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engaged communities. more at kf.org. ♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and contributions from viewers like you. thank you. judy: the august inflation report is out and the upshot is gas prices have dropped, but the bottom line is worse than expected. the u.s. labor department says

overall consumer prices rose 8.3% from a year ago, slightly smaller than july's increase, but the rate of increase for core items, not counting food and fuel, surged more than 6%. that was shaly higher than july. the report triggered wall street's worst day since june of 2020, amid fears of more interest rate hikes. the dow jones lost 1276 points to close below 31,105, down 4%. the nasdaq fell 5%. the s&p 500 was down 4.3%. to help us understand more, i am joined by the founder of her own firm and a former economist for the fed. welcome back to the newshour.

we see gas prices coming down, other hints that demand may be slowing. why is inflation persisting? >> we had hoped for better from this report. we saw the relief on gas prices, but a broad range of other goods and services, those prices kept rising. that came despite improving supply chain functioning, sign of shipping costs and other commodity prices declining. all of that led us to hope more of that relief would be passed on to the consumer. we have not seen that. we have not seen areas like new cars and furniture where prices continueo rise despite moderating demand, improved production, and supply chain operations. so far, that relief we are seeing at the wholesale level is not being passed along to consumers. judy: you said that twice, not passed on to consumers. why isn't it?

>> we're going to be in a tug-of-war in the next few months. companies that sell goods the consumers bought in scale during the pandemic and were relatively price insensitive because they were in lockdown, those companies enjoyed healthy, strong profit margins. they are trying to hold on to those profit margins and not accept narrower margins. so, it's going to be up to competitive pressures in markets like cars and furniture for consumers to express sentiments with their wallets. it's going to be a process that will play out probably over a number of months.

judy: do i understand you to say that a lot of this, much of this is at the discretion for these big companies that determine prices? >> this is an inflection point in the economy. we are seeing consumers. we are seeing demand slope. consumer spending has slowed down quite a bit from the soaring numbers of last year. things like car sales have been quite weak. there is a decision that car dealers need to make that, do you want sell fewer cars at higher prices, or more cars at more competitive prices? so far, that dam has not broken in the consumer's favor. but at some point there will be enough inventories on hand. it's also interesting because we have been hearing through company reports from some of the major retailers.

they have been talking about rising inventory levels and the need to discount. it's not showing up in the data in any decisive way. judy: we have been expecting the federal reserve to raise interest res next week another three quarters of a percent. how is all of this likely to affect their thinking? >> it certainly solidifies the jumbo 0.75% rate hike next week. that is a done deal. it raises the likelihood that more jumbo rate hikes lie ahead. the market reacted so strongly because we had had a string of data that pointed to more of a soft landing scenario. the july inflation report had been quite hopeful. the labor market data has been resilient. that data spoke to maybe the u.s. economy will make it through this rate hiking cycle without going into a recession.

this report is a vote on the hard landing side. it suggests the fed is going to have to keep raising rates until we see broer based relief on the inflation front. it can't just be gas prices. judy: in a quick nutshell, the health of the overall u.s. economy? >> we are still growing. the labor market has been strong . the unemployment rate remains well below 4%. that's a low unemployment rate. consumers are feeling better from that relief. overall, we are muddling along, not tipping into a recession yet. but again, the risk of that kind of scenario for next year, that's what the market is seeing. the risk of that scenario is rising if inflation does not cool off. judy: thank you very much.

>> my pleasure. ♪ vanessa: i'm vanessa ruiz in for stephanie sy for newshour west. we will return to the full program after the latest headlines. ukraine said its forces have pushed within two miles of the russian border in the northeastern kharkiv region, but in moscow, the kremlin played down criticism. they brushed aside calls for an all-out military mobilization. we will return to ukraine after the news summary. britain's king charles iii traveled to northern ireland as he tours t united kingdom since assuming the throne. the king and queen were cheered in belfast and later, charles spoke for healing the region's division.

candy and annenberg, thousands viewed the queen's coffin overnight and today, paying their respects. elizabeth will lie in state in london starting tomorrow. back in this country, it is the last day of mary raises before election day. the democratic race is still too close to call. in new hampshire, there are tight races for the gop nomination in the u.s. sete and first and second congressional districts. a major teacher's strike is ending. seattle public schools reached a tentative agreement with the teachers union. the teachers are demanding better k and classroom support. alleged security flaws at twitter were back in the spotlight today. a former chief security officer at the company testified at a u.s. senate hearing after being fired earlier this year. he filed a whistleblower complaint two months ago.

