♪ geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. tonight on "pbs news weekend"... amon's ambitions -- the big tech company's latest expansion into healthcare raises concerns about prescription prices and data privacy. then... abortion in early america -- a look at the nation's long and complicated relationship with abortion access. scott: many people try to find in the past what resonates with their own views in the present. geoff: and... hidden history -- a new podcast uncovers the double life of iconic civil rights photographer and fbi informant, ernest withers. all that and the day's headlines on tonight's "pbs news weekend." ♪

>> major funding for "pbs news weekend" has been provided b-- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no contract wireless plans to help people do more what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. ♪ >> and with thongoing support of these individuals and 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. geoff: good evening. it's good to be with you. we begin in the western u.s., as wildfires continue to threaten homes and have forced evacuations across the pacific northwest. along the border of california and oregon, the night sky glowed red, as the mckinney fire exploded from one square mile to more than 60 square miles since friday. thousands were forced to flee, and the fire has claimed at least a dozen homes, prompting california governor gavin newsom to declare a state of emergency. wildfires also scorched dozens of square miles in montana and idaho. each fire is only minimally contained and continue to be fueled by high winds and triple git temperatures across the region. these high temperatures have turned deadly in parts of the pacific northwest. authorities say at least seven people in oregon are suspected to have died this week from

he-related issues. the city of portland will keep cooling shelters open through tonight, as temperatures hit triple digits this week. both portland and seattle are under excessive heat warnings this weekend. the death toll from flooding across kentucky has risen to 26, and that number is expected to increase, says governor andy beshear. today, rescue crews continued to struggle to get to hard-hit areas. more than 1200 people have been rescued by air or boat, and nearly 20,000 homes remain without power. more rain in the forecast this afternoon and evening. in ukraine, fierce fighting with russian forces continued today in the eastern city of donetsk. president volodymyr zelenskyy used his televised address last night to implore civilians in the areas of donetsk not under russian control to make a difficult choice. pres. zelenskyy: many refuse to leave, but it really needs to be done. this decision will still have to be made. believe me.

and, the sooner it is done, the more people leave the donetsk region now, the fewer people the russian army will have time to kill. geoff: and in the southern port city of mykolaiv, russian strikes reduced buildings to ruins. at least two were lled, and several others were wounded. and two passings of note tonight -- nichelle nichols, the groundbreaking actress who played lieutenant uhura on the original "star trek" series, has died. her son, in a facebook post, said she passed of natural causes. nichols was among the first black women shown on tv in a position of auority, when "star trek" debuted in 1966. she was 89-years-old. and former boston celtics star and nba legend bill russell has died. we take a look now at his legacy in sports and beyond. a dominating defender of the rim, bill russell was widely coidered one of the greatest basketball players of all time. the 6'10" center won championships and accolades virtually unmatched in all of

profsional sports --leven championships, more than any player in nba history, as well as five mvp's and olympic gold. two of his championships came as a coach. he was the first black coach in american professional sports. as a player and a coaching pioneer, russell was twice inducted into the basketball hall of fame he was also one of the first athlete activists, using the power of his fame and influence to spotlight other issues, chief among them civil rights and equality for black americans. in recognition of his contributions on and off the court, he was honored with the presidential medal of freedom in 2011. bill russell was 88-years-old. still to come on "pbs news weekend"... a look at the complex history of abortion in early america. and... the hidden history of civil rights photographer ernest withers. ♪ >> this is "pbs news weekend"

from weta studios in washington, homef the "pbs newshour," weeknights on pbs. geoff: it's a big business deal that's raising lots of questions about patient privacy. amazon plans to buy the primary care group one medical in the nearly $4 billiodeal, adding to the growing list of the tech giant's acquisitions and efforts to expand its footing in the health care industry. one medical is a membership-based primary care practice with nearly 200 locations across the country. and privacy advocates are already voicing concerns about amazon controlling data about someone's online purchases and streaming content, as well as their health care records. for more on this, erin brodwin, health tech reporter at axios, is with us. erin, it's great to have you here. and as you well know, this is only the latest of amazon's health care ventures. it acquired the online pharmacy company pillpack back in 2018. it launched its own amazon

