amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz. geoff: and i'm geoff bennett. on the newshour, the supreme court hears a challenge to president biden's student loan relief plan with implications for borrowers nationwide. amna: the banks prepare for a spike in demand as snap benefits implemented during the pandemic come to an end for many americans. geoff: nearly a year after their town was liberated, residents of bucha, ukraine reflect on the horrors and potential war crimes their families suffered at the hands of russian forces. >> no one has the right to kill unarmed people in an independent country. it's hard to accept the martyrs death that they were subjected to. ♪

>> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that -- our u.s.-based customer service team can help you find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour, including kathy and paul anderson, and camilla and george smith. >> these are people who are trying to change the world. startups have this energy that energizes me. . i'm thriving by helping others every day. people who know, know bdo. >> the john s and james knight

foundation, fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. ♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: welcome to the newshour. the fate of some 40 million americans promised student debt relief is in the hands of the supreme court. amna: the justices heard arguments today in high stakes cases over the legality of

president biden's student loan forgiveness plan. students, teachers, and activists gathered outside the court highlighting their struggles and demanding debt relief. >> in order to become those, the next generation of healthcare workers, the next generation of woing in corporate america, basically being in your law enforcement. in order to do that, we must go to school. so how can we give back to her community if we don't have the resources? >> i have upwards of $80,000 of student debt. some of that is public. some of that is private. and i think that student debt cancellation would be a benefit for many, many people. millions. amna: the issue has been embroiled in the courts since the president announced his debt relief plan in august of last year. geoff: john yang has more on the day's argument. -- arguments. john: the court heard two challenges to the president's plan. one from six republin-led states and another from two student loan borrowers. one who doesn't qualify for the relief because her loans are

held by private lenders, and one who doesn't qualify for the program's maximum benefit. to discuss the arguments, newshour supreme court analyst marcia coyle, and to talk about what's at stake, danielle douglas-gabriel a washington post national education reporter. there seems to be a lot of skepticism today about this biden plan. marcia: the skepticism seems to be among primarily the courts conservative wing. it is always hard to predict, but my sense after the questioning was there may be five conservative justices who, looking at the merits of the case, would not uphold the student loanorgiveness program. but standing in their way of getting to the merits in the program is a big hurdle. and that is called standing. justice barrett, along with the court's liberal wing, was very focused on standing, which we have talked about before. it is the legal right to

actually sue and hear the challengers have to show that they have a specialized injury, a concrete injury that is traceable to the conduct of the education department policy. and that the court can remedy it. it is a huge hurdle, and my sense after the arguments was also that the lawyers for the challengers were not making as strong an argument as the government made to oppose standing if the court does not find standing, the case goes away, and the program stands. but if they do, they can go on to the merits. i also know that if you have five justices who really want to get to the merits, they may likely find standing some way. john: one reason the conservative justices were so skeptical about the constitutionality of the biden plan is that they say there is no specific legislation authorizing it. here is chief justice john roberts questioning the biden administration.

>> the case reminds me of the one we had a few years ago under a different administration where the administration tried acting on its own to cancel the dreamers program, and we blocked that effort. and i just wondered, given the posture of the case and given our historic concern about the separation of powers, you would recognize at least that this is a case that presents extraordinarily serious, important issues about the role of congress and about the role that we should exercise in scrutinizing that. john: this idea that congress should be the one to decide big issues, that is a theme for this conservativeajority. marcia: and a recent one. it has to do with the major questions doctrine. the court said in june in ace -- in a case involving a clear act, that if an agency issues a policy that has serious, major political and economic consequences, then the express

authorization of congress is required. that is the primary argument of the challengers in this case. that this is a major questions doctrine case, and the court should apply that to require congress to expressly authorize what the department of education did hear. john: the liberal justices take a different view of this question of who should decide. this is just a sonia sotomayor questioning the nebraska solicitor general. >> there are 50 million students who will benefit from this who today will struggle. many of them don't have assets sufficient to bail them out after the pandemic. and what you're saying is now we're going to give judges the right to decide how much aid to give them. instead of the person with the expertise and the experience,

