♪ >> good evening and lcome. >> on "the newshour" tonight, investigations are underway after ukraine's interior minister is killed on the helicopter crash near kyiv. >> microsoft lays off 10,000 employees in a potential harbinger of a global economic slowdown. >> in the aftermath of devastating lots, pakistanis are finding new ways to build more climate resilient homes. >> about 5 million pakistanis remain without shelter, and the goal is to not just build homes for people but to train local residents to do it themselves. ♪

>> major funding for "the pbs newshour" has been provided by -- ♪ moving our economy for one hundred 60 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymondjames financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. >> the walton family foundation -- working for solutions to

protect water during climate change so people and nature can thrive together. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just and peaceful world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. this program is made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> good evening and welcome to "the newshour." tonight, a first in nearly 11 months of war in ukraine, the death of a ukrainian cabinet member. the interior minister was killed when his helicopter went down in a suburb of kyiv. >> in all, at least 14 people died in that crash, including

one child who was killed on the ground. >> even in a nation far too familiar with war, authorities -- what authorities called a terrible tragedy. the aftermath of a helicopter crash early this morning near a kindergarten filled with children. an examiner arriving at the scene realizing he had just lost his wi and their daughter, who had been inside the building. katarina's daughter is only alive because she happened to have kept her home. >> i thought a rock had hit our house. i quickly started to dress the children. we came out and looked at what happened. bodies with torn off clothes. >> the crash left burning wreckage, damaged apartment buildings, and helicopter debris in kyiv's suburbs that helped -- helped resist russia's attempts last year to seize the capitol.

among the dead, the overseer of police and emergency services. ukrainian officials say they are investigating the cause of the crash. >> it is early to give the reasons. i can say there will be a large investigation to determine all the circumstances. >> today at the world economic forum, ukrainian president bilotta musa linsky -- volodymyr zelenskyy asked for a moment of silence and blame pressure. >> this was not an accident because it was due to war. there are no accidents in wartime. >> in russia, sergei lavrov took a hard line and suggested the war had no end in sight. >> there must be no war infrastructure in ukraine that poses a threat to our country. there can be no talks with

zelenskyy. >> that leaves ukrainians fearful there will be more nights of candle lighting and more lives cut short. with "pbs newshour," i'm nick schifrin. >> in the day's other headlines, there are fresh son's inflation is easing. the growth in u.s. home prices slowed again in december. new data showed producer prices were up six point 2% from a year earlier, but the rate of increase has now fallen for six months in a row after peaking back in march. at the same time, retail sales fell 1.1% in december as higher prices prompted americans to cut spending. the inflation news was not enough to rally wall street. instead, stocks sank after a federal reserve board member said there's still not enough reason to stop raising interest rates.

the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 614 points or 1.8% to close under 32,297. the nasdaq fell 238 points or 1.2%. the s&p dropped one point 5%. u.s. law enforcement officials have made another major bust in a crackdown on crypto currency exchanges. they arrested the russian national who cofounded an exchange based in china. officials say the exchange was a notorious haven for illicit transactions and money laundering. justice department officials made clear today they are serious about going after crooked crypto outlets. >> moving your servers out of the continental u.s. will not shield you. if you abuse our tropical system -- if you abuse our system from a tropical island, you can ensure you will face justice.

>> just last month, sam bankman-fried was arrested once the bahamas on charges of defrauding investors in his cryptocurrency exchange ftx. in california, some major roadways remain shut today and damage assessments were sent after weeks of storms. flooded streets across the state left cars stranded this week. officials also are estimating that several thousand homes were seriously damaged. in israel, prime minister benjamin netanyahu's right-wing coalition suffered a setback when the nation's supreme court ruled he must fire a key ally. the court barred him from serving in the cabinet because he was convicted last year of tax fraud. the opposition leader insisted that he comply. >> if he is not fired, the

israeli government is breaking the law and can no longer demand the citizens obey the law. israel will be plunged into an unprecedented constitutional crisis. >> a high court's decision comes as the new government is trying to lessen the power of israeli courts. the head of the united nations sounded a grim warning today that the world is in "a sorry state." secretary-general antonio guterres addressed the world economic forum in davos, switzerland. >> we cannot confront problems unless we look them squarely in the eye. as we are looking into the aiava category five hurricane. our world is plagued by a perfect storm on a number of fronts. >> back in this country, the federal government says it is launching a targeted

