i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz on the "newshour" tonight, inflation slows but rising prices force many americans to go deeper into credit card debt. geoff: the justice department appoints a special counsel to investige classified documents found at president biden's delaware home and his former office. amna: and, iranians protesting the government's oppressive regime refuse to back down despite the threat of arrest and executio >> for 40 years we had the fear inside us. now this is the islamic republic, scared of its own teenagers, scared of its own people. so that means this is the tipping point.

>> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. >> the kendeda fund, committed advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org. carnegie corporation of new york, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security, at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions.

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the “newshour”" americans received some some news today on inflation. the consumer price index rose 6.5% in december compared with a year ago. that is down from 7.1% in november and marks the sixth consecutive month ofalling inflation rates. geoff: but americans are still feeling the pinch from higher-than-usual prices. and many have been forced to pull out their credit cards, even while interest rates on those cards are soaring. for a closer look at what this means, we turn to michelle singletary, journalist and author of the syndicated washington post column “the color of money.” welcome to the "newshour."

more americans are leaving their credit cards to deal with rising prices and as interest rates continue to climb the debt is becoming more expensive. how big of a problem is this, michelle? chelle: well, it's a pretty big problem. the fed is obviously trying to fight inflation and that has resulted in an increase in credit card rates of up to now 20% on average across the nation. so that means that those folks who are carrying credit card debt or month to month are paying a significant more interest on that debt. geoff: in planning to speak with you, we asked our viewers for their questions about all this. here's one from philip from california. >> probay my biggest question would be on debt consolidation and stuff like that. what is the best way to go about it? what is the best way to consolidate that debt, because it feels like there's so much out there and there's just so

little information of what is trustworthy, what could work. geoff: all right. so what are some best practices when it comes to debt consolidation? michelle: so one thing that i recommend is that before you consolidate that debt, make sure that what impacted you having that is ne. so if you're going to still be adding to that, you're just gonna sweep all that debt on credit cards, and guess what, people that end up putting more on there. and you also want to make sure that when you consolidate, you're not going to, at the end of the day, pay more if they stretch it out and the interest rate might seem lower. you actually at the end might be paying more on that credit card debt. i would rather you contact your credit card lender and say, i'm having trouble. how can you help me? you know, lots of people don't make that call. and it's understandable. you thinking, well, i don't have the money. they're not going to help me. but one of the things that credit card lenders told me is at people don'call to get help, and they will help you. geoff: for folks whose incomes haven't kept pace with

inflation, what should they do? i suppose the easy answer is to stop using your credit cards, but for a lot of people they don't have that luxury. michelle: yeah, i know that people don't want to hear that and obviously they're struggling, but if you can and you've got a lot of debt on your card, you must put it away. that means going back to your budget, cutting everything you possibly can. it may mean changing your where you live your housing, you know, perhaps you can move in with someone or someone can move in with you, because that's the biggest impact of people's budget is their housing. but the one thing i want you to do is try not to go to payday lenders. don't try to add on to debt and an emergency type situation because oftentimes that ends up increasing how much you owe. for example with payday loans, you get one, then your next payday comes you got to pay that loan off and you are already in the hole. so again, contact your lenders. you might look into if your credit is still good you can see see if there is any 0% of offers

out there that you qualify for, transfer the debt to that and then take that time to pay it off. make sure that you can pay it off though, in that introductory period which can be anywhere from 15 months, or 12 months to 18 months in some cases if you've got really good credit. geoff: so lastly, michelle, inflation is slowing. is it enough now for the fed to pull back on these interest rate hikes? they've already said that they are going to still probably continue to do the rates. it is slowing but it's not where they want it to be. so i think the word for 2023 is still inflation is gonna be with us. that means cut as much as you can, look at your budget. and most importantly, if you can, don't charge up and carry that credit card debt because it's going to be so expensive in this next year or two. geoff: michelle singletary, thanks so much for your time and for your insights. we appreciate it. michelle: thank you for having me.

amna: another batch of classified documents from president biden's time as vice president were found inside his delaware home, the white house said today. this came after the disclosure earlier this week of documents found inside a washington office. today, attorney general merrick garland announced the appointment of a special counsel to determine whether anyone broke the law. >> the extraordinary circumstances here require the appointmt of a special counsel for this matter. this appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment both to independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law. amna: for his part, the president and his team believe the documents were simply misplaced and pledged to aid the investigation.