the secretary of education, who's been dealing with educational issues and the problems surrounding student loans. john: the three liberal justices, sotomayor, kagan, and jackson, seems empathetic -- seem sympathetic but this was authorized by congress. marcia: justice kagan said the act that the department used to propagate this program is clear. she said it could not be any clearer that congress gave the secretary the authority to waive for or modify student lobe -- student loan requirements. she said the court often gets statues -- statutes that are not clear. but this one, she said congress has made clear its intent. john: there was discussion about those two words, waive and modify. marcia: that's right, another issue in the case, justice thomas was saying waive and

modify, how does that accounted cancellation as that can happen in some student loans that are being looked at? the government argues that w it isaive -- it is waive and modify the student loans and once he waved and modify them, he imposed new ones. once being challenged today. john: the conservative justices talked about fairness as well. marcia: that was a very interesting exchange. some of the justices, the chief justice, justice alito, justice kavanaugh, they spoke about how, i think it was the chief justice gave the best hypothetical. he talked about two students who graduate from high school, one takes out a loan to go to college, another takes out a loan to create a lawn service. why should the student who goes to college who will probably make more than the lawn service student in a lifetime, why should that student have a deb forgiven but not the lawn service?

the government said clearly that this act involves student loans. it does not involve other types of loans. there are other types of aid available to the lawn service student who has that loan. there is that concern. they were asking whether they should factor into their analysis the idea of fairness. john: danielle, if this program were to go away, what kind of student loan borrower would be most heavily affected? danielle: because it student loan debt is disproportionately shouldered by black borrowers and borrowers of color, they would be the ones who would most likely be impacted. i think it is telling that the administration chose to add essentially a pell grant bonus allowing for borrowers who had aderholt pell grant's for low income students to receive an additional $10,000. many people would qualify for

that because many of those who have gone to college in the last few decades have fewer resources than in generations past. john: without this program, when will the crunch, when will the crunch come for these borrowers? danielle: the department of education has said payments will start to resume 60 days after a decision is made. certainly no later than june of this year. keep in mind, borrowers have not made payments on their loans for nearly three years at this stage. there is a lot of concern, and this is the reason why. the administration says this policy is needed. that many of those borrowers will struggle to make payments on their loans, they will become delinquent, or potentially default on their loans. john: in january, the administration unveiled a new income based student repayment plan. how does that work? danielle: this plan pretty much updates an existing student loan

repayment plan by assuring borrowers pay less of their discretionary income for a shorter amount of time before getting their student loans forgiven. for example, an undergraduate borrower who has taken out $12,000 or less in undergraduate debt could pay 5% of their discretionary income for 10 years before the balance of their loans are forgiven. john: one of the options -- what are the options for the administration if the plan gets struck down? danielle: the administration could try to make this happen through an authority under the higher education act. that would require negotiated rulemaking, which is a lengthy process. i think that came up today during the arguments. one of the reasons why it was not the most salient route for the administration is because it undermines the idea that this is for an emergency, and this is to prevent any kind of fallout from that national emergency. the agaoes not lend itself to that argument, whereas at least

in the ainistration's views, the heroes acted as. john: the education department or administration thinking about these things? danielle: they are not telling me i have been asking a lot the last few days, and they keep saying that they are very competent that the heroes act gives them the authority that is needed to make sure this program will go forward, and they are confident that the supreme urt will agree. certainly after today's arguments, lots of folks who are watching this don't necessarily take that optimistic of a view. but at this moment, there is not a concrete plan being publicly discusd about what will happen next if the plan is struck down by the court. john: danielle douglas-gabriel of the washington post, marcia coyle, newshour supreme court analyst, thank you both very much. marcia: pleasure, john. danielle: thank you. ♪ geoff: in the day's other news,

non-stop winter storms dumped snow and ice from coast to coast. a new blizzard struck parts of nevada overnight, with snow piling up around lake tahoe. the storm also brought more snow to parts of southern california. in the northeast, snowfall quickly melted into slush around new york. but schools closed in parts of new england. elsewhere, thousands of people in michigan spent a xth day with no power, after last week's ice storm. in ukraine, a top government commander now says the situation around a key eastern town is extremely tense after months of brutal combat. russian forces are trying to encircle bakhmut and cut off its supply routes but at a heavy cost. new footage today showed smoke billowing from buildings inside the battered city. the last of its residents navigated barren streets. meantime, russian president vladimir putin ordered beefed-up border security after a ukrainian-made drone got within 60 miles of moscow today.

