amna: good evening and welcome. i'm amna nawaz. judy woodruff is away. on the "newshour" tonight, regaining ground -- we catch up with ukraine's president and army chief after their forces recapture territory and take stock of the damage wrought by the russians. then, vote 2022 -- the stage is set as americans make eir choices in the final primary contests. we break down what to expect from the upcoming midterm general election. and, caught in the middle -- a former kurdish militia member, now living in sweden, is ensnared in international politics after turkey demands her extradition. >> it is a scary for me, particularly sweden beg embroiled in something like

this. and i am a mother of three children so of course, i am particularly afraid for my children. amna: all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. ♪ >> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf. the engine that connects us. >> cfo.

caregiver. eclipse chaser. a raymondjames financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well-planned. >> the walton family foundation. for solutions to protect water during climate change so humans and nature can survive together. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. 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 from viewers like you. thank you.

stephanie: i'm ephanie sy with “newshour west.” we'll return to the full program after the latest headlines. new inflation data at the wholesale level is out and it underscores what's happening on the retail side. the u.s. labor department reports producer prices rose 8.7% in august from a year ago. the so-called core rate, not counting food and energy, was up 7.3%. those numbers reinforce tuesday's report on consumer prices, and they suggest prices will keep rising for months to come. unions and some of the largest u.s. freight railroads are still negotiating tonight, with a strike deadline fast approaching. one union rejected a tentative deal today, while two unions ratified agreements and three others remained at the bargainingable. a walkout early friday could cause new chaos in the nation's supply chains. it could also disrupt amtrak and commuter railroads that use freight railroad tracks. in ukraine, president volodymyr zelenskyy visited the northeastern city of izium

today, days after its recapture. he watched as the ukrainian flag was raised at the burned-out city hall, and called the damage done by russian occupiers shocking. we'll have more from ukraine later in the program. the war in ukraine has energy costs soaring in europe, and now the head of the european commission is calling for a cap on electric utility revenues. officials say it could raise $140 billion to help consumers cover energy costs. the european commission president addressed the eu assembly in strasbourg, france today, and made her case. >> these companies are making revenues they never accounted for. they never even dreamt of. but, in these times it is wrong to receive extraordinary record revenues and profits benefitting from war and on the back of our consumers. stephanie: the eu commission estimates that some companies are making five times their usual profits.

a top court in the eu largely upheld a $4 billion fine on google today for stifling competition. it's the euro bloc's largest anti-trust penalty ever. eu regulators had determined that google used its android operatg system to illegally dominate the market. queen elizabeth ii has begun lying in state this evening, after a solemn procession. crowds gathered today as the queen's coffin, topped by her crown, was carried from buckingham palace to parliament. king charles and his siblings and sons followed, with troops in full dress uniforms. elizabeth will lie in state at westminster hall for four days, before her funeral next monday. worldwide covid deaths fell 22% in the past week to just over 11,000, the lowest since march of 2020. in geneva, the director-general of the world health organization said a turning point may finally be at hand. >> we can see the finish line.

we are in a winning position, but now is the worst time to stop running. now is the time to run harder and make sure we cross the line. stephanie: tedros also warned of a potential winter surge, and said that relaxed testing and surveillance means many cases are going unreported. back in this country, the justice department has charged three iranians with ransomware attacks on power companies, local governments, small businesses, and non-profits. the attacks took place in the u.s. and around the world. the suspects are accused of stealing data and demanding payments to return it. they have not been arrested, and are believed to be in iran. a federal jury in chicago convicted singer r. kelly today of producing child pornography as well as other crimes. he was acquitted of rigging a previous child porn trial. kelly had already been convicted of sex trafficking in new york

and sentenced to 30 years in prison. the year's final primary results are in, and a 2020 election denier has won the republican nomination for u.s. senate in new hampshire. retired army general don bolduc defeated chuck morse, a more moderate republican and the state senate president, in tuesday's voting. bolduc will now face incumbent democratic senator maggie hassan in the november election. we'll take a closer look at the election landscape, later in the program. the founder of outdoor apparel maker patagonia is giving away his $3 billion company to help fight climate change. billionaire yvon chouinard and family members transferred their ownership to a special trust and non-profit organization, whose profits will be funneled to global conservation. still to come on the "newshour," the many investigations surrounding former president trump intensify. a new report details the devastating economic impact of rising sea levels for property

