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tv   PBS News Hour  PBS  June 2, 2022 3:00pm-4:00pm PDT

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geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. judy woodruff is away. on the "newshour" tonight, another mass shooting -- a gunman opens fire at a medical center in tulsa, oklahoma as congress debates potential gun safety legislation. then, the invasion intensifies -- ukraine defends its east from brutal russian assaults as more western weapons arrive. we discuss this tenuous moment with the secretary general of nato. >> in an alliance of 30 different allied couries there will be differences, there will be discussions, but when it comes to the conclusions and our ability to act both on sanctions and on military support to ukraine,ato has been extremely united and very capable of acting. geoff: and, at the extreme -- persistent drought worsened by
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climate change causes perilously low water levels at the nation's largest reservoir. 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's the planning effect, from fidelity. >> the kendeda fund, committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in transformativ leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org.
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carnegie corporation of new york, supporting innovations in ucation, 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 broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: it is good to be with you. president biden will speak to the nation in primetime tonight, urging congress to take action on gun violence.
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in recent days, mass shootings, killing or injuring four or more people, have traumatized communities from new york to texas to oklahoma. the latest, in tulsa, left four people dead. it was the 20th such attack just since the massacre at a school in uvalde, texas last week. amna nawaz has the latest on the tragedy in tulsa. amna: yesterday afternoon, tulsa, oklahoma became the site of the 233rd mass shooting in the u.s. so far this year. this time, the target was a medical building on the campus of saint francis hospital. today, authorities identified the gunman as 45-year-old michael louis of muskogee, saying he was armed with an ar-15 style rifle and a semi-automatic handgun. louis shot and killed two doctors, a receptionist, and patient, before shooting himself. authorities said the gunman legally purchad the rifle about two hours before the shooting and targeted dr. preston phillips, who had recently performed back surgery
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on louis. wendell franklin is tulsa's police chief. >> louis called several times over several days complaining of pain and wanted additional treatment. on may 31, dr. phillips saw mr. louis again for additional treatment. yesterday, june 1, louis called dr. phillips' office again complaining of back pain and wanting additional assistance. we have also found a letter on the suspect, which made it clear that he came in withhe intent to kill dr. phillips and anyone who got in his way. he blamed dr. phillips for the ongoing pain following the surgery. amna: dr. ryan parker is the associate chief medical officer at saint francis and was a colleague of dr. phillips. >> we are supposed to be the ones that are caring for others during tragedies like this.
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to think that our caregivers were the victims, it's just incomprehensible to me. they died while serving others. they died in the line of duty. amna: police officers responded to the sprawling hospital complex within three minutes of being alerted. lachelle nathan was on the way to a doctor's appointment when officers rushed in. >> i was coming to the doctor, and i got my grandkids with me in this terrible scene. it's awful. it's sad. it's so close to home. it's not even safe if you come outside anymore. >> this is a wakeup call for my kids, like, this can really happen anywhere. and it's very scary. you can't even go to a store and go to school. you can't even go to the doctor. i mean, we could have been in there and this would have been happening. amna: the tulsa shooting took place at the same time families in uvalde, texas are holding funerals for the 19 children and two teachers killed in the deadliest school shooting in
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nearly a decade. meanwhile, today, miles away in new york, a court appearance for the 18-year-old alleged gunman in the buffalo shooting accused of targeting and killing 10 black americans in a supermarket fewethan three weeks ago. for the "pbs newshour," i'm amna nawaz. geoff: in the day's other news, a texas state senator said panicked 911 calls from children never got to the police commander at the scene of last week's school attack. senator roland gutierrez called it a quote, system failure, and said everyone, from the governor on down, shared the blame. state officials say the school district police chief, pete arredondo, kept officers from storming the site for roughly an hour. the gunman killed 19 children and two teachers before police ultimately killed him.
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in ukraine, government forces struggled today to slow russia's grueling war of attrition in the east. street-to-street battles raged in severodonetsk, and president volodymyr zelenskyy said russia now controls about a fifth of ukraine's territory, largely in the east and south. in an overnight tv address, zelenskyy also accused russian forces of abducting more than 200,000 ukrainian children since the war began. pres. zelenskyy: the russian state disperses these people on its territory and settles our citizens, in particular, in remote regions. the purpose of this criminal policy is not just to steal people, but to make deportees forget about ukraine and not be able to return. geoff: also today, britain pledged to send sophisticated rocket systems to ukraine following similar agreements by the u.s. and germany. the u.n. has announced that a truce in yemen is being extended for another two months. the april cease-fire was the first in six years and had been set to expire today.
