geoff: good evening, i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on the newshour tonight, the new congress convenes, issuing in a new government and setting off a republican battle over who should be house speaker. geoff: the nfl faces new concerns about player safety after a buffalo bills player suffers cardiac arrest in the middle of the game. amna: and climate change contributing to pakistan's floods. but should the government and wealthy elite share some of the blame? >> there is a fair amount of man-made responsibility for these floods. politics plays a big part. ♪

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♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the newshour. a heated battle for the speaker's gavel and house of representatives has wrapped for the day with no leader insight. a rebellion from far right lawmakers means the front runner for the position, kevin mccarthy, fell short in multiple rounds of votes today.

voting resumes tomorrow. geoff: today marked the start of a new congress with democrats retaining the u.s. senate and republicans taking control of the house. before they can get down to business in the house, they must agree on who will lead the chamber. lisa starts our coverage of the fight within the republican party. lisa: in a house chamber crowded with guests and emotion, the new republican majority began by running into its own long-standing divides. >> the next order of business is the election of the speaker of the house of representatives. >> kevin knows what we stand for, he knows when we should engage in the fight and he knows how to build consensus. lisa: former republican leader kevin mccarthy has aimed to be speaker for years and this morning projected command. >> we may have a battle on the floor but the battle is for the conference and the country.

lisa: but a group of his own members have adamantly opposed him. as the first round of votes came in -- >> mccarthy. mccarthy. lisa: the overwhelming majority of republicans voted for mccarthy, but 19 republicans refused and voted for someone else. it was a larger number than expected. >> no persons have received a majority of the votes cast by surname. a speaker has not been elected. lisa: and it was the first time since 1923 the house could not elect a speaker on the first ballot. by tradition and precedent, no other business can be done until the house picks a leader. leading to another round of votes. this time, mccarthy was nominated by jim jordan of ohio, who spoke of conservative

principles. >> the differences between joyce jordan pale in comparison to the differences between us and the left. lisa: nutes later those opposing mccarthy show their strategy, nominating jordan himself. after a third round of votes, mccarthy lost ground. one supporters switched to jordan. >> jordan. lisa: another turn in a wild republican standoff. mccarthy's allies insist he is the only viable option. >> this is not about prom king or a pastor, this is about electing a person to sit in the speaker chair so we can get to work. lisa: but his opponents see him as an opportunist they do not trust. >> if you want to drain the swamp, you cannot put the biggest alligator in charge of the exercise. >> you are the guy that wants to be speaker. tell us if you want to earn our vote, how we are going to transform this place so there is

a different outcome for the erican people. tell us how you will do that. >> yesterday we had a deal it was not a selfish deal in any way for kevin mccarthy to give him the gavel on the first ballot. and he eagerly dismissed us. lisa: it is an extraordinarily rare public party battle as the republican party gains power. >> representative elect from the state of new york. lisa: meanwhile, a new york congressman, a democrat, officially elected minority leader, becoming the first black lawmaker to lead a party in congress. on the senate side, democrats continue to hold the chamber but now with 51 members, an outright majority. >> we have a lot of challenges ahead but this majority is ready to meet them. lisa: while his house counterparts remain divided, senator mitch mcconnell set the all-time record for longest serving party leader in senate history after spending 16 years in charge. today he said his greatest honor

is representing kentucky. >> but the second greatest honor is the trust my fellow republican senators have placed in me to lead our diverse conference. lisa: history for republicans on both sides of the capitol, with longevity on one end and a chaotic start on the other. geoff: lisa joins us now from her post on capitol hill. the house has adjourned for the evening and will reconvene tomorrow afternoon. where does kevin mccarthy's bid for house speaker stand right now? lisa: right now it is not clear. we came into this morning believing this was kevin mccarthy's battle to lose. i would say his chances of the coming speaker have been diminished today. the house has adjourned and i think overnight we will see a good deal of negotiating from those who held out on voting for mr. mccarthy and his team. it is important to remember that now we see a question mark hover over the house republican conference.

