♪ judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on "e newshour" tonight... a breakthrough -- scientists hit a major milestone in nuclear fusion technology that could dramatically alter the energy landscape. then... arrested -- the beleaguered ceo of the cryptocurrency exchange ftx is indicted on multiple criminal charges after being arrested in the bahamas. and... both sides of the law -- a new initiative allows inmates to work toward a law degree while behind bars. >> i don't know if i'll be able to practice as a lawyer. but if you told me 10 years ago i'd be going to law school, i would say that is so unlikely. so, there's no telling what can happen years from now. judy: all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." ♪

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knight foundation, fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. ♪ ♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. judy: the u.s. economy is giving fresh hope tonight that the worst of inflation may have passed. the u.s. labor department reports consumer prices climbed

7.1 percent in november from a year ago. that was down from a year-over-year increase of 7.7 percent in october, and from the peak of 9.1 percent in june. federal prosecutors unveiled a battery of charges today against sam bankman-fried, founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange ftx. they include wire fraud, money laundering and lying to investors. bankman-fried was arrested monday in the bahamas. we'll return to this later in the program. the european parliament has ousted one of its vice presidents, in a budding bribery scandal. eva kaili of greece is one of four eu lawmakers arrested over the weekend, and accused of taking money and gifts from qatar. the eu parliament's president today vowed a no-holds-barred investigation. pres. metsola: there will be no impunity.

there will be no sweeping under the carpet. our internal investigation will look at what has happened and how our systems can be made more watertight. judy: officials from qatar have denied the bribery claims. a french court today convicted 8 defendants in a truck tack that killed 86 people in nice in 2016. the victims lay everywhere after an islamic state sympathizer drove into a crowd celebrating bastille day. he was killed by police. those convicted today were accused of helping orchestrate the attack. the united states may be close to sending a patriot missile battery to help ukraine repel russian attacks. that was widely reported today. the patriot would be the most advanced surface-to-air system that kyiv has received. meanwhile in paris, donor countries pledged more than $1 billion to help ukrainians through the winter.

pres. macron: today, the main goal of the russian offensive after recent military defeats is to drown the ukrainians in despair. it's aut attacks on civilian infrastructure to cut water and electricity and plunge ukrainians into darkness and cold. we're acting today to help them resist. judy: ukraine's president zelenskyy warned that some 12 million ukrainians are living with power outages in winter cold. back in this country, a sprawling winter storm brought everything from tornadoes to blizzards today. twisters struck near fort worth, texas, and in oklahoma, along with heavy rain and hail. to the north, ice, sleet and heavy snow hit the dakotas and other states. there were no reports of any deaths. same-sex and interracial marriages are now protected under a federal law that president biden signed today. the white house invited hundreds of guests for a celebration that featured singer cyndi lauper on the south lawn. the president said the new law strikes a blow against hate, in

all its forms. alabama and utah have joined a growing list of state governments barring the social media platform tiktok on official devices and computer networks. they acted monday, citing security concerns with the chinese-owned app. the fbi has warned that chinese authorities could get access to users' data. the automaker stellantis is recalling 1.4 million ram pickup trucks, mostly in north america. the company says tailgates may open suddenly, causing cargo to spill out. the recall covers ram models from the model years 2019 to 2022. and on wall street, stocks soared on today's inflation news, then dropped back, until tomorrow's interest rate decision by the federal reserve. the dow jones industrial average gained 700 points early, but ended just 103 points higher, to close at 34,108. the nasdaq rose 113 points -- 1

percent. the s&p 500 added 29. still to come on "the newshour"... u.s. immigration officials face a surge of asylum seekers near el paso... brittney griner's agent discusses the basketball star's road to recovery... a new documentary follows the first person ever diagnosed with autism... plus 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. judy: for the first time, scientists have produced a nuclear fusion reaction that created more energy than was expended -- a breakthrough to tap into the same kind of energy that powers the sun and sts. researchers at the lawrence livermore national laboratory in california announced the details today.