investigation of nursing homes over the abuse of antipsychotic drugs in patients, pointing to evidence that some facilities administer the drugs as a way to sedate patients despite the dangerous side effects. officials say they are also looking into the misdiagnosis of schizophrenia. a government report last fall down the number of nursing home patients labeled us schizophrenic without an official diagnosis skyrocketed between 2015 and 2019, though less than 1% of the population is believed to have the disorder. still to come, several recent incidents raise concerns over children's access to guns. mayors from across the country gathered in d.c. to talk about the common issues affecting their communities. and a revealing new book looks at the inner workings of the biden white house. >> this is "the pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington and in the west from walter

cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. >> the job cuts in big tech are piling up. microsoft said today it is laying off 10,000 employees, and amazon started a fresh round of job cuts in what is expected to become the largest workforce reduction in its 28-year history. it follows recent reductions by twitter, meta, lyft, and salesforce. it comes during a period of slowing growth and fears of a possible recession on the horizon. the host of public media's "full disclosure" podcast joins us to discuss the news. it is great to see you. amazon went on a hiring spree during the pandemic. microsoft appears to be bracing for slower growth. what accounts for these latest job cuts? >> they all got really ahead of themselves. believe it or not, there was

euphoric thinking at the end of 2020. let me take you back -- we were slathering everything in purell. we were not touching salad bars. suddenly filling that vacuum in this time of panic, all these tech players were saying there's a whole new normal. we will be working from home exclusively. there will be never ending demand for cloud services and software. these companies went on spending sprees as their stocks soared to record highs. as a lot of that thinking has come undone, you realize that the econommatters and cyclicality matters. they are starting to prune at the margins. they have massive workforces. microsoft has 250 thousand people, so when you see 10,000 or 15,000 people reduced, that's a big number, but when you see microsoft, it is kind of pruning for them. >> is the big tech boom over?

>> we have seen many players out there saying we really thought it was going to be far bigger than it was. we mentioned amazon, microsoft, meta. netflix came out and said we are just not having this period of never growth. that caused dominoes to fall, so this is a broad re-think, and it happens in bull markets. we are seeing the largest number of layoffs since 2002. the salesforce ceo saying he is just not seeing the productivity. we have not faced that reckoning where people are coming back to the office. i think a lot of companies are kind of looking for an excuse to trim and maybe provide for some margin stability for wall street's sake. >> is what is happening in the

tech sector, this pruning as you call it -- is that set to happen in other sectors of the labor market? >> it is uneven. you have seen it in media, and that has been a constant for many years. if you talk to any diner owner, any hotel right now, resorts, they cannot hire people fast enough. we still have difficult inflation, but there's still a near record number of job openings that many sectors and many employers want to fill, and it's not necessarily across-the-board case in tech. for example, you really want to hold onto programmers and engineers. they are hard to hire and hard to retain, but when it comes to general administrative marketing -- when it comes to selling, general administrative, marketing, you have to look at that carefully. >> what does this say about the strength of the economy overall? there are people concerned about that r word, recession.

>> recession can be a big function of self-fulfilling prophecy. if companies see order pullbacks, if everybody is nervous, they can start pruning payrolls accordingly. they don't have to wait for the official capital r declaration from washington. that might well happen in 2023 or 2024 hour might not happen at all. >> great to see you as always. thank you as always. thank you very much. >> thanks. >> in the last few weeks, the country has seen several harrowing events where very young children have had access to loaded guns, taken those firearms and in two cases, shot themselves or others. it has again raised questions

about the responsibilities of adult gun owners to better protect the children around them. >> last night in newpornews, virginia, parents demanded more answers about why a six-year-old student was able to access a loaded handgun, bring it into school, and intentionally shoot his first grade teacher. >> my daughter was a student. she was in that classroom. she's six. she's terrified because a person that was advocating for her got hurt. >> in indiana a few days ago, residents of an apartment complex shed this alarming video of a toddler wandering alone in a hallway carrying a loaded handgun pointing it in all directions. the child's father has been arrested. in phoenix earlier this month, a young child found a loaded gun in his apartment, played with it, and accidentally shot himself. the child is in stable

