judy: good evening. on "the newshour tonight," vote 2022. democrat chances of holding on to the house get a boost with a democratic victory in alaska's special election. then fighting the violence -- fighting the virus. cdc advisors recommend another booster. and the stolen year. the long-term effects of school shutdowns during the pandemic come apparent as students return to the classroom. >> the latest numbers suggest that for elementary school students, it would be three more years at this pace before they

sort of pick up their expected trajectory of math and reading. judy: 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 incentive wealth strategies. that's the wealth effect from fidelity. >> the candida fund, through investments and transformative leaders and ideas. carnegie corporation of new york, supporting innovations in

education, 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. judy: a major political upset in alaska last night as a democrat won the state's only seat in the u.s. house of representatives. the former state legislator won

a special election to replace former congressman don young, who died earlier this year. republican opponents included former vice presidential nominee and governor sarah palin. they will face off again in november. it was also the state's fst election using rank choice voting. joining me not to discuss her when is congresswoman mary peltola. thank you for joining us. we look at this. there were originally dozens of people in this race. alaska has only been represented in the house by a republican for almost 50 years. you were running against two republicans, well known. you came in as almost an unknown. how did you do it? >> like you say, it was a large field of what he ate, and luckily this year, we are using

the rank choice voting system, and i think that alaskans just really have an appetite for candidates who really wanted to stick to the issues and not get involved in partisan pettiness, and i think that we helped my campaign -- i think that really helped my campaign. judy: you mentioned rank choice. i think what surprised a lot of people is something like 30 percent of mr. begich's vote when they did the second round of counting went to you. how do you figure that? >> i think alaskans just tend to vote for the person and not necessarily the party affiliation. i think that folks who are interested in public policy and making sure our economy stays on track and we are doing things to try to manage our inflation and logistics supply chain issues and things like that did find me appealing. i did serve 10 years in the state house of representatives. i served in a very bipartisan

way. i was instrumental in reestablishing what we refer to as our bush caucus, and that is really 10 house districts representing rural districts. typically, our caucus of 10 had five republicans and five democrats, and although i was in the minority, the 10 years i learned -- i served in the legislature, i was an effective legislator. i was able to bring home capital projects and pass legislation and bring home coalitions to get alaska moving forward. >> you would be the first native alaskan to serve. i noticed that you said last night -- and i'm quoting -- you said you are much more than just your ethnicity. what does that mean? >> clearly, it is of significance that an alaska native is now part of our congressional delegation, even if it is just this short-term. alaska natives have been here

for a very long time and we have not necessarily been reflected in the democratic process or among policymakers at the table, but alaska is a very diverse state. we have people from all over the world. the ankara school district has over 90 languages spoken at homes. we are a diverse people across the state, but we have a common future and i want to make it clear that i intend to represent all alaskans regardless of their ethnic background. judy: so you are not saying you feel a special responsibility to represent native alaskans? >> well, that is certainly there, and it is significant that we now have representation, representing alaska's first people, but alaska natives only comprise about 16% of the alaska population and we just have to

make sure that because we have only one congressman for the entire state of alaska, we need to make sure that one congressman is really working on behalf of all alaskans. judy: you mentioned this race is over but in two months, you will be running another race all over again. your communications person was telling my colleagues that this is going to be tougher, that you expect republicans to circle the wagons, spend a lot of money. how will it be different? >> i will be multitasking here. i will be doing my very best to make sure that our constituent relations team is doing everything they can to make sure alaskans have their constituent needs met. you mentioned our congressman passed away back in march, and his office has been close for a number of months. our congressional delegation only has three people, so having that person missing leaves a

