geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. tonight on “pbs news weekend,” our weekend briefing with the latest legal jeopardy facing former president trump, and president biden's latest legislative wins. then, hot water -- a closer look at the effect of marine heatwaves like the one driving up temperatures in the mediterranean sea. and on our weekend spotlight, abbi jacobson on her reboot of "a league of their own," 30 years after the classic movie brought the all-american girls professional baseball league to life. abbi: the more we researched, the more we found that this all american girls professional baseball league was this really incredible time for a lot of queer women who thought they were the only one. geoff: all that and the day's headlines 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. geoff: good evening. it's great to be with you. we begin tonight with our weekend briefing. we now know the department of justice is investigating former president trump for potentially violating the espionage act, among other laws, after recovering highly classified government documents from his mar-a-lago estate. meantime, president biden and congressional democrats are celebrating another landmark legislative victory after passing a massive climate, health care, and tax bill that president biden is set to sign into law this week. here to talk about that and more is special correspondent jeff greenfield. great to have you back with us. let's start with the case at mar-a-lago because today you have trump alliepushing a

claim that the documents retrieved from mar-a-lago were not classified, that donald trump verbally declassified them. except, one, that is not how the process works, and two, it does not matter. the fbi search warrant was to three statutes that make the violations are crime rardless of whether the materials are classified. so what is your assessment of what we know and what we don't know about this case? jeff: what we don't know, because we are not seeing the affidavit in support of the arch, is what specifically are they concerned about. they talk about documents relating to nuclear weapons. that can mean all sorts of things, from the relatively innocent to the really serious potential breach of security at the highest level. when they talk aut referencing a criminal statute that talks about taking documents to obstruct justice, are they talking about an attempt to cover up something? we don't kno what we do know, to be blunt, is

that the various explanations that trump and his allies have given keep changing. first, well, maybe the fbi was planting evidence. thateems unlikely. then, no problem, he can declassify anything with a wave of his hand. well, he can't. and the statutes in question do not talk about classified documents. the last point i wld make is trump said at one point, we have given them everything they wanted. well, not exactly. one of trump's lawyers signed a statement saying you have everything we have that is classified, and the reason for the search warrant at trump's prerty was the authorities were convinced with good reason that not everything had been turned over. so we are still on a dark leaning plane about the specifics. but what we know raises some eyebrows, and pretty serious questions. geoff: meantime, donal trump's political standing had been slipping among younger and college-educated republicans.

one of the key questions now is, will the republican party continue to circle the wagons and stick by him, even as the picture attentively gets worse, not just with this case involving mar-a-lago, but you have a civil action in new york and the criminal probe in georgia. jeff: i think the answer to your question for now lies in the primaries. people were saying, trump's standing in the party has started to slip. unh -- uh uh. almost every target trump aimed his anger at has gone on to defeat often people with very thin credentials, other than that trump supported them. so when this story broke, the first reaction of virtually every republican, not just the maga zealots, was, as you put it, to circle the wagons and say everything from, this is an outrage, to defund the fbi, which i have to admit, caused a certain amount of chuckle since

the republicans are planning to make crime and their support for law enforcement a key to the dterms. geoff: speaking of the midterms, this was a big week for president biden. another legislative win, health care, climate, deficit reduction. you see the totality of his legislive successes over the past 1.5 years. gas prices are coming down, his approval rating is taking up. white house officials tell me they are going to hit the road over the coming weeks and are going to try and paint republicans as stewards of special interests who are pursuing what they call an extreme maga agenda. will that be an effective approach, do you think? jeff: the first thing to be said is the trump story is not what the white house would have wanted. the day after this pretty impressive record, after a long string of defeats, or not getting things done, was about to be celebrated by the white house, trump, as he has often done, sucked all the oxygen out

