judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, arming ukraine. the u.s. provides more weapons to ukraine to help defend themselves against a renewed military offensive by russian forces in the country's east. then, information battles. how so-called open source intelligence from cell phones videos to satellite images are being used to uncover the truth in russia's war against ukine. and understanding alopecia. people living with an auto-immune disease that leads to hair loss speak out about the need for greater awareness and acceptance. >> i will like for people to take away the fact that hair does not define any of us. and alopecia may not be life threathening but it is life altering. it affects a person's livelihood as well as their mental health.

judy: all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by --

>> the lemelson foundation, committed to improving lives through invention in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemieux.org. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. more information at ma cfound.org. and with the ongoing support from these institutions. this program was made possible the corporation for public broadcasting and b contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thankou. judy: president biden today approved $800 million dollars in new military aid to ukraine, which includes more advanced weaponry to fight the russians as they focus on eastern

ukraine. today, the northeastern city of harr'kiv came under intensified attack, and the city's mayor said residential areas of the city were targeted. meantime, in a preliminary report, a group of european security officials said russia has committed both war cris and crimes against humanity in ukraine. this comes a day after president biden labelled the killing genocide. nick schifrin begins our coverage. nick: in mariupol today, russian troops and their separatist allies drive into a city they have already destroyed. a 6-week siege has gutted 90 -- 90% of the city's buildings. separatists invited journalists to film the homes they occupy, and the backyards they exploit to prepare a final battle. outgunned ukrainian forces climb rooftops to target russian tanks parked next to churches. the fight has been bloody and deadly. and now russia says thousands of

the city's defenders, have surrendered. yesterday, ukraine's 36th marine brigade recorded this video, that sounds like a goodbye. >> the reality is that the city is under blockade and encircled and we did not have any supplies of ammunition or food. we were holding these positions till the end. we did not leave our positions, we remain faithful, and will always be flake -- be faithful. glory to ukraine. glory to the heroes. nick: mariupol would be the largest city that russia has captured. it would also help russia link what it controls in the donbas, with territory as far west as kherson. >> mariupol is, you know, the heart of this war today. it's beating. and if it stops beating we will be in a weaker position. nick: ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky worries if mariupol is captured, russia could reverse its setbacks. >> the stronger our position in mariupol, we will have advantages in the dialogue with

the russian federation. if our situation is weak, the talks will not happen because russia will take steps which will lead to coming back to those cities which we liberated. nick: to try and prevent that, president biden announced today an additional 800 million dollars of weapons to ukraine, including for the first time, armored personnel carriers, drone boats, radars, and artillery systems and rounds. before today's announcement, zelenskyy took two social media to demand more. >> freedom must be armed better than tierney. western countries have everything to make it happen. today zelensky spoke with president biden about weapons, and holding russia accountable for a campaign that presiddent biden yesterday called genocide. pres. biden: yes, i called it a genoci, because it's become clearer and clearer that putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be ukrainian. nick: nowhere is that more apparent than mariupol.

today a report for the organization for security and co-operation in europe called a strike that destroyed a maternity hospital a "clear violation of international humanitarian law, and those responsible for it have committed a war crime." today mayor vadym boichenko accused russia of killing civilians and burning their bodies. >> the bodies have disappeared somewhere. where did they go? they are trying to hide them. they collect the bodies. 13 mobile crematoria have arrived in the city and are being prepared to get rid of the evidence of war crimes. nick: there are still 120,000 people trapped in mariupol. and there is little preventing russia from targeting them next. for the pbs newshour, i am nick schifrin. judy: to further discuss the u.s. support for ukraine and the new weapons package president biden announced today, i spoke a few moments ago with department of defense spokesman john kirby. thank you very much for joining us.