>> people know i take classified documents, classified materials seriously. i also said we're cooperating fully and completely with the justice department's review. the department of justice was immediately notified. and the lawyers arranged for the department of justice to take possession of the documents. amna: our white house correspondent laura barron-lopez is here to explain the new phase of this investigation. good to see you. let's take a step back and review the timeline and see how we got here. what exactly was found in mr. biden's position and when? laura: attorney general merrick garland gave us a whole timeline today. november 4, 2022, archives notified doj about documents found at penn biden center office. november 9, 2022, fbi began their assessment. november 14, ag merrick garland assigned the u.s. attorney general to investigate.

biden's lawyer notified of additional documents at his delaware home. january 5 of this year, he advised that there. should be appointment a special counsel. today, january 12, an additional document was found at president biden's delaware home and the notified the authorities. so that is essentially the full timeline that we have so far around all of these classified documents. geoff: attorney general merrick garland has appointed that special counsel to look into this. tell us about who that is and what happens now. laura: attorney general merrick garland appointed a former u.s. attorney from maryland and he was appointed bformer president trump in 2017. garland said today he has supervised a number of matters related to public security and other high-profile issues. one key thing is i spoke to a former doj official and that person as well as other experts have said this could very well

be a faster investigation. even though there are still elements we do not know. because of the fact it appears more straightforward given the timeline of how the biden team and lawyers return the documents. one of the things that will potentially happen which has not been announced yet is the damage assessment from the director of national intelligence. which is a common think that happens in cases where classified document are found where they are not supposed to be found. amna: so there is a special counsel looking into former president trump's handling of classified documents at mar-a-lago. what is the difference between this probe? laura: we have a number of differences here. with president biden it was so far a small number of less if i documents with former president trump they found around 300. for president biden it was found in his d.c. office and delaware home. trump, it was found in his mar-a-lago, florida state.

president biden, it was turned over immediately and voluntarily. this is a key difference. as we all know, for president trump it was seized by fbi authorities after it was withheld for more than a year. when you talk to illegal experts and former doj officials they say that criminal difference, the potential for criminal charges is different. former president trump right now is being investigated for potentially violating the espionage act for the removal and destruction of records. especially for the obstruction of justice. also today house republicans have been saying they are going to investigate president biden's handling of classified documents alongside this investigation. amna: laura barron-lopez following it all, thank you.

in the day's other headlines, u.s. air travel returned to close to normal, with 100 flights canceled and 1700 delayed. a day earlier, travelers were stranded in terminals nationwide after a government computer system broke down. the outage grounded all flights for a time. an investigation is ongoing, but so far officials are blaming a damaged database file. the mayor of selma, alabama reports significant damage from a large tornado that struck the city this afternoon. the storm blew down trees, whipped debris across roads, and damaged cars and homes. neighboring counties reported damage as well. there was no word of any deaths or injuries. the u.s. house of representatives voted today to bar the sale of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve to companies linked to china. more than 100 democrats joined republicans, saying the ban protects u.s. national security. opponents said only a tiny

percentage of u.s. oil sales to china come from the strategic reserve. the bill's prospects in the democratic-controlled senate are unclear. in ukraine, russia claimed again that its troops are making grinding gains in the battle for a small eastern town. the area around soledar is now one of the war's bloodiest battlegrounds. its fall could leave the city of bakhmut surrounded, but the ukrainians insist they're still holding out. >> fighting is fierce in soledar. the enemy has high losses trying to break through our defense lines. the area outside the city is covered with the bodies of putin's troops. nevertheless, the russians are moving over their own corpses. amna: if the russians do capture soledar, it would mark their most significant battlefield victory in months. back in this country, federal prosecutors began making their case against former proud boys leader enrique tarrio and four lieutenants the latest january 6 case.

the members of the far-right extremist group are on trial for seditious conspiracy. in opening statements, prosecutors said the defendants took aim at the heart of american democracy. defense lawyers insisted there was no organized conspiracy to interfere with the 2020 election results. nurses in new york city have reached a tentative deal that ends a three-day strike at two major hospitals. thousands of nurses walked out monday in the bronx and manhattan over staffing shortages and patient loads. the tentative contract promises better working conditions and raises totaling 19% over three years. and, on wall street, the december inflation report nudged stocks higher. the dow jones industrial average gained 217 points to close below 34,190. the nasdaq rose 69 points. the s&p 500 added 13. still to come on the "newshour," an infectious disease specialist fights vaccine misinformation in

the wake of her husband's death. why calls for reform have not reduced the number of people killed by police. the first native american composer to win the pulitzer prize discusses his experimental process. 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. geoff: a growing chorus of republican lawmakers is calling fonew york congressman george santos to resign, just days after the scandal-plagued freshman was sworn in to the house of representatives. santos is undeinvestigation by state and federal authorities after he admitted to lying about key parts of his resume and background. today, house speaker kevin mccarthy stood by santos, emphasizing that he's a duly elected member of congress.

