♪ john: good evening. i'm john yang. geoff bennett is away. tonight on "pbs news weekend." senators say they've made a bi-partisan breakthrough on gun reform legislation, and we look ahead to this week's january 6th hearings. then, skyrocketing home prices and rents are creating a housing crisis in parts of the country. and, drought, famine, and starvation. the costs of climate change take a toll on the people of somalia. feisal adan ibrahim: we've never seen six or more consecutive months of high malnourished patients before. this never used to happen. john: all that and more on tonight's "pbs news weekend."

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this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ john: good evening. we begin tonight with news of a tentative bipartisan senate agreement on what would be the biggest new federal gun legislation in decades. the package is narrow, and short of what president biden and many democrats wanted. but in a statement, the president said, "the sooner it comes to my desk, the sooner i can sign it, and the sooner we can use these measures to save lives." congressional correspondent lisa dejardins has details. lisa, what's in the deal and what's not? lisa: this is a big deal, because it includes 20 different members of congress, notably republicans. that's how many you need to get

anything through. let's take a look at what they agreed to in a handshake today. they would allow for surges of juvenile criminal and mental health records for anyone under 21 trying to buy long rifles, assaults title reference -- weapons. -- assault style weapons. it would close the boyfriend loophole, which would prevent those who are convicted of domestic violence with unmarried partners from getting weapons. it would increase school mental health support. i'm told billions of dollars for that. what's not in here is an increase in the age to buy assault style weapons. thisould stay at 18 years old. john: this is a framework. it's not legislative language yet. what are the chances -is there a danger this doesn't become law? lisa: there's always that danger in the modern senate. today, both republican leader mitch mcconnell and democratic leader chuck schumer said they like what they see, that's

progress. this is a breakthrough, but it's not the finish yet. john: thank you very much. in today's other headlines, the fbi has joined local authorities to investigate dozens of members of a white supremacist group arrested in idaho yesterday afternoon. the coeur d'alene police chief said they were preparing to riot. acting on a tip, police took 31 members of the group, patriot front, into custody near an lgbtq pride event. the group, dressed in navy blue shirts and khaki cargo pants, had a u-haul truck full of riot gear and papers that described an operational plan. they are to be arraigned tomorrow on charges of "conspiracy to riot," a misdemeanor. ukraine warns that russia could soon encircle a critical eastern city, inching closer to control of the donbas. smoke can be seen rising from steady russian shelling of a chemical plant in severodonetsk,

where ukrainian civilians are said to be sheltering. in the country's western region, where attacks have been relatively few lately, russians say they destroyed a depot full of u.s. and european military aid. ukrainians say nearly twdozen were injured in the attack. russian video, which cannot be verified, shows missile strikes on ukrainian targets. in washington, general john allen submitted his resignation today as the president of the brookings institution. the retired four-star marine general and former commander of u.s. forces in afghanistan is under investigation for allegedly secretly lobbying for qatar and lying about it to federal agents. allen was already on administrative leave and has not been charged with any crime. and, president biden says the federal government will pay all the costs of fighting new mexico's wildfires. the president made the commitment while meeting with state officials in new mexico saturday, amid outrage from residents that the largest blaze

in the state's recorded history was started by a u.s. forest service prescribed burn. still to come on "pbs news weekend," mothers in somalia fight drought and famine to feed their children. and, on "weekend briefing," we'll look at the political climate as the senate reaches a bipartisan gun deal, and next -- this week's january 6th hearings continue. >> this is "pbs news weekend," from the home of the pbs newshour. john: in today's highly competitive housing market, millions of americans are priced out of buying a home, often competing with all cash offers well above asking prices. and rents are skyrocketing, too, causing overall housing affordability to collapse at its fastest rate on record. roben farzad is host of public radio's "full disclosure."

roben, thanks for joining us. what's going on here? what's driving this? roben: so many peculiar, perfect storms coming out of this great pandemic of 2020. could anybody have romanced how much we'd have this renaissance in interest in staying at home, work from home, people who are on the fence about selling their homes or aging out of their homes suddenly not just start adding to their homes right w, but are buying homes in satellite markets. parallel to that, you had interest rates taken down to really attractive levels and people could get a 3% mortgage. and in a broader sense, the mobility of the workforce, the great unlock of going from high priced markets in new york and california to places like miami or asheville, north carolina and austin. and that's caused a tremendous kind of sluicing of hot money into these markets where you just never had the inventory. john: and interest rates. you mentioned interest rates are low. they're creeping up, but they're still at historic lows. mortgage applications at a ti, rents are skyrocketing. sa

how does that work? roben: there's a shortage of affordable housing. if you were thinking that i'm going to husband cash and save for years and a starter home or starter rental type thing in order to, if you had a price in mind, suddenly that price in many ces was blown out of the water because mortgage rates are -- were so low, because you had such a piping hot housing market. and, john, on top of that, homebuilders did the rational thing and pulled back drastically after the great financial crisis. we thought that that was going to be a generational overhang. and so now we're paying for the decisions that were kind of made in the fog of 2009 and 2010. millennials have come to the market. they see boomers hanging onto inventory longer, and so you have a generation of people that are locked out of affordable housing and have no choice but to pay rent and pay ever more rent. john: is anyone benefiting from this? roben: investors, wall street. i mean, those who are able to show up with cash. you see these these signs outside of homes, there are people that come in and buy them