of the room. democrats have been arguing for a long time that republicans -- whether that argument works dependon facts on the ground. of all the things the democrats have done, passing a bill that will get the government to regulate drug prices, even though that is a couple years away, to me, is the most effective argument saying this is the most serious economic issue we could deal with, and every republican voted against us. that is what i think might be effective. the other thing that might need to be said is gas prices are not in control of biden. he did not deserve the blame when they went up, he does not deserve the credit now that they are going down. geoff: wyoming has a primary on tuesday. congresswoman liz cheney is likely on her way to a major defeat, given her role in trying to hold donald trump to account for inciting the capital insurrection. there are lots of americans, republicans and democrats, who long for the days of the

republican that liz cheney represents. what is her next act, as you see it? jeff: the idea that liz cheney represents and moderate republican, that does not fit the history. she is a very conservative republican who was repelled i what trump did and he lost the election. i think she will be a star on cable television. whether i think she has a future in the republican party, my answer to that is, not very likely. geoff: special correspondent jeff greenfield. thanks as always for your insights. thank you for being with us. jeff: nice to be here. geoff: and in the day's other headlines, federal authorities are warning of an unprecedented number of threats to law enforcement officials following the fbi's search of former president trump's mar-a-lago estate. in an unclassifiedoint intelligence bulletin, confirmed by “pbs news hour,” the fbi and department of homeland security say they have, quote, observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities, including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb

in front of fbi headquarters, and issuing general calls for civil war and armed rebellion. it calls on officials to be vigilant. outside the u.s. capitol building early this morning, a man crashed his car into a barricade and died in an apparent suicide. our lisa desjardins was the first to report on the incident. capitol police say that as the man got out of his car, it was engulfed in flames. he then fired a gun into the air and shot himself as officers approached him, according to the police account. no one else was hurt. police are investigating, but said it does not appear he was targeting any member of congress. overseas, a palestian gunman opened fire on a bus near jerusalem's old city, injuring eight people. two of the victims are in serious condition, including a pregnant woman and a man with gunshot wounds to his head and neck. the u.s. ambassador to israel said american citizens were among the wounded. the suspected attacker later turned himself in. palestinian militant factions in

gaza praised the attack, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility. author salman rusdie is on the road to recovery, according to his literary agent. his condition is still critical, but he has been taken off a ventilator. the 75-year-old was stabbed 10 to 15 mes while on stage while giving a lecture in western new york on friday. the suspect in the attack has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges and investigators are searching for a motive. and in oslo, norway, a walrus named freya that gained international attention for her playful antics was euthanized today by norwegian authorities. the 1300-pound walrus became a popular attraction as she made her way around small boats in the harbor, drawing crowds. authorities warned people to stay away and hoped she would leave on her own. but ultimately, they say they believed she posed a risk to humans. still to come on "pbs news

weekend," record temperatures in the mediterranean sea draw attention to damaging marine heatwaves. and, our weekend spotlight with abbi jackobson, co-creator and star of the new series, "a league of their own." >> this is "pbs news weekend," from weta studios, home of "pbs newshour." geoff: this summer has seen record high temperatures around the world. but the damaging effects from the heat do not stop at the water's edge. in europe, heat waves on land have led to heat waves in the water. my colleague ali rogin has more on ts phenomenon, which has existed for decades, but is only now gaining widespread attention. ali: marine heatwaves occur when ocean temperatures are higher than usual for at least five days. the mediterranean sea has been experiencing one since may, with temperatures five to nine degrees fahrenheit higher than normal.

that might not sound like a lot, but it's deadly for the delicate ecosystems that populate the sea. and experts predict there will be more damage before the summer is over. for more on these marine heatwaves, i'm joined by michael j. cox. he's a research oceanographer with the national oceanic and atspheric administration. michael, thank you so much for joining us. what's causing these marine heatwaves? michael: well, marine heatwaves can be driven by a number of different things, changes in the atmosphere, different weather systems. you can get a high-pressure system in the atmosphere that reduces winds and mixing in the ocean, for example. so they do occur naturally and can happen for a number of different reasons. ali: but part of this is because the oceans themselves are getting warmer, right? so the conditions that have existed for a long time in terms of those weather systems are geing exacerbated by the fact that the oceanare simply getting hotter.