>> he's got a long way to go to earn trust. but the one thing i do know is that you apply the constitution equal to all americans. the voters of his district have elected him. he is seated. he is part of the republican conference. there are concerns with him, so he will go befe ethics. if anything is found to have been wrong, he will be held accountablexactly as anybody else in this body would be. geoff: nassau county executive bruce blakeman joins us. he is a republican who shares constituents with santos, and has called for him to step down. i want to start with your reaction to what we have heard from the house speaker. that george santos was elected by the people of new york in his district. he is now a member of congress and any issues will be handled by the house ethics committee. bruce: i can understand how the speaker feels but in my opinion, due process has already been served. george santos, he basically confessed to everything that was

false in his resume. he has said he did not attend college after he told everybody that he got a degree from purdue. he did not work for the financial institution he said he did. he is not jewish. that is ridiculous and funny. one of the things that is most troubling to me is that he would say that his parents were survivors of the holocaust. that indicates to me that he has no understanding of the gravity of the holocaust and is trivializing it. we have a lot of jewish residents in nassau county, close to 300,000 many of them are survivors or family of survivors. these are families that were decimated, these were people who were gassed to death, starved to death. and for him to say that his parents went through this when in fact they were living in

brazil, i think is just tragic and he does not understand the gravity of the situation and the gravity of his lies. so he has built a campaign and a life around lies. as an elected official, i can no longer trust him. i am not going to do business with him or deal with him. because how can i have a conversation with him when i don't know if he is telling the truth or not? i have made the decision enough is enough and he should resign and i'm not going to deal with him so long as he is elected to office. geoff: in speaking with a couple of your republican colleagues on long island, what becomes clear is nobody really knew who jones -- who george santos was before a few years ago. he seemingly popped up out of nowhere, and none of his stories really seemed to connect. why was he not vetted by you and your colleagues, long island republicans, before election day? bruce: that is a good question. he was vetted, but certainly we

could have done a better job in the republican party. you have to understand, we have had this process for over 40 years and this is the first time this happened. what happens is usually you fill out a disclosure form where you answer where you went to work, what school you went to, where yowere raised, etc. you submit a resume and you attend an interview where questions are asked. obviously he was untruthful in all three steps. i think what is a more interesting question is where was the other party? they are supposed to do opposition research. they should have vetted george santos the same way that each party vets the other sides candidate. so i don't understand why they were not able to uncover all of these untruths. look, we both have egg on our faces. our chairman said he is going to

tighten the process, they are going to do more digging and make sure people are more properly vetted. and i am sure democrats will do the same. geoff: looking ahead, george santos has been defiant, he says he will not resign. here he is appearing on steve bannon's podcast today. >> i wish well all of their opinions that i was elected by 142,000 people. until those same people tell me they don't want me, we will find out in two years. geoff: if he does not resign, and it sounds like he will not, then what? there any way he can fulfill his responsibilities in congress? bruce: here is my message to george santos. i represent virtually everybody in his congressional district. his district is about half the size of nassau county. and i am not going to deal with him. we're going to serve the people of the third congressional district without dealing with george santos on federal matters. i am going to put a mechanism in place where we make sure that

their voices are heard in washington, d.c. how can i talk to him about sensitive issues? how can i talk to him about policy? how can i talk to him about constituent complaints? where it's completely certain on my part that he has no credibility with me or the community. he's deluding himself if he thinks he would win reelection based on all of the statements that were made. he even said that he would not seek reelection. well, why would he not seek reelection if he thinks everything is ok? he is just deluding himself, avoiding the inevitable, and doing a disservice to the people of the third congressional district. and he is staying on the house of representatives and he should go. geoff: bruce, thank you for your time. bruce: thanks, geoff. amna: the anti-regime protests