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the war there began in 2014. parties to the truce are the yemeni government, backed by a saudi arabian coalition, fighting shiite rebels with links to iran. president biden praised the announcement, amid reports that he will soon visit saudi arabia. on the pandemic, coving vaccinations for children under five in the u. may begin as early as june 21. the white house coordinator said today that 10 million doses of the pfizer and moderna vaccines will be ready once the fda and cdc give the green light. he acknowledged the frustration of parents of young children. >> we don't have an estimate of timelines of when most kids will be vaccinated. what we know is that obviously there are a lot of parents are eager to get their kids vaccinated right away, and they will get vaccinated right away. at the end of the day, we all want to move fast, but we want to gett right. geoff: he also joined other experts in warning of a possible new surge of covid infections in the fa or winter. a national, four-day party
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kicked off in britain today, celebrating queen elizabeth's jubilee, 70 years on the throne. she was crowned on this day in 1953 and is now increasingly frail. but she managed a brief appearance at the day's events. chris ship of independent television news repos. chris: there were times in recent months when many wondered if this moment would be possible r the een. today, the 96-year-old showed the world that it was. a jubilee balcony appearance watched by tens of thousands on the mall, marking a moment in british history none of her predecessors has ever achieved. the trooping the colour ceremony began this morning when carriages carrying the royal family, some for the very first time, made their way from buckingham palace. it was the prince of wales who took the salute today on behalf
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of the queen, who did not come tohe parade ground. back at buckingham palace, as the household cavalry returned, the queen, for her comfort, took the salute from there. and then it was time for the people. so the carriages have come down, the military have come down, it's now the turn for everybody else. they've come to see the one british monarch, the only british monarch, who's reigned for 70 years. itish isles, but from all overe the world. >> we are representing portugal, paris, and pakistan. chris: and you're from the u.s. too? >> oh, she's our queen. not on paper, but she's our queen. ris: a tribute to the queen's 70 years flew overhead. the queen enjoyed it.
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her great-grandson louis, a little less so. but in the skies above buckingham palace and on the streets below, celebrations for a platinum jubilee the country will not see again for many, many years to come. geoff: that report from chris ship, of independent television news. buckingham palace said later that the queen experienced what it called some discomfort today, and will skip tomorrow's thanksgiving church service. back in this country, there's word that strong economic recovery has delayed the dates when social security and medicare run out of money. an annual report today says social security will go broke in 2035, one year later than expected and medicare's trust fund will be exhausted in 2028, two years later than the last forecast. the programs are benefitting from a sharp increase in payroll tax receipts. the biden administration is forgiving all remaining student debt for fmer students of corinthian colleges. today's announcement erases
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nearly $6 billion owed by half a million students. they attended corinthian schools between 1995 and 2015. the for-profit college chain was once the nation's largest, but it shut down in 2015 amid widespread fraud allegations. and, on wall street, stocks were broadly higher, led by tech shares. the dow jones industrial average gained 435 points, 1%, to close at 33,248. the nasdaq rose 322 points, 2.7%. the s&p 500 was up nearly 2%. still to come on the "newshour," the decision in the johnny depp-amber heard trial ngously low water levels atf lake mead. plus, much more. >> this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university.
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geoff: as the city of tulsa begins to grieve its losses, hundreds of mourners in the community of uvalde, texas have been coming together for the funerals of those who were killed in last week's shooting. amna nawaz is back with more on how the community is coping. amna: geoff, it has been just over a week since the shooting in uvalde, but families and community members are just beginning to navigate their grief. counselors and mental health services are making themselves available to the community to help cope with the trauma and the loss. joining me now to talk about her work in uvalde and best practices for those dealing with this tragedy is ceo and clinical director of san antonio counseling and behavioral center, doctor martha livingston. thank you for joining us. you and i met in uvalde when you just arrived with colleagues from san antonio. you set up shop a number of clinics and basically said anyone who needs our help, we are here, come on in.
