geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. tonight on “pbs news weekend,” remembering september 11 -- 21 years after the deadliest terrorist attack on u.s. soil, the nation honors the nearly 3000 lives lost that day. then, counter-attack -- as ukrainian forces retake control of russian-held territory in the east and south, we get the latest on the ground in kharkiv. and, devastating toll -- flooding in pakistan continues to ravage that country, with many areas still under water and hundreds of thousands displaced. >> there are millions, tens of millions of people in need of humanitarian relief right now.

and the scale of rebuilding from these floods is quite immense. geoff: those stories and the day's headlines on tonight's "pbs news weekend." >> major funding for "pbs news weekend" has been provided by. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no-contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> and with the ongoing 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. today, america mourns the near 3000 people who were lost 21 years ago today in the deadliest terror attack on u.s. soil. we begin tonight with a look at how americans marked this somber anniversary. at 8:46 a.m., the bell at wall stre's trinity church rang out, as it has for the last two decades. five strikes at a time, repeated four times, the traditional firefighter's salute to the fallen. nearby, family members headed to ground zero for new york city's

official ceremony. retired illinois police officer sam pulia lost his cousin thomas, a firefighter. >> it feels like yesterday. i don't think the images ever dissipate. geoff: love and loss were central to president joe biden's address at the pentagon this morning. he alluded to the day's other major memorial, for queen elizabeth ii, recalling a message she sent days after the attack. pres. biden: where she pointedly reminded us, quote, grief is the price we pay for love. geoff: the president also urged americans to honor the values that came under attack on september 11, 2001. pres. biden: we have an obligation, a duty, a responsibility to defend, preserve, and protect our democracy. the very democracy that guarantees the rights of freedom that those terroriston 9/11

sought to bury. geoff: a message just as relevant today as it was 21 years ago. the battle lines in the 200-day-old war in ukraine are being drastically redrawn. ukrainian forces are in the midst of a massive counter-offensive in the eastern region of kharkiv, that has been successful in taking back large swaths of territory previously under russian control. and tonight, there is a major russian retaliation. joining us now from ukraine to discuss the implications of these major developments is nick schifrin from kharkiv. so what are the officials there telling you? nick: police and military to shows here in kharkiv described a russian route. as you just said, russia has responded in a way it has not responded yet in this war. it has attacked ukraine's critical infrastructure, electricity grid. kharkiv right now is in total

blackout after russia bombed a power plant nearby. also in blackout, the legion of kharkiv d the donbass region, 250 miles from north to south that has no electricity tonight. all of that came after ukraine's dramatic gains that have eroded russia's ability to hold this critical eastern part of the country. today the military and president zelenskyy announced the liberation of more than half a dozen villages, most east and southeast of kharkiv. that follows the liberation of a major railway hub russia was using for logistics. and russia's most important base that was in kharkiv. although police here say there's still some fighting and no cities. they say they have liberated a huge swath of territory here in blue, as much as 1000 square miles, in a matter of days. geoff: why are ukrainian

soldiers having su success? nick: one aspect military officials here .2 is ukrain lost the counteroffensive simultaneously in eastern and southern ukraine. that meant russia had to move some of its troops into southern ukraine, eroding some of the quality and numbers of russian troops that could defend kharkiv . at the same time, russia was trying to make progress south of here in the donbass, further eroding numbers of russian troops here in kharkiv. the ukrainian progress really does put pressure on the defensive. ahead of what president volodymyr zelenskyy sd this weekend would be a critical winter. >> we have 90 days in front of us which will solve more than 30 years of ukrainian independence. this winter will determine our future. nick: a ukrainian military official acknowledges there are some worries about becoming overextended, but tonight, we see ukrainian officials attacking south of here.