in iran have been quieter in major cities following an intense crackdown. protests do continue in northern kurdish provinces, and across iran families are mourning the deaths of their loved ones. students and activists inside iran are vowing to continue their resistance, and have shared details of brutal abuse and torture with special correspondent jane ferguson. to protect their safety, we have disguised their personal features. and just a note -- some images and accounts in this story are disturbing. jane: there are few words to express the pain of a child being killed. sometimes sounds come closer. across iran, families gather to mourn these days at an increasing pace, as the regime steps up its crackdown on protestors. two more young men were hanged at dawn on saturday. mohammad mehdi karami was 22

years old and a karate champion. sayed mohammad hosseini, a children's martial arts coach, was 39. they were hanged for killing members of the security forces. karami's father also attended hosseini's burial. their trials have been described by human rights observers as a sham, confessions forced by torture. their executions are designed to send a message to other protestors. as news of the hangings made its way to family and friends, they were devastated. >> the regime is carrying out a very violent crackdown with executions and lots of arrests. prisons are full of people. this morning we woke up to the terrible news thathey executed two more people. they're trying to stop us from protesting by threatening us with these executions and intense violence. jane: several dozen other protestors remain on death row, according to human rights groups. some 14,000 are believed to have been jailed in the last few months, and over 500 killed by

security forces. despite the recent uptick in killings, and perhaps because of it, iranian-american activists like masih alinejad believe the regime is seriously spooked this time. >> this is the tactic of the islamic republic. create fear within the society that can help islamic republic to survive. when i see that people are fearless, when i see that immediately when teenagers are getting killed, their parents leading the protest and saying i'm not scared of you. for 40 years we had the fear inside us. now this is the islamic republic, scared of its own teenagers, scared of its own people. so that means this is the tipping point. jane: the repression however, is, to some extent, rking. the rising risks of going to protests have caused their numbers to fall. >> my friends and i were out protesting at night and we were arrested. we were tortured, sexually abused, and beaten.

jane: this young woman says she is a tehran university student. the protests have been less frequent, she admits, as the youngsters are crushed under the weight of iran's repressive surveillance state. >> all of us who go to the protests are being watched by the cameras of the regime. they put cameras in all the street corners and neighborhoods. they come to our front doors, they beat or kidnap us in front of our houses. there are many spies in the cities, they are in every neighborhood, they spy on the houses and the youth especially. and there are some who act like protestors and they join us, but later they share the information with the regime. jane: the iranian regime's spies are even in the classrooms of the students, attempting to reach into the minds of the country's young, free-thinkers. >> they used to send some agents to the classes and suddenly they would start some arguments about whether khomeini was good or bad, and if a student would talk about him they would make a lot

of problems. so they have eyes and spies and agents everywhere. jane: even when demonstrators are injured by security forces, seeking treatment can be dangerous. >> when protestors went to the hospitals, the regime arrested them. one 16-year-old boy died because he was hiding in his home with seriouuntreated injuries when the security forces came to arrest him and take him away. jane: this young man says he is a medic who was living in his kurdish homelands in the northeast of iran when the protests erupted there. he got togher with colleagues and began treating wounded protestors in secret. kurdish ars, long resistant to tehran's rule and pushing for autonomy, have seen some of the most enduring protests, and with them, violent responses. >> i tried my best to help them. my friends and i did it together. if we asked for medication or bandages at the main medical centers, we would be arrested, so we had a team delivering them from other, calmer cities.

they were confiscating medicines at checkpoints, so we used mountain and village paths. some people were injured with hand guns, shotguns, and ak47's. some were shot by sniper bullets. one guy was shot in the chest in oshnavieh city by a sniper. i couldn't save him, he died instantly. jane: he says eventually, one of the patients he treated was detained, and gave up his name. >> when i was arrested, they had prepared a written statement. it said that i was the director of a terrorist group that kills people. and they forced me to sign the paper by torturing me for 21 days. they cut me with a knife, hit my back with something heavy, and spilled freezing water on me. they electrically shocked my genitals and burned my body with lighters. th they threatened my family members. they said they would arrest and kill my younger brother and rape my mother. jane: he now works to get medical equipment to those who need treatment. as the brutality increases, people like alinejad are pushing for more of a response from western governments, to isolate iran diplomatically.