and it could have huge implications for potentially creating clean and limitless energy some day. but that day is many years away. to help us understand what was achieved and what still needs to happen, i'm joined by our science correspondent miles o'brien. hello. remind us, what is fusion? what is nuclear fusion? lindsay: -- miles: nuclear fusion is what powers the stars, what powers our sun. essentially what happens is a couple of hydrogen atoms come together and they fuse and when they fuse, they create a tremendous amount of energy. this happens on the sun under tremendously rigorous conditions with a lot of gravity and force. it's very difficult to replicate that here on earth. judy: and what exactly is the breakthrough that these scientists achieved? miles: as you said, it happened

at the lawrence livermore national laboratory, the national ignition facility, the most powerful laser in the world. 192 lasers pointed at something about the size of a peppercorn inside a cylinder. the energy which was delivered to that cylinder was on the order of two megajoules. just for point of reference, one kilowatt hour equates to 3.6 megajoules. so in any case, two megajoules came in. it iited those hydrogen atoms, they fused and created more energy, essentially, one mega joule more. that is the first time that's ever happened in a laboratory experiment. obviously, it's not to scale. there's a lot of work to be done, but it's a moment to remember. judy: you said a lot of work to be done. so how far are we from taking this breakthrough and turning it into something that can be scaled and used for commercial purposes? miles: well, just to give you a

point of reference here, they're able to do this once a day. they need to be able to do this 10 times a second, in order for there to be enough electricity to be practical, and scalable is something you want to plug into the grid. so you get an idea that it's many orders of magnitude away from that. there's a lot of work that needs to be done. we need to improve the technologies that are involved in these lasers, among other thin. but that said, there's a lot of focus on fusion right now, particularly in the context of the climate emergency. the biden ainistration has a decadal effort to accelerate the efforts in this realm. let's listen to the secretary of energy jennifer granholm. sec. granholm: if we can advance fusion energy, we could use it to produce clean electricity, transportation fuels, power heavy industry, so much more. it would be like adding a power drill to our toolbox in building

this clean energy economy. miles: so nice drill, but we're still a little bit away. i just want to make sure we temper the excitement a little bit. judy: and thank you for that because it's easy to get our hopes up. give us about that a little bit of history of this project. you were telling us that originally this was all about nuclear weapons. miles: yeah, this the national ignition facility is all about kind of creating the circumstances inside a hydrogen bomb. this was created after the u.s. aged to stop underground testing of nuclear weapons in the mid 90s. so in order to make the stockpile stay safe, and to ensure they can develop weapons in the future, and figure out ways to test it. so that's what this was built for. it was never built with the idea of creating commercialized energy but along the way, they , discovered it can be done, although it is a very complex way to do it. judy: and miles, you were

reminding us that there are other experiments out there involving nuclear fusion. explain what the difference is between what that has been and this. miles: this one was designed to help bomb acres to their job and we get some energy on it. but the other idea which was thought of initially as a way to produce civilian electricity is called a tokomak, which is a giant racetrack, doughnut style racetrack with magnets, huge facilities, which create the circumstances where you can fuse these atoms in a very different way. and there's half a dozen or so of these projects all around the world, public and private. and they are making steady progress. but this is tough. and despite all the talk today about the u.s. being leaders in all this, the there are other nations which are kind of driving the bus on this. i spoke with the president of fusion power associates, steve

dean, who's been in this business for 60 years. he has a of seen them, and go. here's what he had to say. pres. dean: so most of the money and most of the effort is not here, in spite of how we all think of ourselves as always being in the lead and everything. the chinese are way ahead of us and the uk is way ahead of us, and japan is right in the mix. so all you hear about in the u.s. is the u.s. but the really the the momentum for fusion right now is overseas. miles: that said there are more , than 30 private fusion companies in the world and most of them are in the u.s. there's about a two and a half billion dollar investment there. meanwhile, the government is spending about a billion dollars a year to advance this technology. but judy, i should remind you the old joke among physicists is fusion is 20 years off, and it always will be. it's hard to say how much we are closer today. but it seems like this is a milestone to remember. judy: i actually remember a

physics teacher in high school mentioning nuclear fusio that was a long time ago. and you're saying there's still a lot of work to be done. miles o'brien, thank you very much. miles: you are welcome, judy. ♪ judy: the investigation into the collapse of the crypto firm ftx moved into a new phase today as founder sam bankman-fried was formally charged. john yang has the story and looks at some key questions the case has brought to light. >> it does appear they are filing chapter 11. john: the failure of cryptocurrency firm ftx has led to a barrage of criminal and civil charges.