condition. these cases unfortunately are not isolated ones. what exactly are the laws governing how gun owners are supposed to secure their weapons to prevent these kinds of events? the executive director of the violence policy center, a nonprofit that advocates for stricter gun control, jones is now. thank you smuch for being here. these examples that i cited are obviously discrete events, but can you tell me a little bit, broadly speaking, are there any laws governing what gun owner is supposed to do, has to do to protect kids from getting access to those guns? >> unfortunately on the federal level, there are no standards as far as safe storage or limiting child access to firearms, and at is a sad fact that has been with us a long time. another issue is that at the same time, you have an increase

in firepower. you have an increase in the lethality of guns that are being sold in the u.s. finally, at one point, you have things like concealed carry where people come from one home to another and bring a gun with them. these most recent events, these horrible events, are justly latest example of the price that children pay for the mania we have for guns in this country. it is not just high-profile incidents like you have just seen, but firearm suicide, unintentional injury, homicides involving children. >> i recently saw a 2018 survey that indicated roughly 4.5 million minors in america live in a household with an unlocked, loaded firearm. are there states that individually do more to require gun owners do more to protect kids from getting guns? >> there are laws on the state or local level that can be enacted such as safe storage that limit access to guns to

children, but having said that, one of the hard things to note is when we talk to experts regarding child safety, the most important thing you can do if you have a child is not have a gun in your home. all too often, we think that as parents, as guardians, you can safely secure a gun and the child will never find it. unfortunately, we know all too often that is untrue. >> you have documented quite clearly how the gun industry is targeting children as potential customers. i saw this fire that i want to put up -- i saw this flyer that i want to put up. it is a kid-sized gun styled after the ar-15. the original tagline says looks, feels, and operates just like mom and dad's gun, and the logo is this skull and cross bones with a baby's pacifier in its mouth. what is that marketing say to you?

>> it says two things. one, that the gun industry is facing a long-term catastrophe due to the fact that the primary market of white males is essentially saturated with firearms, so they are following a trail blazed by the tobacco industry, which means targeting women, targeting minority communities, and also targeting children. this has been going on for a long time. i think what is most striking is the fact that they basically said the quiet part out loud, that they were directly marketing a gun to children using grotesque, skate punk graphics. when they talked about the gun, the people running the company said they want to do have that type of image because it had a wow factor for the kids. not surprisingly, i guess reassuringly, there was revulsion against the company last year, and now we are finding that they are relaunching it with a more i

guess you could say kyler, gentler approach to the marketing. >> guess what i don't understand is federal law says you have to be 18 to buy a rifle or shotgun, 21 to buy a handgun. are there no rules governing the marketing of these kinds of firearms to people who are clearly under 21 and underage? >> there are clearly -- there are very limited rules regarding possession for those under age 18, age 21 for a handgun, regarding possession by youth. there are exceptions for handguns with some exceptions. specifically marketing guns to children is an issue for the treadle -- for the federal trade commission or for state action. soon after we revealed the marketing of a gun to kids, california passe a law banning that practice. five u.s. senators sent a letter to the ftc urging them toook at this issue. i think one key issue is th

other states can take action, as could the federal legislation take place. >> thank you so much for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> more than 200 million -- more than two hundred mayors have traveled to washington, d.c., to discuss policy issues and meet with federal officials including president biden, who is slated to meet with a bipartisan group of them on friday. the miami mayor, francis suarez, says that her success is due to teamwork and collaboration. >> we don't make easy problems hard or weigh them down bipartisanship. we act with respect, civility,

and higher purpose and get things done. >> joining me in our studio are two of those mayors. the mayor of oklahoma city, david holt, a registered republican, and richmond, virginia, mayor, who serves as the president of the democratic mayors association. welcome to both. you are meeting with several officials while you are here in town. is there a single most important message you hope to deliver while you're here? what is it you hope to see from washington? >> our residents are dealing with a number ofhallenges. we have dealt the pandemic. now we are dealing with the consequences and aftereffects. our residents are dealing with the challenges of regional health, the challenges of fentanyl and opioids in our communities, and mayors and local authorities cannot do it by themselves. so we are asking for help from the federal government. >> i think i would say two

things. from a policy perspective, if i had to pick one thing, it would be infrastructure, but for more of a big picture perspective, we always want to make sure that cities have a voice in washington and that people understand -- i think we strongly believe that cities are the economic and cultural engines of american life and we need to have skin at the table. we need to come up here of our own accord at least once every year as we do every january to make sure we are weighing in and being heard on any number of all is the issues. >> you have both talked about infrastructure a lot. roads and filling potholes. both of your states received billions of dollars from that american rescue plan. how much made it to you and how are you using it? >> the american rescue plan, as you referenced, had direct funding for cities.