>> what we need is concrete actions first. i mean, it's not too much to ask that when the regime is killing people, torturing people, 50 people are in the death row, then this is the time, this is the time that the leaders of democratic countries must get united and recall their ambassadors. jane: social media has played a huge role in organizing protestors and helping spread word of the demonstrations. in turn, the government has blocked internet access, censored activists from various sites, and prevented news and information about what is really going on from spreading. members of the regime themselves, however, enjoy full access. >> you cannot allow ibrahim raisi khamenei, the leaders of islamic republic, to have instagram account, twitter account, facebook account, verified account. while they are banning 80 million people to use the same social mia. i don't get that.

jane: the iranian regime's executions appear highly calculated, a cruelty doled out slowly as a warning to the resistance. it's an exercise in fear. and either side could still win. >> you know, as a young person who lived his entire life here, honestly i would say we have nothing to lose anymore. we have had enough. jane: for the "pbs newshour," i'm jane ferguson. amna: when buffalo bills' safety damar hamlin suffered cardiac arrest during an nfl game last week, a flood of misinformation took over on social media, with anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists falsely claiming the covid vaccine was to blame. the sudden death of sports

journalist grant wahl, who died of an aortic aneurysm while covering the world cup in qatar last mth, prompted a similar, and, again, false narrative. wahl's wife, dr. celine gounder, an infectious disease specialist, is pushing back on this kind of disinformation, and she joins me now. dr. gounder, welcome to the "newshour." thanks for being with us. and i just have to say how incredibly sorry we all are for your loss. it's only been a few weeks since you've lost your husband. my very first question is just how are you doing? dr. gounder: thanks, amna. i feel exhausted, i feel numb, which has a bit scared because i know this is gonna hit me even harder. but nights are pretty tough. it is sort of when i get a chance to think about it, and it's really hard. amna: these messages that came up after your husband's passing from total strangers, conspiracy theorists claiming the covid vaccine was to blame. how and when did you start to see them?

and what did you think in that moment? dr. gounder: well, i started to see rumors that my husband's death was related to covid vaccines, really, as soon as news broke of his death. there were all kinds of rumors, and that ended up emerging as the leading one. and it was also really important to me to find out what had actually happened, for myself and for my family, and also to put to rest some of these rumors, lies about my husband's death. and so we, i wked with the state department and others to get his remains repatriated as quickly as we could, and then to have an autopsy done as quickly as we could. and all of that happened in the span of just a few days. and then i put out a statement with the results of his autopsy. amna: why is it so important for you to do that so quickly, to be

as transparent as you were? dr. gounder: well, honestly, the results have given me some partial sense of closure or comfort, in that at least i have an explanation. i think when something like this happens, often families find themselves asking, why, is there something i could have done? and i continued to ask myself that question, but i also knew that the only way to put to rest these rumors was to get out accurate information, and that the longer that there wasn't an answer that we didn't know that those rumors would only get worse. amna: and did it work? did putting out the information help dr. goder: it did initially. it really did quiet down the disinformation about my husband's death. i thought we put it to rest. and then when damar hamlin has that in-game cardiac arrest, that really stirred things up all over again, with people asking, you know, why is it these young, healthy people are

dying suddenly, or almost dying suddenly? and the conspiracy theory that had emerged around that is this idea that covid vaccines are leading to death, and that's simply not true. we have plenty of data now from vaccination over the last several years, for the last few years, that covid vaccines do not result in an increased risk of non-covid-related deaths and of course, are preventing covid related deaths. amna: dr. gounder, you've been a prominent voice throughout this entire pandemic, offering your insights on the science and the facts behind what we know about the virus and the vaccine. you've talked about this vaccine disinformation playbook, as you call it. tell me abouthat. what do you mean? dr. gounder: well, there are certain strategies that you see, or tactics that are used over and over a over again, by these disinformation spreaders. the first is fake experts. so there was a propaganda -- anti-vaccine propaganda film that came out this fall that

made use of funeral directors and the like to put out disinformation. these are not people who are experts in any way about vaccines, about infectious diseases or immunology. so that's one characteristic. then you have are a logical fallacies which are essentially mental shortcuts that we use when we're bombarded with information. a great example of this is, if a happens before b, that does not necessarily mean a caused b. and now over 80% of the people in this country have gotten one dose of vaccine, that does not mean that you can attribute all of the deaths that now occur in this country to covid vaccines. then, you have impossible expectations. so an example of that are the people who said, i'm going to wait until the fda issues full approval for vaccines and then i'll know it's safe enough, and then after the full approval was issued, the goalposts moved and they said, no, i still don't think there's enough data.