is the issue of, do they change the rules or do they change the man they are nominating, or woman, for speaker? i thinthat question is more up for grabs than it was this morning. geoff: looking beyond the political tug-of-war, what does all of this turmoil mean for the country and what does it mean for the lower chambers ability to legislate and govern? lisa: this is the important question, people need to understand that while this is a lot of political tug-of-war, and the slow-moving, intense drama in the house, it does have incredible impact on how government can operate. the fact that house republicans taking over the house cannot figure out their leadership does not bode well for potential fiscal crises ahead, including the need to raise the debt ceiling and a couple of months, and also the appropriations lls coming down the pike. all of this could change, but right now you don't see a conference that can unify on basic things like who their leadership should be. i think another thing to point out here is the republican

agenda itself is still forming. for those conservatives looking for a republican message, this is the opposite, republicans do not have time to form their message, instead focused on a difficult leadership battle. geoff: the opposition to kevin mccarthy turned out to be much larger than many people expected heading into today's vote. help us understand why. lisa: they had a conference meeting this morning, you know that basement at the bottom of the capitol remembers me. the idea is that would be kevin mccarthy's moment to get everyone on board. he decided to show a strong, tough face. some members said they have not heard him yell like he yelled in the meing today, a sickly excoriating -- basically excoriating those who were opposed to him and saying that , those that were against him should lose committee assignments. those two things combined to

push those people away and increased the divide rather than brought people together. by the end of the day, tweets like this from scott perry, who is one of those who opposed mr. mccarthy, saying i stand firmly committed to changing the status quo no matter how many ballots it takes. two things about that, that side is digging in, they say they will go as many votes as it takes, but he seem to be opening the door to kevin mccarthy again, giving more to their side. kevin mccarthy also standing his ground. right now it is a game of chicken with neither side blinking. geoff: to the extent anyone knows, based on your reporting, what happens next? lisa: there are a few scenarios that can happen. i think this divide is so great it will be hard to solve by tomorrow morning. that is possible. those conservative holdouts want things like the ability to get onto top committees without reaching a certain fundraising goal. right now you have to bring in a

certain amount of donations to get some top positions and they want that to change. they also want votes on more conservative agenda items that will be tough for moderates. if mr. mccarthy is able to bend to those ideas haps we see something change. others in the party say those rules changes the holdouts want would make governing iossible foany speaker and that's where you get the tough divide. while there is hope for perhaps a breakthrough overnight, i think there is a chance we could be in for another day of question marks tomorrow. i think the conference is getting tired of this, they know this is a problem for them, a to resolve this, but i don't see their side budging for now. geoff: lisa, thank you. one supporter of kevin mccarthy's bid for speaker is congresswoman lisa mclean. she is the secretary of the house republican conference, first elected to congress in 2020, and she voted against certifying arizona and pennsylvania electors for president biden's victory an has denied the valid results of

the election that year. she joins us from capitol hill. what do you say to americans who have watched the drama unfold in the house chamber and have questions about whether the house republican conference is up to the task of governing when they apparently can't choose one of their own members as house speaker. >> here is what i say and i have a little bit of a different take on this. we have watched the past two years of dictatorial leadership by nancy pelosi where nothing is debated, nothing is discussed, it is just one party rule where the speaker of the house makes the decisions and whatever she says goes. now you see democracy working. debate is healy, debate is good. disagreement is not disloyalty. when we both debate, that gets us closer together.

it doesn't get us farther apart because what happens when you debate and you disagree, you begin to give and take into the conference becomes stronger. really that is what i see. i don't want a one party dictatorial leader. i want to be able to have debate and discussion. so i have a different take where i think this debate is actually good. geoff: i will tell you, though, speaking to some republican colleagues, people say kevin mccarthy is a prodigious fundraiser, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of districts, there are lots of republicans that owe him their careers. yet, there is a minority, apparently a powerful minority, that say they cannot trustevin mccarthy, that he is not steadfast in his positions. if he doesn't have the trust of the entire caucus, why does he deserve to be house speaker? >> i liken this to a primary. kevin mccarthy won by more than