geoff: as you well know, ukraine shut down the sixth and final reactor at that nuclear power southern ukraine, which is contlled by russia and sits at the center of much international concern. help us understand the significance of that. nick: all six reactors of the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are under what is called cold shut down. that means they are nowhere near the temperature they usually are when they are on. that is something tt the u.s. as well as nuclear experts here were calling for. because if the plant loses all power coming in, if their generators were to fail, the fact it is under cold shut down gives everyone a little bit extra time to try and avert a meltdown. geoff: nick schifrin reporting for us tonight from kharkiv, ukraine. thank you so much. nick: thank you. geoff: in the day's other headlines, the hearse for the

late queen elizabeth ii arrived edinburgh, scotland earlier today, amid a crowd of tens of thousands. she will lie in state there through esday. her coffin departed balmoral castle this morning. along the way, thousands lined the streets in silence to mourn thlate queen. queen elizabeth's funeral will be held monday, september 19. president biden today formally accepted an invitation to attend. and two more u.s. military planes, loaded with about 70 tons of supplies for pakistan's flood victims, landed in one of the hardest-hit provinces today. the u.s. operation began thursday and will continue through next week. nearly 1400 people have been killed, 13,000 injured, and millions left homeless since unprecedented monsoon rains started in mid-june. still to comonpbs news weekend," more on the devastating floods in pakistan and the impact of climate change. and, how a reddit short story became aebut novel.

>> this is "pbs news weekend," from weta studios in washington, home of the "pbs newshour," weeknights on pbs. geoff: a case before the supreme court, moore v. harper, could radically reshape presidential and congressional elections in this country. at the heart of the case ia controversial and disputed legal theory that claims the u.s. constitution gives state legislatures almost unchecked power over how federal elections are run. voting rights advocates say that would rob state courts of the power to protect voters' rights. the conservative activists promoting this theory are among the same people who successfully pushed the u.s. supreme court and the federal judiciary to the right. rick hasen is the director of the ucla law school's safeguarding democracy project, and he joins us now to help us piece this together. it's good to have you with us. rick: it's great to be with you.

geoff: so as you know, the group spearheading this effort calls itself the honest elections project. but financial records and other documents lead back to leonard leo. he's a former advisor to donald trump. former executive vice president of the influential conservative legal group known as the federalist society. so tell us more about who he is and his role in all of this. rick: well, he really plays a central role here, working on both the legal side and the political side to advance a quite conservative political agenda. so, as you said, he was advising president trump on who should be apted to the supreme court, justices gorsuch, kavanaugh, and barrett, the three most recent supreme court justices on the republican appointed side all came through the federalist society, which is an organization that he helped to lead for many years. t he's also got a financial side where he's helping to back republican candidates for the

unit states senate, for the house, in state court races, and state legislative races. and he just got $1.6 billion in a new trust that he's going to be able to use to further his activity. so he's both pursuing legal and political strategies that work with each other to kind of bootstrap the way towards changing american politics and law. geoff: and this legal strategy is known as the independent state legislature theory. this has been described as a fringe legal theory, yet you have three supreme court justices, alito, thomas, and gorsuch, who have seemingly signaled support for it. and justice kavanaugh seems very interested. so tell us more about that, how this theory works. rick: and the question posed in moore versusarper is whether the legislature has the power to act alone, or it has the power to act only within the confines of how the state constitution gives the legislature power.

so that sounds really abstract. let me make it very concrete here. the north carolina supreme court said that when the north carolina legisture drew congressional districts, it violated the state constitution. state constitution guarantees free and equal elections in noh carolina. partisan gerrymandering violated that, the state supreme court said. and now these republican gislators in north carolina who wanted to draw these gerrymandered districts are saying to the u.s. supreme court, the state supreme court doesn't even have the power to use the state constitution to go against the state legislature in federal elections. it's this free-floating body, the state legislature, that can act regardless of other actors in the state of north carolina. geoff: we should say leonard leo did not respond to our interview request, but i did get a statement via the federalist society from jason snead, who's the executive director of the honest elections project. we'll post the entire statement online, but i'm going to read part of it to you. it reads this way.

moore v. harper is a case about one thing -- rogue courts seizing the power to rewrite the laws of our democracy behind closed doors in violation of the u.s. constitution. the honest elections project's amicus brief defends the right of all americans to vote in elections governed by democratically enacted laws. hopefully, the supreme court recognizes this case for what it is, a chance to restore stability and confidence in elections by upholding the rule of law and clarifying that lawmakers, not courts and bureaucrats, make the law. so, what would be the impact, rick, if the court rules the way that these conservative activist groups, this honest elections project, want it to? rick: i think there would be two main implications. it would empower state legislatures to be able to act without any constraints, any voting rights protections when it comes to federal elections that could be pushed in state courts. it would also empower the united