$800 million in new military and security aid. tell us what difference the biden administration believes this will make in the overall war effort? mr. kirby: if youmr. kirby: look at some of the capabilities, there are new capabilities, and they are designed to help ukraine in the now, in today's fight. the fight they will be having going forward in the donbass region. much more confined geographic region where the russians are reprioritizing. take a look at the halep sirs and the 40,000 artillery rounds that will go with that. the fight in the don is going to rely on artillery. the russians are already moving artillery units into the donbass, because of the topography. look at the counter battery radar that was provided. that will help save ukrainian lives. they will be able to track incoming artillery rounds from the russians. , the unmanned surface vessels that we will be providing to help them with coastal defense

in the sea of dissolve or the northern black sea. in addition to that, there are javelin missiles as part of this package, which we know are effective against russian tanks. lots of capabilities near that that are designed to help ukraine in the fight that they are in right now. judy: the foreign minister of ukraine has been saying this is the kind of thing they need in days, not weeks. how quickly is all of this going to get into the hands of the ukrainian military? mr. kirby: it can start to get there very quickly. we have been able, in the past, between the time the president authorizes something, until it gets into ukrainian hands, can be as little of them less than a week. we will be moving with a sense of energy and urgency. we know the clock is not on our side. we know time is a factor. we will be moving these things as quickly as possible. not all of these things have to come from the united states. some of this stuff will probably come from areas where they are pre-positioned, and closer to ukraine. it may not take quite that long.

but we will be moving things as fast as we can. even while we are working on that, we are closing out the previous $800 million that the president signed out of the middle of march. jacqueline missiles are literally flying today and into tomorrow on the way to ukraine. judy: at the me time, we know president zelenskyy has repeatedly asked the allies for military aircraft. why not provide that at this critical moment? mr. kirby: i would tell you there are some nations helping mr. zelenskyy with his fixed wing acraft fleet. and he has more aircraft available to them now than he did a couple of weeks ago. every nationstate that does this, does this on their own terms. they talk about it or they don't talk about it. that is their decision. we respect that. but he continues to be able to put more aircraft into operational condition, even as the war goes on. what we are focused on his long-range air defense.

you saw the slovakian government a few days ago and announced they are sending a system. we will backfield that temporarily with a patriot system so that slovakia has legitimate and credible air defense. we are working closely every day with allies and partners who have these systems. t 72 tanks, that they are willing to provide to ukraine, in the united states is helping have those conversations. judy: some of this new equipment, weaponry that the u.s. is sending to ukraine, will require training on the part of their troops. is the u.s. going to be sending more soldiers into the area to train them? and are you concerned that this could be seen as some kind of provocation by russia? mr. kirby: let's break it apart a little bit. most of the systems we are sending in this package don't require training. ukrainians know how to use this stuff, like javelins and the switchblade uv -- uva's. some of these radars might need training, but not a lot.

these are not ultra sophisticated systems. it will not take long to get ukrainians up to speed. we are looking at a trainer scenario, where you pull out a small number of ukrainians outside the country, show them how to use these systems, than they go back in and help their colleagues and teammates use them. we think we can handle that, since it is a limited duration and a limited number of training needs with the troops that we already have in europe. how mr. putin might see this, that will be up to him. we know we have a requirement to help ukraine defend itself. these capabilities are literally ones we have been discussing with ukrainians. we know they can use them. that is our focus, making sure they can use them once they get inside ukraine. judy: vladimir putin right now is saying that he is committed to finishing what he set out to do. this war could go on for a very long time. this is unlike anything the u.s. has faced against another country, a country certainly the size of russia, in a very long

time. is the u.s. equipped to keep sending supplies that ukraine is going to need to stick with it? mr. kirby: the president has been really clear. we are going to help ukraine as much as we can, as fast as we can. this additional $800 million he signed up today is proof of our commitment to do that. stuff is moving in every day, literally eight to 10 flights a day into the region. it does not take long for that stuff to get inside ukraine, via ground routes. we will keep doing this as long as we can, as long as you ukrainians me that help. i will tell you the proof is in the pudding. if you look at how the russians had to completely refashion their strategy inside ukraine, because they failed in kyiv, in cherney he, to make progress in the south, they never took the town, they have not been able to present any credible threat against odessa. that is not by accident. that is because ukrainians have been effective on the

battlefield. that effectiveness comes from the security assistance that we and other nations are providing, in the training we have been conducting over the last eight years inside ukraine. judy:judy: john kirby, the spokesman at the pentagon, thank you very much. mr. kirby: yes, ma'am. thank you. judy: meanwhile, the white house is facing questions about president biden's statement yesterday, that russia's campaign in ukraine was quote genocide. mr. biden later clarified that was his personal view, and that lawyers would make the final determination. nick schifrin is back with a look at what constitutes genocide, and the impact of the president's words. nick: since the holocaust, the state department has declared genocide on 8 different occasions. that decision is made by the secretary of state, advised in part by the state departmenta™s -- department's office of the legal advisor. john bellinger served in that role during the george w. bush administration. he is now an adjunct senior fellow at the council on foreign relations and heads arnold & portera™s international law