85% of the conference. in essence, he won the primary. that's where we are at right now. he has 202 votes. 202 is a heck of a lot closer to 218 than 20 is. you're never going to get 100% agreement on anything unless you have a straight up dictator and i don't think the american people want a straight up dictator. again, i am hopeful and i embrace these discussions and debates. geoff: is there a house republican who can get to 218 votes tomorrow afternoon? >> i think that is kevin's agenda. i think what he will be doing is negotiating with the members that are not voting for him right now. he is trying to figure out what negotiation, what you need to get me to a yes, or get them to a yes.

i believe that will take place between tonight and tomorrow at noon. i have been in business 30 years. i've never had a deal where it was 100% me and zero you. that is no deal. in business and life, i get about 80% of what i want, you get 80% of what you want and we both wish we got a little more, but all in all, it is a good deal. i am hopeful that together we can negotiate to get to 218 so we can get back to what the american people actually really want us to do, and that is get this country back on track. fix the problems at the border, fix the problems with inflation, fix the supply chain. become energy independent again. we need to solve these kitchen table issues. that's what america is depending on us for and that's what i hope

we can begin to do tomorrow. geoff: taking your point that debate is healthy, in what ways does this turmoil embolden the dissident republicans, some have referred to them as rebel republicans, and make it harder for anyone who emerges as house speaker to rally not just the entire house but the republican conference around some of those legislative priorities you just outlined? >> again, i think you will see some very fierce debate. very different than what we have seen in the past two years where it has been nothing but a clampdown. we would get the bills 12 hours before we had to vote on them. we didn't even have time to read the bills. to me, i think with the 72 hour rule, the actual 72 hour rule, it will enable us to have debate, which i don't think we are worse off for debating issues, i really don't. geoff: what more could leader mccarthy give these holdouts to get them to yes?

he has given them a lot and so far it hasn't moved the needle. anything between now and tomorrow afternoon when the house reconvenes that would make a difference? >> that i don't know and you would have to ask some of the holdouts for that. i really don't know what the specifics are. one possibly is to vacate the chair. i've heard rumblings they want it to be one. i've heard it's more of deficit spending -- excuse me, we want to get spending under control. but rely at the end of the day i think you need to ask the holdouts what specifically do you need to get to a yes? geoff: congresswoman, thank you for your time and insight. ♪ amna: in the days other

headlines, the founder of the ftx cryptocurrency exchange, sam bankman-fried, pleaded not guilty to cheating investors and looting deposits. he arrived at federal court in new york for his arraignment after being extradited from the bahamas. he remains free on bond pending ial next october. political fallout spread today from ukrainian missile strike on saturday that killed scores of russians troops. in moscow, russian nationalists blamed commanders. for housing soldiers next to an ammunition dump. meanwhile, crews sifted through the rubble of the attack, in an occupied region of eastern ukraine. ukrainians who have lost power and russian attacks are getting relief from the cold as a new year's heatwave engulfs europe, but the winter warm warm-up is also stoking worries about climate change with temperatures topping 65 degrees from switzerland to poland. reporter: winter appears to be disappearing on the lower slopes

of the swiss alps. hillsides blanketed in the green of grass rather than the white of snow. and when the white stuff stops falling, it is time to make your own. these skiers speeding on snow made by machines. which are topping up all of the slopes and keeping the season going. but in parts of france, the snow beg a no-show meant some resorts being forced to close. as remarkable warm january weather is breaking records across europe, from berlin to bucharest, where people were plunging into outdoor pools rather than trudging through feet of snow. one of the most striking temperatures for january was in warsaw, five degrees higher than the previous record. >> the record goes up by five degrees, that is an awful lot, and climate change is making these occurrences happen more

often. reporter: for france, a year marked by heat waves ended with springlike temperatures in midwter, and scientists warned this warming is likely to become more common. amna: at the vatican today, another 70,000 mourners paid respect to pope emeritus benedict. the hungarian minister among the steady stream of people filing through st. peter's basilica. this was the second of three days of benedict lying in state he passed away saturday at the age of 95. brazilian soccer legend pele has been laid to rest in his hometown of ntos. a procession carried his casket through city streets to a cemetery for a private burial. pele was 82 when he died of colon cancer last week. china is warning it will retaliate against nations that require covid tests for