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so who came to see you and what were they sharing with you? dr. livingston: we felt compelled to go down there, being only 1.5 hours away, and having the ability to help people gone through this crisis. we linked up with the pediatrician from that community , the only pediatrician in town, and he allowed us to use his clinic as a safe space. so, p ie eo awepltore whether it was first responders, siblings of some of the victims, and family members. amna: what kind of things were they sharing with you? i imagine in the early days there was a lot of shock, so what do people say when they come to you? dr. livingston: they came from different perspectives in terms of their involvement. either they were in the school, some of the children, some of the relatives, even some of the first responders. the physician himself who was on
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call that night and was triaging children at the hospital. so we were able to talk to a variety of people that obviously weren shock but also sharing their stories. so i think just as human beings, we need to share our experiences and what we dealt with. that is one of the ways that they process what they have gone through. so our job was really to listen to them, to validate what they had seen and experienced, to help them process it. amna: what about the children you mentioned, the many hundreds of children who made it out of the school, the ones who survived? i spoke to the mother of one, incredibly traumatized being in the classroom where the shooting happened. so many children are trying to process this. what do you say to them when they come to you, and what are they like, what kind of questions do they have? dr. livingston: we saw one particular child who was very traumatized, still shaking from the experience, and really
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thinking that the shooter would come back. so they are really still in that space and trying to help them make sense of it and helping them feel safe is really key. i know the parents are struggling to find the words to say to make them feel like things are going to be ok in this time where it is ok to not be ok. even while one of the parents brought their two daughters, he was a first responder himself who was assisting some of the children that were still in the classroom. and so feelings of guilt that he was talking about. he was telling somof the children they were going to be ok, when maybe they were not ok. i think the need is great all across the board. and in that city in terms of the impact they have had on their lives. and it is here long term.
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it is not something they are going to be able to get over in just a week. amna: as we speak here today, of course we are just covering another mass shooting in tulsa yesterday, the uvalde shooting faulty buffalo shooting. people watching around the country are feeling a toll in their own way. i wonder what you can say to them about why and when they can seeks or and how do talk to children about this. dr. livingston: certainly. i think parents need to be transparent with their children and talk about what they are feeling and what they are thinking. they are obviously exposed to it. we cannot shelter it from them. they are going to see it on social media and television. helping their children make sense of what is going on in the world. and if they feel they need professional help, there certainly are resources for them in and around the care communities to access.
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parents, really our job is to protect our children and make them feel safe. one way to do it is to have routines and have an environment where they feel safe and that they can talk about whater it is that they might be going through. amna: some very useful tips. doctor martha livingston. thank you so much for your time. dr. livingston: thank you. geoff: recent history suggests new gun reforms are more likely to emerge out of state houses rather than washington, d.c. over the coming days, we'll explore some of the proposed and recently enacted policy experiments across the states. william brangham begins our coverage with an examination of extreme risk prevention orders, more commonly known as red flag laws.
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the measures, which are in use in 19 states, allow guns to be temporarily seized if family or law enforcement believe someone is a risk to themselves or to others. william: on new year's eve four years ago, a sherriff's deputy was shot and killed in a suburb south of denver by a man suffering serious mental distress. that killing prompted a republican state representative to introduce a red flag law in the colorado legislature. but that lawmaker then came under attack from a conservative gun rights group, his law didn't pass, and the representative lost his next election. his name is cole wist. he's now a lawyer in private practice, and he joins me now. cole, great to have you on the newshour. just playing off this example that motivated you to introduce this bill, can you help us understand how your law would have worked? who contacts the authorities? judges this? makes a decision that it is ok that someone should have their guns taken? cole: good evening.