sam bankman-fried was arrested yesterday, and bahamian authorities said they would grant a u.s. request to extradite him. the new york grand jury indicted him on eight counts, including wire fraud, money laundering, and illegal campaign contributions. da williams: this investigation is complex and its sprawling. i think it's fair to say that by any anyone's life, this is one of the biggest financial frauds in american history. john: it was the first move by regulators to hold someone accountable r last month's sudden multi-billion dollar collapse at ftx. the second-largest crypto exchange fed for bankruptcy after it ran out of money -- and bankman-fried resigned from his leadership post. in addition, the commodity futures trading commission and security and exchange commission brought civil suits. the sec's court filing described a massive, years-long fraud. sec chairman gary gensler said bankman-fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception. the sec alleges that

bankman-fried diverted his customers' money to his private hedge fund, alameda research. that money was then used to make venture investments for his own benefit, buy lavish real estate and give large political , contributions. and when investors became nervous about whether ftx had sufficient funds, they pulled their money out, triggering the collapse. at a new york times event earlier this month, bankman-fried denied knowingly defrauding investors. instead, he blamed the implosion on sloppy accounting and a failure to appreciate the risk. sam bankman-fried: look, i screwed up. i was c.e.o. i was the c.e.o. of ftx. and i say this again and again that it means i had a responsibility, and i was responsible ultimately for us doing the right things and we didn't. we messed up big. john: the 30 year old could spend the rest of his life

behind bars. bankman-fried had been set to testify today before the house financial services committee remotely from the bahamas. >> the scope of our investigation is enormous. john: the company's current court-appointed ceo john ray did appear. ray led enron through its own bankruptcy proceedings some 20 years ago. he described the financial disarray he encountered upon joining ftx. john ray iii: i've just never seen an utter lack of record keeping. absolutely no internal controls whatsoever. this is really old fashioned embezzlement. this is just taking money from customers and using it for your own purpose. not sophisticated at all. john: meanwhile, the sec and justice department said today others could be charged in the case. the charges against bankman-fried add to the growing skepticism about cryptocurrencies. in his statement today, the sec chairman said it should be a wake-up call to all crypto

platforms. roben farzad is host of public radio's full disclosure. bankman-fried said this was not intentional and due to lack of oversight but if you look at the charges today, is the just that this was fraud from the get-go? roben: it is so hard to square with his persona, if there is a shadow persona, we had what we call the charismatic megaphone of sam bankman-fried. he would return your direct messages on twitter. this is a person in the intensifier of the comny falling apart the past month, does an interview with the new york times and various other people and makes himself accessible and vulnerable, dressed in shorts and pulls up his tube socks. you can't really square it with this idea of a twirling mustache villain who secreted billions of

dollars and had a personal slush fund and a neck girlfriend running the hedge fund and a charmed life in the bahamas. it is ahead scratcher. john: the sec chairman call this a house of cards. what did he mean? roben: you are effectively using this big exchange that trafficked the idea of safety, had super bowl ads, sponsored arenas this was an exchange. u would think even though it is offshore and largely unregulated, your assets would be protected. but he is pulling assets out willy-nilly, using it as an unrestricted credit window to fund real a straight, -- real estate, media investments. this hedge fund he controlled, alameda, you cannot use it as a personal piggy bank. we see this time and again. when prices pull apart, we saw it with madoff, and the

financial crisis. it is at least something management took for granted. we did not have to have great internal controls because the assets were going up and the accounts were opening left and right. we could be at best sloppy with it, at worst, what they are alleging is downright fraud. john: you talked about his persona, charisma, accessibility to reporters. is that you think one reason why it was so easy for him to do this? roben: i wonder if it was paid crypto -- it was. crypto brose, they are very you can't possibly get it, mayor mortals. this guy was talking to the press, engaging the press, liberal causes, engaging with congresspeople, i could be the kinder, gentler face of crypto and have maybe enlightened regulation. he hit the right buttons. it almost minds me of the

elizabeth holmes charms offensive at theranos. she was on magazine covers. you could say at worst, maybe this person was self-deluded, but you could not imagine the extent of fraud. the fact that you have this piggy bank used between the hedge fund and billions and billions of dollars of customer assets. it is one of the largest frauds alleged in wall street history. john: was there anything about the fact this was crypto that made this easier too or something intrinsic about crypto? could it have been any hot commodity? roben: there in lies the paradox. crypto is unregulated you did offshore in the bahamas. but look at the super bowl ad with larry david. this is a safe way to interact in crypto. it was an exchange good you would think your assets would be