is that right? michael: yeah, exactly. so you've got even if these things happen naturally, you now have them occurring on the backdrop of a warmer ocean. so if the ocean warms by one degree, then, you know, a three degree heat wave is now four degrees. and you've got this compounding effect that really amplifies the impacts of the heat waves. ali: right. and so it becomes more palpable with every season. so to that point, when did the scientific commuty kind of become aware that this was a phenomenon that needed its own level of study and also needed its own name, needed its own terminology? michael: yeah. the marine heatwave terminology really came around about a decade ago now. warm ocean temperatures have been studied in different forms for many decades. but some prominent events in the past decade, i think, largely driven by the heat waves on top of the long-term warming, have motivated a whole new a whole a

whole lot more study on these events. ali: absolutely. and these heat waves last a lot longer than heat waves on land, right? michael: yeah, that's right. things in the ocean just evolve slower than they do in the atmosphere. so you can have events that last for anywhere from weeks to even years in some cases in the ocean. ali: wow. and what kind of damage have you been seeing that these heat waves do to the marine life that requires these very specific kind of temperatures to ve a prosperous ecosystem? michael: yeah. so there's a wide range of impacts that then deserves. you can think of things like mortality and bleaching of coralschanges in the availability of food for different species, which impacts their mortality, their survival and their reproduction. these heatwaves have been associated with blooms of toxic algae, which can poison animals and make seafood unfit for human consumption. and also, they've caused just distribution shifts where marine

species, there's these heat waves that come along and they look for favorable conditions elsewhere and they can be found thousands of kilometers away from where you normally expect them. ali: and do you expect dynamics like that to continue? i mean, we're seeing temperatures rising all over the world with no sign of regression. is that going to be the case with marine heatwaves? michael: yeah, certainly. you know, there's these long-term trends and on top of this, we're going to have the natural variability. so we should certainly expect to see more of these impacts in the future. ali: very sobering stuff. michael jacox with the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. thank you so much for your time. michael: thanks, ali. geoff: the film "a league of their own" quickly became a cult classic after its initial release in 1992. the movie, directed by the late penny marshall, was based on the

all-american girls professional baseball league that started in 1943. with thousandsf american men serving overseas in world war ii, women quite literally stepped up to the plate, and as a result, widened the horizons for generations of young girls. now, 30 years after the film premiered in theaters, the rockford peaches are coming back to our screens. joining us now is ab jacobson, the co-creator and star of the new prime video series "a league of their own." it's great to have you with us. abbi: oh, my goodness. thank you so much for having me. what a pleasure. geoff: and you have said that this new series, it's not a remake. it's more a reimagining of that 1992 film. why reimagine this particular story? abbi: i mean, i grew up with this film. i love this film. and it was so impaful for me as i was a very sporty kid, very athletic. when will graham, who co-created this with me, approached me with this project in 2017, and we both bonded so much over our

love of the film. but also, if we were going to do this, it does not need to be remade. penny marshall hinted at a lot of things in the film version that we are really leaning into. and the more we researched, the more we found that this american girls professional baseball league was this really incredible time for a lot queer women that thought they were the only one. they ended up finding each other through this league. and so that was one of the things that we felt like we really wanted to explore. anthen also, if you remember, there's an iconic scene in the film where a black woman picks up a foul ball and chucks it back to geena davis. geoff: right. abbi: and whoa, if you blink, you miss this scene, and penny is alluding to the fact that that league was segregated. black women and women of color were not allowed to try out. so what happens when this league is this incredible opportunity for white women and white passing women to get to play baseball, and it's also a door

