judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight. the war grinds on -- russian forces continue bombarding ukrainian cities, slowly advancing into new territory as humanitarian aid struggles to reach civilians most in need. then. the disinformation campaign -- vladimir putin tightens his grip on russian news media to further spread propaganda about the war in ukraine. >> ukraine had a couple of successful social revolutions where pro-russian governments were toppled and the kremlin has been trying to portray all those revolutions as these corrupt attempts to install a regime that doesn't have public support. judy: and. making it count -- a new report reveals that minority groups were significantly undercounted in the 2020 census.

we examine what this could mean for the future of united states politics. all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> fidelity dedicated advisors are here to help you create a wealth plan. a plan with tax sensitive investing strategies. planning focused on tomorrow while you focus on today. that is the planning effect from fidelity. >> consumer cellular. bnsf railway. bdo. accountant send advisors. the kendeda fund, committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through

investments in transformative leaders and ideas. carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations and education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public crowd -- broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. judy: it is a day of stalled

diplomacy and more deadly fighting in ukraine. talks in turkey between russia and ukraine produced no results, while outrage over the russian bombing of a maternity hospital in southeastern ukraine grows. separately, russia is proposing humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave major cities, including kyiv, but those promises have lately been followed by air and artillery strikes. meantime, ukrainian officials estimate that in just two weeks of war, $100 billion of damage has been inflicted on the nation. on the economic front in russia, more companies suspended operations with the country, and european union leaders agreed to phase out purchases of russian oil, coal, and gas. this, as china, which has quietly supported russia, said it would abide by sanctions against russia that prohibit sales of airplane parts. but again tonight we begin with the human toll. nick schifrin reports from

ukraine. and a warning. some of the images in this story may be disturbing. nick: all that's left of mariupol is the shell of a city. nine days of bombardment, have left universities, homes, reduced to debris and dust. it is a campaign designed to break people spirit. and today, they are terrified of how it could get even worse. there are some rescues. but others remain trapped. life in this city, now all but extinguished. >> i don't have a home anymore. that's why i'm moving. why else would i be walking? nick: the cameraman asks, where was his home? >> it doesn't exist anymore, it was hit by a mortar. nick: alexander ivanov heads off, with nowhere to go. and there is little dignity for the dead. an old cemetery becomes a mass

grave, morgues are already full. 1200 people have been killed in this city in 9 days. for exhausted gravediggers, the work is endless. this is a city that increasingly belongs to the dead. >> the only thing i want is for this to be finished. i don't know who is guilty, who was right, who started this. damn them all, those people who started this. what do i feel? i have to live on. nick: the 400,000 people still living in mariupol remain trapped without food, water or electricity. for the fifth straight day buses arrived empty to evacuate people through a humanitarian corridor. for the fifth straight day, they left empty because of russian shelling. following the highest level diplomatic meeting since the invasion, russian foreign minister sergey lavrov warned the offensive in mariupol would continue until ukraine surrendered. which kyiv has no intention of doing. >> wishes them to go to hell as soon as possible.

nick: petro kotin is the acting president of the state nuclear authority energoatam. he says the russian troops who took over the zaporizhia nuclear plant last week are using it as a shield. >> nobody will shell on them while they're on territory of nuclear power plant. so they're protected. nick: plant workers took photos of the aftermath of a fight and of a russian military vehicle parked outside. during the attack, zaporizhia officials pleaded with the russians to stop. today the staff is taking orders from a russian military commander who knows nothing about clear power. >> they absolutely terrorize our staff. the occupiers say, you can leave whenever you want, but without replacement. of course, nobody will leave because personnel understands their responsibility. nick: russian troops also control the chernobyl nuclear zone, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster. today it is disconnected from the electricity grid. kotin says it must be restored within three weeks. >> after that, the temperature will rise because there is no

cooler. and finally, it will go to very high levels, and after that, the radiation, actually, release of radioactivity could happen. nick: and so you're calling for a corridor, a humanitarian corridor to allow workers into chernobyl? >> there were cases when they actually agreed to give this corridor and after personnel came just for maintenance, they're just trying to kill this person also. nick: a senior u.s. defense official said today russian troops near kyiv, after days of not moving, are advancing toward the city. russia continues to control territory in the north, northeast and south, surrounds 5 cities, and is increasing its assault on the port city of mykolaiv. kyiv says the only way to stop russia is a no-fly zone. but in poland, the u.s. continues to block a fighter jet transfer to ukraine. today vice president president kamala harris and polish president andrej duda tried to