huge gap in our very small congressional delegation, so i will be working very hard to make sure that that front is taken care of. i need to make sure that i am learning the lay of the land in washington, d.c., and building quality positive relationships with colleagues and seeing where i can work at building coalitions to overcome some of alaska's challenges and capitalize on our opportunities, but i am very focused on november because that really is what we are all most interested in, that two-here seat. judy: republicans are trying to tie you to the national democratic party. president biden the last few days has been talking about an assault weapons ban. is this something you would support if it came up for a boat, which i understand it may in the months to come? >> i will need to look more carefully at the details of that proposal. i think it is noteworthy that my

hometown had the first school shooting in our nation. i think that many of us -- i'm a mom and grandmother. of course, i'm very concerned about this epidemic we are seeing, but i want to make sure alaskans understand that i am a staunch advocate for our second amendment rights. i myself have 176 long guns in my home. we are avid hunters. we are very, very tied to our subsistence resources and having access to wild game, and really, the most important factor in terms of being a successful hunter is having access to guns and ammunition. judy: let me finally ask you, does your win, do you think, spell good news for democrats in november, or do you think it may not say anything to the party about what's going to happen in the house for democrats? >> i don't think there is much

good to be, you know, made from making predictions, especially political predictions. i'm not one to want to jinx anything, so i will reserve judgment until november 8. judy: we will leave it at that, and we congratulate you again, newly elected congresswoman from the state of alaska. thank you. >> thank you, judy. ♪ vanessa: i'm vanessa release with "newshour west." we return to the full program after the latest headlines. president biden attacks what he calls extremist threats to democracy. during an address tonight in philadelphia, mr. biden warned that former president trump and his most zealous supporters imperil free elections. >> they do not respect the

constitution. they do not belve in the rule of law. they do not recognize the will of the people. they were use to accept the results of a free election, and they are working right now as i speak istate after state to give power to decide elections in america to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself. >> for his part, mr. trump said earlier today that if he becomes president again, he would issue full pardons to those who stormed the u.s. capitol on january 6. he also said he is supporting some of them financially. meanwhile, the house committee investigating the january attack on the u.s. capitol has asked newt gingrich for an interview. they are seeking information in the former speaker's role in efforts to stop the certification of the election. also, a federal judge heard arguments today on it and outside expert should review government documents from the

trump estate in florida. the former president's lawyers called for a special master to separate out private material and records protected by attorney-client privilege. federal prosecutors said they had already done that. the judge said she will rule later. this evening, the cdc director endorsed an advisory committee's recommendation for implementing updated worcester shots this fall. the pfizer and moderna boosters are designed to protect against the original virus and the omicron variants. a federal study finds the pandemic caused dramatic learning losses for the nation's nine-year-olds. the national center for education statistics says average math scores dropped seven points since 2020, the first dline since testing began. average reading scores fell five points, and that was the most in 30 years. now to ukraine, nuclear

inspectors are now inside an endangered power plant. they arrived today to assess damage from fighting around the site. lisa: inside a war zone, a mission to avert disaster. united nations nuclear experts today made it to europe's largest nuclear plant, a place caught in the crossfire of ukrainian and russian shelling. it rests along the dnipro river inside a battle zone. it is currently held by russians but operated by ukrainians. both sides agreed to access by the international atomic energy agency. the six reactors make this plant particularly perilous. >> weighing both t costs and having come so far, we are not stopping. we are moving on. >> fighting near the plant has

gone on for six months, since the start of the war, sparking international outcry. >> warning lights are flashing. >> and fears of a meltdown that would dwarf chernobyl. just today, shelling shutdown one reactor and set up emergency procedures. russians publicly are stressing stability. >> we are doing everything to ensure that this plant is safe and for the iaea mission to carry out all its plans. >> after assessing the threat, the iaea says a team will stay there in hopes of demilitarized and the plant and avoiding a widescale tragedy. >> back in this country, the u.s. military says reports of sexual assault rose 13% last year over the year before. the numbers released today also show some 36,000 troops reported unwanted sexual contact, up from about 20,000 in 2018.