we did get direct funding -- we got about 120 million dollars in oklahoma city. it was based on other factors. even though we are the 20th largest cy, we did not get the 20th most dollars. we are heavily dependent on sales tax and set that was hit hard, and that was the argument we were making leading up to the passage, and that was how we largely use it in oklahoma city. 100 million dolls is not necessarily going to be a transformational amount of money for us, as appreciated as it was. >> without the american rescue plan was a game changer. we have not seen that sort of investment from the federal government i think since lyndon johnson and the great society.

for us, our residents wanted to see us use those dollars on families and children, so we are using $70 million of that focused on parks and recreation centers, investing in community centers and neighborhoods that have been large -- long time marginalized. we did not use it to backfill some of our operational costs, but we use it as a foundation setter, i guess you could say. in years, you will see the american rescue act did its job. >> police reform has been high on your list. our colleague has done a lot of reporting on this. you ushered in sweeping reforms, right? how are those going? how can y tell us those are working when it comes to police violence in particular? >> everybody was there. i felt like everybody set aside

their natural biases, and we came out as your reporting has related, with 40 different recommendations, and we are in what will probably be a multi-your process of trying to implement all of them. what i was grateful for was that the activists who brought the rates to the floor were pleased with the outcome and our police chief was saying positive things and i feel like if you can find that sweet spot, you have perfectly executed how american democracy is supposed to work. >> i know gun violence has been a big issue f you. you declared it a public health crisis last year for richmond. what can you do as mayor? what do you need from the state and federal government? >> we have seen gun violence not just in urban centers but in suburban and rural areas as well. we need to be tough on the root causes of crime, so we put more dollars into policing, giving

police races as well, but also, we knew we had to also look at this through a human services lens as well. so the dollars reach our youth as well. we have seen a decrease in the homicide rate. in 2021, we had 90 homicides. we knocked it down to 59 in 2022, 1 of the highest reductions in the united states of america. we need stronger gun safety laws, right? the fact that an 18-year-old can go into a store and purchase an ar-15 -- we have a problem with that. you see mass shootings all across the country. in buffalo, for example. at the end of the day, a child, a six-year-old can get a hold of a gun in our country, that's a problem. we needless thoughts and prayers and more and stronger gun safety laws to keep guns out of the hands of wrongdoers.

>> you were both on the front lines of a number of issues that are very hotly debated topics here in washington, right? i'm curious how you look at the way those conversations are unfolding in washington right now when it comes to your priorities. >> sometimes, i like to say i see a lot of rhetoric in washington, d.c. i'm 100 miles south. i think at the end of the day, the people of the commonwealth of virginia, of the city of richmond, one to get something done. we are charged with getting things done. what i want to see is us get around the table around issues that matter to everyday people. >> what do you see, especially en you look at the state of the republican party here in washington? >> personally, i see the contrast as lamar was just

referencing. we cannot pat ourselves on the back for an awesome press release or an awesome tweet. we actually have to get things done, so we have to drink people together and often times in a purple city like mine, we have to cross party lines and find some sort of common ground and we have no choice, and we do it all the time. we do it at the conference. this is not some sort of program where we are yelling at each other, right? it is not your style here, anyway. the first thing i see ithe contrast between the way we operate when we are trying to get things done. i think either party in washington is capable of that type of leadership and capable of working together, but all the incentives they have in place and generally the way things have evolved over the last five years has brought things to high dysfunctionality, but if they want to figure out how things work, me to us. >> all right, you are available. thank you so much for being

here. >> thank you. >> pakistan is struggling to recover from last year's cataclysmic flooding that killed more than 1700 people, the latest in a string of weather-related disasters the country has faced over the past two decades, prompting calls to make hard-hit areas more resilient as they rebuild. we have reports on one-woman's efforts across a flood-ravaged province. >> on a recent morning, workers, including residents, were building bamboo frames for construction. the need for durable shelter is overwhelming in a country still grappling with an enormous