practice. welcome back. here is what president biden said. i called it is a bet -- a genocide because it is clear that putin is trying to wipe out the idea of being ukrainian. if that is what putin is doing, does not constitute genocide? john: this is obviously the most serious charge that can be leveled at a country. the russians did not like it at all. biden, as judy said, said he was speaking essentially from his heart as an american and was not making a formal determination at this point. the president's words have a lot of impact. at this point, the state department will go through a process where the lawyers will apply the facts of what is actually going on to the law. the legal definition of genocide is an intent to destroy a racial national -- racial, national, ethnic, or religious group. they will look at the

intelligence information, they will look at things that putin has said, and see if that satisfies that determination, the definition in genocide. nick: does russia's killing large number of ukrainians, forcibly transferring ukrainian children from ukraine into russia, and putin's denying that ukraine is a country, does all of that add up, in yourpinion, to an intent to destroy a national group? nick: every genocide is different. in general, we think that a genocide is basically killing everybody. and i don't think putin i trying to kill every last person. but what he does seem to be trying to do is make ukraine a separate country. that will be a new concept for the lawyers at the state department.

and destroying ukraine as a separate identity, and trying to fold them into russia. is that genocide? i think that case can probably be made. but that is different from past determinations of genocide that have involved killing an entire group. judy: if not -- nick: if not genocide, do we know that russia is committing war crimes against humanity? john: that, it looks very much like they are. certainly over the last eight weeks, the strikes on civilian targets -- [no audio] nick: i think we might have lost john bellinger. john, can you hear me? i think we might have lost john bellinger. john: yes, i'm back. can you hear me now? nick: sorry, just finish that thought.

you are saying as far as we can tell, war crimes or crimes against humanity are being committed? john: that is what it looks like, including in the most recent killings of civilians, and the international criminal court is investigating those war crimes and crimes against humanity. they now may be investigating possible allegations of genocide as well. nick: french president emmanuel macron declined to use the word genocide. he said it could elevate tensions with russia if he did. instead, he said he prefers to use war crimes. is that division unhelpful when it comes to trying to find i can't ability for the crimes that russia is committing? john: i'm going to call a spade a spade here. macron is trying to stay in the middle, as are a number of other countries.

when putin is doing what he is doing to try to wipe out ukraine as a country, i don't think it is inappropriate to call it genocide. the russians obviously did not like it. but that is to be expected. nick: we apologize for the technical problems. john bellinger, always a pleasure. appreciate it. john: pleasure to be with you. judy: in the day's other news, the head of the world health organization charged ukraine gets far more attention than suffering in non-white nations and that racism may be the reason. he spoke in geneva. he said "the world is not treating the human race the same way. some are more equal than others." tedros is ethiopian. he says the emergency there receives only a fraction of the concern over ukraine.

police in new york have arrested the man wanted in tuesday's subway shooting. frank r james was taken into custody in manhattan. he is accused of shooting 10 people on a train in brooklyn. ames was turned over to federal agents this afternoon after his capture in manhattan's east village. police say they got a tip on his location. >> and my pd patrol officers from the ninth precinct responded to st. mark's and 1st avenue where they apprehended him without incident. this case was quickly solved using technology, video canvassing and then getting that information out to the public. dy: later, investigators say e tip came from james himself. he is now charged with a federal terrorism offense. police in grand rapids, michigan released video today of the fatal shooting of a black man last week. patrick leoya's death has

sparked protests over racial justice. the video shows a white officer approaching after a traffic stop. then, there's a chase, and they struggle over the officer's taser before lyoya is shot. the cdc today extended a covid mask requirement for air travel and public transit for 2 more weeks. and a federal covid health emergency was extended for another three months. that continues access to free vaccines, testing and treatment. the moves come as cases are rising in parts of the country. a dispute over immigration policy cap tracks backed up along the texas-mexico border today. mexican drivers blocked a key bridge near mcallen after texas republican governor gregg abbott ordered inspections of all incoming trucks. today, he announced a deal with mexican officials for that one site. >> since nuevo leon has increased its security on its side of the border, the texas