the increases may reflect in part the easing of pandemic restrictions on military bases. also, new york again enforcing a state and on guns in sensitive locations today after the u.s. supreme court struck down previous restrictions. in preparation, workers have put up gun-free zone signs in times square, and in california, lawmakers rejected new restrictions on concealed weapons earlier today. still to come, the united nations releases a scathing report on china's human rights violations against ethnic uighurs. the secretary of veterans affairs discusses efforts to expand health care for veterans. how the u.s. military uses videogames to recruit young people, and much more. >> this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington

and the west. judy: americans could start getting doses of new covid booster shots as early as next week. that's because a cdc advisory panel approved two new covid booster vaccines from pfizer and moderna today. jeff: while the rate of covid-19 deaths in the u.s. has fallen sharply from its peak this past winter, deaths are still holding steady at more than 400 per day. both pfizer and moderna have redesigned their vaccines to be more effective against the latest, more transmissible omicron sub arrogant. health officials hope the reformulated boosters will provide americans with the most up-to-date protection and keep a lid on hospitalizations and deaths, but questions remain over how effective these booster shots will be. for more, i'm joined by an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at new york's

gross and school of medicine and a senior fellow at the kaiser family foundation. it is good to have you with us. this is the first time, as you know, that the covid vaccine has been reformulated. pfizer has updated worcester's for those 12 and older. moderna's version is for adults, people 18 and older. for which group will these upted vaccines be most effective? >> the same groups who have been higher risk all along will benefit the most from vaccination with these updated boosters. that is to say, people who are ages 50 and up, people who are immunocompromised. those other groups that will benefit the most in terms of prevention of severe disease, hospitalization, and death, so if you fall into one of those categories, you should be lining up to get one of these updated boosters as soon as possible. >> what about people who have already been infected with covid and likely have some level of

immunity? >> this is an important question, and what i would say in terms of spacing or timing of doses ishat ideally, you would wait three to six months after your last covid infection or three to six months after your last vaccination before getting an additional dose of vaccine. infections do provide some level of immunity, but they do so at risk of complications, of course, and that immunity is not better than what you get from vaccination. you should think about it as equivalent to one dose of vaccine. >> the approval process for the reformulated vaccines was fast-track. they were approved without data from human trials. the head of the cdc said that the consequences could be worse if we wait. there are peoe who will hear that and who will be concerned. should they be? >> from a safety perspective, i

think there is very strong agreement, consensus among scientists that these vaccines are safe, that the formulation is essentially the same. all of the other ingredients in these vaccines are the same as with the original vaccine. the tweak has been to the mrna code so that there is a better match with the spike protein of the ba.5 omicron subvariant, and then you still have code for the original virus, but otherwise, there's really no difference in the vaccine formulation, so they are very safe. >> there is so much focus on vaccines nowadays when we talk about the overall covid response. in so many places, mask mandates, social distancing measures, they are all but gone. as i understand it, you have said that there are risks to thinking a covid vaccine is like a silver bullet. tell me more about that. >> i think we are putting too much on vaccines to get us out

of the pandemic. yes, they are number one, number two, number three most important tools in our toolbox to fight covid, but the vaccines do not prevent all infections. they help reduce the risk of infection but not to zero, and they do not prevent all transmission, so i think this it's important for people to understand they still should be taking other measures. for example, when you go visit grandmother at the nursing home, you may still want a mask, even if you are fully vaccinated. the risk is that people think that they are invulnerable, that they won't get covid, that there's no risk to anybody else, when in fact, if we really want to further reduce that death te on the 400 to 500 we are seeing now, we do need to think about implementing some other things. >> the federal government is running out of money to fund its covid response, mainly due to congress' reluctance, its unwillingness to provide additional funding. what do you see as the real world consequences of a funding