protected and segregated. but this is not like being invested in a brokerage account in the united states were of a company goes under or there is a run on the bank, you have insurance on the assets. this was largely unregulated and treated as several different regulatory arms are alleging as an open piggy bank, and open line of credit, one directional line of credit with no protections. it is stunning to see the cleanup guys. it was like a wild west. when you invest in a regulated bank account or brokerage account, you have protections and controls. when you want to be part of an asset that is new, distributed block chain and exotic, and you take the trade of going with the bahamas based exchange, this is what you could reap on the other end. john: roben, thank you very much. roben: my pleasure. ♪

judy: an extraordinary number of migrants crossed the u.s./mexico border into el paso, texas, over the weekend. this, as government and non-government agencies prepare for the end of title 42 -- the pandemic-related order that the government has used to turn away more than one million migrants. amna nawaz has more. amna: judy, nearly a thousand people, many from nicaragua, crossed the rio grande from juarez, mexico into el paso on sunday night alone. stretching an already-taxed border system to new limits. along the entire southern border, federal agents have reported a record number of encounters, nearly 2.4 million in a yearlong period. for more on the impact of these arrivals, and what can be done from washington, i am joined by congresswoman veronica escobar, a democrat representing texas's 16th congressional district, including el paso, where she joins us from now.

welcome back. as you know, the last few days have seen some of the largest mass crossings in decades. you have said your community has seen an unprecedented strain. you are there now. describe for us the impact on el paso. how bad is it? rep. escobar: first i want to say i am really proud of the community. we continue to respond to an enormous challenge while retaining our values and not surrendering to politics and making sure we are coming forward with solutions. i want to applaud everyone at the local level. i also want to think the biden administration, it is the first administration ever that has sought to fully reimburse expenses related to supporting migrants in the federal government. this is a profound challenge.

i don't want to not emphasize that enough. our resources have been stretched as far as they can. our local governments have been asked to perform functions not within their jurisdiction necessarily. our homeless shelters are beyond capacity. our order patrol agents and other officers are working overtime. they are stressed, their families are stressed. i have been wanting for some time, going back years, that if congress failed to act on legislating around this issue, and if congress continued to treat immigration as a border only issue, things would only get worse. they have, and if congress does not ask, they will continue to get worse. amna: what about the immediate future? in terms of the numbers right now, we saw secretary mayorkas in el paso today.

what do you need rit now from the federal government and will you get it? rep. escobar: i feel good about fema reimbursements. fema has prioritized our community and other border communities, making sure they are as efficiently as possible, either reimbursing local governments or priding upfront funding in order to address this from the local level. where we neea lot more help is really in another -- in a numbe of other areas. i had a conversation with the chairwoman yesterday, we need a whole of government approach. we need to make sure the federal government in this omnibus -- and we need this omnibus to be passed before christmas eve -- this omnibus must contain robusta fema funding for humanitarian support and relief going forward.

the other thing i am requesting in the omnibus is federay run emergency short-term shelter. we cannot continue to see migrants sleeping on the streets. the faith-based community is stepping up and they will try to help provide shelter. the county of el paso is helping collaborate and support them, make sure they can stand those up and have the resources for that, but we also need a federally run shelter. this is the short term, the immediate, how do we deal with this in the immediate? amna: there is a real challenge ahead, next week title 42 is slated to end on the summer 21st, the pandemic era policy allowing border officials to quickly expel anyone arriving at the southern border. everyone agrees numbers will go up when that happens. is getting rid of title 42 right now a mistake? rep. escobar: title 42 is not a

solution. for too long, people have looked into it as a solution. you have been in our community, you know we are getting people who are arriving on our nation's front door from a number of different countries. really, a lot of those countries, title 42 cannot be used. for title 42 to be seen as a solution -- and democrats and republicans alike have been touting it as a solution -- it is not the solution. what we are seeing happening really is 80% of migrants who are being expelled, but probably about 20% of them because title 42 is not applicable, cannot be and are paroled into the country. my hope is that the administration understands and comes to understand that the torrents has not sold this. i think they know that.