and finally, you have cherry picking of data. so, looking for the data that supports your hypothesis, even though it may not actually be connected or make sense. and then conspiracy theories are really lies about, you know, one example of this would be microchips and vaccines. that simply is not true. there are no microchips in our vaccines to track people. but these are the characteristics or tactics that you see over and over and over again in this anti-vaxxer playbook. amna: from an everyday consumer perspective, what can be done to push back against that? dr. gounder: well, i think people like me, who are experts, need to be putting out good information. i think, if you yourself are concerned about why somebody in your family has died, i think an autopsy is a really important tool to help investigate that death. we've seen autopsy rates in the united states drop over the past few years.

now, fewer than 10% of people who die in the united states get an autopsy. and so, when people call for an investigation into a death, that's what it means to investigate a death. so i've been a bit confused by people who are calling for an investigation when that's exactly what we did with medical examiners and forensic scientists. and that's how you get an answer. dr. gounder: -- amna: you are out here doing the work, continuing to put facts where they are most needed in the hands of people, and you are still mourning your husband, was a legendary soccer journalist, had many fans here in our news, our family. i'd like to ju ask you what you want people to know about grant. dr. gounder: grant was kind, he was generous, he was curious. anybody from an elementary school student to a young soccer or sports journalist who reached out to him for advice, he was always happy to give them time to talk to them, to grab a coffee.

if he was asked for a contact, you know, somebody else was doing reporting, a story on some other athlete, you kno the grant knew, grant was happy to share his rolodex with people and was very generous. he didn't do that as competition. and i think one major legacy also is the way in which he advanced social justice and human rights through his reporting, whether that was women in sports, or lgbtq rights, or recently the rights of migrant workers in qatar. and i think, showing that sports is not just sports, but it's also at the intersection of culture and politics, was a big part of what grant did in his career. amna: dr. celine gounder, infectious disease specialist joining us tonight. thank you for your time.

geoff: los angeles police have released video of the arrest of keenan anderson, the cousin of a black lives matter co-founder. he was detained earlier this month and tased after he was involved in a car accident. as he was being arrested, he expressed fears that he would meet the same fate as george floyd, whose killing by police sparked nationwide protests. anderson died in police custody several hours later. the incident is still being investigated but it is a stark reminder of the hundreds of people who die at the hands of police each year. and the wide racial disparities that persist among those deaths. john yang has this report on one mother's experience, and where policing in america goes from here. john: 22-year-old amir locke was an aspiring musician. and to his mother, karen wells, a loving son. >> he had a really good sense of humor. his smile, it was infectious. he loved to give hugs.

so that makes me smile. john: it was 11 months a that a police officer shot and killed locke in a dowown minneapolis apartment. for wells, it's been 11 months of devastation. >>entally, in order for me to get through the day, i basically just tell myself amir is on vacation. john: each time wells returns to minnesota -- or learns about another death at the hands of twin cities police -- the pain of her son's killing comes rushing back. >> my heart don't beat the same anymore. it does not beat the same, it's broken, and it'll never -- the best surgeon in america can never repair my heart after what they did to my son. john: on the morning of february 2, minneapolis police executed a no-knock search warrant on an apartment in connection with a homicide investigation. locke wasn't named in the warrant, and didn't live at the apartmen when officers stormed through the door, he appeared to be asleep on a couch. locke stirred from under a

blanket. he was holding a handgun -- which family said he was licensed to carry. an officer fired three shots. the killing touched off days of protests in minneapolis -- still reeling from the death of george floyd less than two years earlier. adding to the public outrage, initial police accounts wrongly named locke as a suspect. in the weeks that followed, the city of minneapolis banned no-knock warrants. but prosecutors did not charge the officer who fired the fatal shots, concluding that he felt threatened. >> amir locke was holding it by the butt of the gun in a shooting position. although his finger was not on the trigger, that gun was pointed directly at officer hanneman. john: karen wells says her son was simply protecting himself. she no longer trusts police, and sees little progress on the reforms that were promised after floyd's killing.