shortfall? it means the government will not be in a position to provide uninsured americans, certainly, the covid vaccines and treatments and tests they have been relying on. >> the fund to cover testing, treatment, and vaccination of uninsured people has already run out of money. that was a few months ago now. the u.s. government ll be purchasing or has purchased the boosters for this fall, but that will be the last time the u.s. government has funding to purchase covid vaccine for the american people. what that means is now you will have individual health care systems, individual insurance companies having to negotiate directly with pfizer and modernity purchased vaccines. they will not have the same kind of purchasing power to negotiate the best price, and they will also be in competition with other countries like the u.k., various countries in europe, etc., to purchase those vaccines, so we could find ourselves in a much weaker

position to negotiate pricing of the vaccine, and uninsured people or people who have worse insurance may have a more difficult time. judy: as we reported, new test results show a significant drop in test cores and learning for elementary school age children in the united states. the decline in reading and math for nine-year-olds were the largest on several decades. math scores dropped even more among black students, and the declines were sharpest among students still struggling with very basic math skills & reading. this comes amid great concern about learning loss, what should be done, and how schools and

politicians responded. john yang has a conversation about that very issue recorded before these latest numbers were made public. >> it has been a long road back for many schools and families since march 2020 when the pandemic shut things down. most went to remote learning, in some cases for more than a year. while some students, teachers, and families liked it, many others did not and the were deep divisions over when to fully reopen in-person learning. a long-time education reporter, herself a parent, has chronicled that and its impact in her new book, "the stolen year." thank you for joining us. what do we know now? what can we say about the learning loss that students and children experienced during the pandemic? >> that are really concerning, especially when you consider that the 2021-2022 school year

was not the recovery here everyone had hoped. the latest numbers suggest that for elementary school students, it will be three more years at this pace before they pick up their expected trajectory of math and reading. for middle school students, sadly, it may take even longer than that. >> is that something likely to be with us for a while? you say three more years, but even beyond that, the ripple effects from that? >> absolutely. we are speaking about averages, but students are not averages, they are individuals. for me, the biggest area of concern is students that disengage and go on a path of dropping out altogether. in big cities, for example los angeles, which has been pretty forthcoming about this, they said they were missing 50,000 students on the first day of classes. they don't know where many of thoskids are -- are they

enrolled somewhere else or have they dropped out? that's the real concerning area to me. >> what to do about schools and when to come back withuch a contentious issue for so long. looking back, are there ways this could have been handled better? >> i was in big privileged position of being in education reporter at the shutdown, and i knew the consequences would be serious even if shutdowns lasted only a few weeks. as the year continued and i saw the lack of leadership on so many levels, that a full throated endorsement on the importance of in-person school was not forthcoming, and our peer nations committed to reopening, despite the fact that they were doing it in surges and waves, and they reopened schools in preference of other rica -- re-accommodations. in the u.s., we took two paths.

red states reopened up everything with no restrictions, and many blue states opened up his nessus, bars, restaurants, without opening schools full-time. >> what was the effect of that? you talk about it states, blue states, and so much of the pandemic was politically tinged. talk about how that affected this debate about what to do about schools. >> oh, my gosh, it affected it terribly. the rhetoric following president trump was that we needed to get back to normal and kind of ignore precautions or the precautions were not important. i personally spoke to teachers in georgia and florida and texas who were terrified about going back to school without precautions in place. on the others do things, in blue states, it seemed like almost a reaction to that, there formed this attitude that we should have zero covid before we go back to school, and that really led to i think terribly detrimental impact on children

as the pandemic dragged on. it's harder to understand why schools were subject to restrictions that were not seen in other parts of society. >> how did the differences in race and socioeconomic status and geography -- you talked about the red states, blue states, but how did that affect students and their experiences in the pandemic? >> it started the day that schools shut down because the school food program is the second-largest public food program in the country. it reads 30 million kids, and when it switched to handing out sandwiches in parking lots, a lot of kids went hungry. in fact, hunger sort to levels that researchers told me work unprecedented in modern times, weeks right after the school shut down. as it dragged on, we saw that