today, he charged that twitter is a decade behind standards. >> the cybersecurity failures make it vulnerable to exploitation, causing real harm to real people. when an influential media platform can be compromised by teenagers, thieves, and spies, when the company creates security problems, this is a big deal for all of us. >> cleanup is underway in southern california after tropical storm remanence triggered mudslides. massive amounts of mud cascaded into homes, buildings, and vehicles on monday. people were told to evacuate or shelter-in-place. it happened in mountainous areas where wildfires burned away vegetation. the national basketball association has suspended the phoenix suns owner for workplace misconduct.

it also fined him $10 million. that is the maximum under league rules, following allegations he had a history of using racist and misogynistic language and abusing employees. we also have several passings of note. ken starr, whose independent counsel's investigation led to president clinton's impeachment, has died in houston after complications from surgery. he had been named solicitor general before being named to look into clinton real estate dealings. the probe ultimately included the sex scandal involving former intern monica lewinsky. two years ago, starr served on then-president trump's impeachment defense team. starr was 76 years old. renowned jazz pianist ramsey lewis died at his home in chicago yesterday. his career began with the ramsey lewis trio and spanned 60 years with hits like "the in crowd" and "wade in the water." he won three grammy awards and

in 2007 was named a jazz master by the national endowment for the arts, the nation's highest honor for a jazz musician. ramsey lewis was 87 years old. legendary french film maker jean luc godard died today at his home in switzerland. jeffrey brown has this remembrance. >> the are carol tribune. -- "new york herald tribune." jeffrey: the jump cuts, the unconventional camera work and storytelling, the 1960 movie "breathless" helped usher in a bold new and influential style of filmmaking. and made director jean-luc godard one of cinema's great innovators. beginning in the late 1950's and into the 60's, he and other young filmmakers, including francois truffaut, became known as the french new wave.

godard made a string of movies that often drew from his past heroes, such as alfred hitchcock, but created a new aesthetic that influenced generations of directors to come. >> [speaking french] jeffrey: martin scorcese called godard's 1963 "contempt", starring brigitte bardot, one of his favorite films of all time, and referred to godard as among "the great modern visual artists of cinema." quentin tarantino compared him to bob dylan, saying, "they both revolutionized their forms." godard would combine mainstream, experimental, and left-wing political filmmaking for decades. but today the focus was on his breakthrough work and influence. he died at his home in switzerland. a family statement gave assisted suicide as a cause of death, saying the filmmaker suffered from "multiple pathologies." >> jean luc godard was 91 years old.

still to come, why child poverty significantly declined during the pandemic. also, author nina totenberg remeers her decades-long friendship with the late justice ruth bader ginsburg. and sheryl lee ralph delivers a rousing speech after winning an emmy for her role in a comedy series about public education. and much more. >> this is the pbs newshour. from wbt a studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. judy: ukraine says hundreds of thousands of people have been free from russian control in recent days in an offensive that has reshaped the battlefield. it began at the end of august. ukraine emphasized the southern region, but more gains have made in the heart coverage and, where

-- region, where officials say there are still pockets of fighting. ukraine has retaken more territory than russia took in the past five months. they recaptured dozens of towns. they found people returning to homes and others mourning. >> the road is littered with the remains of a russian withdrawal. in the last few days, the russian military pulled back and the ukrainian military advanced. it is ukrainian held, recaptured at great cost. >> all up and down the road, you can see signs of the battle. that was a market. these places sold travel insurance required to visit russia. across the street, a cafe and a money exchange. now that ukrainians have gained access to this territory, they're going to see what the russians left behind. we drove toward the russian border with investigators looking into russian war crimes. along the route, empty roads and villages.