that closes for women of color? those are stories that people need to know about. it's baseball. it's american baseball history. so, it's very exciting. geoff: the idea to uplift stories and perspectivesn your series that the original movie didn't necessarily touch, was that intentional or was that something that you happened upon in the past half-decade of research that you've been doing where you thought this really needs to be elevated? abbi: making something in 1992, there's a lot of limitations to the kind of stories that you were able to tell. now, we knew we wanted to have our own take on this league in this time and this generation of ballplayers. and also, the more we dived into the research, the more we were just like, these are stories that are fascinating to us. we think they'll be fascinating to audiences. geoff: you and your co-creator had a chance to speak with penny marshall shortly before she passed away about this project. which what did she tell you? abbi: we needed her to know how much we love the film and that

we were, as i'm saying, not trying to remake it. and just why were re-approaching it and what our goal was in doing this again, and she seemed really excited and told us a lot about what it was like to make the film and also how, you know, she felt like she couldn't tell all the stories and she wished she could. so she, you know, she told will and i, she said, go do it already. and seemed really excited. she also told us that when she made this film, the real women behind the film, their stories changed her life. and she said to us, i think they'll change yours, too. and they really, really have. geoff: there are parallels, as i understand it, between your life and the life of the character you play, carson shaw. give us a sense of that. that's sort of the mior, mirror image, such that it exists. abbi: i came to know myself and my sexuality pretty late in life. and that's definitely a big part of carson's journey on the show. and i think also there's like a

big meta experience for me in being one of the leaders of the show and playing a character who becomes sort of a de facto leader of the peaches, and a very unlikely one. and that's something i'm really excited to portray in a character, someone who's kind of messy and insecure and isn't the person that you might think should lead at first. but the more she knows herself and the more she gets to know herself throughout the season, the more she finds her voice and her confidence and becomes a really great leader. geoff: you mentioned that as a kid you were athletic. did you play baseball or softball? i mean, what was the training like? i can't imagine that you used a lot of stand ins. it didn't look like it from watching the series. abbi: well, that's good to hear. yes, i played softball as a kid, but i mean, i haven't played in a long time. and yes, we had a lot of training. and so we did a three week training camp in los angeles before we shot the series. and basically, it was all of us

all day. you know, you had little sectioned off position training going through all the dynamics of what it looks to be a player, what it feels like, all the different drills, and we were coached by -- our main coach was justine siegal, who was actually the first woman to be staffed in an mlb coaching position. of the trainers were other women and people who are a part of her baseball for all organization. it was so incredible because all our trainers were basically the modern day version of the women that we were playing on screen. so it was so cool to really be around real players and get to hang out with them allay. everyone got better. but we did have doubles. geoff: how has this process changed you? how has it changed your outlook, your perspective, not just

starring in a series like this, but actually creating it, producing it, during a pandemic, no less? abbi: yeah, you know, i think my career up to this point has mostly been "broad city," which was a show that isear and dear to my heart. and i had a lot of the same roles on that show. but embarking on this, this in scope and in size and -- it's just a very grand period piece show. so that was very different. i feel a great honor and a responsibility in making sure that those experiences feel as truthful and as expansive and joyful and nuanced as they can be. and the most powerful thing i feel is really proud of putting these characters out into the world. i hope people feel like they see themselves in someone on the show, and that's exciting to me. geoff: well, that sense of pride you feel, i have to say, is well-deserved. so, abbi jacobson, thanks so much for your time. i really appreciate it. abbi: thanks for having me.

geoff: and that is our program 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. [indiscernible] pbs.or --

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announcer: this program was made possible in part by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [playing "rhapsody in blue"] ♪ helen mirren: i have to say, working on my first show on broadway, i remember so clearly coming to start rehearsals. ♪ when you're approaching manhattan and you can see it from a distance, you look at it and you think, you know, "am i ing to conquer it?" you know? "will i conquer new york? will i survive it, even?" ♪ the whole concept of broadway,