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it is great to be with you. i'll talk about how this would have played out under the 2018 bill i introduced, and that is that the family members or law enforcement could apply for an extreme risk protection order. they would swear out an affidavit, submit that to a judge, and if the judge agreed it met a threshold determination that the individual posed a risk to himself or herself or others, then the judge could issue a temporary order that would allow law enforcement to remove firearms from that individual. under our bill in 2018, there was a three-day period that the court would then hear whether or not that order would be made permanent. and we had a very high level of due process that was required to be met by the movement by the person who was seeking the
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protective order. and under our bill, the seeking person to remove this firearms would've had to have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that that individual posed a risk to himself or others, and that removal of weapons from that person's possession was necessary to accomplish those means. there then would have been an opportunity if the order was granted six months later to then consider whether or not that order should be renewed or dissolved and the person could receive their firearms back. in the version of the bill that passed in 2019, those periods were doubled to 364 days if an erpl is entered against someone. william: you were a republican legislator, a strong supporter of the second amendment, and yet this conservative gun rights group came after you. they called you a gun grabber, cole the mole, and passed out flyers attacking you. how did that sit with you having this kind of blowback? cole: it strikes me that we
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missed the mark when we talk about mass shooting or incidents like the one that motivated me to sponsor this legislation. and that is, these are matters of public safety. and if you look at cases of domestic terrorism and the mass shootings we have seen in the united states over just the last week, the are domestic terrorist incidents. and when we look at domestic terrorism, our government has not been hesitant to make sure that we are doing everything that we can in a proactive fashion to make sure that we protect public safety. when you enter the word "gun" in this conversation, it freezes the parties. in my particular circumstance, if you could identify a sin that i committed as a legislator, that is having the willingness to talk to folks on the others across the politicalpectrum abt solutions that we can put
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into place to protect constitutional rights, to make the burden of proof very high for someone seeking to deprive someone of the position of a weapon. and yet at the same time, recognizing that there is an important public safety concern here that is not being addressed by our current laws. and that is the reason i was motivated to introduce this piece of legislation. william: given your experience as someone who tried to reach across the aisle and introduce something that, too many people listening to you would think that seems like a reasonable, sensible approach. does that give you a sense of pessimism that anything is going to come out of the national level? because leaders in washington, d.c. right now are trying to do exactly what you did, to reach across the aisle and figure out how we can stop these tragedies from occurring. given your experience, do you think there will be any hope here? cole: i am always hopeful, but i will get as an example an exchange i saw on twitter last
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night between a radio show host and senator cornyn from texas. senator cornyn in the past few days has expressed some willingness and openness to talking to folks about expanded background checks, red flag laws, things that we can do to try and protect public safety. he was called out for those efforts last night and he immediately retreated back to his corner and said no, i am not going to introduce anything that relates to gun so again, if we really talked about this as a public safety issue and as trying to address domestic terrorism and not focusing on the gun issue, then i think we would make a whole lot more progress. but unfortunately, when political tensions become high, as they are particularly with this issue, folks retreat to their comfortable corners, and whenever folks are in the corners, they are not talking to folks across the political spectrum. and frankly, they are not solvin problems that we need to have solved. william: in just the last few
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seconds we have, do you feel strongly that red flag laws should be passed nationally? do they really work to prevent these cases, these tragedies? cole: well, we have red flag laws in 19 states. one of the first states to pass one of these laws was indiana. and i do not think anyone would suggest that indiana is a blue state by any means, but i think they paved the way and showed that you can do this in a way that protects constitutional rights and still protect public safety. in the couple of years that colorado has passed this law there has been a lot of analysis as to whether or not the law has been abused. if you look at the data, it shows that to the extent that folks have sought these orders with frivolous facts or without
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a legal basis, those has been denied. the law is working, the law can function. william: cole wist, thank you so much for joining us. cole: thank you. my pleasure. geoff: as the nation mourns the victims of mass shootings in tulsa, uvalde, and buffalo, president biden will address the nation tonight and urge congress to pass common sense gun laws. a bipartisan group of senators continued conversations this week to figure out what, if anything, can gain the required 60 votes to pass. and today, the house judiciary committee considered its own slate of proposals. the committee's top democrat and republican disagreed sharply over the issue. >> too soon, my friends? what the hell are you waiting for? you say that none of the solutions proposed here will stop gun violence in america? well there, sadly, i agree.