communities of color, black and hispanic and asian communities, were more cautious about the virus. they suffered more deaths because they had essential workers in their households, they had intergenerational households, and tt into a sense of generally mistrust and oftentimes an unwillingness to come back to school in person, so that led to disparities in who actually had access to and confidence in in-person learning. >> you are from new orleans, i believe. you covered hurricane katrina. are there any parallels between what happened to schoolchildren and the effects of hurricane katrina and the pandemic? >> yes, this is the situation i look at for parallels. when you think about school shutdowns in the modern era, we are talking about epidemics, natural disasters, and civil wars, and in the united states, the only parallel is the hurricane that closed schools in

the city for almost a full semester. what i learned was the impact on those children, the learning caught up in a couple of years, but in trauma on their life trajectory, you could see the effects 10 years afterwards. >> for this book, you followed some individual families across the country. what stands out to you from your reporting? >> there were so many different paths families followed, even within the same family. a child i think about a lot was seven years old when the pandemic hit and is a middle child of eight siblings. when schools and takers closed, his mother had to go to her essential job, and he climbed out of his house and into a window of a house next door and

was shot in the leg. thankfully, he recovered. >> the book is "the stolen year: how covid changed children's lives and where we go now." >> thank you so much. judy: late last night, the united nations human rights chief released a report accusing the chinese government of possibly committing crimes against humanity, against minority muslim uighurs in the western province option zhang. the report reiterated much of what the u.s. government and independent researchers have said about beijing's campaign against the group, but it was the first time the accusations were leveled by the united nations. nick: uighur victims of chinese detention did not need a united nations report to tell them what they had survived.

can you describe for us what that detention center looks like? >> they brought everyone in there because they called us suspicious. there is unimaginable oppression inside. every day, they were toss us a little bread and water so that we did not die. every day, they would interrogate 15 or 20 of us with unbeable brutality. >> he says he was detained in 2017 in what he cls a prison for brainwashing. >> in 10 hours of class, they would teach one day were the exact same hours they would teach the next. the goal is to change our minds, our faiths, our beliefs. >> beijing has long called some uighurs extremists and separatists who need to be reeducated with cnese language and vocational skills. thiss state media video. the detainees we interviewed and international researchers called this staged and scripted, a

facade that hid what was happening. in this drawing video, prisoners in blue with shaved heads are kept blindfolded and led away. today's report details detentions, and it concludes the extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members uighur and other predominantly muslim groups may constitute crimes, in particular, crimes against humanity. beijing says the camps have all been closed and called the reports a farce. >> the so-called assessment report was planned and manufactured by the united states and some western forces. it is completely illegal and invalid. >> the report's author, the former president of chile, was herself detained and tortured under the military dictatorship of peter schiff. in may, she visited china to conduct her own research. the human rights to anderson

criticize her for pulling her punches. >> understand at the outset what this was and was not. this was not an investigation. >> her term ended last night. she said she was taking the greatest care to deal with tiny feedback and release the report 13 minutes before midnight. for more on all this, we turn to sophie richardson. welcome back to "the newshour." last month, human rights watch said that this report had at its stake the reputation and legacy of the author, the credibility of her office, and the trust of all victims. are you satisfied by the report? >> this report should have come out a year ago, because the damage, the harm endured by uighurs inside and outside the country could have been mitigated. it is nonetheless a -- an important reflection of the scope and scale of abuses across the region at the hands of the

chinese government with the strong suggestion that those policies rise to the level of crimes against humanity. it is utterly unprecedented. it would have been helpful to have this assessment a few years ago, this latest crisis in the region took on new momentum in 2017, but we now know from these government documents that authorities were planning as early as 2014 specifically to commit systemic human rights violations, so we have to look at this report and wonder what could have turned out differently if this report had come sooner. >> what might follow it in terms of investigations for government actions, do you think? >> many of the issues the human rights report illuminates have been documented elsewhere, but