owners. an iowa teen who admitted to killing her rapist is ordered to pay $150,000 to the man's family. and much more. >> this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. amna: the ukrainian counteroffensive continues today at great pace across eastern and southern ukraine. president zelenskyy and top members of his war council visited troops and the traumatized civilians liberated from russian rule. it's a time of relief for most, tempered by great sadness. and nick schifrin was there, reporting tonight from balakliya in the northeast of ukraine. and a warning, some images and accounts in this story are graphic. nick: in liberated izium, scarred and smashed by russian occupation, the ukinian military now guarantees

security. and ukraine's president vows to restore the rule of law that russia stole. speaking to the soldiers who liberated izium this past weekend, volodymyr zelenskyy said ukraineould re-seize all its territory. pres. zelenskyy: it might be possible to occupy the territories of our country, but it's certainly impossible to occupy our people. nick: ukraine's anthem promises to lay down soul and body for our freedom. today, the city once crucial to russia's offensive once again flies the blue and gold. zelenskyy then traveled up the road to another city liberated last week, balakliya. he awarded soldiers for their service and success. pres. zelenskyy: the people of ukraine will never forgive. but you, please, never forgive any of those traitors and terrorists. nick: we caught up with him as he left.

why was it important for you to come here today? pres. zelenskyy: it's very important. for example, it's very important that our soldiers came back and de-occupated our territories and our people. it means that the life came back. ukraine is here. and that's very important, for me also important, because they do their important, strong, and very dangeus work. and if our soldiers are here, it means i have to support people and soldiers. nick: in the past week, ukraine has recaptured dozens of towns and more territory than russia seized in the past five months. one of the architects of that success is general oleksandr syrskyi. why do you think you have had the success you have had in kharkiv? col. gen. syrskyi: our operation was successful due to the mobility of our units, together with artillery fire and aviation support.

nick: he said he was not worried about his troops becoming overstretched, and he vowed to expand operations into neighboring donetsk and luhansk, currently controlled by russia. col. gen. syrskyi: we of course, are planning to continue our offensive. we have success. our units are moving forward. the morale of the enemy is low. nick: but the wounds of occupation are deep. residents jostle over handouts of badly needed food, and they are traumatized by russian war crimes. kyrylo tymoshenko is one of zelenskyy's deputy chiefs of staff. what kind of evidence are you finding now that you're able to get into some of these territories that was occupied by russia? kyrylo: we are documenting all of the war crimes that we find, because they're indeed horrific. there are a lot of cases of such crimes that we see in the liberated areas just in the past few days, where locals start telling us where the bodies are hidden. nick: and, unfortunately, in this town, that's just down the road, a district police

headquarters that became the occupiers' facility for detention. this is where the russian soldier slept? >> yes. yes. nick: the ukrainian intelligence officer begins a tour into the heart of darkness, the basement that became a russian dormitory, with russian cup of noodles and expired can food. investigators comb through with the russians hastily left behind. they brush for fingerprints, hoping to identify soldiers for future criminal trials. upstairs, a crime scene investigator who asked to be kept anonymous shows me the holding cells. each one held six to 13 ukrainian prisoners. they marked each day into the wall and scratched their salvation. this is the lord's prayer, asking, deliver us from evil. in the next cell, days turned into months. so the prisoners kept a lendar. they marked how many days they have been in captivity. >> every person staying here was marking their days in, dates when they were brought in, as well as dates when they were transferred or taken for

interrogation. nick: those rooms came to symbolize russian cruelty, where the devices of dehumanization still littered the floor. ukrainian police say that this room was used as interrogation and basically became a torture chamber. they point out a couple of things here, this string that was used for choking anybody they were talking to. this is the end of a baton that actually broke on one of the people they were interrogating. and then, down here, russian forces used electricity against ukrainians they were questioning. and ukrainian police say they're going to send all this evidence to the prosecutor general, with the hope of holding russia accountable. who were they interrogating in this room? >> they would target government officials, municipal officials, emergency workers, doctors, as well as law enforcement. nick: and local journalists. we found 69-year-old anatoliy harahatiy outside filming the source of his horror. can you tell me what your experience was during russian

occupation? anatoliy: on may 28, they came to my home. i'm sorry. they took all of my equipment. and i spent here 100 days, 100 days. nick: harahatiy usually films happier scenes for a historical archive. but when he filmed the russian occupiers, they detained him. anatoliy: they wanted me to work for them. they wanted me to post their propaganda on my youtube channel, to betray ukraine and praise putin, to praise this -- quote -- liberation army and so on. i fused.