department of public safety can return to its previous practice of random searches of vehicles crossing the bridge from nuevo judy: the backups are prompting complaints from business and the white house. but abbott says he will not end inspections at other crossings, until he gets federal assurances about border security. federal agencies issued a joint alert today of a potential plot to spread malware in industrial control systems. they did not name names, but u.s. officials have warned that russia might mount attacks to retaliate for sanctions over ukraine. one cyber-security firm says liquified natural gas and power plants could be targets. former president trump's white house chief of staff mark meadows is off the voter rolls in north carolina and he is under investigation. state officials announced the move today. documents show meadows lived and

voted in virginia last year. he voted in north carolina in 2020, and listed his residence as a mobile home. an economic news, wholesale prices shot up more than 11% in march from a year earlier. that is the most on record and it follows tuesday's news that retail prices jumped 8.5 percent from a year ago. meanwhile, interest rates on 30 year home mortgages top 5% last week, the highest since 2018. on wall street, stocks rebounded on upbeat corporate earnings from delta air lines and others. major index 1% to 2%. the dow jones industrial average gained 344 points to close at 34,000 564. the nasdaq rose 272 points. the s&p 500 added this year's 49. inductees to the national recording registry are out.

with everything from wu tang clan's debut album, two men ripped -- to moon river by andy williams. the library of congress named 25 on arrays today. one was "queen's" operatic rock hit "bohemian rhapsody", from 1975. >> ♪ i see a little silhouette of a man ♪ >> ♪ will you do the fandango ♪ >> ♪ thunderbolts of lightning, very very frightening ♪ >> ♪ galileo, galileo ♪ judy: some music never gets old. the registry will also preserve broadcasts from 9/11 by public radio station wync. stillo come on the newshour, maine passes a law to protect poll workers facing increased threats since the 2020 election. how so-called open source intelligence is combatting disinformation on russia's war against ukraine. people from around the country

share thier stories of living with alopecia. and much more. ♪ >> this is the pbs newshour from weta studios in washington and from the west, in the walter cronkite school of journalism from arizona state university. judy: unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud have led republican-controlled legislatures to shake up election laws in many states heading into this midterm cycle. as william brangham explains, the people who oversee elections have been caught in the middle. william: judy, in a survey conducted by the brennan center last month, 77% of local election officials said they think threats against them have increased in recent years. 17% say they have been personally threatened themselves because of their work. in maine, a new law signed by the governor last week makes threats against election workers a misdemeanor. shenna bellows is maine's secretary of state and oversees

elections. grade heavy obviously it sounds like election workers in states alter the country feel they are under siege in some way. what kinds of things were you hearing from maine's election workers that made you want to support this law? sec. bellows: what we are seeing across the country is an increase in threats against election workers. it is a consequence of the lie of 2020. and disinformation, misinformation and mall information. reuters documented more than 850 threats against election workers nationwide. here in maine, we had election workers whose lives were threatened. one election worker who wishes to remain anonymous had a voter come in with a weapon, threatening that person. election workers asked to move forward with legislation to protect them, to put it under the jurisdiction of the attorney

general, and create a system for recording when these incidents happen, and also training to help election workers protect themselves and their polling places. william: it has got to be -- i don't know what the word is, but incredibly dispiriting that you have to pass a law to try to deter this behavior. sec. bellows: it's very upsetting. i was talking yesterday to a erk who has been in this work for ov0 years. she said when she started out, voters would make her pies. at the polling places, there would be hugging. it would be like a family reunion. unfortunately, that has changed. suddenly, people are blaming her if the results don't go the way they should. or casting conspiracies. i think the atmosphere has changed significantly and we need to do more to step up to protect our election workers. william: as he touched on earlier, please threats and

intimidation's seem to come from this endlessly repeated lie, but the 2020 election was stolen, and there is somehow widespread fraud in the elections process, for which there is no evidence, we should continually say. how do you, as your state's top election official, pushback against that incredible tide? sec. bellows: suddenly, election administration, which is actually a very routine, very technical and precise, almost boring job, has become also an exercise in public education. first and foremost, we are recruiting members of the public to get involved in our elections as poll workers, volunteers, to see for themselves first hand how are out -- how our elections work. then we talked up the process. i was talking to high school students, i was reminding them when you go into vote, you state your name, your name gets crossed off on theist, the voter participation list. then you go in, ballots are