one of them had a prewar population of more than 5000. today it is in the. >> this is the first time you have been home since the invasion. >> volodymyr solokha invited me into his home he hadn't seen in six months. there's some damage, but he's lucky the house is intact. it has no electricity or water, but it's exactly the way they left it when they fled. his 18 month old daughter's crib. his 6-year-old daughter's toys. drawings from a more peaceful time, as they were the moment the invasion began. >> i woke up at 4:30 in the morning and the shooting began. very loud. i ran back into the house, grabbed our kids, got the stuff that we could grab fast, we got into our car and left. nick: and why did you come back today? >> our army, the armed forces of ukraine, pushed the russians all

all the way to the border. so it's more or less safe here, so i decided to come here to feed my dog, and feed my cats. i found my dog, but we also had 3 cats, and i still don't know what happened to them. nick: he checked the outside shed, the backyard, even the side room of the garage. finally, the cat located on the roof. after six months of scrounging for food, it finally gets fed. but its owners' hunger for peace remains unsatisfied. >> my wife and kids won't return here until russia stops shelling kharkiv completely. because that's still what is happening every day. there are still strikes every day, and it's not fe to come back. we head further north, to within eight miles of the russian border. ukraine's recent success allows kharkiv police to reach areas that until this past weekend were too dangerous. but in the past, russia's left behind booby traps, so the bomb squad checks a discarded car, and the area around it, for tripwires or unexploded bombs.

a few feet away, an unexploded mortar round a reminder the fighting only recently ended. once it's all clear, the crime scene investigators go to work. in early march, a ukrainian family was driving this car north, when they were attacked by a russian machine gun. the car then caught fire. they comb through the debris, looking for human remains. all that's left, small bonechips. and rescued from the mud, a reminder of the lives lost -a watch. olexandr klochko is the csi team leader. how important is this kind of work when it comes to documenting russian crimes here? >> it's very important because all of these documents will be further submitted to the office of the prosecutor general of ukraine, who in turn will send them to the hague for further prosecution to bring the perpetrators to justice. nick: klochko's office is in

kharkiv city. it was was destroyed by a russian rocket yesterday. >> when we hear what happened here and when we get on the site and see the tragedy inflicted on these people, of course it's psychologically difficult. but we're holding out. nick: and then here is 65-year-old anatoliy khrapach. he is not a soldier, nor a police officer. the man and girl who were killed in this car, were his son and granddaughter. anatoliy on the right, his son andriy on the left. anitoliy with 9-year-old kseniya. >> she was a schoolgirl. nine years old. she used to dance and do figure skating. he was an entrepreneur. he traveled a lot. everything is gone now. (long -- everything is gone now. nick: when you look at this

scene, how do you feel? >> horror. horror. nick: what can you say? >> it's been half a year already, but still -- i don't have the strength. nick: the whole family was in the car, andriy and kseniya on the right. but remarkably, olena and 17-year-old misha, othe left, survived, and made it to germany. we spoke to misha today online. >> russia now is a terrorist state. and i think that the whole world should know what this country do with me, with my family, and with my country, with ukraine, because we were just civilians, and they were soldiers. for what, my father and my sister die? for what? they would just civilians.

nick: will today, finding these remains, provide some kind of closure, some kind of solace? >> i think yes. i think yes. but this is difficult. nick: difficult, perhaps impossible, to ever derstand, what russia has left behind. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin. ♪

judy: the child poverty rate in the u.s. fell by nearly half last year to 5.2%. that is the lowest level on record and based on a census record that takes into account cash benefits, tax credits and other kinds of non-cash benefits, many of which increased during the pandemic. meantime, nearly 92% of americans had health insurance for some part of the year, but overall inequality increased and median income remained largely flat. that drop in childhood poverty was preceded by an even larger decline since the 1990's. all this is according to a new analysis done by the nonpartisan research group child trends and "the new york times." dana thomson is one of the lead researchers and she joins me now. hello. dropping by nearly half, child poverty. how did it happen?

dana: that is a great question. we are looking at a remarkable success story. in 1983, one in four kids were experiencing poverty. it is reduced to one in 10, largely thanks to the growth in the social safety net and a healthy economy. judy: if social safety net, that means government programs. what portion of this drop is due to government aids? dana: we did not estimate the exact portion, but we did include a collection of programs and looked at programs such as the earned income tax credit, social security, unemployment insurance. together, they reduced child poverty by about 44% in 2019 alone. judy: you said some of this is also due to improvements in the economy? dana: that's right. in 2019 we had lower unemployment rates, more single