show unity, and harris joined growing calls for an investigation into russian war crimes. >> we have been witnessing for weeks, and certainly just in the last 24 hours, atrocities of unimaginable proportion. nick: the bombardment has led to an exodus. especially from the capital kyiv. once a thriving metropolis, now a capital deserted. the mayor said today nearly 2 million -- half the city -- has fled. aid for the displaced has arrived from all over the world through this hub in lviv. trucks full of donations, and an army of volunteers forming assembly lines since 3 hours after the first missile struck. every donation they receive, every box they transfer, they believe contributes to victory. this used to be an arts center. and this stage is full of people who, in their time, play many parts. >> so, here we have different type of food. nick: like 39-year-old yuri popovich.

who gave me a tour. >> i don't think i would be able to take a gun and shoot. so i thought that i will find a place or some service where i can be helpful with my experience, with my skills, things like that. for me, i decided that this is going to be my fight, because i can do this. nick: popovich grew up wanting to become a greek catholic priest. that is him in of the left in seminary in italy. back in ukraine, he worked in tourism, publishing, and started a software development company. >> so this is all the medicine. nick: today he works 16 hours a day here. in the basement, a fully stocked pharmacy created in two weeks. >> what we do need a lot -- wartime medicines. we get a lot of requests to supply our militaries with a fferent type of medicine. nick: this looks like an auditorium. >> yes, it is. nick: upstairs, a room full of donated clothes. who is financing all of this? >> no one. this is completely done by volunteers, and with volunteers. nick: and downstairs, food destined to besieged ukrainians

around the country. >> this is for soldiers who are actually fighting. nick: in each handmade pack created for front line troops, a children's letter. >> this one specifically represents ukrainian army. go ahead win -- and glory to ukraine. sun is smiling so, there is a hope. nick: children still hopeful, but expressing sentiments of war. >> when i think about all the lives, all the scars on people's lives and people sort of think it's really great, heartbreaking. we want peace in our country. we want to have our children to have -- we don't want our children to make war drawings. we want them to play soccer. we want them to run around on the grass. yeah, sorry, i get very upset when i speak about this, because why? what did we do? how did we deserve? nick: like so many ukrainians, asking what did they do to

deserve this? today, a resident put it this way. there is no way to get any humanitarian aid into the city and there is no way to get any residents out of the city. zelensky said russian troops shelled the very building where residents were supposed together to evacuate. the fear is that those conditions could be repeated around the countryoon. the mayor near the belarus border warned that they had so many fatalities, that city was running out of -- into perilous nests. judy: very distressing. you showed how the humanitarian corridor failed. what is known about cease-fires in other cities around the country? nick: tonight, zelensky said russians had held fire long enough in seven cities over the last couple days that one

hundred thousand people could evacuate from those cities in the last 48 hours. that is much higher than it was a couple of days ago, but again to give some perspective, there are hundreds of thousands trapped in mario bowl alone. hundreds of thousands trapped in other cities. they are trapped in dire conditions. they don't even have the basics in which they can live. zelensky told vice news that dialogue with putin directly is the only way to end the war. but senior u.s. oicials don't see an offramp right now to this war. the french president said today that he does not see any diplomatic solution to the war. the fear is that soon there will be more days like this. judy: just incredibly discouraging. nick schifrin reporting for us from ukraine. thank you. now t a detailed look at an increasingly brutal battlefield in ukraine. stephanie sy has that. stephanie: that is the way to

put it. in recent days the russian attack against ukraine has intensified and become more indiscriminate, with scores of ukrainian civilians killed, and vast swaths of infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings -- even hospitals and schools destroyed. for a closer examination of russia's tactics, i'm joined by michaekofman, senior fellow for russian studies at the cna, center for naval analyses. thank you for joining the newshour as always. with the bombing of that maternity hospital in mariupol are we seeing a concerted change in tactics by russian forces, and what can the ukrainians do to defend against such tactics? >> i'm afraid we are and i think folks like me predicted early on that this war is going to get a lot more ugly and unfortunately must -- much of the worst is yet to come in the conflict. we have seen the russian military resort to artillery