pharmacy in 2020. what does acquiring one medical represent for amazon? erin: i mean, as you said, amazon was already a powerful force in the health care space. this deal turbocharges all of their existing efforts in the space. it's really about three things. it's about scale. it's about hybrid primary care. and it's about entering the medicare advantage market. geoff: so you already have lots of one medical customers who are saying they're going to cancel their memberships because of this amazon deal. they want no parts of this because of privacy concerns. what, if anyimpact might that have on this acquisition, on this deal? erin: yeah, so i think that's a really important concern. amazon does have a spotty track record when it comes to consumer privacy. i do want to point out, though, that because it is acquiring one medical, which is a medical provider, one mecal has to abide by hipa, the health information protection act. so it has a lot ofrotected health information, but that shouldn't be violated for any

reason that i know of. in terms of amazon's trk record, though, i mean, there are instances in which the company has given broad aths of its global workforce latitude to tap into consumer data. i mean, 44% of u.s. residents use prime. that is a crazy amount, espeally considering that the largest health care system in america, hca, only has access to approximately 1% of u.s. residents. amazon knows what you're buying, what pills you take. and it can guide your decisions to buy and when. and will probably use those in terms of health care. geoff: let's talk more about that and take a big picture look at this. is there a trade off between people having both convenience and privacy? erin: yeah, i think there definitely is a tradeoff. i think it's very easy to sit here and say, you know, i don't want this. i don't want amazon in my life or i don't want google in my life or i don't want applen my life. the fact of the matter is, we use these companies for so much and they are so ever present in our lives that saying, okay, because of this decision, i'm no longer going to have this tech

company present in my life. i'm just going to cut them out. i just don't think that's particularly doable. i remember a lot of my friends, for example, when google acquired fitbit, they said they were going tabandon their fitbits. and to this day, i know zero people who have done so. [laughter] geoff: that's marketing 101, right? there's always this disconnect between what people say they're going to do and what they actually will do. this acquisition is part of a larger trend of big tech companies trying to expand their footprint into health care. what accounts for that and what's the expected impact? erin: i still remember it was just a couple of years ago when tim cook at apple said apple's biggt impact on society was going to be in health care. and i think that's kind of wh sent all these big tech companies on this big race to get into the space. i mean, health care is a $4 trillion industry. it is huge. google is here, apple is here, amazon is here. and so many other big tech coies. i would say prior to this acquisition, there was a really tight race between all these companies as to who was going to dominate in healthcare. the deal hasn't closed yet, so i'm not trying to get ahead of

myself here, but post acquisition, i think this puts amazon in the clear lead. it's definitely going to start all these other companies efforts to to warp speed as well. but again, i'd say amazon does have a little bit of a lead. geoff: amazon and one medical say this deal will make things more convenient for those using health care serves. amazon also says this acquisition will help make health care more accessible to people who haven't had access to it. will amazon's expansion here make health care more accessible, more broadly available? erin: i'd love to say the answer is yes, but unfortunately, i do not have any current evidence to support that theory. i say that only because amazon's efforts in health care so far have been largely directed at the worried well and so have one medical's. they largely serve people who are fairly affluent, fairly wealthy and want what they call concierge medical care. i will say amazon had one effort that was targeted at the working class. it has a partnership with a company called crossover health

care. and so they have clinics set up with them near amazon warehouses. it remains to be seen how this deal will impact those. i definitely will have my eyes peeled for that. i don't think this deal is about equity or accessibility to me, to be honest. geoff: all right. erin brodwin covers health tech issues for axios. it's great to speak with you. thanks for your time. erin: thanks so much for having . ♪ geoff: the supreme court decision overturning roe v. wade relied heavily on the argument that "a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the nation's history and traditions." paul solman takes a look at that history, as part of our continuing coverage of america after roe. paul: an abortion recipe from 1748. molly: the recipe itself that he gives is remarkably explit, detailed, and for the time , medically accurate.

paul: english professor molly farrell, discussing a book she studied here at the american antiquarian society in worcester, massachusetts while researching how early americans used numbers. published by benjamin franklin, "the american instructor" was a do-it-yourself guide to various life hacks for colonial americans. molly: there's all different types of recipes for cleats, for dropsy, for fever. and i saw one that said "suppression of the courses." maybe it was because i myself at the time was pregnant and thinking about these things. but it connected with me like, doesn't that mean a missed period when the courses are suppressed? paul: so "courses" is menstruation. how do we mp from that to abortion? molly: so this was a typical parlance used in the time to indicate that we're talking about pregnancy. it both uses terms like suppression of the courses that were common to other recipes for abortion.