tallied, number of ballots is comparedgainst the number of names who voted. all of the technical steps which hopefully you are not yawning as i described them, but other checks and balances in our elections. our local election officials and state election officials work very hard to ensure our elections are free, safe, and accessible to all, and we should be very proud of that. william: your former governor, paul lepage, who is running to get back into the governor's mansion, has made these same allegations that there was the 2020 election that was stolen, ballots were stuffed in a prior election, all of the laws need to be redone. is there any evidence for the allegations that he has been making? sec. bellows: none. for two reasons. first, it would have been big news if that had happened on election day, especially in a small state like maine. we have election hotlines to take every complaint. and we gethe gamut from

somebody is wearing a t-shirt that is political, to a tabulator needs to be updated or fixed. we take every election complained very seriously. never hathere been a complaint that there has been fraud on election day, or people have been best in. second, the processes of checks and balances, of checking the voter participation list and history, counting the balance, checking those tallies against the number of people who vote, checking them in a system to ensure everyone who votes is legitimate, and that no one votes twice. those things happen on a routine basis, and there are checks and balances at every level. it is absolutely impossible for that type of -- the suggestion that people get bussed into maine to vote. it can't happen. judy: when he makes those allegations, he is calling for a lot of the things that gop-controlled legislatures all

over the country have been doing, which is a tightening -- the whole process of voting. i wonder what you make of that process that is happening nationwide, and do you think there is anything in maine that you could do to tighten things in an effective way? sec. bellows: remember, voting is fundamental to everything else we care about. it is a right, guaranteed in our united states constitution, and interstate constitutions. what we should be doing is doing everything in our power to make voting accessible and ensuring the integrity of our elections. i'm very concerned about the rollback of voting rights we are seeing in other states. and i'm proud of other measures we have taken in maine, for example, protecting the chain of custody of balance and equipment to make sure third parties like cyber ninja can never have access to them. we have done things like mating -- making voter registration easier. we just passed a bill, the governor signed into law last

week, legislation to allow tribal ids to be used as proof of identity for purposes of voter registration. we are working to make voting more accessible, and protecting election integrity. it is concerning to me that some politicians, in pursuit of their own gains, are rolling back fundamental constitutional rights of the citizenry. judy: -- william: shenna bellows, thank you for being here. sec. bellows: thank you. a pleasure. judy: it is often said that truth is the first casualty in any war. propaganda, disinformation and outright lies have always been dependable tactics to win hearts and minds. but in a world filled with millions of connected cameras on smartphones, street corners,

dashboards and satellites, it is increasingly possible for anyone online to root out the real story. it is called open source intelligence and our science correspondent miles o'brien met some of the people using it to lift the fog of war in ukraine. miles: it is spring break. university of alabama birmingham sophomore justin peden is savoring some downtime with friends in the florida panhandle. while thinking about a war more than 5700 miles away. >> i wanted to pullhe curtain back on the world and just, i'm so sheltered, so many of us are sheltered, and to expose them to what is going on out there. miles: eight years ago, he was all of 12, russia's first push into ukraine piqued his curiosity. he gravitated virtually to a place he has never been, and got to know people he has never met.

lots of them. >> came to realize that they are just like me. some of them are even adolescents at the time like myself. and this is not a story to them. this is their life. miles: and now, it is a big part of his. young justin is a highly regarded practitioner in the fast-growing field of open source intelligence. it is information in the public domain, hoover doubt by armchair analysts and intelligence professionals alike. is intel craft feed has drawn a quarter million followers, outside and inside the intelligence community. >> i never ever in a million years could have imagined it would be so relant as it is this current month, last month as well. miles: in addition to cultivating a cadre of 500 sources on the ground in ukraine, mostly through twitter, he combs the internet to gather

information from flight and ship trackers, commercial satellite imager streaming webcams, and smartphones stills and videos shared on facebook, instagram, and tiktok. >> it has been consistently uncovering some of the biggest leaves of this conflict in the lead up to it. miles: nick waters is an ex british army oicer, and open analyst at bellingham, a netherlands-based nonprofit that harvests o sent to publish investigative journalism. >> with smart phones and social media and the internet, what we have done is created an incredibly powerful information network, tt pretty much anyone can use to discover what is happening in the world around them. miles: it is often useful to determine what did not really happen. right before the invasion, russian separatists posted images, purporting to show the aftermath of a fatal bomb attack