fire and a lot of indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, particularly where they get involved in urban warfare. urban warfare is very difficult, it consumes armies and forces. the russian military often relies on overwhelming firepower and we have seen throughout this conflict in the last week, which is really the second week of this war, heavy shelling of civilian areas and urban environments with increasing civilian casualties. stephanie: as you said, some of this you predicted, that it would get uglier. it has been two weeks nce the invasion. what is surprising you about what you're seeing on the battlefield? >> the russian military has had a number of setbacks. they have not made the progress they hoped they would make an the ukrainian military has shown immense resolve. that being said, unfortunately if you look on the map, you will see the russian military slowly, but steadily, fitfully

progressing, trying to complete an encirclement of the ukrainian capital kiev -- kyiv, and switching to tactics of barraging urban areas to try to compel the civilian population to leave and to try to signal to other cities that they should surrender or capitulate to a russian army. the war where we are now unfortunately is very indeterminate. we are much closer to the beginning of it than we are toward the end. stephanie: you mentioned some of those major cities that are encircled. including kharkiv. does it surprise you how long it is taking for russians to seize and hold territory? we are hearing for example reports from the field that russian troops in some cases are abandoning their vehicles, that they are using unencrypted comms on the field. are they disorganized and how much is that going to affect to

affect the overall outlook of this war? >> absolutely. the initial campaign was absolutely shambolic. they had not prepared for a large-scale military operation. in a place like kharkiv, they have not encircled the city. the ukrainians have successfully counterattacked. they have encircled other cities. what is happening on the russian fight is that it has not been a well organized effort. as they went into the war, they didn't psychologically or materially prepare their troops. in all honesty, they lied to them and pushed them into ukraine. that is why we have seen cases of desertion. we have seen a lot of vehicles abandoned, some were clear-cut cases of unit desertion on the battlefield due to low morale. ukraine, while outmatched, has those fighters with strong resolve. they are fighting for something.

stephanie: that leads me to the question of whether russia can really achieve its ultimate political objective of controlling ukraine, especially as we see dead soldiers, wounded russian soldiers now in the thousands. >> that is a great question. the truth is that given the bad assumptions with which they went into the war, an operation that was an attempt at quick regime change in which they got a blood he and had to reconfigure into a large-scale military operation, we now see them making adjustments to try to prosecute -- from my point of view, i'm skeptical they can achieve their objective. don't get me wrong, they can achieve military victories and battlefield victories. in many respects, a lot of their assumptions had little bearing on reality. now, they have switched too much more brutal forms of warfare. they are resourcing and military effort that is ultimately behind

a failed strategy. i have deep skepticism they can achieve the political objectives in this war. stephanie: how long do you expect this war to last? >> i'm afraid my answer is going to be very unsatisfactory. wars are highly contingent and i know where many people are watching this war and living it day by day or following it hour-by-hour, but the truth is that this work could go on for weeks, it could go on for months. i do suspect that at the rate of losses of manpower and material, russian forces could probably be exhausted within a couple weeks, but the war will end, may be in operation will pause, cease-fires often are ways by which both sides rearm and continue the conflict in a different phase. i think the first chapter is likely to close in the coming weeks, but this war may be here to stay and be with us for quite some time, much longer than we

would wish it to be. stephanie: michael kafman, senior fellow for russian studies at the center for naval analyses, thank you for joining the newshour. >> thank you for having me. stephanie: i'm stephanie sy with newshour west, we'll return to the full program after the latest headlines. inflation at the consumer level has hit a new, 40-year high. the u.s. labor department reports retail prices jumped 7.9% over the 12 months ending in february. surging energy, food and housing costs were the biggest contributors -- pushed by consumer spending and supply shortages. the numbers do not include a new surge in gas prices triggered by russia's invasion of ukraine. but republicans and the white house sparred today over who's more to blame -- president biden or russia's vladimir putin. >> gas is over $4 a gallon, what