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this bill will not alone save every life we will lose to gun violence this year. but it will save some. >> this bill would not stop the terrible events, it wouldn't harden schools, but it will sure take away the rights of the american people who follow the law. that's what this is all about. geoff: leigh ann caldwell is anchor for washington post live and co-author of the early 202 newsletter. she's been following the debate in congress and joins me now. it is good to have you here with us. in the house judiciary committee, they are considering what is really this mega bill, eight pieces of legislation wrapped into one. es everything from raising the age to purchase semi automatic weapons to 21, it requires background checks for ghost guns, among other things. but nowhere on this list is an assault weaps ban. why not? leigh ann: because my sources tell me it doesn'have the votes, even in a democratic
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majority in the house of representatives. even in the house it does not have the votes. the bill has 207 cosponsors. it needs 218, democrats most likely, to pass. there's a number of people who are not signed onto this bill and i am told by readership aides they are struggling to find those additional democratic votes to reach that 218. speaker pelosi announced today in a letter to her colleagues she is going to hold a hearing on an assault weapons ban. that does not mean she will bring it to the floor. geoff: on a parallel track and the senate have senator chris murphy, who came to congress representing the newtown community. he is leading this bipartisan effort, and they are focused on what i am told is a fairly narrow set of gun reforms. red flag laws, which william just told us about, expanding background checks, adding funding for mental health services for school security. are there 10 republican votes in the senate based on your
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reporting to get that ultimately to the president's desk? leigh ann: there are a number of republicans involved in these negotiations so theoretically if they come to an agreement with someone like senator cornyn, who is very close with leadership, senator toomey perhaps, lindsey graham, then presumably they would have the 10 votes. i do not think they would announce an agreement unless they did, but we will see. but let's be clear, these things they are talking about, they are kind of around the edges. they are not going to address ising the age of assault weapons. it is not a lot of gun restrictions. what it is tryg to do is just put some safeguards around the opportunity to purchase guns with these red flag laws, perhaps incentivizing states to strengthen red flag laws. as far as the mental health component is concerned, something republicans are really focused on, it is not really clear what they are going to do
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about that. saying mental health is the problem is one thing. legislating that is a whole other issue. geoff: help us understand mitch mcconnell's role in all this. early on he encouraged john cornyn, the texas republican, to work with democrats to find some compromise here. this is the same become a can party leader who in the past has blocked a number of gun reforms to include red flag laws, which even senators asked senator marco rubio supported. he introduced two pieces of legislation onto the floor and never got a vote under mitch mcconnell's leadership. is this a change of heart? help us understand his reasoning. leigh ann: a lot of democrats especially are skeptical about what leader mcconnell is saying. some people think he has put john cornyn into these negotiations to make sure there is not a really impactful legislation or agreement that comes to the floor. something that is very minor that does not really do that
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much. the other thing that you have to think about would leader mcconnell, as you well know, is that everything is calculated in what is going to win him back his majority. the midterm elections are just five months away, and so he reads the polls better than anyone else. he has a lot of inside information. he will do nothing that harms his members that are trying to be democrats. so he is deciding, he is making this decision on what he is saying based on what the polling is saying at this moment. whether that translates into actual legislation that is going to pass, we will see. but over the past couple days in kentucky, leade mcconnell has kind of defined what the realms of this is. he said this is not gun restrictions, this is not gun laws, it is school safety and mental health. and that is much different than something like red flag laws, than background checks. geoff: thank you so much for your insight and analysis.
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this week, the biden administration authorized another $700 million in military aid for ukraine, as its war to fend off russia's invasion grinds into its fourth month. the u.s. has helped bring together nato in ways not seen in recent years to support ukraine militarily, but some cracks are starting to show. nick schifrin speaks now with the nato secretary general. nick: the nato secretary general is here in washington this week to meet with the president, and the secretaries of state and defense and the director of the cia, as american and allied support for ukraine continues. but are there limits on that support as the war approaches brutal stalemate? and how long can the alliance maintain cohesion? to discuss that and more, i'm joined by jens stoltenberg. mr. secretary general, welcome back to the "newshour." so far turkey is blocking
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finland and sweden from joining the alliance. were you personally surprised when turkey raised that objection, and what do you believe turkey's price is? sec. gen. stoltenberg: it is not unusual that allies expressed concerns when we have processes on enlarging the allianc i think we all have to remember the fact that finland and sweden have applied for nato membership is a historic decision, and nato has helped to spread democracy and freedom for decades. then when turkey erases -- raises concerns, as we always do, nato has to sit down and find a way to address those concerns, and find a united way forward to allow finland and sweden to join. nick: turkey is raising concerns about what it calls swedish support for curds and is demanding deportation and removal of political support for those currents. a senior nato official told me
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today if you cannot find a solution to this by the leader summit at the end of the month, it would be a quote, reprieve for vladimir putin. do you agree? sec. gen. stoltenber we woing how to address the concerns expressed b turkey. and we welcome the fact there are direct contact. and i convened a senior officials from those two capitals in a few days in brussels to look into their concerns and how we can address them. we have to remember that turkey is the nato ally that has suffered the most terrorist attacks. pkk attacks. nick: pkk, a turkish organization that is been deemed a terrorist group by turkey and the u.s. sec. gen. stoltenberg: so these are serious concerns and we need to address them and that is exactly what we are doing now and what we will do in the coming days.