congress needs to understand that as well. title 42 is in some ways, makes things far worse. it helps provide more victims to human traffickers because people make multiple attempts to get in. i think it further strains border patrol. but we've got to get real solutions, tangible solutions, and only congress can do that. amna: you are about to have a divided congress in the new year, republicans will hold the house majority. where is there any hope of bipartisan immigration reform in the form of legislation? what republicans will work with you? rep. escobar: here is the big challenge -- i don't know if kevin mccarthy will be the next speaker of the house, i don't know if he has the votes to get to 218, but he has announced if he is bigger of the house, there will be no immigration related legislation that gets to the house floor.

so even if we can cobble together some solutions with moderate republicans, and there still are some moderate republicans who i believe want to solve this, unfortunately kevin mccarthy is getting into the more extreme voices in his party, in his conference. we would have to figure out a way to work around that, for his moderate members to allow some of that legislation to come to the floor. ife don't get that, we will have two years not just of the same, but really a situation that will get significantly worse over time. amna: veronica escobar, democrat from texas, joining us from el paso tonight. thank you for your time. rep. escobar: thank you. ♪ judy: two-time olympic gold medalist brittney griner is

finally back in the u.s., but after 294 days of being detained in russia, her reintegration to american life is far from over. stephanie sy has more on how the basketll star is adjusting to her return. stephanie: good evening. it took months of tiress efforts behind the scenes, not just from the biden administration, but from friends, family and supporters to secure griner's release. one person who worked around the clock to bring griner home was her agent and friend, lindsay kagawa colas, who joins me now. it is a pleasure to have you on the program. i have so many questions. i am sure it is a relief to have her back. it has been less than a week. we all want to know how is bg doing? lindsay: thank you for having me. bg is doing really well. for those who know bg, maybe they are not surprised, she is

incredibly resilient, and kind and so thankful for the opportunity to be back, especially in time for the holidays. i know she will embrace the opportunity to advocate for others getting home and she is just full of gratitude. she has taken advantage of the time to sample all of the finest cuisine of san antonio, she has had mexican, pizza, and sampling all of the barbecue. she is taking advantage of all of the resources and we are very thankful for the reintegration program. she will take her time and make sure she utilizes those resources. stephanie: i don't think they have barbecue in the penal quality -- colony in russia. i'm wondering if there was any time you did not see the light at the end of the tunnel, if you thought bg might be spending the winter and nine years in a russian work camp. lindsay: i did not.

i never lost hope. that said, i signed up for whatever would be necessary. i first conversations with cherelle following the initial detainment, my first words to brittany was we will get you home. we did it. on that, her attorney did learn how to make barbecue and brought her barbecue a few times when she was in pretrial, soy want to send a big thank you to alex and maria, her russian reprentatives. we did not lose hope, we stay disciplined, and we knew we would get her home. there was so much power in the coalition that showed up to advocate for her and we stay positive. stephanie: i know she is resilient, she is an elite athlet and has also overcome a lot of obstacles throughout her life. are there tough issues she will

have to deal with it as she re-integrates? i'm curious whether she is aware of what a target she has become of politics upon her release. lindsay: she is. you know, it is nothing new to brittany. she wakes up every morning and has no choice but to essentially be political by nature of who she is. but being who she is is what makes are powerful, it's what helped get her home, the coalition that came together to get her home is representative of that identity, that a lot of people saw as a liability. we did not, we sought as an opportunity. new it was the coalition that elected this administration and we worked hard to bring that coalition together to ensure that everyone was saying the same thing and everyone understood with the goal was, and that was ultimately getting her home. so yes, life has changed, life has changed for brittany. this was not a fame she was asking for. brittany has never been

concerned about being famous. i think britney wanted to be happy, she wand to be free, she wants to help other people be happy, and she will have more opportunity to do that. with that opportunity comes sacrifice and challenges, but she's got a big, passionate and experienced team supporter in the transition. we plan to be there now just like we were when she was in detainment. stephanie: besides just being happy and being back with her wife and family, what does bri ttney want now? i know a ton of phoenix mercury fans -- is she thinking about that? training or practicing? lindsay: i think everybody saw that one of the first thing she did when she was cleared to do so was to find a court, strap on those black chuck taylors

and her first move was a dunk. there was a hoop in her pretrial detention center and her attorneys asked if she wanted one of them to bring a ball and she said no, and it made us feel really sad. i will let brittney tell the story of why that's why she answered, but it is telling about the strength of her spirit that that's what she chose to do a couple of days ago. i will let her take your time in her decision of what to do next, but thankfully she can do whatever she wants. if that includes basketball, i will make sure she has a chance to tell you about it. stephanie: you talked about the movement, #wearebg that helped her get out of the situation, and i understand the movement is trying to get other americans detained released, including paul whelan.