as a result -- it's very difficult. they even wanted to exute me. nick: for others, russia followed through on that threat. here lies maxam shelikhan buried among those who died peacefully. shelikhan was murdered in june by russian interrogators. his brother was allowed to see his body in detention. svetlana is maxam's mother. svetlana: he was taken into the cell. he was there for a split-second, and he said the body was still warm. nick: svetlana is not here to mourn. she is here to watch the unwatchable, her son's body being exhumed. investigators need to document how russia tortured him in order to one day find justice. but, until that day, in this war, russia has stolen the dignity from even the dead. for the "pbs newshour," i'm nick

schifrin in balakliya, ukraine. amna: well, we are now only 54 days ahead of the midterm elections, and campaigns nationwide are gearing up for tough battles. historical trends and months of polling previously predicted that democrats will face trouble this fall, but recent data show that a red wave may not be the tsunami that republicans were hoping for. joining me now to discuss what they're watching ahead of those midterms are two pollsters tracking it all. joel benenson is a democratic strategist who worked on barack obama and hillary clinton's presidential campaigns, and neil newhouse was the lead pollster for mitt romney and john mccain's presidential bids. gentlen, welcome to you both. thanks for joining us. neil, let's talk about that red wave. we have been hearing about it for months. based on what you see now, what

does that wave look like to you? neil: the trajectory of this election has changed, and it's changed because of the dobbs decision. when we look back on this election next year or years from now, this is going to be known as the dobbs election. it has given democrats a foothold to get back into it. but when you step away from the numbers, and you look at where the data is right now, biden's approval rating is 43 and disapproval above 50. the mood of the country is negative. americans already believe we're in a recession. if you take a snapshot of those numbers, it's easy to see republican optimism and the fact that i think we're going to win the house and do well across the country. but if you look at the directionality of the numbers, the kind of trending numbers, there's no question that biden's approval has been improving, concerns about theconomy have been easing a bit. and the generic ballot is back

to dead even. so this is not the election we thought it was going to be six months ago. this is a different political environment. amna: joel, what about you? the conventional wisdom is, the party in power struggles in midterms. is that different this year? does that hold? joel: well, i will take the last point neil made about the generic ballot being dead-even. if you look back historically, that's not a good number for democrats. republicans have done much better at the state levels. they have been able to gerrymander districts to their benefit, just as democrats do to ours when we're in power. but it gives republicans an upper hand. and so i think that the house is going to be very, very difficult to hold at this point. and i think the senate, we have no margin for error as democrats. we are 50/50, with the vice president comprising the deciding vote there. and there are tough races all over the country.

now, i think both of them, both parties right now have about 40 safe seats up. so there are going to be a handful of competitive districts that are going to determine the outcomes there. in some of them, republicans look good. some are very close. states like georgia, the incumbent, reverend warnock, is in a tight battle with herschel walker. i think he will pull it out. i think colorado, senator bennet will hold his seat. i think maggie hassan will hold her seat in new hampshire. then you got tossups in north carolina. i think we're in for a wild night on election night. and there could be some surprises either way here. but i think neil is right in his assessment. and i -- but i also think democrats holding here is going to be a tough thing in both houses. amna: well, there are two very clear messages that have emerged in recent months. democrats are largely focused and increasingly vocally focused

on the loss of abortion rights, as you mentioned, neil, post the roe decision. republicans focus largely on the economy and inflation. in nevada, here is how that conversation is playing out in the senate race betwn the democratic senor, catherine cortez masto, and republican challenger adam laxalt. take a look at these clips. >> roe v. wade was always a joke. >> laxalt supported overturning nevada's abortion protections. he let states outlaw it, even for victims of rape and incest. >> inflation through the roof and higher prices on everything are costing nevada families plenty, and so is catherine cortez masto. amna: so, neil, you have seen democrats hammering home this message about the loss of abortion rights. and then, yesterday, senator lindsey graham came out and introduced a nationwide 15-week abortion ban. what did you think when you saw that happen? neil: i think his heart may have been in the right place in terms of what he was trying to do strategically. i think the way it was executed

and the fact that it's stepping on the message that republicans want to get out about inflation, cost of living, the economy, i think, was absolutely the wrong strategic move to make. it was -- anything that republicans are doing right now to take the focus off of inflation, the economy, the general perceived incompetence of the biden administration, anything we're doing talking about other issues is -- it doesn't help us in the fall. amna: joel, what about you? how are those messages landing? joel: look, i think -- well, i think it's landing like a lead balloon. i think we have already seen reports on voter registration. women and young people are outperforming what was expected in voter registration for a midterm election. i think that's definitely -- let's make no mistake about it. and i think neil and i agree on this. dobbs is going to be on the ballot here, almost more so than joe biden, in my mind, at this point.