moms entering the workforce, and increases in state minimum wages. each of those were associated with the decline. judy: clearly you see most of this improvement? -- where do you see most of this improvement? is it spread evenly among all children? or by some other measure? dana: amazingly, we saw child poverty decline across all 50 states. we also saw child poverty decline for nearly all subgroups of children. that includes immigrant families, non-immigrant families. we saw declines across all races and ethnicities, and we saw declines across different family types. however, because poverty declined at similar rates for each of these groups, the disparities persisted. so children in single parent families and black and hispanic children are still

three times as likely to experience poverty. judy: so you are not seeing an improvement when it comes to comparing these specific groups. is that right? dana: that is correct. judy: in the view of some conservatives who say when you give this kind of government aid, it should be accompanied by a work requirement. how much was there a work requirement in the programs you described, and did that happen affect? dana: the amazing thing is we have seen it fairly robust across multiple administrations. the social safety net is comprised of a mix of programs. some of those had work requirements, some had no work requirements. the earned income tax credit is conditional on work and has been one of our most effective long-standing programs for

reducing child poverty. it is particularly important because it helps work work for families. it boosts their wages especially when wages are too low to support a family. but there are also a host of other programs, many not conditioned on work. this includes the supplemental nutritional assistant program and unemployment. those programs naturally expand during recessions and are really critical for families facing temporary setbacks. judy: remind us, to what extent are these programs in danger of being cut back or eliminated altogether? what are we looking at in terms of durability, the fact they would continue for years to come? what do you see there? dana: i think we have a robust mix of programs, and again, the mix of programs has been with us

through multiple administrations. i think there is solid packing -- backing for a lot of those programs. we have seen during recessions the implementation of a number of temporary measures that have helped families make ends meet in times of increased economic hardships. those include some measures that were implemented during the pandemic, such as stimulus payments, the child tax credit, pandemic abt, and rental assistance. those have been critical for a decrease in child poverty. judy: i should say finally, there are still, by what you are reporting, over 8 million american children who are still living below the poverty line. in a nutshell, was the difference in the quality of

life for them versus the others who have benefited? dana: it's really important to remember there are real people behind these numbers. as you know, there is a wealth of evidence that shows growing up in poverty impacts virtually every dimension of child development, from physical and mental health, behavioral health, to educational attainment and labor market success as adults. reducing child poverty not only improves well-being for children and families, but it also has long-term benefits for society. judy: dana thompson, thank you very much. dana: thank you for having me. ♪ judy: the total number of undergraduate college students in the u.s. has dropped by almost 10% during the pandemic. but it's been a diffent story for some time at many historically black colleges and univerisites, or hbcu's, where interest and funding have

increased. applications were up nearly 30% at many of these schools between 2018 and 2021. and top-tier hbcu's are increasingly becoming the first choice for some of the country's most sought-after students. yet, hbcu's face some fundamental challenges too. special correspondent hari sreenivasan has this report, the first in our latest series on rethinking college. >> i turned down harvard and uc berkeley. >> harvard, penn, yale, duke, emory, vanderbilt. reporter: these are the places these sophomores turned down to come to spelmacollege, an all women's hcbu. >> you don't have to prove you are smart enough because we have already shown our excellence.

>> in high school, i noticed if i had good academic standing or success, it was like, wow, i did not know i could do that. this is what is expected of you here. reporter: on the premed track, it was her experience at the majority white high school that led her here. >> i had the responsibility to represent for the black community and speak for other people about their experiences. it was very exhausting having to represent all of the time. reporter: patrick said her parents were split on her decision. her dad favored harvard. her mom, spelman. for her, it came down to a sense of belonging. >> the percent of black students at ivies is very small. that could be a daunting statistic to be walking into. there are so few people who look like me, who share my experience. i'm going to have to prove myself at every step of the way. hbcus --

reporter: hbcus have seen a surge in interest. in 2014, more than 4000 people applied. in 2021, it nearly tripled with more than 11,000 applicants. the new president, an epidemiologist, spent her career in government and nonprofit roles. she views with happening as a reflection of the rapid social change in the country. >> this is a generion that grew up with a black president. they have gone through social unrest following the murder of george floyd, the movement around black lives. young people are choosing to be in a place that nurtures them, that recognizes who they are in the world and thinks about how they can make this generation of young black people succeed. reporter: the increasingly competitive student pool comes as no surprise to a proud spelman alumna and chair of the