travelers from china. the u.s., india, and several european governments are among those imposing test requirements. in beijing today, the foreign ministry rejected the new restrictions. >> the entry restrictions adopted by some countries targeting china lacked scientific basis and some excessive practices are even more inaccessible. we reject attempts to manipulate covid-19 measures for political purposes and will retaliate based on riprocity. amna: covid infections in china have been spreading rapidly with new video showing hospitals in shanghai overwhelmed with patients needing care. the countries anti-covid measures abruptly ended in december. in this country, the number of young children accidentally eating marijuana laced treats have risen. a study founds more than 7000 confirmed cases between 2017 and 2021. on an annual basis, cases rose

from 200 to more than 3000 a year. they involve children under six eating candies, cookies and chocolates containing marijuana. on wall street, the new year began as the old year had ended, with stocks losing more ground. the dow jones industrial average give up 11 points to close at 33,136. the nasdaq fell 79 points. the s&p 500 slipped 15. still to come on the newshour, examining footballs health risks after a buffalo bills player suffers cardiac arrest the field. israel's new far right security minister sparks controversy with a visit to a holy site in jerusalem. and mismanagement complicates pakistan's long recovery from deadly floods. >> 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.

geoff: a buffalo bill safety remains in critical condition tonight following his shocking collapse and last night monday night football game. his family thanked the medical team that responded and is continuing to care for him. it was a momennned viewers around the world. stut h william: monday night football, the bengals versus the bills in a seemingly routine play, suddenly turned terrifying. just nine minutes in, 24-year-old safety got up, took two steps and collapsed. hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest, his heart stopped beating. for at least 10 agonizing minutes, players, thousands of fans in the stadium and millions on tv watched as a medical team tried to restart his heart. [applause] once his heartbeat was restored, an ambulance took him off the

field. the nfl suspended the rest of the game. it is the first time that has ever happened for an injury, and there are no plans to resume the game yet. to understand how this could have happened from a routine hit, i spoke with a cardiologist from northwestern medicine, the former president of the american heart association. given all the caveats, that we don't know what happened here and you are not this young man's doctor, what is your understanding of what happened? >> i can't be too specific, because as you point out, there are unknowns. there clearly was some chest trauma, and there was a cardiac arrest. putting this together,t is unclear what may have occurred. the leading possibility is a condition called -- which is a blunt trauma to the chest. it is kind of the perfect storm, the force of the injury,

location injury, and precise timing. we don't have all the details. and someone who is perfectly healthy and has a normal heart, this could be a cause. this is a very uncommon condition. but not only in professional sports but you think of the millions of children and high schoolers and college athletes, there are millions of them. this does occur roughly 30 to 40 times per year in the united states. william: the doctor said the immediate medical attention provided on the field no doubt saved hamlin's life. he also rejected the rumors being spread that a covid vaccine and the very rare side effect of myocarditis could be implicated here. >> first of all, the incidence of myocarditis after a covid vaccination is real that it is

very low. very, very low. unlikely thathe individual who has myocarditis would feel healthy enough to be participating at that level of sports activity. that is truly a one in 10 million kind of possibility. william: as fans and teammates across the country send support, many are pointing to hamlin's work off the field volunteering and raising money for charities. two years ago, he posted this video as he went out to his hometown of pittsburgh, pennsylvania to bring toys tickets for the holidays. >> this is something we haven't always had in pittsburgh and i am thankful i can be in this position. william: his gofundme for the toy drive was at $2500 after two years of fundraising, but now a

search of over 150,000 donations have pushed the total over $4 million. hamlin's family released a statement expressing gratitude, saying we are deeply moved by the prayers, kind words and donations from fans across the country. today in ohio, where the game was played, governor mike dewine held a moment of silence. overnight, supporters gathered outside the hospital where hamlin is being treated, lighting candles and praying for his recovery. last night was unlike any other nfl game before and it has prompted another round of difficult questions for the league. jerry brewer is a sports writer and columnist for the washington post who raises many of these questions in his latest column, and he joins me now. great to have you back on the newshour. could you take me back to last night. you wrote that this was one of the most chilling nights in televised sports history. what was it like watching it? >> i was just stunned.

there are very few things after more than 20 years of covering sports, that you watch and say i have never seen anything like this before. and for a player's heart to stop on monday night football, it was truly unprecedented for me. it was horrifying and you are wondering are they going to be able to resuscitate him on the field or are we going to see a player lose his life on live television? william: i mean, this has nothing to do, as far as we know, with the other sort of major nfl health scandal of the cte concussion iue. but as you wrote, it does remind us of what you called to the unremitting brutality of this game. management doesn't like to talk about that, but you seem to believe that fans think this is part and parcel of what they love about this game. can you explain that?