states supreme court because it ultimately be the one to determine when state courts have gone too far and somehow created a federal constitutional problem. but the other thing that it would do is it would create some chaos and potential for election subversion, the stealing of elections, because this theory was relied upon by the trump allied forces going to court after the 2020 election, arguing that state legislatures had the power to redo the state's choice of presidential electors and pick a different slate of electors, turning states that biden won into states that trump won. i don't think the supreme court is going to go that far in this case, but it certainly could provide the kind of decision that could be relied upon by state gislatures if they try to take the power away from voters and be able to choose who should be president in their state. geoff: well, a question on that point, because there are people who see this effort by conservative activists as part of a longer term strategy to hold on to power in the face of demographic shifts that aren't going their way, and to effectively create permanently gerrymandered districts.

do you see it that way? rick: i do. and, you know, i think you have to zoom out, not just look at moore versus harper, but look at what the supreme court has done. it has decimated the voting rights act in cases like shelby county versus holder. and in last summer's brnovich case. there is the citizens united case that allowed for big money to play a bigger influence in politics. and those kinds of rulings help elect more republicans, which help with the confirmation of more republican supported judges that support a conservative strate. and it's a kind of feedback loop that works here. you ow, the ultimate goal is to not just affect voting, but to change the politics in america on issues from abortion to gun rights to the environment. and we're starting to see the fruits of that in the decisions of the supreme court and lower courts right now. geoff: rick hasen is the director of the ucla law school's safeguarding democracy project. thanks so much for your insights. rick: thank you.

geoff: one third of pakistan remains underwater, more than a week after the deadliest floods that country has ever seen. on a visit to the country this past friday, the u.n. secretary general appealed to the international community to provide massive support. that includes a $160 million fundraising effort the u.n. launched two weeks ago. my colleague ali rogin spoke with somini sengupta, international climate correspondent and anchor of the new york times' “climate forward” newsletter, about the extent of the destruction. ali: somini sengupta, thank you so much for joining us. the flooding in pakistan is unlike anything the country has ever seen. some of its leaders have called it apocalyptic. pakistan also experienced devastating floods in 2010, but experts say this disaster is far worse. how are these communities dealing with the destruction? and also, what are the

differences between what we're seeing now and what pakistan experienced 12 years ago? somini: i mean, the scale of human suffering is almost incomprehensible. and this time, of course, it comes right after a really devastating heat wave th hit pakistan and neighboring india some months ago. we know that manmade climate change made that heatwave much, much more likely, far more likely than otherwise. and then came just unbelievable rains, just downpour, sheets of rain. pakistan this year received something like, almost 200% of its average monsoonal rainfall in the period of three months. ali: the weather events, as you mentioned, have all just compounded one another.

and of course, there's also been a number of non-weather related crises that pakistan is weathering, including being on the brink of an economic collapse due in part to inflation. there's also a lot of political instability happening right now. how are those factors affecting the country's response to the flooding? somini: i mean, certainly there's been political instability and the economic crisis at a very, very bad time, making pakistanis all the more vulnerable. so, pakistan's former prime minister was ousted from office in april. he was then charged not long ago under the country's anti-terrorism laws. pakistan's debt situation has been on the decline for several months, and now the big risk is that it risks a default on its loans. the government of pakistan estimates that damages are in the range of $30 billion. that is just a mind boggling

amount of money. there are millions, tens of millions of people in need of humanitarian relief right now. and the scale rebuilding from these floods is quite immense. pakistan faces another really big risk driven by climate change, and that is its glaciers. and climate change, of course, is making glaciers melt at an accelerating pace, creating a series of lakes. and there's the risk of these lakes bursting. one of the most urgent needs now is to build an early warning system. ali: somini, it was interesting. rlier this week, the pakistani ambassador to the united states mentioned that they had put in place early warning systems back in 2010, the last time there were these horrific, catastrophic floods, but that those systems were not enough to really respond to the current disaster. the ambassador also said friday

that he believes rich nations bear some responsibility for the extent of the disaster and that they should pay accordingly. here's what he said. >> the international community here has a responsibility because we are not 100% responsible for this calamity. i mean, i would say that if we have contributed less than 1% co2 emissions, then i think that our responsibility should be reduced to that fraction, that percentage. ali: so he's referring to a concept that's become known as loss and damage, and that is rich nations compensating developing nations for the climate damage they're experiencing after those developing nations didn't really contribute to it. the next big climate conference, cop 27, is coming up in november in egypt. do you think that the pakistan situation is going to change the conversation around this concept of what is essentially climate reparations?