i cited neil's home state of kansass an example where the voters went to the ballot there and upheld a woma's right to choose in a republican red state, and presidential level turnout,nd 60% of the voters were republican that day. i think this is going to cut big into republican base voters, women in particular, suburban voters. and i think that it gives -- it's giving democrats more of a chance than i would have given them before the dobbs decision. amna: what about -- neil: can i? amna: yes, go ahead, neil, please. neil: i think -- i go back to, it's giving them a foothold, but it's not necessarily going to determine the election. it's going to be difficult for democrats to make the case to americans that it's just like kansas, abortion is on the ballot. i think -- i think, in a lot of these red districts especially, districts that trump won that democrats held, that's a very difficult argument. so it is definitely an issue in play.

it is the number two vote determinant in the work that both joel and i have done. but, right now, you look at an economy now that is -- that is teetering a little bit. voters are still concerned about inflation. you have the threat of the rail strike coming up, which could increase gas prices, increase prices at the grocery store, we have got, amna, you mentioned before, 55 days left. we have got a lot of land to cover in that period of time. amna: joel, what about you? neil just mentioned some of the things that could come up in these few weeks, eight -- fewer than eight weeks now. that feels like many political lifetimes. but what are the unknowns? what could change the landscape as we see it today? joel: well, i don't think there are unknowns that can change the landscape today. this is -- i mean, you can never tell what's going to happen in the last few weeks of an election, and particularly because these are not national elections. each of these -- the dynamic in florida with rubio against val demings, et cetera, that -- these races are going to be different. and the texture is going to be

different, except for one thing. we have seen what's happened in terms of voter registration in reaction to the dobbs decision. we know that this is personal for people. it reflects their personal values, not just the political sense of whether, is my gas price going up or down? it's something that lives every day in the american mind-set about whether or not you believe that a woman has a right to make that choice herself. or you don't. and you have got a party now that has put a marker down. and lindsey graham today saying he wants to pass a law saying abortions are outlawed after 15 weeks. i think neil agrees that was not a great political move, but i think it reflects where that party is. and i think it reflects something that is not going to fade away on election day. people are going to walk in and they are going to be thinking about this, i believe, more than they're going to be thinking about the prices they have been paying at the pump for gasoline for the last two years. they're going to be thinking

about, which one of these people will really otect my values when push comes to shove? and i think this decision has put republicans in a very bad place on that question. amna: 54 days to go. we will be watching it very closely, as i'm sure both of you will. joel benenson and neil newhouse, thank you to both of you. neil: thank you, amna. joel: thank you. amna: former president donald trump is at the center of several ongoing investigations, from missing classifie government documents, to influencing 2020 election results. william brangham takes a look at the developments in these probes that loom over a contentious midterm season. william: that's right, amna. there are multiple and, at times, overlapping investigations into the former president, his actions, and those of his allies. so, we want to turn again to

someone who has been tracking all of them closely. andrea bernstein is a reporter covering democracy for propublica and a regular contbutor to npr. she's also the author of "american oligarchs: the kushners, the trumps, and the marriage of money and power." andrea, great to have you back on the program. andrea: great to speak with you. william: so, first off, let's talk about this, the mar-a-lago documents investigation. this is a probe into whether or not the president improperly took classified documents from the white house down to his home in florida. we know the fbi executed the search warrant and took a whole bunch of boxes out of there. what is the latest on that particular investigation? andrea: so, both sides have gone to the judge this week and commented on her order, which was essentially for the justice department to pause its investigation while a special master goes through the documents to see if there were any privileged documents. special master is a phenomenon

that has really emerged in trump-related investigations. it came up in the michael cohen investigation. it came up in the rudy giuliani investigation. in both those cases, they argued that they were attorneys for president trump, so some of the documents could have attorney-client privilege. the complicated thing here is that this is the president, the ex-president, in possession of classified documents. and the government is arguing, the department of justice is arguing that he has no right to those documents, that they are clearly government property by their nature, because they are marked classified. so, therefore, there is no question of privilege. and with respect to the classified documents, the justice department is arguing, they should have unfettered access, both to investigate and for national security reasons. president trump, former president trump's attorneys have said, well, we need to pause, there might be something that they shouldn't be looking at there. the justice department response has been ok, we won't look at what might be actually personal

to the former president, but these classified documents are ours and we have a right to them, and we are now waiting for the florida judge to decide whether the justice department can go ahead and have access to these classified documents. so that is the status right now as we are waiting for a judicial ruling. william: there's been this ongoing speculation as to why the former president would have taken some of these secretive documents down to mar-a-lago. and we still don't know the answer to that. but you published a piece in propublica today that hinted, hinted, i should say, as to why he might have. can you explain? andrea: right. well, exactly. we don't know the reason. but i have covered trump and his business for a lontime. and so many people have spoken to me about how, as a businessman, donald trump would use information that he collected or that he collected at his properties to wield power. and i recently spoke with former new jersey governor christine todd whitman, who told me there was an occasion when trump did