>> i think if you love football, you love the physicality of it. i think there's a lot of debate among football fans as to how much contact is enough. if you start to limit contact, do you restrict things. the first reaction from the "hard-core" football fan is you are making the game soft, and you've heard that back to the roots of football when it was way more untamed than it is now. but every time a situation like this arises, you have this debate as to just fundamentally what football should be. and absolutely people were having that debate in the moment and there was a lot more of a guilty conscnce related to it than normal. william: do you think this event changes anything in the nfl, within management of this game?

>> well, it depends what happens, ultimately. what damar hamlin -- you hope the prayers are answered and he goes on and gets to live the rest of his life even if he may never play football again. i think that will change things a lot. i think ultimately football is football and there are billions of dollars attached to playing in a certain way, and even for those who love the game, you have to acknowledge the fact that there is this human disposabity attached to the game. and for decades, more than decades, we have accepted that. to unwind that unfortunately would take a lot more than one incident on monday night football. william: do you think this changes anything within players themselves?

does this change a player's calculus or does the love of the game and the fame and success that comes with that override those concerns? >> i think one misconception we often have about football is it is a bunch of mega-millionaires. at the highest level, yes, but it is a small percentage. most football players are guys who may be make a couple million dollars over the course of four years and then they are done, but they feel the pain of playing their entire lives, and playing in the nfl four years, and then they have to go out. they haven't made enough money to retire. that's what the rank-and-file nfl is. there is still so much of a macho attitude to the game. it's like the glorification of gladiators, that you play through pain, you inflict pain. that is fundamental to the game.

that's always the fear of the game, that at some point something happens that is so brutal that people cannot justify watching anymore. we are far away from that i think if i am the nfl, i will do anything i can to guard against that. do it for your business if you can't do it for the sake of humanity. william: jerry brewer of the washington post, always good to see you, thank you. >> thank you. ♪ amna: two days after taking office, israel's new national security minister made a rare visit to a compound in jerusalem. the site is revered by both muslims and jews, who call at the temple mount, and has at decades been in the center of tensions between israelis and palestinians. nick schifrin has more on the visit and why it is so controversial.

security nick: surrounded by security, an israeli cabinet member walks on one of the holiest sites on earth. the national security minister spent 15 minutes on the compound, which israelis call the temple mount, ancient temples once stood here. >> the government which i am a member of, there won't be racist discrimination and jews will visit the temple mount. nick: for decades under what is known as the status quo, non-muslims can visit but are not supposed to pray. muslims consider the site the third holiest in islam. called arab governments that have normalized relations with israel pissued condemnations. jordan, that administers the site, called the a break-in. united arab emirates accused him of storming the compound.

gaza warned of violence. >> this provocative behavior by the right-wing government will open the door wide for waves of escalation. nick: the palestinian authority accused the israeli government of trying to change the status quo. >> we call on all of our people to confront those raids that aim to turn the shrine into a jewish temple. nick: a state department spokesman also urged israel not to change long-standing policy. >> we oppose any unilateral actions that undercut the historic status quo. they are unacceptable. nick: today, the israeli prime minister said in a statement he is committed to maintaining status quo without changes on the temple mount. in an mpr interview last month, you netanyahu vowed they would play by his terms. they are joining me, i am not joining them. i will have two hands firmly on the steering wheel. nick: this minister has called