paul: to farrell and others, the book's recipe of traditional abortion-inducing roots like pennyroyal and angelica, shows that the practice was as deeply rooted in american history as opposition to it. molly: explicitly, this is for young, unmarried women. this is a problem that they usually have. and it says that they should not long for pretty fellows or any other trash whatsoever. basically what got you into this mess was longing for pretty fellows. paul: or falling for the lines delivered by pretty fellows. molly: yes. it is remarkably explicit, it's really direct. paul: do you think that historical context has gotten enough attention in this debate? scott: i think historical context rarely gets enough attention in any debate. paul: american antiquarian society president scott casper. scott: we might look or some might look just at a series of laws or what is or is not in laws without looking at what's

happening in popular practice, in the press, what people's ideas are in culture. we forget often that the past was just as complex and contested as our present is. many people try to find in the past what resonates with their own views in the present. paul: so, a reference from 1788 in a copy of a sort of sex manual of the day that esonates for those opposed to abortion -- elizabeth: midwives are admonished by no means to prescribe such medicines as will cause abortion though desired, which is a high degree of wickedness and may be termed murder. paul: on the other hand, that same text, "aristotle's masterpiece," was published many times, says curator of books elizabeth pope. elizabeth: out of those more than 60 editions, only a few handful have those directions to midwives that i mentioned that describe abortion as murder. but even in thatnstance, they do seem to be saying that midwives were priding

abortions to people who had desired them. paul: then there's the case of englishwoman ann lman, who became a midwife, known as madame restell. in 1839, she placed an ad in the new york sun which read: “is it moral for parents to increase their families, regardless of consequences to themselves, or the well being of their offspring, when a sile, easy, healthy, and certain redy is within our control?” in 1847, “madame restell” was arrested and tried and demonized in the police gazette and elsewhere, says graphic arts curator lauren hewes. lauren: so cartoons, for example, painting madame restell as a very dark figure. or cartoons showing madame restell's offices full of pregnant women who are uneducated, who are seeking help but are in disguise, for stance, so that no one wants to know who's having abortions. reporter: and yet it was a busy,

publicly advertised practice. paul: are there ads for herbs or patent medicines that induce abortion? lauren: yes. although they don't say they are for abortion, there are ads for restarng the flow, for managing menstruation, for general women's health that include everything from patent medicines to herbal remedies that date back to the 17th and 18th century. paul: and these are unequivocally abortion inducing concoctions? lauren: they would have certainly been understood as such. elizabeth: this is thomas jefferson's notes on virginia. paul: and jefferson chronicled native american abortion practice. molly: thomas jefferson mentions again, without any kind of judgment in his 1785 notes on the state of virginia that indigenous women in virginia routinely induce abortion through the use of particular herbs.

elizabeth: he mentions here, "the women are frequently attending the men in their parties of war and of hunting. childbearing becomes extremely inconvenient to them. it is said, therefore, that they have learned the practice of procuring abortion by the use of some vegetable." molly: here we have men writing about women doing this. one of the frustrations that i have is that women's knowledge often doesn't get written down. paul: and what about enslaved americans? molly: we have testimony of enslaved black women talking about how, yes, when they would want to induce a miscarriage, they would take turpentine, for example. and the enslavers knew about this. and then so they would reformulate the turpentine that they use to make sure that it would not work in that. actively trying to stop them because of course that would reduce the value of their property. paul: in the end, then, everyone at the antiquarian society insisted on one thing: history tells more than one story about abortion. lauren: contested now.

contested then. paul: like so much else in the history of pluralistic america. for pbs news weekend, paul solman. ♪ geoff: photographer ernest withers captured some of the most indelible images of the civil rights era. the photographed of dr. martin luther king jr. riding on one of the first desegregated buses, anti-he was the oy photojournalist to document the entire trial in the murder of emmett till. but he was also an fbi informant, funneling information to the bureau about the civil rights movement and its leaders. wesley lowery joins us to talk about his new podcast, which explores government efforts to infiltrate and bows --

infiltrate the civil rights movement. the podcast is a phenomenal. wesley: i am glad you are enjoying it. geoff: tell me about earnie withers, his life beyond being an fbi informant. his biography is a cross section of history, he is a world war ii veteran, one of the first black cops in memphis, and he becomes a freelance photographer. wesley: ernest withers is fascinating, he gets into photography and part when he is in the armed services. he would take photos of other enlisted men and seldom -- sell them to them so they could send them home. geoff: selling them, not giving them. wesley: correct, he was a smart, industrious guy. when he gets back to memphis, their assistant as a police officer but then -- there was a stint as a police officer but then becomes the black photographer in memphis.