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to aim to find a way to agree to have sweden and finland join our alliance. nick: let me ask you about another in -- another aspect. some say ukraine and only ukraine can define what victory is. but listen to two statements from france and poland. france insisting russian priorities need be considered, poland, that russian defeat needs to be priority. >> in the future we will have to build peace, let's never forget that. we'll have to do it with both ukraine and russia sitting around the table. >> if ukraine is sacrificed for holy calmness, economic reasons, or political ambitions, even a centimeter of its territory, it will be a huge blow not only for the ukrainian nation, but for the entire western world. nick: is the alliance united over ukraine? sec. gen. stoltenberg: the nato alliance is united over ukraine and we have seen unprecedented
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unity in both implementing the unprecedented level of sanctions in providing support to ukraine, and to increase nato's military presence in the eastern part o the alliance. but of course we face every day difficult dilemmas. in an alliance of 30 different allied countries, there will be differences, there will be discussions. but we have acted on sanctions and increasing defense in the eastern alliance. nato has been extremely united and capable of acting. nick: ukrainian president zelenskyy has defined victory as the expulsion of all russian troops in all nato land. is nato prepared with supporting the weapons anytime needed to do that? sec. gen. stoltenberg: nato allies have provided a lot of support they are willing to
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continue providing support to ukraine. i think the only way to address the issue of what kind of settlement we can see at the end of this war is to trust the ukrainian political leadership, the ukrainian people, to make those hard decisions on potential compromises. our responsibility is to support them of the right enshrined in the u.n. charter and stand up against aggressive invasion of russia. nick: that alliance with the words by president biden in a new york times op-ed this week. he also wrote, the u.s. will not try to bring about the ouster of vladimir putin. are you not afraid that if putin stays in power he will continue to threaten europe? sec. gen. stoltenberg: our responsibility is to continue to be a defensive alliance, protecting and defending all nato allies. we do not have any aim of threatening or interfering in russian politics.
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we are there to defend one million people living in 30 allied countries on both sides of the atlantic. then of course to provide support to ukraine. that is exactly what we are doing. nick: it sounds like you are acknowledging that the threat, so long as putin is there, will continue. sec. gen. stoltenberg: what we have seen is a pattern of russian behavior over several years. invading georgia in 2008, illegally annexing crimea in 2014, and now a full-fledged invasion of ukraine. so when that invasion happened, nita was prepared. we actually warned against this potential invasion last fall, an d when it happened we were prepared and therefore were able to quickly reinforce and strengthen our military presence and sent more than 40,000 troops. the u.s. has increased to military presence in europe and
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we have more than 100,000 troops on heightened alert just to send a very clear such a moscow that we are ready to protect and defend all of our allies and remove any room for a of nato commitment. not to provoke a conflict but to event a conflict and promote peace. nick: you are working on a strategic concept will be unveiled at the end of the month in the leader summit. it will contain new language on summit. do you believe nato could play a role if china decides to invade taiwan? sec. gen. stoltenberg: nato will remain a regiona alliance, not america and europe, but this region faces more and more global threats and challenges, and one of them of course course is the security consequences of a stronger and stronger china. china has the second-largest defense budget in the world. the are investingeavy military equipment including nuclear
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missiles. when it comes to taiwan, i do not think i should speculate, but it is about nato being ready and willing to defend all nato allies. nick: thank you very much. sec. gen. stoltenberg: thank you some for having me. geoff: let's turn now to some of the questions coming out of the trial of actors johnny depp and amber heard. a virginia jury yesterday ordered heard to pay depp, her ex-husband, $15 million in damages in a defamation case. the jury also ordered depp to pay heard $2 million in damages. depp sued his ex-wife for defamation in 2019, after she published a piece the year before about her experiences as a survivor of domestic abuse. john yang looks at some concerns over the fallout from this trial. john: geoff, johnny depp sued his ex-wife over a washington
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post op-ed in which she referred to herself as a public figure representing domestic abuse. while heard never mentioned depp by name, the actor argued it was clear she was referring to him and sa it cost him work. during the trial, heard testified that depp had sexually, physically, and verbally her. depp denied any physical or sexual abuse, and accused heard of domestic abuse against him. the six weeks of testimony generated international headlines. and many domestic violence experts and advocates have concerns not only about the verdict, but about how the trial played out. ruth glenn is president and ceo of the national coalition against domestic violence. thank you for being with us first of all, what do you think the message was not just of the verdict, but what went on in the courtroom, and what went on outside the courtroom on social media? ruth: i think --first of all,