for some arabs to be expelled from israel and was convicted of being part of a terrorist organization. he's also call for occupation of the west bank. palestinians today buried a teenager they said was killed by israeli soldiers. last year was the deadliest year for the west bank since 2004. netanyahu's statement pointed out that other cabinet members have is it to the cpound but this was the first high-level visit in years and previous official visits have set off violence. to discuss, i am joined by a professor for peace and development at university of maryland in a longtime watcher of the israel/palestinian conflict. welcome back to the newshour. so far, this visit has not sparked violence. why? >> first of all, violence doesn't always start immediately. if you go back to the one incident that has seemed to spark the second palestinian --

in 2000, it didn't immediately have violence as a consequence. it slowly expanded. first of all, it is too early to know whether there will be violence. second, there has been violence -- we are just not paying attention to it. as you reported, there have been a lot of incidents. it's been one of the most violent years in recent memory in the occupied west bk. here is the thing, what is peculiar is the first question we ask, is this likely to spark violence? not whether it is wrong. not whether it violates international norms and whether it will have consequences that are not necessarily violent ross the region. that is i think wrong, because obviously the violence we've been witnessing the past few months has not been tied directly to the mosque, it has

be years of military rule over palestinians with no end in sit, and for that reason i think we should be mindful of criticizing violations of human rights, violations of international norms regardless. that's the only way to minimize the chance for violence. . nick: you mentioned the impact on the the region. the uae has been relatively silent when it comes to criticizing israel until today. could a visit like this derail efforts at normalization that prime minister netanyahu and frankly president biden say are a priority? >> the uae in particular has made a strategic decision to make peace with israel, that is obvious. they invited the minister himself to a reception and an ambassador greeted him warmly. but even they are feeling the heat of public

opinion in the region. we've had the discussion of the world cup in qatar and how our population express such solidarity with palestine, including those that have made peace with israel. but yes i think they will pay more attention. nick: let's talk about the u.s. response. last week we had a guest who said t biden administration would try to establish the principles to hold netanyahu to. talked about no change in the status quo, no annexation of the west bank, no mass legalization of settlement outposts. do you think the biden administration will do that and as can it be successful? >> let's put it this way, the biden administration has done many things right in foreign policy and i applaud them for it, including on ukraine. but this is not been one of the

issues where they have acted properly. the president has been very reluctant to criticize any israeli policies, including ones he knows are violations of international norms. in part up until now, in order to keep netanyahu out and he thought he would be keeping a centrist israeli government in power. look awhat he ended with. now you has net yahoo! nash prime minister netanyahu he's trying to keep out and he is relying on people far more extremist than he is and how are you going to do that making statements privately if there are no costs to be paid? you really blame the far right extremists to assume there will be no consequences for their actions? i just don't see it. nick: netaahu was on npr last month and said he had full

control, that his hands were on the steering wheel. does he? >> perhaps. obviously one doesn't know where he is ideologically, is he with the extremist far right? we know he wanted to claim all of the west bank anyway, and had ambition to annex the west bank in his last -- nick: but he hasn't taken those steps. >> i don't really know where his ideology is. i know what he has been saying. what he said recently after he has taken office is he believes there should be jewish exclusivity in the territories between the jordan river and mediterranean. nick: when it comes to the compound were talking about, temple mount, he says no change in the status quo. can he deliver that promise? >> i honestly don't know. i fear not just -- we are talking about obviously what could happen in terms of violence, but you brought up the king of jordan, who obviously is

very impacted because he's technically the custodian of the muslim holy places. this is a provocative move toward him and could very much influence the relationship. nick: he warned that the status quo can't change could have to leave it there. thank you very much. >> my pleasure. ♪ geoff: four months after a third of the country was underwater, pakistan is still struggling to recover. the disaster affected more than 30 million people and is seen as a warning for other climate vulnerable countries. as our reporter reports, recovery in the short and long-term present complex challenges. this report is in collaboration with the pulitzer center. reporter: karachi has been a magnet for migrants from

conflict and climate disasters. decades ago, it ran out of room. dotting the city are ramshackle welling's the 2010 floods. less than a mile away, under high-voltage power lines, a 2022 wave of settlers. >> when the water came, it came all of a sudden at night. we just managed to get out with whatever we could and had to abandon our animals. >> this man and his wifeere sharecropper farmers. they escaped with their children in real to savone cow. they journeyed here on foot, it took one week. >> everything underwater, no facilities, no help, no food. reporter: today they rely on a patchwork of charities, everyone overwhelmed by what you and officials described as one of the worst climate disasters on record, slamming a country that