not want her to approve a tunnel essentially to a rival casino, because trump at the time thought it would help his rival, so he pressured whitman. and he called her up and he said, you wouldn't want anybody to find out anything about your son. this was nonpublic information. her then-high school aged son had gotten drunk at a trump property and had to go to the hospital. she doesn't know how he -- how trump found out about it. but she said that he used that information to try to pressure her decision to go his way. and this is something that i have heard over and over and over from associates, employees, journalists and others scrutinizing trump, that he has obtained private information and then tried to use it for his benefit. so, again, we don't know why he has those documents, but we know he had a habit as a private businessman of collecting, if you will, dirt on opponents. william: let's turn to another big investigation. this is under way. this is the one in georgia. the fulton county district

attorney, fani willis, is looking into whether and how the trump campaign and dferent allies improperly, perhaps, pressured elections officials, how they counted the votes, how they reported those votes back to washington, d.c. what is the latest on that particular probe? andrea: that appears to be a very active investigation. a number of the former president's allies have been subpoenaed to testify. some of them, including ru giuliani, have testified. this is, of course, the investigation involving the phone call that the former president made to the georgia secretary of state, saying, please find me 11,780 votes, which is one more te than he would have needed to win the state of georgia. so that was something that everybody heard. that investigation has publicly been much more active, in some ways, than the department of justice's investigation, since january 6. but, of course, as i have come to learn covering these cases, these criminal cases, you don't actually know the course and the

trajectory of an investigation until, if and when there is some kind of indictment. william: and then the january 6, investigation is also going on here in washington, d.c., where a bipartisan congressional committee is looking into the role that the former president might have played inciting the events of january 6, and also this larger attempt to thwart the counting and certification of the election. a lot of activity in that most recently. what's been happening there? andrea: so, they just announced that they're going to have more public hearings at the end of the month, or a hearing beginning at the end of the month. and they left us back in july with a lot of questions about the former president, his allies, the structure of the scheme. we know that a lot of witnesses were coming forward. we know that the hearings, as planned, were upended when they got additional information. and we don't know exactly what they are going to present. they have kept everything very close to the vest in that

committee. but we do know that, when we have seen the hearings, we have learned a lot, and expect to do so at this future hearing as well. william: so many complicated cases going on. andrea bernstein, thank you so much for helping us wade through them all. andrea: thank you. amna: sweden's prime minister magdalena andersson will step down tomorrow after conceding defeat in the country's general election. final results show that a right-wing coalition with an anti-immigrant agenda has a narrow enough majority to form a government. this seismic shift in swedish politics could have seous implications for dozens of kurdish asylum seekers in the country. turkey has demanded their extradition as the price for sweden's bid to join nato. from northern sweden, special correspondent malcolm brabant reports.

malcolm: i'm on a long, slow drive through some of the world's most tranquil countryside to hear a human story behind one of europe's most burning geopolitical issues. we're on the road to northern sweden, close to the arctic circle. sweden's military status is on the verge of changing dramatically. after 200 years of neutrality and avoiding conflict, russia's invasion of ukraine has pushed sweden into joining nato, but its accession is in the balance because of a small group of people on turkey's most wanted list. we're heading north to meet one of those people whose fate could determine whether turkey uses its veto to block sweden's ambitions. derdiye yul is 41 years old and pregnant with her fourth child. exiled kurdish leaders say, of all the people that turkey demands be extradited, yul is the most vulnerable. she fled here in 2015 to claim political asylum. the process is in the balance

because the swedes won't accept her documentation. derdiye: even to say you're kurdish in turkey is a risk. you can be imprisoned for it. for someone who has stayed with the pkk, it means torture and death in turkey. malcolm: yul lives in fear that turkish agents will kidnap her from her rural hideaway. she's refusing to go to the turkish embassy to obtain papers required by the swedes, because she thinks she will disappear. yul joined the kurdish workers' party, the pkk, when she was 19 years old. the pkk is labeled as a old. -- the pkk is labeled as a terrorist organization by both the u.s. state department and the european union. later, yul says, she joined the ypj, the kurdish female defense force, and took part in battles against islamic state in syria. despite her part in ultimate victory over isis, yul is afraid that sweden will sacrifice its human rights principles to appease turkey. derdiye: i'm a mother of three children. so, of course, i'm particularly

afraid for my children. malcolm: yul's fears based on assurances given to turkey by sweden's most senior ministers. pm andersson: we take turkey's concerns very seriously on all their issues, and not the least their security concerns when it comes to the fight against terrorists. ann: in the memoranda, we assured turkey that we would take the fight of terrorism seriously. and all the requests for extradition will go the normal way. malcolm: turkey and sweden n must engage in tough negotiations to thrash out fine details of the memorandum agreed at june's nato summit in madrid, when sweden and finland's applications to join were approved by the alliance's leaders. turkey's senior diplomat in stockholm insists they will not permit the swedes to water down commitments on terrorism. oznur ozkan is the deputy head of mission. oznur: that document is not a document just with vague obligations or just wishful thinking.