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thank you so much for having me. but i would say that what we witnessed during this case in the courtroom and certainly outside of the courtroom, was a miscarriage of understanding the dynamics of domestic violence. we watched what was occurring in the courtroom, which was not really kind of focusing on what was the defamation issue, which was another issue, but also not dealing with or understanding in that court system and process what the dynamics of domestic violence are. outside of the courtroom was something i do not think many of us have ever seen before, which is depp supporters really taking a narrative and exerting public opinion on social media and otherwise that may have impacted
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the results, the rdict of this trial. john: talk about that, what was going on in social media. heard said she received hundreds of death threats a day, countless social media posts mocking her testimony. what do you make of all that, where did that come from? ruth: you know, i firmly believe, as does this organization, and certainly is up for debate, but i believe there was a machine behind this which was, first and foremost, was a pr and a strategy and attorneys on mr. depp's side that understood they had to do some of this to ensure that he had the support from his fans. to put it quite simply, it is certainly more complicated on taht side around strategy. secondly, the thing that was most concerning for us around here was the ability to further
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control whom we believe is a victim of domestic violence. because we have the expertise and understanding that the dynamics of domestic violence, and seeing all of the testimony, the evidence, and watching even the courtroom interactions and terms and such that were used when you are going to make domestic violence essential theme to this, then we should have had domestic violence experts in that courtroom. the court of public opinion, which was mostly made up of mr. depp's fans, then we dealt with not having domestic violence experts there helping lead the conversation around domestic violence. john: what message do you think this sense -- we know that domestic violence, sexual assault, are underreported crimes. what message does this send to someone who may be experiencing this now and trying to figure out whether to speak up, whether
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to make the accusation? ruth: i think it sends the message that as far as we think we have come as a society and particularly as a nation, that we have not come that far. we still have to navigate some of the issues that have always prevented us from being able to speak out of being survivors and victims. which is, you will not be believed, you don't have a right to voice it, and unless you are a perfect victim, a victim that is palatable to society and fits within whatever that stereotype is, it's probably best that you not speak. i do want to be clear though, i do not want this to be a turning point for that. i do think that there is hope and this is a blip that will and may prevent some chilling effect, but we are going to have to keep moving forward and
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allowing victims and survivors to have their voice and talk about the abuse they have endured. john: you talk about the stereotypical abuse of survivors, someone who is palatable to the general public. talk of the bit more about that, and wire -- and where does amber heard fit into that. ruth: the stereotype of the victim, i used this analysis -- this analogy earlier today. you see the billboard by the bus stop of the victim who has the blackeye and she has three children held close to her, and she may be your everyday what woman -- white woman who has just had a series of bad things happen to her, including domestic violence. i would say to all of us that that is a stereotypical view. amber heard did not fit in that stereotype, and most victims and survivors do not i think this is
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one of the few times that we saw where she absolutely did not fit into the stereotype. john: ruth glen, thank you very much. ruth: thank you. geoff: a megadrought is choking the western and southwestern regions of the u.s. it's the worst drought in over 1000 years in this country. this week, local officials in southern california started restricting water use, including watering of lawns to once or twice a week, for about six million residents. it's also having a major impact on lake mead, a major source of water for agriculture and for millions of people in the west. the mega drought is connected intimately with climate change
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of course, and our story is part of our ongoing coverage of the tipping point. the colorado river basin, a lifeline of the american southwest, is shrinking. and with it, the country's two largest reservoirs are going dry. just 30 miles east of las vegas sits lake mead on the border of arizona and nevada. it's the largest manmade reservoir in north america. lake mead pumps water from the colorado river to nearly 25 million people. it's a major water source for sidents and tribes in arizona, nevada, california, and parts of mexico, and some of the country's most productive agricultural sites. >> about 75% of the water goes to irrigation for agriculture. that supplies about 60% of the food for the nation that's grown in the united states. geoff: nearly 40% of arizona's water supply comes from lake mead. but the lake has been declining for decades due to rising temperatures and climate change.