does joe biden say? he said it's all blamedn russia. energy prices ha been going up dramatically from the y he took office. >> there's so no question that when foreign dictator invades a foreign country and when that foreign dictator is the head of a country that is the third largest supplier of oil in world, that that is going to have an impact. stephanie: many economists are now saying inflation will peak later than first expected -- and higher than expected. u.s. officials now say north korea tested a powerful, new long-range missile in 2 recent launches. the pentagon warned the missile may well be capable of reaching the united states. it alerted american forces in the pacific to expect a possible full-range test. south korea said the north may try to disguise the weapon as a space vehicle. major league baseball and the players union reached a labor deal today. it ends a 99-day lockout and preserves a full regular season. it also expands the playoffs to 12 teams, raises the so-called

luxury tax and boosts pay for younger players. opening day will be pushed back a week, to april 7th. in chicago -- the actor jussie smollett was sentenced this evening to 150 days in jail and 30 months of felony probation for falsely reporting a hate crime. he'll also have to pay restitution of $120,000. he'd been convicted of lying to police about being the victim of a racist, homophobic attack. earlier in the day, prosecutors read a letter from the city's police superintendent that said smollett did real damage. >> the overwhelming stress and fatigue that was put on the chicago officers who were involved in the case was immense. the city is a victim of mr. smollett's crime because of his false report caused cpd to expend scarce resources that could have been devoted to solving actual crime, increasing public safety. stephanie: smollett upon

sentencing maintained his innocence. the biden administration has extended a covid mask mandate for planes, trains and other public transportation through april 18th. it had been set to expire march 18th. the extra month gives the cdc time to formulate new guidance regarding masking and travel. also today. the u.s. justice department named a chief prosecutor to go after pandemic relief fraud. attorney general merrick garland said investigators have already turned up $8 billion in suspected fraud. that's out of about $5 trillion that congress approved. victims of opioid abuse confronted t owners of purdue pharma today in federal bankruptcy court. members of the sackler family listened to more than 2 dozen virtual testimonies that their company poisoned lives with the painkiller oxycontin. one recovering addict said -- quote -- "i hope you hear our names in your dreams." the sacklers have denied responsibility, but agreed to a $6 billion settlement.

the actor who played the character luis the handyman on sesame street for 40 years has died. emilio delgado had a form of blood cancer. he was 81 years old. still to come on the newshour. the potential political consequences of undercounting minority groups in the 2020 census. why some state lawmakers are trying to ban certain books from public schools and libraries. plus much more. >> this is "pbs newshour west" from weta studios in washington and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. judy: cia director william burns told the senate intelligence committee today that he believes russian president vladimir putin is losing the so-called information war over ukraine, and this may chip away at his domestic support for the invasion. but what exactly are russian citizens hearing about this war, on russian media?

william brangham explains. william: on tv screens and social media feeds aund the world, it is an endless stream of the brutality and terror of russia's invasion of ukraine. >> they behave like fascists. william: but in russia, the script is flipped upside down. for russian citizens, it means they are seeing a distorted reality of their nation's war. >> we didn't attack ukraine. as we have been explaining many times, they created the threats against the russian federation. william: foreign minister sergei lavrov today repeated this false accusation. it was the same one putin used as pretense for launching the invasion. >> we will strive for the de-militarization and de-nazification of ukraine and will bring to justice those who committed multiple bloody crimes against civilians. william: putin said he was launching a limited military operation, one intended to save ukrainians from a government he

says is committing genocide. it's a familiar distortion. it's one putin used in a speech announcing his annexation of crimea, a peninsula in ukraine, back in 2014. >> the initiators of that coup were nationalists, anti-semites, radicals. william: now, the kremlin is tightening the reins on the media even more. last week, putin signed a law that effectively criminalizes accurate reporting about the war. even the word war itself is banned. publishing so-called false information is now punishable with up to 15 years in prison. the government force to the independent channel tv rain to close. it's editors signed off by planks one like, a clear job at the government which played the , same loop on state-tv in 1991 when a failed coup was underway against mikhail gorbachev. russian authorities also shuttered the country's last independent radio station, echo of moscow. it has been facebook, the

russians can still use apps like telegram, whatsapp and instagram for now. instead, the government is steering propaganda at even the youngest russians, releasing this virtual lesson on "why the liberation mission in ukraine is necessary." russian disinformation gets a boost from some u.s. media as well. fox news's tucker carlsen has repeatedly criticized u.s. involvement in ukraine, and expressed support for putin, and those clips have made it onto russian news. >> these people are so ghoulish and of course they are promoting war. william: in the u.s., carlsen's view is just one of many americans can listen to and way for themselves, but as the carnage of putin's work continues, the reality for many russians is only as real as their government allows. joining me now is a researcher