it is the office that lends a certain momentum and credibility that in turn places pressure on or gives governments necessary facts to go into a body like the united nations human rights council and start arguing that it is time to establish a formal investigation that could gather evidencend make recommendations about actual prosecutions. >> the human rights council meets in just a few weeks. on the other hand, the report does not use the word genocide, which the u.s. government has used, nor does it use a number. the u.s. government says there are one million to 3 million uighurs who have been detained by china. senator marco rubio said it downplays the severity of the chinese communist party's crimes. do you agree? >> i think there will be debate about if the report downplays the scope and scale of abuses or if it has put forward an assessment that partly draws

extensively on chinese government sources in addition to having spoken to victims. i think part of the office's goal was to provide governments in particular with very solid facts and to leave out that which they could not definitively confirm so that the government that are likely to take this assessment forward could be confident that they are arguing on very strong analytical and factual ground. >> i think it is important to underline that this report does not only use victim testimony but also uses chinese government sources. you think that that is particularly significant? >> yeah, i think that is playing good defense. i think it is hard to claim this is a conspiracy when your own government's documents are being quoted extensively throughout the piece and relied on throughout the analysis. >> you and others in the u.s.

have been sanctioned by the chinese government for "meddling in internal affairs." are you? >> it probably should not have signed up to a dozen human rights treaties that allow for precisely the kind of scrutiny, not just that human rights watch brings to bear but indeed the united nations, the high commissioner andy high commissioner for human rights as well as the human rights council. >> finally, it is difficult, but do you believe this report can provide any kind of comfort or recognition to so many victims and their families? >> i do think this is one of the most important aspects of this report, that finally uighurs around the world see at least some of the nightmare that they have lived validated and reected by the world's premier human rights agency. the key now is for governments to respond to this report and

take it forward to end this nightmare for readers and to actually pursue accotability and deny the chinese government the kind of impunity it has come to expect from gross human rights violations. >> thank. >> thank you. judy: a new law overhauls how the department of veterans affairs processes disability claims from veterans sickened by exposure to smoke from burn pits and other toxins in iraq, afghanistan, and elsewhere. we talked with the man in charge of carrying out this major reform. >> in the past, veterans had to prove their sickness was connected to their service in the military, something often almost impossible to do, but with the passage of the pact act, a veteran now must only

prove they were deployed to one of the countries listed in the act and have one of 23 medical conditions. let's discuss this now and other issues facing former service memberwith the veterans affairs secretary, dennis mcdonough. welcome back. >> thank you for having me. i'm thrilled to be here. >> the v.a. has said i believe it will not begin processing claims until january of next year, 2023, so how quickly will veterans who are seeking benefits under the pact act -- how quickly can they expect to receive them? >> we will not begin processing these claims until january 21 because we have a bunch of steps we have to take, new regulations to establish. importantly, though, when the president signed that bill just last month in august, every condition will be effective as of that date, so the important thing for our veterans to know

is please file now, irrespective of your claim, irrespective of your condition, and we will make sure that we begin compiling those claims immediately. we will begin processing them in january. how ready will we be? we have been preparing for this. we have been in the process of hiring 2000 additional personnel. we will require a couple thousand on top of that. we have been working on automating claims, claims in many instances which had been taking months are now taking days. that is still technology that we are getting up to speed, and we are looking at the process itself to make it more efficient, more straightforward, more transparent. we have work to do, but we are going to be ready. >> it is still four months before you begin processing, right? my understanding is you still had a backlog of pending claims. what is the timeline for when veterans could expect to receive this assistance?