aimed at them from the ukrainian army. media and with russian separatists troops swooped in to cover the event. >> the armed forces of ukraine blew up two improvised explosive devices on this highway. miles: but the online crowd was immediately skeptical of the video. they noticed the vehicles had no license plates, saw no evidence of an explosion, and found the injuries to the victims highly suspicious. nick waters reached out to pathologists and explosive experts. a few days later, a detailed filing cap report concluded the cars were torched, the suppose it shrapnel damage was more likely bullet holes, and the bodies had clear angular cuts and organs removed, evidence of autopsies. >> basically, these things were already dead before they were put in this vehicle. what we saw was the attempt by separatist's to fake an

incident. these inconsistencies were identified by individuals online, and within confirmed -- and were then confirmed by experts. miles: russia's attempt to make a pretext for war was not a surprise to those who investigate disinformation and how it spreads. jane is a senio research fellow at harvard kennedy school's insurance teen center. >> russia has made multiple attempts to essentially seek pretext for it. through using this open-source telligence granular gathering of information, we are essentially able to say that it is hogwash. miles: the intelligence gathering, fact checking, and debunking is happening in real time. when this deepfake video of ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy appearing to surrender emerged it was quickly debunked online, including by zelenskyy

himself. the online crowd is also documenting the movement and placement of russian troops, creating something more than just a snapshot of recent history. it is often actionable intelligence. >> it is a war where the crowd is essentially helping to make tactical decisions. miles: juliet kyle and is a former assistant secretary of the department of homeland security. >> people are making decisions about where they want to attack, or where are the russian tanks, what are we seeing in the skies, based on the guy or woman on the street with an iphone. we have never seen anything like that. miles: before the advent of this technological revolution, open source intelligence was limited primarily to professionals, collecting and translating for a media report. >> now we are seeing how david

can weaponize his cell phone against goliath. miles: heather williams is a former intelligence analyst, now at the ram corporation. >> there may be times where goliath learns how to fight back against that. the right now, we are seeing a lot of savvy on the part of the ukrainian people and on the ukrainian government, on how to use some of these different tools to their advantage. miles: all of these points of data might help clear the fog of war. the challenge is piecing it all together, quickly and accurately. open-source intelligence is not inherently intelligent. >> just because it is a first-hand account, does not mean it is truthfully from there. you never know until you go through that process, that verification process. miles: we are seeing a war unfold like never before. what once might have been kept secret is out there for all of

us to see. the real secret now? knowing who to trust and what to believe. for the pbs newshour, i am miles o'brien. ♪ judy: alopecia areata, an auto-immune disease that causes hair loss, was brought to center stage at the oscars, when actor will smith slapped comedian chrirock for a joke about his wife, jada pinkett smith, who suffers from the condition. we wanted to dig deeper into alopecia, and what life is like for those who deal with it everyday. the newshour's nicole ellis recently spoke to a leading expert to learn more about what we know and don't know about the auto-immune disorder. but first, we hear from people across the u.s. who live with the disease. >> my name is ebony jean.

i have lived with alopecia for 27 years. my name is simon. i have had alopecia for nearly two decades. i was first diagnosed when i was eight years old. i found hair clumps in my bed, i found bald spots, i was not really sure what to do. >> my name is deirdre. i turned 45 this year. and i started to have patchy alopecia when i was 21. so it has been over half of my life now, so this is the whig eyewear. i'm going to take it off so you can see what my alopecia looks like. >> my name is bob flint. i was three and a half when i was diagnosed with the disease. frankly, i don't remember. my folks, i'm sure told me. but that is how i found out. >> my name is john l massey. my daughter's name is kayla. kayla has been living with alopecia since she was around four years old. she is now 10. so, six years. >> growing up dealing with hair