>> the saying is, you have to crawl before you walk. they're not even at the stage of crawling right now when it comes to police reform. i believe that we'll get to the running stage when more police officers are held accountable for their mistakes, their lethal mistakes. john: according to a washington post database, in 2022, police in the united states shot and killed about 1100 people, the most since the paper began tracking fatal police shootings in 2015, after the killing of michael brown in ferguson, missouri. but the post found that, while the number of fatal police shootings is increasing, fewer are being reported to the federal government. >> there's a saying that you track what you care about. john: andrew batran is a data reporter for the post's investigative team. >> this just shows, as researchers have said, that the overall attempt to track police-involved shootinghas failed. there are too many loopholes for

police departments to not report their police involved shootings. if they don't want to, they're not going to. john: for karen wells, the focus remains justice for her son. >> we're going to keep saying amir locke. justice for amir locke. i won't be quiet until i get justice fomy son. i will never stop speaking up for him. never. john: it's been more than 2.5 years since the police murder of george floyd in minneapolis, which led to calls for sweeping police reform and more accountability. what's been accomplished in that time? thaddeus johnson is a criminology professor at georgia state university in atlanta and a former memphis police officer. thaddeus johnson, what has been accomplished in that time? thaddeus: i think we're trending in the right direction, but we've only created a baseline for the reforms necessary to create a police force that's trustworthy and effeive. i think at there's a lot of politicization.

there are some obstacles, but also there's a lack of data and evidence to really know where to pinpoint reform or to do it in a very efficient way. and so, the first thing we need is a database. we need more data on traffic stops, arrests, police use of force, both lethal and non-lethal. the federal government with president biden's executive order, he created a blueprint. but we still have a long way to go. we understand the limits of policing. we understand that it's not just the officers on the streets, that it's actually leadership, it's state laws, it's lawmakers. but we're kind of sorting these things out, and i think that's a natural progression. john: you say it has created a baseline. we just heard in the in the tape, the mother of amir locke talked very movingly about what she's gone through and how it's affected her attitude toward police and police officers, and how she's fighting for justice for her son.

what's your message to her and to so many other mothers and fathers like her who've lost children to police violence? thaddeus: well, i would let her know that she's not fighting alone, even though it may feel like it. even if we don't see state laws being passed or these big, obvious high magnitude changes that we may want to see, we have to understand that reform is a piecemeal approach. but you have many nonprofits. you have many prosecutors. ti taanha, loweok n, eeind tte of years, we've seen police officers held accountable criminally. that is something that we have never seen in my lifetime. d i tell everybody this, we may not see what we want to see

in our generation, but if we continue the path that we're going generations to come, our grandkids, they will reap the benefits of what's being done now. john: we also hear in the tape about the washington post report looking into the disparity, the numberf police shootings going up, but the number of police shootings reported to the federal government going down. why that discrepancy and how what does that the concerns about what that that creates and causes? thaddeus: well, it's very concerning. and that's the public's data. that's our data. and we should not the beg for on a personal note, but on a practice and policy note, it's hard to improve things when we don't even have baseline of knowledge. and with the limited data that we have, we're almost i don't want to say flying in the dark when it comes to creating interventions, but we don't have the data that we need to be comfortable oftentimes to make these determinations and these changes. john: you taught use of force when you were an officer in memphis. what does that training have to change in order for the policies to match the practices?

thaddeus: officers are taught to take control of the scene. 're teaching officers to be aggressive. we are teaching officers to assert their physical and legal authority on the scene, as opposed to dealing with our citizens like human beings in which they are, as if they are co-producers for solutions of crime, or people who are actually going through some type of struggle. we have to also train officers to de-escalate, not just verbally, but also put space between offirs and the people that they encounter, particularly when you can tell and look at the cues that things are escalating. and one reason that you see officers tend to be overly assertive when it comes to these aspects is the emphasis of arrests, traffic stops, and custodial stops in the evaluation process. i mean, it's difficult to be promoted, it's difficult to get a more prestigious assignment or get a better shift in a better neighborhood if you don't have high numbers in these areas.