and they'll buy your homes and turn them around and sell them into the institutional market. we've seen small flippers, hard money, loan lenders. we've seen the largest of buyout firms and private equity firms involved bause this is a generational megatrend. john: you lked about how the inveory dropped because builders stopped building after the real estate bust. is there likely to be a sort of a pendulum shift in this? will they start building again? roben: when you see things happen, such as people showing up even at the whisper of a home being listed to be able to put in enormous preemptive bids, forgoing a home inspection. of course, housingevelopers are going to enter the fray. i have aead mall near my house here in richmond, virginia, and the sears was razed and you have luxury condominiums and apartments put there. that's cold comfort for people who need affordable housing. but it shows you that the market wants to meet a demand. you do need policy solutns to make sure that people aren't kind of doomed to becoming a generation of kind of usurious renters.

some of these rents have gone up in such chunky terms. you look at markets like los angeles, where there's a concurrent homelessness problem, manhattan, miami, where it's just become arguably one of the most unaffordable markets in the united states, largely because out-of-towners have come in with hot new york and california dollars. and there's really nothing that locals with their pay scales can do. john: you talked about policy solutions. what can be done to address this? roben: you know, i mentioned a great unlock earlier. we have concurrent to this -- parallel to this, huge overhang about hybrid work and a return to work. i can go to the canyons of midtown manhattan. we can go to whole swaths of washington, d.c., miami, los angeles, hartford, connecticut, and very scarcely used commercial real estate property. and the question is, to what extent is there going to be a public-private partnership to come in and refurbish these things? the risers kind of rip them out, actually put in bathrooms and somewhat affordable housing for

people, because the opportunity cost of all of that, i mean, millions and millions and millions of square feet. if you think about midtown manhattan, go in on a monday morning, it's still a bit of a ghost town, but there is a desperate need for housing and you're going to have to see that in parallel in other markets where the commercial epicenters have been cored out. which kinds of forces are going to intervene to kind of convert that to the housing that's desperately needed? john: roben farzad of public radio's "full disclosure." thank you very much. roben: my pleasure. thank you. ♪ john: countries in the horn of africa are suffering the ravages of climate change. not only is the region's drought the worst in decades, but it comes after several consecutive seasons of little rain. ali rogin reports on hardest-hit somalia, where peoe are fleeing their homes simply to find food and water. we should note that some images in the report are disturbing.

[baby crying] ali: in somalia, mothers are they travel thousands of miles to camps for the internally displaced, to feed their children. ayan muhummad's baby fell sick when she could no longer feed him. so she trekked for days to this camp in southern somalia. ayan: we were using a donkey cart to travel. it took us five nights to come here. thanks to allah, my son is doing well now. he is being fed through the nose. ali: ayan and her son are among the lucky ones. across the horn of africa, four seasons of failed rains have led him -- led to t worst drought in 40 years, leaving 29 million people, including 2 million children, in need of food. feisal adan ibrahim: we've never seen six or more consecutive months of high malnourished patients before. this never used to happen. new displacement camps were not being created. ali: climate change is at the heart of the crisis, and somalis

have been hardest hit. as their livestock die, so too does their way of life. rania dagash: the cycles of drought are now more closer together. before people had five, 10 years to recover. now, this is the third drought in a decade in somalia -- what is predominantly pastoralist and agropastoralist communities are simply unable to hold on to these livelihoods for much longer if the impact of these crises and the shocks continue to come so close together. ali: rania dagash is unicef's deputy director for eastern d southern africa. she recently returned from a visit to somali displacement camps and hospitals. rania: 've actually worked in this region and on grounds for over 20 years. and this is the first time i broke down in every single camp we went to. i cried every single time because there were babies and mostly under six months who come

in -- last port of call at this point, the lucky ones who made it to these locations and and they're connected to therapeutic feeding. we are keeping them alive on the brink, really. ali: one of them is 8-month-old ibrahim, sitting on his grandmother's lap in a mogadishu hospital. a nurse examines his bony limbs before giving him a much-needed blood transfusion. dr. mahamed shafi treats hundreds of these tiny patients. dr. shafi: it affected the whole community, especially the childrens, especially the under five childrens. the number of admissions has increased from five patients per day to 15 patients per day. ali: compounding the crisis, russia's invasion of ukraine. somalia gets most of its wheat from those two countries. and other food items and fuel are getting priced out of reach. how much worse could this get? rania: a lot worse and very quickly. when a drought situation gets this bad and we already are in