ukraine has received well over $100 billion in u.s. aid since the war started, and senior pentagon officials say it's being well spent. colin kahl, an undersecretary of defense, made that case at a congressional hearing today as republican congressman joe wilson and others pushed for stronger oversight. >> there have been billions in u.s. weaponry and financial aid flowing to ukraine and more coming to stop war criminal putin. we're all concerned about accountability and the american people need tonow because somehow this hasn't been recognized. >> we don't see any evidence of diversion in our reporting. we think the ukrainians are using properly what they've been given. geoff: u.s. officials have pressed ukraine's government to police corruptions in its ranks and some top officials in kyiv have been forced out. china today denounced a u.s. government ban on the popular video-sharing app tiktok. the white house has now given federal agencies 30 days to remove the chinese-owned app from all government-issued devices citing security concerns.

but in beijing, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry blasted the move. >> is the world's -- as the world's top superpower, how unsure of itself can the u.s. be to fear a young people's favorite app to such a degree. the u.s. has been overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress other country's companies. we firmly oppose those wrong actions. geoff: more than two thirds of american teens use tiktok. china has also rejected any assessment by the u.s. energy department that covid-19 likely came from a lab league in wuhan. beijing insisted today it has been "open and transparent" and believes the virus was spread from animals to humans. itsfornia formally ended covid emergency. five states have emergency declaration still. delaware, illinois, new mexico, rhode island, and texas. president biden and nancy will dominate -- nominate labor secretary.

if confirmed, she would be the administration's first asian-american cabinet member. she would replace marty walsh, who is leaving to run the national hockey league's player association. on wall street, stocks finished out a february marked by concerns that inflation is untamed and interest rat are headed higher. the dow jones industrial average lost 232 points. the nasdaq fell 11 points. the s&p 500lipped 12. for the month, the dow lost 4%. the nasdaq fell 1%. the s&p 500 was down 2.6%. still to come, ukrainians whose town was occupied by russian forces reflect on what they lost. a former january 6 investigator discusses how releasing footage to fox could pose a new threat. slices of life immortalized in historic charlottesville portraits. >> this is the pbs newshour from weta studios in washington and

in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. amna: in the last three years, households eligible for food assistance received at least $95 more per month as part of a pandemic era increase that was designed to combat hunger. those benefits will expire tomorrow nationwide. meaning a smaller monthly food budget for nearly 30 million summit -- 30 million americans. william brangham spent yesterday at a food bank that is gearing up to meet the increased need this cut will likely trigger. william: it's another busy week at the fauquier community food bank in warrenton, virginia. about 25 families a day come here to stock up on free groceries. 39-year-old tiffany robinson visits the food bank to help stretch the money she receives through the supplemental nutrition assistance program, known as snap.

the very benefits that will soon be cut back. >> that's really going to affect my budget because i'm going to have to come out of pocket en more than i do now to get groceries. william: snap, which used to be called food stamps, is the department of agriculture program that provides monthly stipends for lower-income americans to spend on groceries. in march 2020, congress passed temporary snap increases to help people weather the pandemic-economy, but last dember passed another law ending those increases. so tomorrow americans in 32 states and other jurisdictions will see those extra snap benefits expire. 18 states have already rolled them back. a 2022 urban institute study found these emergency allotments kept more than four million people above the poverty line in the last quarter of 2021, reducing poverty by nearly ten percent. the coming reduction in snap benefits will be different for different households, depending on their circumstances.

but on average, a family of three would lose nearly $200 a month from their benefits. the cuts will reduce payments to about six dollars per person per day. robinson says that's not enough to feed her children, and she will need to depend on this food bank even more. >> i am panicking a little bit. like i really was when i got that message. i was like, what am i going to do next month? it really sent me into a stressful state. i'm worried about my children. my children eat more than i do. i will probably have to come here more often or try to find other outlets so that i can get food for my children. william: food pantries like this are pressed on two sides. rising demand for their help, but rising costs constraining how much they can provide. staples like eggs are up over seventy percent compared to last year. >> we've got tomato soup this month, applesauce, mac & cheese. william: most of these goods come via donations from local grocery stores, or bought with

local donations, or proceeds from their thrift store next door. sharon ames is the executive director othe fauquier community food bank. we talked yesterday about her community and what these cuts might meet for -- mean for them. who is it that you serve? who are the people that come through your door? >> it is all walks of life. and i'll go back to the thrift store side. i have people now who used to shop over there and know their money went to buy food here, but now they've had to come to me and say, times have changed. gas is high, food is high. i need your help. we help the homeless. it's everybody. william: we're here talking to you because the pandemic snap benefit extension is about to expire. do you have a sense of what that's going to mean for the people of this county? >> we are going to feel it. they're going to feel like they are starting to call now and ask us questions about, you know, if we can expand and they can get more food if need be.