on disinformation and propaganda inside russia at the university of wisconsin. very good to have you on the newshour. we touched on a little bit of the media that the russian people are seeing. can you give us a better sense of what the average russian is seeing about ukraine on their news? >> yes, thank you for having the first of all. what russians are seeing is mainly that there is some interaction going on in ukraine, but that this is very targeted, against nazi battalions. it doesn't hurt any civilians and most ukrainians are welcoming russians, they want to get rid of their corrupt and fascist government. but the government is resisting and government forces are resisting and that is why russian forces are in ukraine. william: in these depictions of

certain parts of ukrainian society being fascist or nazi as you are mentioning, those as you have written tight into a fairly long history as far as russian information about the ukrainians. can you explain that a bit more? >> ukraine has been a thorn in putin's side for quite a while. ukraine had a couple of successful social revolutions where pro-russian governments were toppled. the kremlin has been trying to portray all those revolutions and the democratic development in ukraine since then as the corrupt attempts to install regimes that don't have public support, that is installed b the west. that ties into this wder narrative of the russian government, that nato and the west are behind of my -- are

behind most of russia's troubles and this is one of them. and they are speaking to this grievance that russia has, that russians have because of the soviet collapse, because of the west winning this cold war, and this is what the government is trying to exploit. william: can i ask you a chicken or the big question? does this media feed into people's preconceived notions or does this media create those notions? >> i think it is both. there is definitely a lot of grievances about the west, a lot of bad feelings toward the west, but what propaganda does, it builds on those and constantly provides information that is consistent with those beliefs. if you repeat this, if you throw a lot of those false narratives, over time people get used to them and they sort of start -- they feel like they believe this

already before. so this is a feedback loop essentially. william: we have been hearing certain reports of ukrainians calling family members in russia , saying we are under attack, the bombs are going off, and that their relatives in russia are saying, what are you talking about, that is not happening. that has to be an incredibly jarring experience for ukrainians to have their basic reality being denied. >> that is terrible. i myself have relatives in russia who have had a similar experience. when i say that ukrainian cities are bombed by russians. they say nothing like that is happening. it is just those nazi battalions that are making provocations. they are just pretending that there is something going on, but really we are there to help. william: given that there are

these other social media messaging apps, like instagram and telegram and whatsapp that are available, can people get an accurate portrayal of what is happening in ukraine if they wanted? >> i think if they want it, they still could. on telegram, there are some channels that cover ukraine truthfully or more or less. people can use atm, they can go through one of the websites that are still working from outside of russia. they are available yet. so if you want, you can, but most people in russia still don't seem like they want it. judy: --william: there are seemingly some signs this façade is starting to crack. we read some reports about state broadcasters mentioning that the sanctions are biting quite hard in russia and perhaps the president ought to consider dialing back, as they call it, this limited operation. do you think that that is real?

that that façade will continue to crack? >> i think that is the billion dollar question for now. there are probably some people on tv who said something like that, but the question is if this dissent would be eliminated quickly, i think the government would still be able to hold this impression of winning, on being the right side -- on the right side. what is more important is that people are still in the new reality soon because of the sanctions, because of the bodies that are coming home from ukraine. i think that might have more, a deeper impact on russians 'perceptions of the war. william: there is a certain level that you can't escape, that your economy is tanking and that your people are dying. thank you so much for being

here. >> thank you. judy: today, the u.s. census bureau released a report looking at the accuracy of its 2020 population count and whether it missed key groups of people across the country. lisa desjardins has more. >> judy, after additional review, the census found miscounts with multiple groups. the official census number over counted two groups, non-hispanic whites, and asians, but it undercounted blacks, native americans ling on reservations and hispanics by even more. to talk more about the miscounts and what they mean, i'm joined by npr national correspondent, hansi lo wang. let's start with the over coutts and under counts. how large were they? >> we are talking about under counts for latinos, more than three times the net undercount

rate compared to 2010. that is a dramatic increase. for black people and for native americans living on reservations , they are numerically higher net undercount rates, but the census bureau says they are not statistically any different. but the bottom line is that there is this racial gap between people of color, generally speaking, and people who identify as white and not hispanic. what is also interesting is that you do see an over counting of asian american, which was not seen in 2010. to be clear, it is not clear exactly how well they did in counting pacific islanders. lisa: if we had to sound some of the concerns we heard from these groups today, listen to some of this. >> some 4 million plus, may is 5 million blackeople have been missed. perhaps an equal number of people of hispanic and latino dissent have been missed. it is a tragedy and an act of