loss, and a lot of people mistreated me for my appearance because they asked so many questions regarding my condition, and they made me feel less than because i know dealing with hair, being a woman, a lot of people use that as a way of defining our beauty. >> it is very difficult. children can be very mean, very hard on the playground or in the cafeteria. i experienced people ripping my hats off, or just staring at me. >> did not know a single other perp -- person in the world that had alopecia. i thought i was the only one on earth dealing with this, or at least it felt like that. intellectually, i knew that was not true. i felt very alone and had a hard time dealing with it. i hated it a lot for many years. >> i was caught offguard and i was very emotional. we were constantly trying to make sure that we were not projecting feelings onto our children who were really young,

and not experiencing some of those emotions that older teenagers and adults go through with the grief and the loss and the emotional toll that grief takes. >> the biggest issue is we are regular people, we don't have hair but that does not change us. it does not make us slower or faster. it is just hair. until you start picking on me as a kid or laughing at me, that is where it hurts. it is in the head. it is clearly in the head. it is a psychological impact of the disease more than anything else. >> i would like people to take away the fact that hair does not define any of us. alopecia may not be life-threatening but it is life altering. it affects a person's livelihood and their mental health. it is time for everyone to show more respect for the alopecia community, and to educate themselves more on the condition and how they can support us.

>> i am an immigration attorney in miami. i have had colleagues asked me after they saw a picture o me without hair if i would be able to handle the case or not because i was sick. it is draining and exhausting to have to constantly be dealing with it. all the time. just to be kind to people, and maybe a little more unrstanding. >> empathy is different than sympathy. and the power of pity, but your encouragement and your validation that we do have saturdays and we do have happy days, but we are going to be there nevertheless, that we are still blessed. >> for a closer look at alopecia andhe different ways the disease can affect people, i am joined by dr. brett king, an associate professor of dermatology at yale university school of medicine. for those who have never heard of alopecia, what exactly is it

and what do we know about who it impacts? dr. king: it is an important question. alopecia refers to hair loss. and that means hair loss broadly. that includes male pattern hair loss, female pattern hair loss, aloe pcr yada and other forms of haiross. what we have had a lot of attention to in the media recently is the form of hair loss called alopecia arrieta, which is an autoimmune form of hair loss that affects people of all ages, all races. though it typically occurs for the first time in the first 40 or 50 years of life. it is an autoimmune form of hair loss. distinctly different than a male pattern hair loss. nicole: you mentioned alopecia areata. what are the different types of alopecia? dr. king: alopecia areata most commonly is characterized by a

spot or a few ots of hair loss, and these can be the size of a nickel, the size of a half dollar. they are often round or oval-shaped patches of hair loss, typically involving the scope, but they can invoe an eyebrow, the eyelashes, the beard area in men. this is the most common hesitation of alopecia areata. there can be more severe presentations as well, where people lose 50% or 80% or 100% of their scalp hair. the folks with the most severe presentations are often said to have alopecia took tallis. but it is all alopecia areata. nicole: how does this disease progress? what does it do to your body? and as there treatment -- and is there treatment? dr. king: going back to the most typical presentation, somebody who develops a spot or a few

spots of hair loss, this will be what majority of people ever have with alopecia areata. one of the menacing things about this disease is that it is very unpredictable. so, we don't know who is going to be the person that, in three weeks, three months, or three years, those spots are going to turn into complete scalp hair loss. or complete scalp hair loss, in addition to loss of eyebrows and eyelashes. it is that unpredictability which makes or is part of what makes the disease so difficult to deal with. what is really exciting, getting to your question of, are there treatments, what is really exciting is that up until recently, there was not thought to be a very good treatment for people who have severe alopecia areata, or people who have lost

50% or 80% or 100% of their scalp hair. one of the really exciting developments is two weeks ago, a paper was published in the new england journal of medicine showing a new medicine that grows hair in up to 40% of people with the most severe form of alopecia areata. so indeed, what was once something that was thought to be untreatable, or completely changing that paradigm, and indeed, there is hope for the future for people with this disease. nicole: while there is some progress, there are man people who experience alopecia or hair loss in severe forms. what do we know about the impact this disease can have on the mental health of people who are diagnosed with it? dr. king: it is such an important issue to address. alopecia areata is very often a

devastating disease to suffer from. i think all you have to do is understand what -- or tried to imagine rather what it would be like to wake up

to all of your hair on your pillowcase to all of your hair on your pillowcase. nicole: thank you so much for joining us. dr. king: thank you so much for the opportunity. judy: more than 70 million americans have an arrest requirement or record and in many cases, that prevents them from getting housing, work, and reconnecting with their families after incarceration. those challenges are the subject of a newshour dumentary premiering tonight on pbs called searching for justice, life after lockup, it is produced by our mike fritz and frank carlsen and hosted by almond vaux. here is a quick look. >> i was released february 10, 2020.