and we always answer, yes, we will do the very, very best we can. from what i am hearing and what i'm understanding, it can be around $95 to $100 a month. but again, that depends on your family, how big their family is, how much they get to what their cut will be. william: for people who may not appreciate the circumstances of the families that you help, $95 to $100 a month. how significant is that? >> that's huge. that's $25 a week. that's huge. that's milk. that's bread. that's peanut butter. that's hamburger. 's huge. that's big to them. william: is it your sense that most of the families that will see a cut in their benefits are going to be okay? >> they will be okay. they'll manage. they'll survive. they'll probably make an extra phone call to us and say, look, i've got three or four more days and a month to go. i'm out of food. can you give me food?

and we will. i believe in my community and i believe if we reach out and say we need help, that it will be there. i think the other thing we have to look at is down the road -- think about summer when the children are out of school. no free lunches, no free breakfast. william: there are some people in congress who argued the snap program, the food stamp program, is too expensive and this pandemic extension bump-up was too much, and that we have to dial those costs down. i mean, as someone who sees the beneficiaries of this program, what do you think of that argument? >> we are going to see children who are not going to function in school because they are not fed properly, they go to bed hungry. we are going to see elderly that give up their medicine, diabetic medicine, whatever it may be. william: the choice between food and medicine is too great. >> absolutely. it is. it is going to affect everybody.

and i'm not really sure how congress is coming up with the fact that it's too much money, when you're going to feed people, and keep them healthy, and make them part of our society. william: you think that's not the ght place to cut? >> no. and i know the argument is, that's why when i say that we qualified -- qualify people, a lot of people view a food pantry as he just go in and say hey, i want food. it's not like that. we do qualify you, snap does too, so it's it is a program that has rules. william: you are meeting people with demonstrated needs. >> you see somebody came to you, you give them a can of tuna and they hold it to them and say, oh my god, sharon, this is four meals. no, it's not. it's one. that will make you stop and

think. and at our level, we see that, we hear that. congress don't. william: all right. sharon ames, thank you so much for talking with us. >> thank you very much. ♪ geoff: some of the first and starkest images of russian brutality in ukraine emerged from the kyiv suburb of bucha last year. 1700 ukrainians were killed there, according to ukrainian officials, who also say 9000 war crimes were committed in the city. now, one year later and with the support of the pulitzer center, special correspondent simon ostrovsky and videographer igor troyanovskee returned to bucha to reveal the story of the final hours of one group of ukrainians, executed in cold blood. a warning, many of the images in this story are disturbing. reporter: they call it the first

draft of history. reporters arrive on the scene to witness events while they are still fresh. a year ago, our newshour crew found this kill site located behind an office building that had been used by russian forces as a headquarters during their month-long occupation of bucha. what we have seen here is eight bodies. some of them with their hands tied behind their backs. this could be evidence of war crimes. our images were among some of the early footage that poured out of bucha and opened the world's eyes to the brutality of russia's faltering war machine. the russian leadership claimed the pictures were staged as part of a crude attempt to tarnish russia's reputation. president putin: as for bucha, listen, i speak with my colleagues. they have relevant intercepts about the transport that was used to get to this town and create the conditions for the organization of this provocation, this fake. reporter: on the ground, evidce pointed to executions. many of the victims had their

hands tied behind their backs, a good indication that a war crime had been perpetrated. the victims appeared to have been killed with gunshots to the head and chest. but who were the? and who killed them? we could only speculate that retreating russian forces were to blame because of the litter they left behind, clearly marked as being from russia. several subsequent investigations conducted by pbs frontline, the new york times and the bbc, piecing together cctv footage of the last moments of these men's lives have since established the facts and paint a grim picture of bucha under russian occupation. when russian forces first arrived in bucha in late february they did not expect to stay long. this was supposed to be just another town on the way to the capital kyiv. instead, their armored columns were incinerated from the sky.