famine prevention mode in terms of our response, the slide is rather quick. we see excess mortality in children. we see the severe malnourished children, which we see now across our centers. they're absolutely packed. and we see deaths start to happen very quickly. ali: global humanitarian agencies are urging the developed worlto help. unicef is asking for $850 million, but it remains far short of that goal. rania: we have only 1/3 of our appeal funded today and the us u.s. administration has been extremely generous so far. but we do need the rest of the world to respond. ali: some of the funds are for lifesaving aid, like water and therapeutic food. but another portion is for building somalia's climate resilience -- like these deep wells in the garowe desert. they sustain both man and beast, and help preserve traditional ways of life. dagash says they can be replicated across somalia. rania: doing water and sanitation in a climate

resilient way is expensive, but it's certainly -- we see the benefits of it already. ali: it's the kind of investment that is difficult to prioritize in a crisis, but will ensure children like these don't survive this famine just to face another one. for "pbs news weekend," i'm ali rogin. ♪ john: now for our weekend briefing. our congressional correspondent lisa desjardins is back along with special correspondent jeff greenfield, who is also a columnist for politico magazine. jeff, i want to start with you. we heard lisa give us the details of this bipartisan gun deal in the senate. it's an election year. could this have any impact on the midterms? jeff: it's interesting. as many have already pointed out, none of the general public are up for a --

the one republican up for reelection from a competitive state, as opposed to a deep red state, is ron johnson in wisconsin. it will be interesting to see whether there are cross pressures on him. i think the ia that any of the republicans up for reelection from states where gun rights are a passionate issue are going to sign onto this would be problematic. john: as lisa pointed out, they don't need johnson's vote. they have enough votes already. lisa, i want to talk about what's coming up this week with the january 6 hearings. we've got a hearing tomorrow and then more throughout the week. what should we be looking for as the week goes on? lisa: there are some big headliners. we now know two of the witness names that have been making headlines. democrats and community members -- committee members hope. notabl former allies of president trump, bill stepien, a

former campaign manager in 2020 for president donald trump, and chris tire while, a former political editor for fox news. it's not a surprise. he is eager to raise the testimony -- the committee is eager to raise the testimony of conservative let's -- themis about president trump and his awareness that he lost, but yet the fact that he spread what we called sometimes the big lie, the idea that the esprtion wastole s trump's pressure on the department of justice, especially what the committee charges are his efforts to remove the attorney general and put in an attorney general who would exact his agenda. thursday, the former president's pressure on his vice president, with the committee saying the purpose of overturning the election. john: is it possible to tell from these what's coming up the

strategy that the committee has in laying out the story, laying out their case? lisa: i think so. we can see a lot here. this case is all about former president trump. this is commiee that has members who were part of different impeachment trials. they are saying, don't take our word for it, we know you believe that we have political agend here. instead believe the word of those who were around presidt trump. they are going to make the argument this is not circumstantial, but their case is based on direct evidence. people who were with the former president in the days leading up to january 6 and all throughout the election. john: jeff, you've written you don't think these hearings have the same impact as the watergate hearings, all those many years ago. was that -- why is that? jeff: there are two reasons. one is that the watergate hearings slowly dealt out in a very stately pace information that no one knew.

in this case, even though we are getting compelling, dramatic evidence, the fundamental fact of this case, at least i think for most people, has been known for a long time, not trump tried to overturn the election. but the other reason is the nature of the republican party. back then republicans came to watergate skeptical about the claims. when howard baker famously said, what did the president know, when did he know it, that was a sign to exculpate the president. when they learned that it wain fact the president, mines were changed. this republican party, with an exception like liz cheney, are so locked in to an often contradictory belief, but ultimately the same thing -- it was a peaceful protest, false flag, anti-fa. it was all a political stunt. the idea that any evidence being presented that would change the critical mass of republicans -- it would be much more difficult to see happening now than 50

years ago. john: what would the committee democrats say to that, that this is something everyone already knows, and the republicans -- the current republican just doesn't want to hear? lisa: i would think all the members of the committee would say this will affect underlying and important dynamics in politics and culture in this country, even if it doesn't change polling numbers for the former president. think think this could have an impact -- they think this could have an impact on history. they believe that this is impoant in terms of dangers they see right now to democracy. john: and they are going to send referrals tohe justice department from some of this evidence? lisa: that's a good point. this is another audience for these hearings, e justice department itself. they are building a case that isn't just rhetorical. they are laying out evidence for the justice department. there are committee members and

mocrats also in the house who say there are criminal charges they think should be put forth by the justice department after this. it's their decision, but it's clear they are trying to build a case and hand that off to the justice department. john: jeff, lisa, thank you very much. lisa will be back at her post on capitol hill tomorrow starting at 10:00 eastern time for live coverage of the second day of the january 6th hearings. judy woodruff will be leading the "newshour" team on your pbs station. check local listings, or visit our website or youtube page starting at 9:45 eastern. that's "pbs news weekend" for tonight. i'm john yang. join us online and again here tomorrow evening on the "pbs newshour." for all of us at pbs news weekend, thanks for spending part of your sunday with us. we'll see you soon. ♪ >> major funding for pbs news

weekend has been provided by -- and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. [captioning performed by the national captioning stitute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] >> this program was made possible by the corporation or -- for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪

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