how important is that to brittney griner now that she is out? lindsay: so important. i talked to her last night on face time, she got to see my kids new christmas pjs, and we talked about some of what might be next anshe raised the idea and said she'd been thinking the last 10 months about how she was going to use her platform to help bring people home. she named paul specifically. she wanted to talk to his family as soon as she got back home-home. she is totally committed to figuring out all the ways to use the platform now to reunite more families. stephanie: lindsay, brittney griner's agent, thank you for those interesting details and for being on the newshour. really appreciate it. lindsay: thank you for having me. ♪

judy: the united states has the highest rate of incarceration based on population, due in part to an overwhelmed, underfunded system in the offices of both prosecutors and especially public defenders. as fred de sam lazaro reports, one initiative is trying to bring more legal resources to those incarcerated or facing trial. it's part of his agents for change series and our ongoing series, searching for justice. fred: it is not unusual post-covid to see hybrid classes with students in person and students online. what is unusual is who the distance learners are in this first year law class. these students are each serving life sentences in minnesota prisons for aiding and abetting murder in separate cases.

the first students ever allowed to pursue a jurist doctorate from behind bars. what is toughest about attending law school from prison? >> law school is tough, earning how to read case law is hard, and my speed is slower, and that is frustrating also not having the opportunity to speak with classmates outside of class. >> i am just happy i am able to continue and get good grades. i am getting a's and b's. i got a c but i am doing it. fred: the pandemic cracked open the door to full-time online law school, not allowed for anyone until 2020. one result is an initiative called the legal revolution, which kicked off with a gala last summer. the program got waivers from the american bar association to admit two incarcerated students per year into law school. got funding from law firms and

foundations and the green light from minnesota's corrections department. >> i first heard about the prison law pipeline two years ago and i am so honored to be part of the legal revolution. fred: one special guest was albert wood fox. >> i spent time in confinement. fred: he died just weeks later, and said that studying law in louisiana helped him eventually when release after wrongful conviction. with 38-year-old elijah, the leader of the minnesota initiative, a shared a rare experience. >> i heard the judges say i sentence you to spend the rest of your natural life in the care and commission of rrections. i know the gravity of those words. fred: he heard those words at age 15, ending any dreams of playing football, among other things. >> i was arrested for a really

serious offense. i took part in a large fight in which someone lost his life and i played part of that. if you are certified as an adult to facehese offenses, it doesn't matter if you are 15, you are put in immediately with the other adults in the adult prison fred: while judicial activists have campaigned to separate young inmates from adults, he says in his case, some of the adults became mentors, pushing him to get his ged, to study law books, advocating far more he says then his public defender attorneys. >> they would give me books and say read this book and come back d talk to me about it. fred: he read exhaustively but what he could not do is convince his court-appointed attorneys that there was an issue with a key witness's credibility. >> i was left out and i also -- laughed at and i said it to my public defender on appeal this is an issue and i was disagreed with pit there was a consistent

pressure to take plea bargains. fred: finally a new attorney took him seriously and brought it successfully before minnesota supreme court, which reverses life sentence. he served 17 years. >> if i hadn't put forth my own reasoning, i probably wouldn't be sitting in front of you now. i don't know where i would be today. >> some of the best legal talent in the world is sitting behind bars right now, and our discipline deeply needs them and their voices. fred: nowhere more than in public defender offices says emily hunt turner, attorney and founder of the legal revolution project. >> i don't know any public offender that will not own up to the fact that they have more on their plates than any human being can handle. fred: for incarcerated students, graduating with a law degree is no guarantee they will get a license to actually practice law. a few states haveutboun outright andnyone with felony from being admitted to

the bar. inbefore a board of examiners to make clehave the immediate task is to make the case before a parole meeting. she spent eight years in prison for a murder committed by her boyfriend. she insists she had no idea of her boyfriend's intent. >> i was dating a man, he was a drug dealer, i fell in love, and a terrible crime happened. the law sees me as the principal. i've never been charged with a violent crime, i never had a felony before. fred: her appeals have been rejected several times in the courts. she says for now, she is focused on lesser rewards, passing the law school entrance exam and the academic rigors of the years ahead. >> i don't know if i can