rebuilding effort. last year's unrelenting reins wiped away hundreds of thousands of mud huts across rural areas. standing water still covers acres of land once home to villagers of mostly sharecroppers and farm laborers. this village and 12 others are the brainchild of the first female to qualify as an architect in pakistan. the 82-year-old has won several awards in her career that focused first on designing modern buildings like the trade center in pakistan's financial capital, karachi. >> here was a different way of working altogether. you had to lose your ego. >> in retirement, she found her calling at the intersection of architecture and social justice, she says, beginning the

devastating 2005 earthquake in kashmir where she planned to spend three months doing relief work. >> it did not quite work out that way. i found there was plenty to do there. >> her focus shifted witthe urgent need for structures that could be built quickly and sustainably in countries slammed in recent years by extreme climate events, moving away from concrete and steel and using more local, low carbon and low cost materials. >> i would see huge monster buildings using a lot of concrete and steel, and i found that 40% of carbon emissions are because of the commercial sector. >> among her signature projects is this pedestrian-only street in the heart of karachi, emphasizing green space and terra-cotta tile, which drain rainwater much faster than concrete. >> concrete is the worst thing. >> she found a game changing substitute in lime, and abundant

mineral that mixed with traditional mud becomes stable and water resistant, she says. >> i found it was an absolutely miracle material because it stabilizes completely and lasts for years. >> or structures incorporate smart design and materials with traditional once. the key is to build on higher ground with protection for floodwaters and use a sloped, thatched roof. >> made eight prefab panels, and a roof was like an umbrella, so it is very comfortable inside. my own dream is that if i could do just these structures to make sure people could stay in them. >> about 5 million pakistanis were made without shelter, and the goal here is to not just build homes for people, but to

train local residents to do it themselves. the hope is that this know-how can be transferred village to village, creating not just sustainable homes but also jobs. she says she is trying to make sure residents can make something to sell, which has allowed many to emerge from extreme poverty. the reason she credits for this success -- >> i managed to get women mobilized to do things, and i found that i could get things done very quickly. >> much of that entrepreneurship is around cleaner cook stoves. she learned to build these stoves several years ago and now she earns a living building them and training others in neighboring villages. >> my husband joins me and we go around to villages and make between eight and 10 a day. we were earning a good wage. now i hope it will spread more widely. >> the stoves range from the

simple to very customized like this demonstrator model. it is made preparing the family meal -- it has made preparing the family meal far less burdensome. >> suddenly, women's posture changed. earlier they were crouching on the ground, and suddenly, her back was erect. suddenly she was proud. >> they bring about a change and we've got to bring about a change. >> the families here say they are grateful their village literally was an island during the floods.

>> because we are higher, we were safe. people in other villages had to run two roadways because they were lowered down and the water just drained off the roof away from the house. water from the old place would come into the house and collapse it. >> it is not just homes but also schools that were wiped out in the floods. she hopes to build thousands in the years ahead, and she's raising funds to meet the goal one million homes in the next two years. >> that is remarkable. who knew that bamboo and lime could make a sturdier home than concrete? >> i love the idea that a simple innovation can completely transform a family's life,

entire communities. >> we should mention that reporting is a partnership with the under told stories project at the university of st. thomas in minnesota. >> stay with us. coming up, dozens of texas prisoners go on a hunger strike to protest solitary confinement, and it new england guitar maker uses unique material to decrease her enviroental impact. the white house has been plagued in recent days by the slow drip of developments related to classified documents rump president biden's days as vice president, which were found in a d.c. office he once used as well as a delaware home. it comes as a new book out this week takes us inside the inner workings of the biden administration. joining me now is the author of that new book, called "the fight of his life: inside joe biden's white house." let's talk about what is going on inside that biden white

house. those classified documents and specifically, the response from biden's white house team, which some have called late or slow hour fumbling in some cases. you have talked to a lot of these folks. did u expect a different response from this seasoned team? >> it is a little bit surprising given how well this white house is run normally, but i spent two years talking with almost all of joe biden's inner circle, and, you know, there's more drama behind the closed doors then you might expect. this was certainly true during the first year with the bumbled it from afghanistan. certainly the second year has been much more successful for joe biden with his rallying the west against vladimir putin and -- in defense of ukraine and passing a legislative agenda, so

i think he goes into ththird year really with the wind at his back. >> specifically with these documents, you talked to the president's personal attorney on this issue. what do you see as the biggest challenge for him? >> i think the real challenge is you are seeing a really delicate balancing act. the communications team would like to get out in front of this and be much more forthcoming. bob bauer, who is a very cautious lawyer, is telling them that -- you know, to be quiet, that you don't want to run the risk of saying things that will later be contradicted. >> you write quite a bit about afghanistan and the chaotic withdrawal and the loss of life, clearly a low point, but did you find out -- how did the u.s. get it so wrong? that the taliban would advance as quickly as it did, that couple -- that kabul would fall so quickly?