around 7:00. >> yay! >> and when i get to the door, the first person i see is my daughter. it was surreal. >> after more than two decades in prison, michael plummer is released under a washington, d.c. law that allows some prisoners who committed cmes as juveniles to be freed early. >> i was just thinking, i am trying to lead free, wt is the next step in my life? you have to get a birth certificate, social security card. i was gone for 23 years. both parents passed away. these documents were lost. so i had to go and get them again. this felony, it is over the top of your head. not having an established credit long enough. so i'm not able to purchase a house or get the assistance i need. it is always a burden, knowing that you made a mistake, and

these burdens will be placed in front of you. judy: and amna joins me now. you have been reporting on issues around incarceration for years. what is it you were trying to capture with this documentary? amna: you know better than anyone, our entire newshour team has been covering stories around incarceration for years. stories of incarceration are more familiar to americans than many people know. one out of every two americans has a loved one or knows someone who has been incarcerated. oftentimes, those incarceration stories are about life inside prison or about the time the person gets out. for most formally incarcerated people, the day they get out is the beginning of their story. . that is when a vast array and issues arise. that is what we wanted to look into. the driving forces behind this

documentary, that is where we wanted to focus the u.s. locks up more people than any other country in the world, 600,0 people get out every year. they did their time. now they are free. now what? we look at the lives of four people to answer that question. judy: tell us about the people you followed, the hurdles they encountered when they were out of prison, and we should say a lot of this during the pandemic. amna: we just heard from one of those people, michael plummer. he was just a kid when he was incarcerated. he was 17. he was convicted for murder. he was not released until he was a 40-year-old man. he said, i feel like i will always be in some kind of incarceration, even though i'm free. what he was talking about was even when you get out, on the outside, you are met with the system, more than 40,000 laws and rules and regulations that really limit how formally incarcerated people can work. and move and stay. even with their own family members. how they can parent, how they

can even try to find footing and reconnect with famil and communities and all of the support networks that we all need. michael is now working two jobs, he is trying to cobble his life together, trying to reconnect with a daughtewho was a baby when he went into prison, and his new granddaughter. you will meet another man, michael, who really tried hard after he was incarcerated as a teenager to stay out. but every time, found a problem trying to get a job, finding stable housing, and ded up back in prison. he has been incarcerated for more in his life tn he has been free. you will meet a woman who had a traumatic childhood. she lost custody of one of her children during her last conviction and is fighting to get her daughter back. you will meet a woman named rene wyatt, who is the exception to the rule. she got out and stayed out. she is trying to counsel other formally incarcerated women to make sure they stay out too. the sociologist we talked to

said, the system really does try to keep people from making their way back into society. judy: and you were telling us that you looked at their backgrounds, the kinds of things that led them be incarcerated in the first place. amna that's right. we had a long, into the with them. we talked about the fact that every single one of them had a parent who was incarcerated or struggled with addiction. at is the data come to life. we know people who grow up with a parent who is incarcerated is more likely to become incarcerated. our system reinforces those patterns. we hope people will watch. we hope they will get to know these people to better understand how the system works, and maybe ask the question if the system can and should be better than it is. judy: shining a light into an area that gets so little attention. we are looking forwardo seeing this. the documentary is called "searching for justice: life after lockup" and airs tonight at 10:00 eastern, 9:00 central

on pbs. very much looking forward to seeing that. that is the newshour for tonight. i am judy woodruff. thank you. please stay safe and we will see you soon. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide.

and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions.

♪ hello and welcome to "amanpour & company." here's what's coming up. boris johnson becomes the first prime minister found to have broken the law. he'll be fined over partygate but will he resign in i speak to his biographer about this very british scandal. today we heard a statement from the occupiers confirming they are preparing for a new stage tin their terror against s and our defenders. >> ukraine is willing but is it able to fend off the russians as they mass for an invasion of the? former deputy nato commander richard shirreff joins me on the weapons ukraine needs now. then this war overshadows democratic elections in europe. i speak with journalist