practice as a lawyer but if you had told me two years ago i would go to law school, i would tell you that is unlikely. there is no telling what could happen. fred: for his part, the law hool dean says the incarcerated students prevented like all others for their academic qualifications. >> we want to make sure we bring in people that he remorse, are acally going to use the law degree in a wathat is productive for them individually but also for the society overall. fred: if you had a chance to mmunicate with the victims families, whatould your message be? >> just that i am sorry, that there is nothing i can do to take back what happened that day. it is just really hard because i don't want to be associated with that, but i am. and i am just sorry. >> yes, criminality is a real thing and yes i understand that accountability plays in. fred: but emily hunt turner says

it's important to take a holistic view of the program goals. >> at the end of the day, education and being in community, and relationships, are proven to be the best mode of transformation. if you're really talking about public safety, the investment of those who have ended up behind bars is one of the most promising ways to talk about transformation and safety. fred: for her group, the next steps opening a law firm, which would employ, among others, graduates of its present -- it's prison legal education program. it could be a destination for the students after law school, and they can only hope, after successful appeals for commuted sentences. judy: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under told

stories projt at the university of st. thomas in minnesota. ♪ the prevalence of autism in the united states has increased dramatically over the last few decades. that has coincided with a new understanding of just how broad the autism spectrum is. that is explored in a new documentary airing tonight on pbs. geoff bennett recently sat down with the film makers. goeff -- geoff: autism spectrum is one of the most common developmental disabilities. in a new film airing tonight on pbs called in a different key, filmmakers caren zucker and john donvan tackle the history of autism. it includes a portrait of the first person ever diagnosed with autism in the u.s., a man named don triplett, who still lives in the small town in mississippi where he was raised. >> once you've been around him,

it's just difficult to not want to pull for him and root for him. and in a community like forest. one reaction that don evoked from the townspeople was that, yeah, don's got some odd behaviors and some eccentricities, but he's our guy. geoff: autism also has very deep and personal connections to both filmmakers and their families. caren zucker and john donvan join me now. thanks so much for coming in. it's great to see you both. john: thanks for having us. geoff: caren, the film tells the stories of many different people with autism, different backgrounds, different ages, some with profound autism, some leading independent lives. mr. triplett, who's now 89 years old that we see the evolution of , the ways in which autism has been viewed and how it's been treated. caren: donald triplety is case number one, and without him, we uldn't be calling it autism. and we were fortunate with some sleuthing to track him down back in, was it like 2007?

john: it's been a while. caren: once we knew where he lived and that was his home, we decided that we really should not just show up on his doorstep because he'd lived in , privacy, he didn't even know he had autism until we came into his life. john: yeah. so what we did was we reached out to people we knew who knew him and said, would you please introduce us? let him know that there are some reporters we'd like to talk to and we will go away if he says no. people were generally willing, but it came with a warning, -- a warning. caren: they said, we'll introduce you to him, but if you mess with him in any way, we will track you down and we will get you. that was the thing is that we knew at that moment, even before you arrived in forest, that this was a community that was embracing this man and protecting him for his whole life because he was already in his eighties. geoff: and john, you explore in the film how decades ago people with autism were put away in institutions. you say that they were a dumping grounds for the unwanted. that's how you described it in

the film. and what struck me was that that was what was expected. there was so much shame and really confusion tied to autism that children were being warehoused. john: and that started even earlier with pretty much any kind of disabilities. these places also, especially for people with mental health issues, intellectual disability, they were called schools, they were called hospitals, but they became dumping grounds. they became places that were understaffed and overpacked with people with very poor resources that nobody would want to live in. geoff: and there's a lot of shame and there was blame. the leading theory was that kids with autism were born to mothers who were cold and didn't know how to connect with their kids. is that right? caren: if my if my son had been diagnosed back then, it would have been my fault. and that's what psychiatrists told parents, and that's what everybody believed. and they couldn't have been more wrong. i mean, society blamed mothers, sent kids away. doctors told you, forget about that you ever had them and go on with your life. it was it was a very bad time. eugenics, that whole period was