>> my understanding was everything they did was based on a fatally flawed intelligence assessment that the afghan government would last for 18 months. this wasn't news to cia director bill burns when i went over and spoke with him at cia headquarters. he said, no, we were clear eyed about the fragility of the afghan government, and if you remove two legs of the stool of u.s. military and contractors, we thought things could collapse very fast, so there was a lot of drama, a lot of finger-pointing in the immediate aftermath of that unfortunate event. >> what about the approach to russia's war in ukraine? you had this chilling line, as

zelenskyy departed, harris had this chilling thought, there was a chance she would never see him again. where their disagreements about how to handle ukraine? >> by contrast with the afghan episode, i think that february 20 4, 2022 was really the turning point of the biden presidency. joe biden was uniquely prepared to deal with this crisis and to rally the rest -- the western world in defense against putin and did so, but it was a lot closer than anyone thought. volodymyr zelenskyy did not believe that the invasion was coming. neither did most of the european leaders. thanks to biden and his team, the west was ready in the end. >> you to focus quite a bit on the white house chief of staff as well. i'm curious, if he leaves, as chiefs do, what does the biden

white house look like without him? who do you think would step into that role? >> that's going to be a huge challenge for joe biden. he is poised to run for reelection. almost certainly that's going to happen. he has been an integral part of the first two years and its successes. it was he who helped engineer the remarkable performance in the midterms against all odds, and those will be very big shoes to fill. he's one of the most qualified people ever to have that job, and i think it's going to be someone probably within the innecircle -- it is hard to imagine someone coming in from outside, but also, people with that rare combination of political savvy, knowledge of how governance works, ability to run the white house, to manage not only joe biden up but manage the staff down -- that is a

tough combination to find. >> i'm curious, out of everyone you talk to, did anyone express any doubt about mr. biden running for reelection? >> i have not spoken to anyone who does not think that joe biden is running. his inner circle really believes that's the case. think about it -- when was the last time a president voluntarily walked away from the oval office? it was 1968 with lyndon johnson. if you reach that point, it is very hard to surrender power, and i think joe biden has been dreaming about or running for president almost every four years of his career, and he's got unfinished business, so i think he is runningand think they are prepared for trump, but i think even if it is not trumped, it will be joe biden running for the democrats.

>> thank you for your time. good to talk to you. >> great to be with you. thanks. >> dozens of inmates in texas prisons have been staging a hunger strike for more than a week. john yang has the details on their demands. >> the prisoners want a change in the way texas prison officials used indefinite solitary confinement. right now, 3100 prisoners are being held in solitary and hundreds of them have been held that way for more than a decade. a reporter for texas public radio joins us. tell us what is it like for these prisoners in solitary confinement? >> my understanding is they are held in their cells for as much as 22 hours a day in a complaint they filed with the state legislature.

they demand bunch of legislators documents about their conditions that they said at times during the pandemic they did not have access to outside recreation for years, for months oftentimes, that they had access to showers once a week in one unit, so it has been described as torture by some prison researchers across the country, use of indefinite solitary confinement, and they are trying to change it. >> how many prisoners are participating? >> at last check, the state said it was 51, and independent advocates that are trying to help have said it is as many as 138, but it has been a struggle to understand exactly how many people are involved. that's why are these prisoners in solitary confinement? >> in the mid-1980's, there was an increase of gang activity within jails, and many of these men are in prison gangs, and

along with the increase with prison gangs, there was an incredible explosion in violence. many prison systems across the country created the system to quell that violence, and they say they did bring some modicum of safety to the rest of the inmates, but they created a system that really does at times torture these other inmates. >> they are in solitary confinement simply because they belong to a gang or because of things they have done, because of behavior? >> there's a number of them that are in there because of disciplinary infractions, that they have a history of assaults or have a current case against them in the system, of violence. others are considered a high risk of fleeing, of escape, and those folks are cap there as well, but my understanding is most of them are part of this