contributes less than 1% of the world's greenhouse gases. >> every available resource toward the relief effort. reporter: pakistan took the lead at this years climate conference, helping secure agreement on a loss and damage fund to help developing nations cope. just how those funds, if they appear, will be used, is a concern. >> there is a fair amount of man-made responsibility for these floods. politic plays a big part. reporter: kaiser ben gulley was a government advisor during the 10 floods, pakistan's worst since 2022. >> it is important to see how this fund will be implemented, and the sociopolitical structures and planting structures that need to be changed, made more effective.

reporter: the 1800 mile long river, the lifeblood of pakistan's agriculture sector, has been extensively engineered with dams and canals. beginning during british colonial times and ramping up in the 1960's with loans and advisors from international lending agencies. has it been in terms of food production, a recently good investment? >> certainly. lands where a blade of grass grew now produce two crops a year. it's just that one has to manage this better. >> the structure is not good. so many loopholes in the government sector. our departments have been very badly deprived of new tools and technologies, new resources. reporter: this man has been 33 years in government service, the top civil engineer at a federal agency that back in 1977 was

given the task but not the resources, he says, to design a comprehensive flood management plan. >> from that point to today, about 1/5 funding was made available. reporter: you did not have money for an limitation? >> no money at all. reporter: efforts have fallen short in funding and in engineering, he says. we walked past a structure that was no match for the 2022 floods. is this a symbol of a larger problem? >> yes. number one, probably the structure has been under designed. number two, the workmanship is not good. reporter: big-ticket infrastructure projects also account for much of the crushing debt burden of a country already drowning in deficits. >> for every $100 of exports,

our imports are $220. we need to cut down on expenditures and imports. reporter: but he does not see that happening in a country where he says a powerful insular elite is deeply invested in the status quo. symbols abound of their lifestyle, he says. >> you go to the supermarket and it is difficult to find pakistani made stuff. imported cat food, dog food. two thirds of the country in the -- children in the country sever from malnutrition but we have to feed our pets imported stuff. reporter: across wide swaths of agricultural land, he adds landless sharecroppers bear the brunt, and attempts to create villages on higher round have been resisted by landowners. >> large feudals. large landholders. these people live on their lands, small villages, isolated,

or captive labor. if they were to move away to government villages, they would lose control over these people. reporter: for their part, this family has no plans to return to their former life as sharecroppers. >> we don't have any land and we don't have anything to go back to. >> and you know what landlords are like, they will first feed themselves before they think of feeding us poor people. reporter: they will squeeze in with millions of others, looking for odd daily wage work in cies increasingly unable to absorb them. greg steube city's infrastructure -- >> the city's infrastructure has pretty much collapsed. people need to survive. reporter: a karachi based researcher and writer who specializes in democracy,

violence and social change, says absent urgent action cup the up evil -- action, the up heaval will spread. >> you have people who left syria and politics change. the rhetoric was driven on fear of incoming migrants. refugees that moved out of one country. then it stopped. what happens when the whole of the global sth moves because it has nowhere to live? reporter: she and others hope the government pledge at theop 27 conference will mark a tuing point that the old -- that holds resilience in what has become a never-ending task of rebuilding from one climate disaster to the next. geoff: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under told stories project at the university of st. thomas in minnesota. ♪

amna: artificial intelligence, robotics, gene sequencing -- the stuff of headlines, science fiction and sometimes our worst fears. it is all on view at the new i.t. museum, a place where the latest scientific advancements fill galleries but only work with your input. our special correspondent from boston takes a look at this artistic frontier for our arts and culture series, canvas. reporter: on the third floor of the new m.i.t. museum, there is a robotics lab, and not for show. phd students staff it, compiling researchers from visitors like me willing to sit down for an experiment, collecting data about how the robot works with me. >> the idea is the human will teach the robot to do a motion. reporter: a simple task, guiding the robot to move a block from