board of trustees. >> are talent pools have been very similar to yale and harvard. but spelman is an absolute, deliberate choice. reporter: before becoming ceo of the walgreens boots alliance, which operates some 9000 drug stores across the u.s., she has held top positions at starbucks and sam's club. >> 10% of our class is graduating phi beta kappa. he would not see 45 to 50 black women graduate phi beta kappa from harvard or yale. but you get that at spelman college. reporter: a first-generation college graduate is one of only two black females running fortune 500 companies. >> there is something deep in my gut around taking on big challenges. i am not afraid of those. i think again that at spelman college. -- i think i gained that at spelman college. reporter: while hcbu's account for just 3% of secondary

educations, they produce 13% of all african-american undergraduate degrees. >> historically black colleges were founded with clearly a racial justice initiative, to attend to the ways in which african-americans cannot attend white colleges. reporter: this professor has been teaching at spelman for more than 50 years. >> many, for the first time, have black professors. they also see a black college president and hear over and over again this is a place made for you. reporter: more than 60% of students are pell grant eligible, and tuitions are 30% lor than predominately white institutions. hbcus also enroll more academically underprepared students. >> we punch above our weight. wynne lee think about what we are able to turn out with less -- when we think about what we are able to turn out with less resources than many of our peers .

reporter: there are still challenges. with less financial help and far smaller endowments than other schools. >> it's been biased from the beginning. you can look at state institutions that are black and white and there has always been a huge gap. we don't have adequate housing. we don't always have adequate infrastructure. the latest technology. reporter: federal lawmakers have increased funding for hbcus, providing nearly $2 billion since 2017, as well as as an additional $2.7 billion this year in emergency relief. alumni and philanthropists have donated more than a billion dollars in recent years, funding scholarships and programs. but its still not enough. >> there have been lawsuits that found the system was underfunded.

their black public colleges. reporter: she co-authored a recent report calling for more funding. >> we did a survey and found a majority of them had at least $5 million in deferred maintenance. we still need those unrestricted funds to take care of the facilities and upgrade our institutions in ways where we can retain students who have increased interest in enrollment. >> better known colleges are not in danger. but other institutions, many of them smaller and in rural areas, have not experienced the same surge in interest. >> about a third of hbcus, 30 to 35 of them were in the red zone, financially precarious. they were tuition driven. for an institution to be tuition-driven is like an individual living paycheck to paycheck.

reporter: john wilson served as the president of morehouse college and a white house adviser on historically black colleges. he is writing a book on hbcus and says the schools should seize the moment. >> we have seen it come and go in cycles. when you go back to the 1980's when ronald reagan took office, the national climate was more racially hostile. the idea is for hbcus to be in charge of their own magnetism, to not be subject to the whims of the marketplace. reporter: hcbu's play a broader role in society with a history of propelling black students into the middle class. >> their social mobility status is transformed. they can go from the bottom quintile to middle class because of the tools and skills that they get at these hbcus. speln is an incubator of black women who go on to stem careers.

>> to the extent the u.s. remains hostile to people who are different, you need special mission institutions. you need ones that are hispanic serving. you need women's colleges, tribal colleges -- desperately -- and you needbcus. reporter: despite the challenges, it came down to something basic. >> i am able to look around and feel like the people around me understand me. >> it is possible that i can be in a space that is designed for me as a black woman, but i can also feel like a sense of longing and never have -- a sense of belonging and never have to question that. that is -- reporter: that is a powerful reason they say students will continue to pick hcbu's. judy: nina totenberg has been

covering the supreme court since the 1970's. it was early in her career she would form a decades long friendship with ruth bader ginsburg. i spoke with her yesterday about her relationship and the focus of her new book, a memoir on the power of friendships. thank you for joining us. one thing that people may not know is that you met ruth bader ginsburg in 1971, 20 years before she was on the supreme court. tell us that story. nina: well, i called her up because i didn't understand something. in a brief she'd filed in what turned out to be the first major sex discrimination case in which the supreme court said women are covered by the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. judy: she was a law professor.