>> good question. a backlog is defined by -- defined as a claim that has been pending for 125 days. 145,000 claims. >> very quickly, weeks, months? >> until we see additional claims, i'm not going to make any claims on the show here, but we're making the process more clear and straightforward and automating it. we should not be -- the only organization in the country. >> but no timeline just yet to share. >> i'm not giving you a timeline. >> we have talked about this on the show before, there's a condition which basically destroys the small airways. there's no treatment or cure. under the metrics that the v.a. currently uses, you have to establish what is called a disability rating. people who have this do not qualify for anything. they have to appeal to get something, and i believe back in

july, you said you were looking into this. how do you close the loophole? >> we have been working on this issue. one of the issues is the test to prove the existence of chronic bronchiolitis is actually as intrusive in many cases as the disease itself. i don't he news on that. we will continue the process we established when we came in before congress acted at the president's direction to ensure we are getting all the available science on all of these conditions -- >> what you have not yet changed the way that disability is assigned? i want to ask new numbers we saw today about sexual assault in the military. the latest numbersave risen sharply. they are the highest they have

ever been. sexual assaults among women service members, 35% from 3018 to 2021. 8.4% of women, 1.5 or scent of men say they have been a victim of a sex crime, and only about one in five troops reporting their assault, so we are talking about over 45,000 active duty service members. what is the v.a. doing and what more should be done to support service members? >> obviously -- first of all, the numbers are obviously concerning. any individual incident of what we call military sexual trauma is too many. second, this has been a priority for us both in terms of ensuring that veterans feel safe to come in to the v.a. to seek care, making sure that active duty service members will want to come into a vet center to get

support, mental health support because they are a survivor of this kind of activity -- >> do you find people accessing this kind of services? >> i don't have a claims number in front of me, but this two things i want to make sure we are making clear. one, we are dramatically improving our ability to make those determinations and to make them in a way that is reassuring to and supportive of survivors. the second thing is we have ongoing services today available not just for veterans, but also for active duty service members who are victims of military sexual trauma at our event centers. we have event centers a across the country. if there is an active-duty duty servicemember or veteran survivor of this kind of treatment, we urge them to come in to get care. >> i would like to ask you, too, about abortion access since roe

was overturned. in late july, you said you were closely watching to see how states reacted to see if there was what you called a minishment of services, and since then, we have only seen more states react. you were waiting to see if the v.a. is in a position to offer abortion services? >> we are, as i said shortly after the ruling and as we have been looking at rackley since we saw them leaked opinion now many months ago, we are making an assessment on the impact on veteran patient safety. that is our number one priority. >> what does that mean? >> that means if our veterans have access to the care that they need when they need, and so our reproductive services to date have not included abortion

counseling or abortion services. we are looking a it in light of restrictions now in many states across thenion, if in order to ensure patient safety, their life, their well-being, their health, that -- if we need to be in a position to offer those services. >> have you spoken to the president about this? >> no. >> is this something that you see the v.a. able to step in and provide services any time soon? as you mention, that leaked draft opinion was months ago. the ruling was in june. >> it's not that i believe we have the legal authority. it is that we do have the legal authority. >> i guess the question most people ask is why you have not taken those steps. >> in fact, it is the question you are asking, and what i'm saying is we have not made the announcement.

i will let you know. >> thank you. judy: from veterans to new recruits, the u.s. military is intensifying efforts to meet young people when they spend their time, online and on their devices. as john yang reports, there are critics who say these new recruiting methods also raise new concerns. >> among the make-believe superheroes and stormtroopers at this san antonio car show and comic convention, the air force hopes to find its next generation of real-life warriors, so when a hall old with iconic cars from tv shows and movies, the air force's star attraction -- a 70-foot trailer filled with touchscrn games and f-35 fighter jet simulators. air force recruiter staff sergeant jeffrey cabrera. how valuable is this in terms of

generating leads for you as a recruiter? >> it is extremely valuable. the reason being i'm not just out here by myself. i've done multiple events where i was out here by myself, but when you get access like this, it ups the foot traffic. >> cabrera says the games are intended to reflect real-life skills like diffusing an explosive device. so i have probably blown up? >> i would say so. >> it is and in person element of the pentagon's push to reach generation z, those born after 1990 six. almost 90% of them play games on phones or other devices, so what better way to get their attention? collects a basic rule in recruiting is you got to go where your market is. >> major general edward thomas junior is commander of the air force recruitment service. >> looking at the average