there are clear obligations, there are clear mechanisms that we are going to establish. malcolm: is this a straightforward issue for sweden, basically, because -- do you think their desire to join nato is greater than their desire to protect perhaps a handful of people? oznur: of course. oh, yes, it goes without saying, yes, of course. i think that's the most important thing. as i repeat it, i mean, sweden signed this document. malcolm: yul's image as a rural swedish mother sharply contrasts to her depiction by the turks as a terrorist, but patriotic kurdish songs on the television offer a glimpse of her identity. are you a terrorist? derdiye: as far as turkey is concerned, i am a terrorist. but it's important to understand that it was the turkish army that forced me to leave our villages and to join the pkk. it was the turkish army that stormed and destroyed our villages, killed children and raped women. the turkish state forced me into

the life i have had. malcolm: fears over potential extradition have triggered pro-pkk demonstrations in stockholm. the protests infuriated turkey, which interpreted them as swedish tolerance of terrorism. as far as you're concerned, is derdiye yul a terrorist? oznur: the thing is, i don't want to make comments about this person or that person, really. i mean, there are terrorists, yes, in sweden who took advantage of the system. and so we are -- yes, we want some people to be extradited. malcolm: sweden is home to an estimated 150,000 kurdish exiles. kurdo: kurdish nation sees sweden as a mother, and now the mother has beaten the children. they don't understand what the mother has done. malcolm: kurdish social commentator kurdo baksi is horrified by what he perceives

as swedish capitulation. kurdo: the swedish people, they are more afraid of putin than something, anything else. if they believe that putin are more dangerous than erdogan, so they will do what erdogan wants to do. malcolm: that despair is shared by pierre schori, sweden's former ambassador to the united nations. he says he's embarrassed. pierre: i see now that, after months of talks between the two governments, it's grand slam for erdogan and shame for sweden and betrayal to kurdish democrats. malcolm: do you think that turkey really has the whip hand here? do you not think that sweden is going to stand up for its principles over protecting people who have come to seek sanctuary? pierre: the so-called trilateral agreement between turkey and sweden and finland says differently. malcolm: but there is a completely different perspective from berlin and the german institute for international and security affairs. analyst dr. salim cevik everyone is using the kurdish issue to

push the united states to sell him the f-35 fighter jet. dr. cevik: so, turkey wants fighter jets more than anything else. malcolm: turkey's aging air force needs the f-35 lightning. the country was kicked off the f-35 program after buying a russian missile defense system. dr. cevik: it's basically an open-ended bargaining process between erdogan and the united states. he's bargaining whatever he can get. malcolm: so, as always with nato, the big decisions rest on american action. kurdo: the united states has to say to turkey that the kurds are not terrorists. they are just victims. they save the world from da'esh, isis, and the world has to thank them. malcolm: the tranquility of a warm swedish morning is disturbed by shell fire from a game entertaining derdiye yul's eldest son. she wants to raise her family in peace and has this message for president biden.

derdiye: my message is that erdogan's turkey kills women and kills civilians, and they do this in the name of erdogan saying they're supposedly fighting terror and terrorists. in the last few years, particularly, the u.s. has gotten to know kurds on their own terms in the fight against isis, not on erdogan's terms. malcolm: derdiye yul has a background of fighting against the od. and if her latest battle means keeping sweden out of nato, then, as far as she's concerned, so be it. for the "pbs newshour," i'm malcolm brabant in northern sweden. amna: for years, scientists have warned about the dangerous consequences of climate change. and many of the more dire outcomes are more urgent than most people realize. william brangham is back now with a look at a new report showing how sea level rise will threaten homes and properties in hundreds of counties along the coast of the united states,