security threat group, which is another term for gangs. >> simply because they are gang members? >> that's right. >> is there a way that a prisoner can -- i don't know -- work their way out of solitary and be transferred to the general population? >> the texas department of criminal justice says they use an exhaustive system t determine who should be in these places, who should be in administrative segregation, and they say that they periodically review those cases, and people that are cap there have an ability to appeal those decisions through the grievance process, but in terms of gang members, there's oftentimes programs that -- one is called the grad program, which is a denounce program. they have to leave the gang and inform on the gang oftentimes to be able to exit the gang -- or be able to exit the solitary confinement. >> how common is this practice?

how does this policy compared with -- compare with other states? >> texas is one of just a few states that still use status-based segregation. they are one of the leading proponents and are more severe than other states according to researchers i have talked to. one of the other big proponents was california, but after similar circumstances where thousands of hunger strikers led to an increase in litigation around it, they lost a large lawsuit that forced them to reform their system. >> what are the demands these striking prisoners are making? >> first and foremost, they want them to end status-based administrative segregation. they wanted to be based more on their behavior. they want to create step-down program that would gradually reenter the vast majorityf them back into the general population, especially those that have an out date, a date when they would be released from

prison because the data around people that go straight from solitary confinement to the streets is not very good. >> what is the status of efforts to try to resolve this? >> it is unclear. the state early does not have an interest in ending this practice. tdcj has said these are violent offenders, part of violent gangs, and we cannot risk them having unrestricted access to recruit within their prisons. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> so what do honeycombs, mushrooms, and corn husks have in common? they are all ingredients that new england guitar maker uses to reduce her impact on the environment. michelle san miguel with rhode

island pbs has the story with our arts and culture series. >> michelle rosenkranz had established herself as a furniture maker and industrial designer in her native france and in rhode island, but about a decade ago, she decided it was time to explore something new. >> i missed working with my hands. >> over the years, she says her own creative process faced some inner struggles. she felt torn between being a musician and a visual artist and dreamed of combining her two passions. was there a moment when you realized, gosh, i could make a livingaking guitars? >> yes, other people do it, so why not me?

anno because it was scary. it is a drastic change. >> rosenkranz says the environmental impact of making guitars has been well known for decades. much of the timber comes from old, rare trees that produce good acoustics like ebony, mahogany, and rosewood. excessive harvesting of brazilian rosewood has contributed to its extreme endangerment. it is one of the reasons why she is selective about where she buys her would -- wood. >> my maple is from spain. i have some cedar from spain. i have some cedar from california. >> she used her free time during the pandemic with -- to experiment with other materials. take, for instance, the body of her guitars.

they are not carved, they are grown. she packs her molds with mushro spores as well as organic waste like corn husks. >> actually growing a body with mushrooms is cheaper than cutting trees across the world. that's the bottom line. this kind of a brutalist aesthetic to it. >> the growth of the mushrooms fills any remaining spaces and binds it together in the shape of the mold. once it is dry, she's left with a solid board. her friend stopped by her studio to try it out. >> pretty close. because it's mushroom, i think of really delicious poor cheney soup -- porcinni soup or

something like that, but there is definitely a distinctive sound. his is definitely not a wooden guitar. there's something that i find very pleasing. ♪ >> rosenkranz not only proved mushroom spores and organic waste can be used to make guitars -- >> i did do these. >> but she also built one from honeycombs. >> it is close to the letter a string -- close to the big string -- close to the a string on a guitar. >> she new honeycomb was resident. she watched as the bees built along but she found herself with a honey-filleguitar that could not resonate. >> i had to leave it all winter for them to eat because it is cold.

they work hard and now they are going to starve? i could not do that. they had to return early april, and i had a perfectly cleaned up guitar that was empty of honey that could resonate. >> she admits strumming a guitar means are honeycomb is not practical, but it has helped her understand how biomaterials can diffuse sound. >> i'm learning so much. as i'm working on one, i start to have other ideas. there's so much curiosity. that learning curve is exponential. >> for "the pbs newshour," i'm michelle san miguel in cranston, rhode island. >> remember, there's a lot more online at pbs.org/newshour. quick to join us tomorrow night when we will explore the debate th is heating up around gas stoves. that is "the newshour" for

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