recruitment population, we've got to be where they are in those virtual spaces. >> last year, the air force released two new free games. one is called command stack, and at those 13 and older as an augmented reality mission simulator that uses real satellite scans. the games can be played on the air force website or downloaded for -- from app store's. >> about 80% of all our advertising and all of our outreach is done online in those virtual spaces. it is done from everything from twitter to snapchat to facebook. >> all to show gen z that they have a place in the service that this year marks its 75th anniversary amid what pentagon officials say is the toughest recruiting environment across the military in decades. >> it has been an unusually difficult recruiting market as our recruiters have gotten out

and reengaged, fought through the labor challenges we have going on. >> among the big reasons -- about three quarters of young americans do not meet the military's qualifications because they are overweight, have a criminal record, did not graduate from high school, or do not meet some other requirement, and a shrinking military means fewer young people have family connections to the armed forces. in 1995, 40% had a parent who had served. by 2017, it was 15%. recruiters also say gen z is more skeptical than their elders. that attitude was evident in this april tiktok video showing students mocking the mass email from army recruiters and criticizing u.s. foreign policy. the pentagon's use of aiming in recruiting has drawn some high-profile critics. >> this amendment is specifically to block recruitment practices. >> new york democratic

representative alexandria ocasio-cortez, herself a gamer, tried unsuccessfully to kill the army and navy e-sports livestreaming, teams of soldiers and sailors competing on twitch, a gaming platform which has millions of visitors per day. >> currently children on platforms such as twitch are bombarded with banner ads that link to recruitment sign-up forms that can be submitted i children as young as 12 years old. these are not educational outreach programs but recruitment forms for the military. >> not all service branches think e-sports is a good idea. in 2020, the marine corps said it would not field a team. issues associated with combat are too serious to be gamified in a responsible manner. chris velasquez, who deployed to iraq and afghanistan as a marine, agrees. he is a leader of gamers for

peace, and antiwar veterans group whose members livestream to counter what they call the military entertainment complex. >> the consumers have access to kids. kids are consuming recruiter content in any and all environments. let her guard is around and monitoring what an adult is telling them. we are trying to soften the impact. >> i believe video games do trivialize war and death. >> air force veteran lisa ling was a drone technician. >> if you are trying to recruit people or attract people into the military using a videogame, you are attracting them to something that is not real, and in that way, what happens to these young people, should they experience the realities of war, will be devastating. >> the top recruiter in the air force, which does not have an

e-sports team, despite its video games, acknowledged the criticisms. there are some people who say some of these games are too realistic, that they desensitize young people to violence and to these sorts of acts. >> i think maybe in some senses, that could be true. as a parent, a grandparent of four, i would encourage a lot of involvement in what is right for each individual because it is important that people understand that real life and real warfare is not a game. >> he says encouraging those younger than the military's enlistment age to play these videogames is not the same thing as actively recruiting them. >> we are not recruiting anybody under the age of 17. there are a lot of young amicans that we want to inspire through a variety of different ways, so they are thinking about the military as a career. >> hel me understand the difference between inspiring and recruiting. >> it is about the active

conversation. when they are 17 or older,e will get that conversation in earnest started about how you come and what steps you take to join the united states air force or the united states space force or any other service. under 17, we have just not having those conversations. it is not the time to do it. it is not appropriate. >> at the convention, the display struck a cord with nick booker brown, a sophomore who plays football at the university of texas in san antonio. had you been thinking about the air force at all before? plex no, i never thought about it before. it kind of change my mind. it might be my plan b, the air force. >> what is your plan a? >> the nfl. >> a "maybe" the air force hopes it can turn into a yes. judy: fascinating. that is "the newshour" for tonight. join us online and again here

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