somini: i mean, it is now widely acknowledged that the impacts of climate change are disproportionately felt by those who are least responsible for the prlem to begin with. and the extent that these monsoonal rains are attributed to climate change, to manmade climate change, you will hear no doubt ever louder calls for essentially climate reparations. this is already a flashpoint in the international climate talks, and i expect that the devastating flooding of pakistan will make those calls even louder. ali: somini sengupta, climate reporter with the "new york times," thank you so much. somini: thank you for having me.

geoff: it's a debut novel gaining attention not just for its page-turning suspense, but also for the way the authors found publishing success. matt and harrison query's horror thriller is titled "old country." matt says it follows a young couple who buys the perft, secluded house, only to discover the terror within. matt: they learn through several ways that there's a spirit that inhabits their property and the valley at large around their property that presents itself in a new and kind of terrifying way, depending on each season. geoff: matt query wrote whole chapters of the novel on the online discussion site reddit in a forum for first-person horror stories called no sleep. he watched it become a near instant sensation, quickly catching the attention of book publishers and netflix. i spoke with matt and harrison query this past week about their new novel and its impact on book publishing. matt: i'd been reading stories on no sleep for about a decade, and i figured eventually i could

try my hand at writing one of my own. and my wife and i really did in real life by a small ranch kind of in the middle of nowhere. our property was not haunted like it is in the book. and so, i think four or five months after i posted the story, someone reached out to me on my reddit account, and introduced themselves as a someone in the film world in hollywood and asked if i wanted to option the story. and i know nothing about that world, but i do have a brother who works in that world. and so i asked him to step in and hold my hand through the process. and that's sort of how it went from short story on reddit to book and then movie. geoff: and harrison, why do you think this story is resonating? why do you think people are so drawn to this book? harrison: i mean, i think it's i think it's doing a few things. i mean, i think it's hitting sort of classic stephen king-ian horror thriller notes. i think it's set in an area of the world that is generating a lot of interest right now.

i think that, you know, you see it in tv shows like "yellowstone" and a lot of other content that's being made right now. i think it's a setting that people are really interested in and one that hasn't been so thoroughly explored in the horror genre. i think it's a unique sort of chorus of genre and setting that people have a big appetite for. i think 's the same thing that hollywood saw in it as well. geoff: and matt, how did feedback from the online communy, people who were responding to you as they were reading what you were posting on reddit, how did that shape, if at all, the ouome of the book? matt: i definitely took some feedback to heart. generally, who, what characters, the no sleep audience is most interested in learning more about, and what little facets of lore and backstory people were interested in learning more about, which didn't fit into the real estate of a reddit post. and so i was able to take

direction and just generally what people wanted to have accordioned out a little more. geoff: there are i'm sure other would be authors like yourselves who will look at your story and think, well, how can i do something similar? i mean, what about your experience might be instructive for other people? harrison: i definitely think there's something is, you know, hopeful in the way all this went. i think, you know, it's a good thing to know that, like content that's put out there if it's good can and will get attention not always but it's you know, you're not just throwing something into the abyss. there is, you know, people are fishing out there for this kind of stuff now. so i don't think 's ever a waste to put something out there and go for it. you can absolutely get attention. and, you know, i think it's kind of opening up thaccess to the business in a really cool way. geoff: yeah, well, matt and harrison query, thanks so much for your time and congratulations again on the success of the book. harrison: thank you so much for havings. we appreciate it. geoff: and that's our program for tonight. i'm geoff bennett.

for all of us here 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.] >> you're watching pbs.

god help me to make good my vow and god bless all of you. if you haven't got a queen, you make do with film stars and pop stars, but if you've got a queen it obviously is so much better. narrator: for over six decades, queen elizabeth ii has been among the most famous and influential women in the world. simon lewis: the queen has connected with the british people in the most extraordinary way. she's been as constant as the northern star. (explosions and gunfire) narrator: she came of age amid the death and destruction of a world at war. sir ben kingsley: in her lifetime we have been grievously threatened by a power that would've annihilated us. her parents were putting their lives on the line. and elizabeth knew that. a german plane dropped its bombs. (explosion) and nearly killed the king and queen.