one side of the table to the other. then i am asked to disrupt it. >> now you can push it a little bit gently. reporter: the goal is to teach robots to operate alongside humans in settings like a factory, places where they are typically cordoned off. >> we want to show robots are safe. reporter: there are people that fear that robots might take over manufacturing, or the world. >> we don't want robots to replace human jobs. that's why building a trust for humans to trust robots to be a reliable partner is so important. reporter: this is one of the myriad exhibits that make this a museum of the now, says the director. >> we are here to turn m.i.t. inside out. we want people to understand what contemporary research and innovation are all about and what they mean for everyday four life. reporter: the m.i.t. museum recently reopened in a new building on the schools cambridge, massachusetts campus. directly across from google, it is to liberally centered at the

-- it is deliberately centered at the heart of one of the wor's chief innovation hubs. so you will find m.i.t. benchmarks here, but much of the focus is on the science advancing our world. >> a great deal of the research done today is done with public expenditure, taxpayer dollars. the public deserves to know what is being done with their money. reporter: and it is all within reach here. the star-shaped pedal that will allow nasa to detect exoplanets. part of the sequence to detect the human genome. the detector that measured what einstein could only predict in the theory of relativity. all triumphs of scientific ingenuity. but then there are the pursuits that raise ethical eyebrows. >> when might it be appropriate to permanently change the genetic structure of living things in the wild to try and alleviate diseases? things like lyme disease. reporter: to answer those

questions, the museum has invited artists to interrogate innovation with artwork and installations. like this artist, imagining the future pig, bred to be the size of a cow, to have colorful coats, or for an altogether different use. >> altering the genetic structure of pigs, so in principle organs could be used for transplantation into humans, is that ok, is it safe, is it ethical? >> if people walk out of here with more questions than they came in with, that is a good thing. reporter: especially as it relates to artificial intelligence, says the museum's experience developer. we sat down in front of the speech presint nixon developed -- delivered in 1969 when the moon landing ended in tragedy. >> fate has ordained that they

will stay on the moon to rest in peace. reporter: that never happened. >> right. president nixon had two speeches written for him, one if it succeeded and one if it fails. he never gave the failed speech, until a couple of artists we worked with, with support from m.i.t., basically made it nixon give that speech. reporter: i got right up on that screenhinking i could detect something, figure out maybe where the audio cuts are and i could see the digital manipulation, and i could not see a thing. >> yeah, it is really well done. what i think is interesting about this is it invites the question that i think we all have been considering lately of can technology affect what is real, who gets to decide what is real? reporter: it's also here where art and ai coalesce or collide, depending on where you come

down. visitors are invited to sit down and co-author a poem with artificial intelligence software, just like others have done in a river of poems that runs overhead. it prompt you to choose a mood. we went with inspiring, and the title. mine was pointed -- the purity of artists. the machine sends of the first line and that it is a volley of verbiage. >> we went from a fire metaphor to a waiting metaphor. reporter: it likes its metaphors. [laughter] >> do you feel you are being supported in the artistic process? reporter: i do, there is an intellectual rigor to this, i feel like i'm trying to keep up with the ai. >> we start out thinking with what does it mean for machines to be creative and be and -- we end up learning what it means for us to be creative. reporter: a few lines later, our poem floats off overhead. and the museum filled with technology that has changed the nature of humanity, the nature

of art and artists suddenly blurs line by line. for the pbs newshour, i am jared bowen in cambridge, massachusetts. geoff: that is the newshour for tonight. join us tomorrow night when i will sit down with the man who was the u.s. capitol police chief during the january 6 insurrection. amna: on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. >> 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

security. 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 pb station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] ♪ >> you're

(upbeat music) - [danielle chang] with chinatowns under attack and mom and pop shops on the verge of extinction, we devote this episode to heartwarming stories of grassroots food communities that have come together to advocate for change while preserving the culinary heritage of manhattan chinatown. grace young takes us on a tour of the old school cantonese coffee shops she is trying to save. just down the block, mei lum carries on her family's heritage business while alluring a new audience through art. we meet chef's like helen nguyen and winston chiu who are feeding local residents in need. together, these culinary leaders are rethinking food systems and leading a new generation who are preserving, but also injecting life into the evolving chinatown. (uplifting music)