making many places unlivable and taking an enormous economic toll in the coming years. william: this report, released by the nonprofit research group climate central, documents that hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in louisiana, texas, north carolina, and florida are in danger of being lost or severely damaged because of rising sea levels. the report says that, in just 30 years, over four million acres of land will be increasingly threatened by routine flooding. by 2100, over $100 billion worth of property could be in jeopardy as the coastlines of the u.s. continue to creep inland. don bain is a senior adviser at climate central, and he led this report up. don, thank you so much for being here. so your report indates that potentially hundreds of thousands of americans who bought or built along the coastlines of this country could see those structures seriously

in danger. can you sort of sketch out the full threat, as your report indicates? don: well, certainly. this report, in particular, describes how the line between private property and public tidelands and public waters moves as the water rises. so, we have this concept of floods as something that happens, and it's only temporary, and the water leaves, but what we're talking about here is permanent flooding. and, as i said, as that line moves, that line is what each individual state uses to determine who owns the land. so, for the first time, we're having to face the prospect that individual owners are going to lose their property. and the scale of the problem, as you have seen in the report, is huge.

by 2050, using modest or, i should say, intermediate climate models, we stand to lose about as many square miles as new jersey currently occupies. william: i mean, it's just startling to think about that. a landmass the size of new jersey could be, in essence, taken off the map of coastal areas all over this country. why is it -- i mentioned some of the places that are most at risk. why are those places particularly vulnerable? don: well, first of all, sea level rise is not evenly distributed. there are many reasons for this. the biggest is, the land is also moving. so we're getting more than the average amount of sea level rise on the east coast and the gulf coast. the west coast is again gettg about the global average. and not only is the water rising, but the land is sinking. so, this contributes to the problem and makes it worse. in addition, not every location is created equally.

many of them have slope at the shore that is very gradual. so, a foot of extra sea level can cause the water to run inland hundreds of feet. and, consequently, this problem while it's happening all around the united states, is happening much worse in some locations than others. william: i mean, as your report indicates, it's not just the trauma of individuals losing their homes or hotels or businesses that they have built along the coast, but it's also the economic impact that that would have not just on those people, but on their local cities and counties' tax base. don: exactly. so this is a terrible problem if you lose your property or your business, but it's also important to know that local governments and our schools depend upon property taxes to fund education, local government services, and the things that we

count on. and, worse, at the time that these waters are rising and this property is being lost is also the time when many cities are going to be facing increased expenses associated with raising and repairing roads, fixing stormwater systems, and other interventions that they may need to make in order to address the problem. so, at the same time we're losing potential tax revenue, their expenses may be going up. it's a double whammy. it's terrible. william: how much of this is baked in, given how much carbon we have already put up into the atmosphere and how long it's going to stay up there? how much of this is irreversible? and how much of this might we have some future control over? don: well, first, i would like to make it clear that we have choices to make. and the choices that we make, make a big difference, especially later in this

century. unfortunately, the amount between now and 2050 is about baked in. and that's a function of the scale of the oceans and the planetary system. we have put a lot of heat into the ocean, and we're going to have to live with those consequences. william: how much of this risk do you think is understood by individuals, by local governments, by people more -- that are that are most on the front lines of this? don: well, i'd say the awareness is going up. the conversations that we have been having in the last few years have changed dramatically. this is also where programs like yours make a big difference. we want to educate and inform people, so they can participate in the adaptation that we're going to have to make. william: all right, don bain of climate central, thank you for this very sobering report about the state of the climate crisis. thanks for being here. don: thank you, william.

amna: an iowa court has sentenced a teenage victim of sex trafficking to five years of probation and ordered her to pay $150,000 to her abuser's family. pieper lewis ran away from an unstable home at the age of 15. she was repeatedly abused by multiple men and fatally stabbed one of them in 2020. she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter last year. her case is again underscoring a serious issue of justice. hundreds of victims of sexual abuse and trafficking have faced similar legal consequences and even decades in prison for killing their abusers. joining me now is cyntoia brown-long, herself a survivor of human trafficking. she was convicted of murdering one of her abusers when she was 16 and served 15 years of a life sentence before she was granted clemency in 2019.

she's now a criminal justice reform advocate and author of "free cyntoia: my search for redemption in the american prison system." cyntoia brown-long, welcome to the "newshour." thank you for joining us. there are so many painful parallels between what you endured and what pieper lewis has endured, the abuse, the legal process that followed. i just have to ask, when you first heard her story, what did you think? cyntoia: you know, it's just a story that has unfortunately become all too familiar, a child who was failed by agencies early on. she had an abusive home that she was running away from. she was on the streets. someone took advantage of her, exploited her vulnerabilities, just her needing to survive. and whenever she woke up and decided that she wanted to fight back and she wanted to be free, she was subject to the justice system. so, unfortunately, that's become the norm. amna: in this case, her charges were reduced from a first-degree murder charge to voluntary