a very bad time in our history. and we've come really far but now we have new issues that we didn't have them because people , with autism and people with difference are out there now and society needs to to learn and understand them. and to some extent, that was the the basis of creating a film like this. geoff: as i mentioned, this this film, this issue is personal for you both. you have a brother in law who is , has autism. and your son was diagnosed as a toddler, which you explore in the film. >> all the years i've known him, mickey has been teaching me more about autism than anyone. geoff: so, caren, you say in the film that if mickey is really going to make it out there, i need to know that everyone else is going to make room for him. what does making room for mickey look like? caren: we so believe and that's why john and i directed this film together, that if people understand and have insight into clearer understanding, really, of people who are different, and they see that it's not so hard to have the back of

somebody who's different that they will. i mean, i'm not 1,000% sure. i hope that, you know, with all my heart. but that's the best shot we have for people who are different to make it. john: i think another piece of that, and i know that's true for caren, it's true for the parent of anybody who has a child with a disability they right now are , the main caregivers for their child, but they know that they won't always be there. and in the case of autistic people who are who are navigating through society now and some of them are still struggling, what they need is for everybody else to accept them in the moments of interaction, and the rest of us have so much impact on whether or not somebody on the spectrum gets to belong in a workplace, in a classroom, on the bus, at a ballgame, in the movie theater, in a restaurant, by how we respond to their difference and if we can roll with it, that makes a huge difference. geoff: on that point of belonging in the film, you , introduce us to a mother named stephanie parks. her son has autism, and she talks about the ways in which people of color have a whole

different range of difficulties, especially her son as a young black man. she had a hard time just getting him diagnosed. >> we had a three year old that was still in diapers and was completely not potty trained, completely non-verbal. was lining up toys in absolute grids across our floor. i mean, we had every red flag possible and we still couldn't manage to get a diagnosis. we went to the pediatrician several times and we got the same type of response that most families get, especially black families, which is, our boys are a little slow, he is a little slower than other kinds, he will catch up. geoff: what kind of added issues do do people of color face? john: so what stephanie goes on to say is that the criteria that are used to diagnose an autistic child are have been based on the behavior and the language primarily of white male children. those are the standards. and so it doesn't apply necessarily to girls and it

doesn't necessarily apply to people of color. and so if you looked at the rate of diagnosis over the last 20 years, it seems as though there is less autism among children of color. but that's not the case. it's that the diagnosis of children of color is lower because, as she says, there's an inherent bias in the criteria itself. and the problem, the reason that's a problem is that it delays the time for a child of color to start getting help, especially in the early part of their lives. that's a critical period. the ages of what like 2 to 5. caren: early diagnosis is essential, and there's an inherent racial bias. and so these kids start out at a disadvantage, even if they're diagnosed with something. if it's not autism, you're taking them down the wrong path. geoff: you've been working on this documentary for years. as you produced it, what surprised you? caren: for me, it's in the last 20 years or so how broad the

spectrum has become. and that when my son was first diagnosed you didn't have , television shows of speaking savants and doctors and people who lived independent lives and which is great that we're seeing people with autism out there speaking and talking about their lives. but what we're not hearing at all anymore are people who have more profound autism, who can't speak for themselves. and the only people who can speak for them are their family members. and without their voices, they don't get heard at all. and that's almost half the population of the autism spectrum. and so part of our goal in this film was really showing everyone, again, the breadth of the spectrum and that there's so many different people and they come in all different shapes and sizes and colors. and you meet one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. geoff: the documentary is fantastic. john: thank you so much. geoff: the film in a different key airs tonight on pbs. judy: we are so grateful pbs is airing that tonight.

online, we look at how washington, d.c. is expected to be the largest city in the u.s. to offer free bus services after legislation was pushed forward this month. this amid an effort to bring free public transport to cities across the u.s. that's on pbs.org/newshour. and that'"the newshour" for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at "the pbs newshour," thank you, please stay safe and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for "the pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> architect. beekeeper. mentor. a raymond james 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 serity. at carnegie.org. the target foundation, committed to advancing racial equity and creating the change required to shift systems and accelerate equitable 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 from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

. hello, everyone. welce to "amanpour and company." iran hangs a third protester. where does the movement go from here and what next for the country? >> then. >> we've stood some real fights. >> not that i was trying to tear his bleedingeart out of his chest. >> turn every page. lizzie gotley on her film exploring the remarkable 50-year relationship between two literarily giants. her father robert gotley and robert caro. plus. >> her patients first. because at the end oe