t many of these things don't have public safety value. and what they do, they tend to unnecessarily put police and citizens in adversarial situations that could have otherwise been prevented. we also reward officers for these traditional, antiquated crime fighting metrics only. we also prevent the pipeline for more diverse leaders. whether it's younger leaders, whether it's women leaders, or whether it's nonwhite leaders, who research has shown has been attracted to this type of policing as opposed to the warrior-style policing that we've seen far too long. john: thaddeus johnson from georgia state university. thank you very much. thaddeus: thank you for having me. amna: last year, raven chacon became the first native american composer to win the pulitzer prize for music, bringing new attention to a composer known for his experimental sounds and

explorations of place and history. jeffrey brown has this story, the second of our pieces on contemporary native art, for our arts and culture series, canvas. the setting, a church in milwaukee at thanksgiving. a large organ and musicians positioned throughout the congregation. titled "voiceless mass," it was conceived as a liturgical mass, but with a difference -- instead of a choir, there's an absence, the native voices long silenced by the catholic church. the piece was awarded the pulitzer prize for music in 2022, cited for evoking the weight of history. for composer raven chacon, it's an example of the idea of hojon, from the navajo dine language. >> that idea of hojon means maybe things lining up with other things. maybe it's ourselves and our position here in the universe.

and us finding ourselves inside of all of this and realizing that we are in a timeline of other occurrences that happen. and for me, that's what music is. it is when you hear something line up with something else, and you want to hear that again. jeffrey: the 45-year-old chacon, a member of the navajo nation, spent his early years on the reservation in northeastern arizona, before moving with his family to albuquerque, new mexico, where he later picked up the guitar and other instruments, including electronic. he now lives in the hudson valley of new york with his wife, candice hopkins, executive director of forge project, a contemporary native-led arts organization. chacon is a collector, and creator, of sounds, constantly experimenting. expanding what music can be.

he writes for traditional inruments, but has them played in unusual ways or places. he also composes for very different kinds of instruments. here, fog horns, in a piece performed by ship's crews in bergen, norway. ananother titled "report," written for different kindof firearms. raven: they're all sounds. but they all have other meanings, of course. you wonder, what is on those ships? what are those ships bringing? where are those ships from? how long are ty going to stay? same with the guns. who's holding the guns? why are they firing? where are they firing these weapons? are they weapons or are they tools? that's the hope, is that somebody hears something inside of that. whether that is a story or an emotion. jeffrey: the connection to the

history of a specific place is often important to chacon, as seen here in a piece performed on alcatraz island, the former prison and site of a native occupation starting in 1969. sometimes he conveys meaning in very direct ways, as in a work titled "three songs," three women singing in their indigenous languages, each standing in the original homeland of her ancestors, from where they were displaced, hitting a snare drum, the symbol of the u.s. army. so music is sound, broadly defined, with meaning? raven: it can have meaning, it can tell a story, it can relay a lot of information. i think we go into musical situations wanting to be uplifted, no matter what that music is. but if something else can happen, i mean, if the piece can relay history, a history that's

not spoken enough, then that surely is a beautiful thing. and so, a composer should try to find all the tactics of being able to let that be expressed. jeffrey: so you're writing for a bird whistle? raven: yeah, for bird call. yep. this will be this line here, this little di di di di. jeffrey: chacon does this visually, as well. he uses traditional notation but also makes his own graphic scores. and these, likthe videos of his work, have found their way into museum exhibitions, including the presgious whitney biennial. chacon has also been concerned to bring the world of sound and music to a new generation not otherwise exposed to it. since 2004, he's mentored more than 300 native youth, helping them compose their own quartets. it's all part of a whole.

if i ask you, as i'm sure you've been asked before, do you see yourself as an indigenous composer? is that how you think of yourself? raven: i don't know what an indigenous composer is. there's actually not that many of us out there. so maybe someday, you know, there will be hundreds and maybe it becomes some kind of genre. but it's a label i'm not always -- i have to really think about it before using that label, because people have a lot of assumptions. at the same time, i want people to understand that, even though there's only a few of us, there are indigenous people working in this medium, in classical music, chamber music, sound. jeffrey: with the pulitzer prize, more people do now know. chacon says he next hopes to write a work for full orchestra. for the "pbs newshour," i'm jeffrey brown in new york' hudson valley. geoff: that is fascinating. he is expanding the idea of what

we consider music. you can find it among harmonizing cruise ships in the arbor, apparently. amna: great story. remember, there's a lot more online at pbs.org/newshour, including a story about how the significant changes to the new u.s. house rules will affect the chamber this session. geoff: and join us again here tomorrow night, where we will explore what's led to a dramatic drop in cancer deaths over the last 30 years. and that's the "newshour" f tonight. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire "newshour" team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no-contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv.

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