nina: she was a law professor at rutgers. and i called her up and i got an hour long lecture. and after that, i started calling her more and more. we became first professional friends and then personal friends. judy: and what kind of friendship was it? i mean, you have so many stories in the book about times you spent together. how close were you truly to her? nina: well, i think i was most close to her toward the end of her life in the last couple of years, especially during the lockdown, when our house was really the only place outside her apartment that she went. my husband and i cooked dinner for her and me about, i think, 23 or 24 straight saturdays. and they were always reserved for ruth -- we were always close. but i didn't see her every day or even every week. sometimes i saw her from a distance on the bench. but we were lifelong friends, essentially, from the time we were young women on. judy: there is an overused adage about this town, which goes

along this line -- if you want a real friend in washington, get a dog. it's a reference to how ansactional so many relationships are. but you haven't found that? nina: no. my experience has been quite to the contrary, that if you're interested in people and you like people, they're interested in you and like you back. and i had conservative friends, like justice scalia, who are my friends for decades, in addition to ruth and other people that are not household words. and it was really important to me and i think to them that we were able to be friends despite -- maybe they didn't like something i wrote about them or atever. they could get over it and i could get over it. judy: there is criticism from the press that sometimes people are too close to the resources and it is not a healthy thing.

how do you see that? nina: well, it's not easy sometimes to write critically about somebody you like, but it's your job. and my experience has been that it's better to know the people you're covering and understand who they are than to not know these people at all. but there are boundaries. and when you cover a supreme court justice or a judge, the boundaries are pretty clear. judy: and what are they? nina: you treat them and write about what they do and the product they produce, their opinions, and they do not discuss what goes on behind the scenes or what is happening in a pending case. they are not supposed to and they do not. judy: but doesn't being friends with seone make you more disposed to want to see their side of a story, of an argument? nina: well, you want to see everybody's side. that's what we're supposed to do. when i write a story, my object is to make sure it's fair and that everybody has their say so. and what i think is frankly not

relevant. judy: i want to circle back to justice ginsburg. she was well known for her friendship with the late justice antonin scalia, who couldn't have been more different from her, apparently, in terms of their judicial philosophy. is that kind of friendship possible in today's court, do you think? nina: i'm not sure. i mean, the court now today seems quite riven by divisions, and there is no center of the court. in the decades that i've covered the court, there always was a center one, two, or three people who were not in one camp or another. and it sort of made everybody try to reach consensus, i think, a little more. that's not true today. there are six very conservative justices. it's probably a court more conservative than any court in maybe 90 years. and it's it seems to me that after the leak, the celebrated

leak especially, that it's a court with a lot of problems. judy: and what do you think that portends in terms of what this court is going to be able to do? nina: i don't know. i mean, the chief justice has talked about the the people should still trust the court, even when they don't agree. but when the court itself is so internally divided and so unhappy with each other, i think it doesn't help matters. judy: the last thing i want to ask you about, also related to justice ginsburg, is the dobbs decision. you make it very clear in the book how she had this long standing view of women's reproductive rights, even though she thought that the roe decision might have been too sweeping, too much, too fast, but she still had very strong views on it. do you think if she were still on the court, that we would have

seen the dobbs? nina: it is one of those things that is indeterminate, but i don't think that there were the votes. the difference is that if she had been there still, it would have been 5 to 4. and chief justice roberts, who had a more modest approach to limiting roe, i guess one would say, might well have prevailed. but it's 6-3 and they don't need his vote. i mean, he's a very active conservative republican in some areas, but, you know, this was just a step too far for him, i think. and he made that pretty clear and he couldn't get anybody to go along with him. judy: well, the book is nina totenberg's dinners with ruth, a memoir on the power of friendships. thank you, nina. nina: thank you, dear friend. ♪

judy: at the emmys last night, sheryl lee ralph won bes supporting actress for her role in "abbott elementary." her acceptance speech itself won rave reviews as she sang an a cappella version of "endangered species." >> the emmy goes to -- sheryl lee ralph. >> ♪ i am an endangered species ♪ [applause] >> ♪ but i see no victim's song

i am a woman i am an artist and i know ♪ [cheers and applause] >> ♪ that my voice belongs. ♪ ♪ [cheers and applause] judy: how about that? not your typical acceptance speech. geoff bennett spoke with sheryl lee ralph last spring. it is part of our arts and culture series, "campus." -- "canvas." geoff: it's a workplace comedy focused on teachers at an elementary school in philadelphia. it provided new ways of refocusing audience attention on enduring problems. i'm joined by veteran actress sheryl lee ralph who plays a