malfeasance and incompetence. >> today we learned that this sentence was a five-alarm fire. the undercount of latinos has tripled between 2010 a 2020. i think that has significant implications for the entire country. lisa: you and i were both on the call from the census bureau. there seemed to be some anger from these groups. why is this happening? what do we know about why some groups in the official census number just in not counted as they really exist? >> this is a long-standing flaw with census numbers going bac decades. this trend is not new. whats new is that we have the pandemic, the coronavirus as counting was getting started nationwide. the outbreaks were happening. and we have years of

interference from former president donald trump's administration beginning most notably with the failed push to add a citizenship question to the forms. it did not end up on the forms, but it stirred up a lot of controversy, fear, uncertainty from a lot of households, especially those with immigrants living in them about whether or not to participate in the sentence. during counting, they ended counting early. all of these factors raise the risk of undercounting people of color because research has shown that the way to get those groups counted is through that person-to-person interaction. in person doorknocking, interviews. not necessarily counting on households to fill out a form and participate on their own. that is a major factor here of why we are seeing a bad report card in many ways for the census bureau. lisa: in this census, this

review also found that another group was undercounted significantly -- children under the age of five. we reached out to a children's advocate to talk about what they think that means. >> probably the most important reason this matters for young children and for children in general is that there is about $1.5 trillion given out by the federal government to states and localities every year and that buys a lot of things, like schools and childcare and playgrounds and things that kids need. lisa: in both of these areas, for kids in different racial groups, can you help us understand what is at stake? what does a miscount really mean in real lives? >> when we talk about the census, we are talking about power and money. these are the numbers used to

reallocate each state's share of congressional seats, electoral college votes, views to redraw voting maps for every level of government across the country, and these are numbers used to help guide the distribution of some $1.5 trillion a year for health care, transportation, education, almost all public services. when there are these racial inequities baked in in terms of the accuracy of these counts, you will have racial inequities baked into the decision-making, into how global powers shared, how federal funding is shared. we are not even talking about how researchers, businesses rely on this data to have just a basic, general understanding of who was living in the united states of america. based on these undercount and over count rates, it is another point of evidence here that these numbers are not true reflections of exactly who is living in the country. lisa: in our last 30 seconds or

so, what next? are these numbers final? >> these numbers have already been used to reallocate congressional seats. they are being used to to redraw voting maps. one official did confirm to me today that the bureau is looking into possibly doing some more research in how to use these over and undercounting grades and how to factor them into upcoming population estimates and those estimates help guide how federal funding is distributed. that could have some potential impact here on maybe a more equitable distribution of federal funding. it is a real big question of just how a lot of local communities, when they look at their numbers and they feel like they are not an accurate reflection of who is living in their communities, it is a big question of what can be done beyond waiting for the 2030 census. lisa: thank you so much. >> you're welcome.

judy: we will be back shortly with a look at why some books are being pulled from school curricula. but first, take a moment to hear from your pbs station. it is a chance to offer your jude

alarm about a set of measures that they say target teaching and writing related to lgbtq issues, race, and more broadly, freedom of speech. around the country, efforts to ban specific books, or even whole categories of books, are on the rise. jeffrey brown has a conversation for our arts and culture series, canvas. >> can you tell me, ds equity and inclusion also include incestuous relationships? >> contentious school board

meetings. >> child adult sex and books that promote pedophilia? >> and controversial decisions to remove books from the curriculum. political campaign ads. >> it was some of the most explicit material you can imagine. >> and moves in state legislatures to target subject areas and even penalize librarians to keep titles on their shelves. books especially focused on race and lgbtq issues are being challenged. in some cases taken off school and public library shelves. the american library association says it received 330 challenges to books in the fall of last year, double for all of 2020. and pen america, a free speech advocacy group, reports that since january 2021, 156 education-focused legislative -- education-focused legislative 174 bills were introduced in 40 states. the target content in a variety