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cracked earth and mud where water used to be. now it's only 30% full, a historic low. over the years, rusted debris and sunken boats have emerged. more recently, some darker discoveries, human remains, lost for decades. around the lake, a bathtub ring exposes receding water levels over time. this is what it looked like in 1983. fast forward nearly four decades, lake mead is now 178 feet lower, and continuing to shrink. below lake mead, the hoover dam provides hydro-electric power to 1.3 million people across three states. but the dam is operating at 67% of its capacity. if the reservoir's elevation falls below 950 feet, the dam's turbines will stop spinning. >> people ask me like, hey, what do we need to do to fill up lake mead again? i need over a decade of above average snowfall in the colorado rockies to make that happen.
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geoff: lake mead gs water from lake powell, the second largest reservoir in the country. its water supply is around a fourth of what it used to be. states in the southwest have started limiting some of their use of the colorado river basin. and last month, federal officials took unprecedented action to temporarily keep enough water in lake powell, one of the country's largest reservoirs, to continue generating hydropower for a million homes. for more on all this, i'm joined by alex hager. he covers the colora river basin for northern colorado public radio. it is great to have you with us. what does this all mean that these two huge reservoirs are at critically low levels? it is a lifeline for the american southwest, but really for all of us, given that it is key infrastructure for big ag. alex: it is truly a sign of how critical the drought is. we are in year 22 going on 23 of drought, and a lot of scientists are saying this is not just a
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drought, it's a writ of acacian, a sign that the baseline for how much water we should expect in the american west is going to look very different than it has for a long time. and that will have implications for 40 million people who depend on the river for an awful lot of agriculture that a lot of times is the only reason we see leafy greens on the table and most of this country in the winter. and what we are talking about with these two reservoirs is storage. we're talking about a safety net to make sure that water can keep flowing. reservrs are the means by which humans can take a natural resource and kind of control for fluctuation to make sure they have some consistency in the timing, location, and quantity of where the water goes. you lose that ability when you lose volume. geoff: what measures are being taken to preserve and protect these reservoirs? and are they working so far? apparently they are not. alex: across the west, there have been a number of programs reduce water use.
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from cities to farm fields. and we are starng to see more as this gets more critical. in a very direct sense there have been measures taken to leave more water in lake mead, but even the people who designed those measures will tell you is not a silver bullet. that they are temporary holdovers until we can come up with something more permanent until the situation with the water turns around. allow climate scientists will tell you there is not a good reason to expect the water situation will turn around. folks have their eyes on the next round of negotiations for operating guidelines which are due by 2026. a lot of measures we are seeing right now including numbers from this year, they are to hold things over until the states and the tribes that use the river's water can come to the table and figure out the new rules for how to get a slice of the pie that is shrinking. geoff: i was going to ask you about that. in a world where there is less
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water to go around i imagine there is a lot of focus on who will be first in line to lose it. how are those early conversations unfolding? alex: a lot of the states and tribes that doet to use it, they do not want to be the ones to lose more. so there is definitely a spirit of making sure that people can protect water for the folks in their jurisdictions. there is also a lot of talk about collaboration. whenever you talk to water managers, the top people in states across the west, they say we cannot move forward. there is no path forward unless there is some sense of compromise andollaboration. time will tell as to whether or not they can actually do that. there is generally a good spirit of conservation and a lot of spaces. cities will tell you they have been able to stretch water supplies over the past three or four decades using the same amount of water to supply cities that have grown by hundreds of thousands of people. and there is some of that spirit in the world of agriculture as
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well, keeping crops alive with less water. geoff: as youo your reporting and talk to people, i imagine they grasp the sense of urgency. do you pick up in your reporting a sense of panic, a panic that sets in when you see a headline that these two major reservoirs are dangerously low levels? alex: in all honesty, there are times i would expect to and do not sense panic. there have been a lot of measures taken over the course of the last decade and few decades to safeguard against some of this. this is a crisis referred to a lot of times is a slow moving train wreck. so, in places like central arizona, which was the first place to lose some of its wate allocation in last year's federal shortage allocation, they say on the user end, a lot of folks will not notice for maybe a decade because they have been storing water underground,
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they have been shuffling access away into the reserves. the same is true into other areas where there have been measures to remove grassy lawns and savior acacian water that they can put back -- and save irrigation water they can put back in the system. geoff: alex hager, thank you for your reporting on this critical issue and appreciate you joining us this evening. alex: thanks for having me. geoff: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the "pbs newshour," thanks for spending part of your thursday with us. we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no-contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv.
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>> the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. and friends of the "newshour." 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 performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]
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