, and another documentary that recently premiered at sundance focusing on the descendants of the more than 100 enslaved brought on the ship from west africa. indeed, it's the continuing connections these wrecks have to

today that motivate those in "diving with a purpose." roberts has a new six-part "national geographic" podcast-- part travelogue, part memoir-- titled “into the depths,” to explore past and present. >> i wondered if black divers would notice different details, if they would focus on finding artifacts that help us understand the full humanity of the captive africans. i hope that people come away knowing some facts that they didn't know before. i hope that they fall in love with these divers, in the same way that i have. i hope people are inspired to actually come to be a part of the work. >> brown: getting a new generation involved is key, says jay haigler. "diving with a purpose" runs programs for young people across the country, as well as in mozambique and costa rica. >> the hook is diving. scuba diving is so exciting!

and once they start diving, then we give them a purpose. we say, "hey, how about learning about history?" and then, the world is their oyster. >> brown: is there an understanding that a lot will never be found? >> yes, there is. and the important part of this entire journey is literally telling the untold american story. if we do not find the ship, that doesn't mean we do not tell the story. as long as our young people take the mantle and tell those stories, that's what's important. >> brown: for now, researchers and divers, including members “" diving with a purpose,” continue to search for the "guerrero" and other ships. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown.

>> woodruff: and let's hope they find them one day. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercellular.tv. >> fidelity wealth management. >> care.com. >> bnsf railway. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals.

>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> yo

hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & company," here's what's coming up. i do not believe that this crisis can be resolved by a few hours of discussion. >> frefnch president macron mediates between ukraine and russia, while the german chancellor meets with president biden. i'm joined by the french ambassador to the united states philippe etienne. then -- >> there is the possibility of human transformation. we've got to bet on that possibility. >> conversations about america's age of identity politics, what racism really costs everyone with the economist and author, heather mcgee. plus -- >> we have to find ways to come together and trust each other. >> healing a divided nation.