manslaughter. she had faced 20 yearsp to prison, as we just said, got five years in a residential correctional facility. how do you see this? is this justice in this case? cyntoia: i would not call it a complete picture of justice. obviously, it's a lot better than what many of us had to endure. i was sentenced to life in prison. thankfully, my sentence was commuted. however, she's still going to have to go to a facility. she is a victim. even though the prosecutors acknowledged that, that she was a victim in this situation, not only is she going to have to serve time in a facility, but, over the next five years, anything that she does can trigger her having to serve a 20-year sentence. so she's not truly free. and then there's a fact that she was ordered to pay $150,000 to the family of someone who did victimized her. so i wouldn't call it justice exactly. however, it is a lot better than what it could have been. amna: you know, that's really

saying a lot. and we should point out too that the cases -- how cases are handled really depends on which state you live in and where this is all unfolding. there was the ohio case of alexis martin, who was convicted for killing her alleged trafficker back when she was 15. her sentence was eventually commuted, but then a parole violation got her landed back in prison just this spring. in wisconsin, there was the case of chrystul kizer, which we remember headlines about. she killed her abuser when she was just 17. she is still fighting in court years later to have evidence heard that her abuse is what led to her actions. what do all of these cases, cyntoia, what do they tell us about how the laws look at children who are victims of sex trafficking? cyntoia: it tells us we have a long way to go in educating people what it's actually like for someone who's a victim of trafficking, the life that they have to live, the things that they have to resort to just to survive. it tells me that, even in states

where we do have mechanisms in place for prosecutors, for judges to be lenient, to look at these individuals as young girls who reacted from a place of trauma and who are in need of services, and not being incarcerated, sometimes, the people who are involved in these cases don't necessarily see that. we saw that in the case of chrystul kizer. there was an affirmati defense on the books. they had a law that said that she should be able to defend herself as saying that what happened to me was direct cause of being exploited through trafficking. however, the judge decided that he was going to find some loophole and say that didn't apply to her. and on the flip side, in this case, with pieper lewis, we had individuals who saw that she was needing of treatment, but there wasn't really a law on the books that could enable her to bypass the criminal justice system altogether and just receive treatment as a victim. so, it tells me that we need both of those to be working in tandem.

and we tried to figure it out. we have we have got a little progress going, especially since i was first incarcerated, but we have quite a bit to do. amna: what about the role of law enforcement in all of this? i know you, in your consulting capacity, have done some trainings with law enforcement groups. what do we need to understand about their role in these kinds of cases? cyntoia: so, law enforcement, you have to understand that, nine times out of 10, these are going to be the first responders in these situations. so they're going to be responding to these situations. they're going to be the first person that comes into contact with these individuals. and so they have to have some level of discernment to see, well, this is a victim. this is not someone who is a criminal that i need to take to jail. but maybe i need to call in a partner agency who actually works with survivors, or maybe even a survivor representative, to speak with this young girl and see what we can do for her and how we can help her. and that's really a big part of it. amna: cyntoia, you have said before that there's this idea of

there being no perfect victim in all of these cases. when you think about pieper lewis, what does that mean? what should people understand? cyntoia: i feel that, if we see news stories about someone getting snatched off the street, kidnapped, it's like, a given, oh, well, let's support this person, let's rally around this individual. no matter what happens, like, this person is a victim. but then you see other young girls who don't get that help early on, and the situation just festers. and, finally, they feel that, if no one is going to come to their rescue, they have to do what they have to do to help themselves. all of a sudden, they're seen as they're not a victim, because, oh, well, they were promiscuous, and they chose to be out on the street. oh, because they ran away from home, we're not going to look at them as a victim. and a lot of times, we see young black girls, well, they should have known better. so it's just there are certain individuals that we don't see as victims. even in awareness initiatives when it comes to trafficking, it always looks the same.

it looks as, you know, the victim is this person who's bound byopes and locked in someone's dungeon. and it's not the young girl who's livi on the streets after having run away from an abusive home, and she's with the older boyfriend, because that's the only way that she can survive at the time. amna: as you say, a lot of work to be done and a long way to go. that is cyntoia brown-long. she's the author of the book "free cyntoia: my search for redemption in the american prison system." cyntoia, thanks for being with us. cyntoia: thank you. amna: and online right now, we delve into the concept of quiet quitting, the idea that some workers are no longer willing to go above and beyond for their jobs without more pay. that's all on our website right now at pbs.org/newshour.

and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm amna nawaz. join us online a again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the "pbs newshour," thank you for joining us, and see you soon. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no contract plans and our u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the "newshour." the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions.

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