teacher who has seen it all on the show. she is known for her breakthrough role in "dreamgirls," which won her a tony. she became a cultural fixture thanks to tv shows and films. welcome. it's great to have you here. >> thank you, it is great to be here. geoff: we should say, the show is abc's first comedy to quadruple its ratings since its premiere. why is the show resonating the way it is? >> there is something about the way this show, with the use of entertainment, comedy, is talking about something on everyone's minds. that is teachers or education, or lack thereof, of america's children. >> what is going on in this classroom? >> i'm just teaching the kids

some words. >> you're abandoning the principle. this is not a hoagie stand >> abbott elemtary is all about paying attention to the needs of some of the most underrated, underappreciated people in america. america's teachers. >> young bulls are so disrespectful. >> they deserve more respect. they deserve more support. they deserve to be paid more. more should be given to those who mold the hearts and minds of america's children. do not take what it is they bring to this country. to their communities, to our cities. do not underestimate that. when you underestimate that, you underestimate the possibility of america's children. >> it strikes me that comedy is

an interesting way to look at these issues and elevate them, and people do not know they are learning something. >> that is the magic of our young creator. her mother was a teacher, so she went to school with her mother for years. she saw the inner workings of schools like philadelphia where she is from. >> i was in the gifted program. >> what were you gifted at, being annoying? >> no. >> people laugh, they enjoy it. and then they have conversations that last for hours once the show is over. comedy is an amazing thing. it deserves more respect. just like teachers. >> how's it going with the new program? >> it is a little hard to understand, but i'm getting the hang of it. >> i somehow lost my crypto wallet. but you come from a different generation. it would be understandable if you are having trouble.

>> are you kidding me? i love tech. i shop at the apple store. i once even wrote in a tesla. >> i was like, i love this girl, i love her. she and i had met on the set of another show, called "a black's sketch show," -- "a black lady's sketch show," and she spent a great deal of time just looking at me, observing me. it was wonderful 18 months later to get this call of an offer and she wanted me to meet all of the people. geoff: what do you think that, at this vantage point in your career, you have opened so many doors and you have folks who are not only stars of their own projects, but creators and producers of them? >> it's been a long and rocky road to get to this place.

in this industry, but i was younger, they were very quick to tell me there was no place for me, that they would only be a side hobby. because there was so little that would be made available to me, how could i possibly make a living out of it? but i had such incredible mentors that came before me. >> they don't make men like sidney poitier. >> sidney poitier, who we recently lost, cast me in my first film, taught me so much about what it was like to be in an industry that was going to make it difficult for you. i love what i do so much. i know the heavy lifting that went on and took place to get us to this beautiful time. geoff: wow. this past december marks 40 years since the legendary broadway production of "dream girls," for which you were nominated a tony. when you reflect back, how do you characterize the impact of

that role on your career and the culture generally? sheryl: there is something about the lyrics in the song. every girl has her own special dream, and those dreams are about to come true if you just open your eyes to what is in front of you. from then until now, i say to all those little girls, look in the mirror, open your eyes, and love what you see. you are a dream come true. gef: sheryl lee ralph, thanks so much for your time, and congratulations on the success of "abbott elementary." judy: thank you. -- sheryl: thank you. judy: later this evening on pbs, twin cities presents a documentary on those who struggle with thoughts of suicide, and those who decide to take their own lives.

"facing suicide" explores the stories of americans impacted by suicide and journeys to the front lines of medical and scientific research to meet those who are working to help people at risk. ♪ >> lonely. really lonely. when you're depressed, the only thing you can think about is yourself. i did have a lot of peoplehere for me, but i was pushing them away, not even giving them a chance. >> the community has a role to play in preventing suicide. individual to remind them they are worthy. there is help, there is a way through any challenge. >> if you are thinking about killing yourself, know that you are loved and cad for. today might be hard, tomorrow is a new day. judy: "facing suicide" premieres

tonight on pbs. you may check your local listings. that is the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow. for all of us, thank you. please stay safe and we will see you soon. >> major funding has been provided by -- >> architect. beekeeper. mentor. a raymondjames financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well-planned. ♪ >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.g. the target foundation. committed to advancing racial equity and creating the change required to shift systems that

accelerate economic opportunity. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station by viewers like you. thank you. ♪ >> this is the pbs newshour, from w eta studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪ >> you are watching pbs.

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