of ways. 100 62 target k-12 education and it is spreading to public universities with bills explicitly directed at higher education. penn america recently announced a new book defense fund with seed money from penguin random house ceo markus dohle, to educate the public and partner with local communities to fight book bans. there's a long history of book controversies in this country, says pen america ceo suzanne nossel, but this feels different. >> it is an intensification. far more book bans sprouting up all over the country than we ever saw before. more formalized efforts. they are not just a challenge in an individual school system or library, but legislation being introduced in state houses that would affect the availability of books all over the state, in every school and library. the ferocity of the debates and the link to larger political

tensions and polarization. it's inflaming communities and that is something we haven't seen before. >> what books do you see most affected? where is the impact? >> it's overwhelmingly books by and about people of color and lgbtq individuals. so it can be stories about a transgender kind of coming of age story, stories about slavery, about black americans and the black experience and racial injustice in this country. so those kinds of narratives that are something other than kind of a pure, very traditional,ou know what some people might think of as a standard old school american story. >> i'm sure you have thought about why now? i mean, what, what happens in the culture to bring something like this to the fore now? >> i think it is a product in part of demographic and political and cultural change that is afoot in this country. we're becoming a much more pluralistic country without any

one single dominant racial group, and there's a backlash to that. there's a sense that something is being lost, that the way people grew up, the stories that they read, you know, the world that they saw decades ago is changing and maybe changing too quickly. and that can be seen as threatening. >> it is true that the publishing world, that schools have introduced more books around gender issues, race issues? waxed i think that is part of it. there is also a level at which this is political manufactured. there is an effort to gin up support for certain parties, certain ideologies. there's a lot of frustration among parents after the last couple of years, with schools being disrupted during the pandemic, debates over masking, and this is kind of a vein that they have tapped. we think about a pocketbook issue that affects somebody at home. this is a backpack issue. >> but it is also still the case in this country for the most part that the education system

is local. public libraries are local. who decides? >> you know, there are very well-established patterns. typically, it's librarians who make choices about what to purchase. it is teachers and principals who decide what's going to be on the curriculum. parents can be part of a school board. they can come to a pta meeting. if they have concerns, they can raise those. this is something different. >> we are focusing on recent challenges from conservatives. but i know your organization has also done a lot of work around universities, education system on challenges from the left. is our country just politicized to -- politicized in this way in the way we look at books? >> yeah, i worry that sort of free speech is losing its grounding on both the right and the left. on the left, we see a lot of people and particularly in a rising generation who see free speech as kind of a smokescreen for hatred, as just a way of sheltering those who victimize and protecting bigotry, legitimizing bigotry. they've lost a sense of why it

is that free speech protections e so fundamental to the movements that they're trying to wage, whether it's for racial justice or gender justice or climate justice. you need free speech protections in order to go to battle on those issues and be able to put forward your perspective, to challenge authority. so that's happening on the left. and then on the right, we see this kind of startling invocation of the means of government, the power of government legislation to dictate on the basis of viewpoint what can be in a school curriculum, what even can be taught in colleges and universities. >> i mean, it's interesting, isn't it? because if you think about writers and books through history have have been revolutionary, they've been used as weapons, they've been used to push ideas forward. but you're seeing books being weaponized in a different way. >> yeah, but, i think it's an illustration of just how powerful books are, but we sort of think in the digital age, you know, is anybody still reading? do these books still matter? they still matter. you know, and that's what we see

in these battles. >> all right. suzanne nossel pen america thank you very much. >> on the newshour online, as the war in ukraine grinds on, we know many parents are trying to figure out how to talk to thr children about the conflict, so we reached out to educators to get their advice. read how they suggest navigating this difficult subject at pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> landscape has changed and not for the last time. the rules of business are being reinvented with a more flexible workforce, by embracing innovation, by looking not only at current opportunities, but ahead to future ones.

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- fruit dessert are light, flavorful, and a great finish when you do, like, a heavy meal. and again, be make year round. this baked apple, or apple bonne femme, is really grea and this is how i made it. first, remove the stem and the flower end, then the core. the hard part is keeping the corer straight. this one looks good. using a sharp knife, score around the apple through the skin, to make a cap as it cooks. trim a little bit from each base of the apple. i'm going to sit each apple on a piece of stale bread. this is what my aunt used to do, and it soaks up all the juices. mix apricot jam with maple syrup together, and spoon it all over the apple.