he was obsessed with negro league baseball, he would shoot pictures of these players across the country. he photographed so many musicians, be it elvis and aretha franklin, tina and ike. his old studio on beale street is now a museum where you can see this remarkable collection of photographs. geoff: how did he find his way into those moments where he was so close to dr. king and so many other icons of the civil rights movement? wesley: he was probably best known for his civil rights work. he photographed basically every major campaign across the south. he was present when james meredith was integrating ole miss, he was in the room when two men were being charged with the murder of emmett till. part of it is he was everywhere, he was someone you trusted, he was a piece of the furniture. he was someone, who especially the civil rights leaders,

expected and believed would tells a story after, would document what was happening. people were happy to have ernest around. one of king's chief lieutenants told us they always answered ernest's call and if you wanted information, they gave it. geoff: all the while he was living a second life as an fbi informant during this infamous period of american history where the fbi was involved in domestic surveillance, illegal domestic surveillance. why would ernest weathersby valuable to j edgar hoover at the time? wesley: the fbi at the time had no black agents. they could not just show up at a civil rights meeting. this is a time when fbi agents were being particularly accreted by hoover to be a white guy republicans from omaha, right? we love omaha, but you know what i mean. a very specific, clean-cut look. that is not the best workforce if you are tryg to infiltrate a black civil rights movement that is playing out in urban centers across the country.

these human assets became vitally important for the fbi. people who could be in the room, knew everyone's name, introduce themselves, could ask for someone's address and it t be suspicious. ernest was a sponge of information. he already was one, he was a local photographer and he knew everyone and their mother and cousin, he knew where they lived in what their birthday was he had a lot of information. now the fbi could prime him to ask for questions. a lot of what ernest did is sold them photographs, photographs he would take otherwise and might sell to the associated press or the black paper, he would shoot a protest all day, get the caption information and sell the role to the fbi. before the internet in a lotf the databases we and law enforcement have, they have photographs and names and in some cases addresses and phone numbers for people who they otherwise might not have known how to track. geoff: one of the primary threads in the podcast is the

moral ambiguity of the day. in many ways, mr. weathers didn't have a choice, and the federal government says we want information only you can provide, he did not have a choice. wesley: it is interesting, when you listen to ernest withers's family and the one time he addressed this before he passed, there was an insistence he was not an informant in the worst sense of the word, he was selling photographs and the fbi was a customer like anyone else and what was he supposed to do? he was a black man at the time when black men did not have the right to vote. the federal government have said we need to stop the communist infiltration, because that was the pretense under which hoover harassed civil rights leaders, including king. here you have this black man with six children to feed, not particularly wealthy, and how do we gauge now, so many years later, if he thought he had a real choice when he was asked to do these things or if he didn't? geoff: when i was listening to

the podcast, my ears perked up when i heard ambassador young. he told you he wasn't surprised there was someone spying on the work they were doing, that there was an fbi informant in their midst, he also suggested he didn't care that much. in his mind, he had nothing to hide. as he saw it, it was good to be super transparent, whether it was with the fbi or whomever, about the work they were doing. wesley: it's interesting, of gotten a lot of feedback on that particular quote. i know modern-day activists that are like what is wrong with andrew young? can you believe that? i guess that makes sense. geoff: those activists are pretty young. wesley: they are. it cuts in a few different directions. a lot of people at the time had been pretty forgiving of this information that has come out. part of it is i think so much time has passed, a lot of this is in the rearview mirror. there's also a reality where as

frustrated and upset as people are about the fbi surveillance, the idea of holding ernest personally accountable for what was clearly the sins of those powerful institutions in american society is something a lot of black activists are willing to be kind about. but there are other activists who are furious with him, really upset, dick gregory called him judas. i wonder if we could go back in time and interview andrew young 40 or 50 years younger, if perhaps he might be less generous to ernest withers in real time as he is in retrospect. geoff: an interesting question. your podcast is a fascinating look at an important part of american history. wesley: thank you for having me, it is available everywhere. geoff: appreciate you. ♪ that's our show for tonight. i'm geoff bennett.

for all of us at "pbs news weekend," thanks for spending part of your sunday with us. have a great week. >> major funding for "pbs news weekend" has been provided by -- ♪ 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. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

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