>> come to us with a sword, die by the sword. reporter: the surviving russians pulled back and regrouped, re-entering bucha on march 3 and 4th, as confirmed by surveillance footage captured from yuri naumenko's auto shop. >> there is a bullet hole there. they took it down. and that's what's left of one of the cameras. one pointed this way and the other one was set in the opposite direction. reporter: ukraine's top prosecutor andriy kostin told newshour what the russians did next. >> on 4th of march 2022 members of the armed forces and other military formations of russian federation searched the residential buildings on the street. so they wanted to identify the servicemen of ukrainian army and territorial defense units. reporter: as russian troops poured into yablonska street to

take over the neighborhood, they went door to door rounding up civilians and men they suspected to be fighters. the chmut family had front row seats. so you saw everything happening from this window right here? >> yes. reporter: they watched as the ill-fated group men were lined up in the courtyar >> the [expletive] the hostages are all there. there they are, sitting under the fence. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. reporter: the auto shop cameras had an even better view of the group of nine men being led at gunpoint to the courtyard, barefoot and with their t-irts pulled over their heads. eventually the russians came for the chmut family. tetiana and her sons were made to join a group of women, children and men who were not under suspicion. her husband serhiy was put in line with the group of men who had been forced to their knees. >> somewhere here. somewhere here they lined us up, right about here. reporter: one man already lay on

the ground dead when serhiy arrived. >> there was one. he was to my right. the only thing i could think about was that my family weren't harm. reporter: serhiy was a hair's breadth away from being lumped in with the suspected ukrainian fighters. but his wife and children stepped in. >> we begged and pleaded, said he's a fisherman, not even a hunter, he had never served, doesn't know how to hold a pistol or a rifle. they said ok, move him over with the other men. reporter: the rest were not so lucky. according to witness accounts the remaining men were led away, tortured and interrogated and then shot. including this man, ivan skyba, who lived to tell the tale . >> i felt the bullet hit me.

my arms were tied behind my back and i just fell. reporter: skyba left ukraine for western europe after he survived his own execution. >> so i just relaxed my body and froze. i didn't even breathe because it was cold outside and you could see my breath. so that they didn't see that i was still alive. reporter: despite a gunshot wound, skyba managed to crawl to safety. the rest of the men's bodies would lay by the side of the building for another month until april 3, when we filmed them being recovered. do you think the killings there were an isolated incident and a military unit gone bad or this is responsibility that goes up the chain of command? >> when liberated kharkiv region, they committ the same types of war crimes. in kherson region they committed

the same war crimes. and this shows that this is not only pattern of conduct of russian military but from our point of view, it is evidence of the persecutorial policy of russians against ukrainians. reporter: the eight bodies the russians left behind are a small fraction of the overall 458 fatalities in bhutto. but the story they tell is becoming all too familiar in a euro for in which a pattern of alleged crimes has emerged across the country. today, the site has been turned into an informal memorial created by the families of the victims. oleksandr turovsky has come here with his granddaughter to commemorate his son, svyatoslav. >> he was a worker like everyone.

this is his daughter. on her way to kindergarten she passes the cemetery. she always says, my daddy's there. reporter: at the graveyard, where the bulk of the roughly 400 people killed during the russian occupation of bucha are buried, natalia matviychuk lays flowers at her brother andriy's grave. >> he used to bike around this whole area so he knew it very well. so he passed the intelligence to his commanders. his hands and legs were tied and there were markings from a rope here. i oked at photographs of his body, his socks were worn through, they were barefoot. no one has the right to kill unarmed people in an independent country. it is hard to accept the murder's -- martyr's death that

they were subjected to. >> even if they're captured by the other side, they cannot be intentionally tortured and killed. it's a definite war crime. reporter: b the path from the crimes committed in bucha, to any eventual prosecutions is a long and uncertain one. and the pain, it never goes away. for the pbs newshour, i am simon ostrovsky in bucha. ♪ amna: a monday-night court filing in the defamation lawsuit brought by dominion voting systems against fox news revealed a new admission by rupert murdoch, the network's owner. murdoch acknowledged that several fox hosts knowingly repeated false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. laura barron-lopez has more,

-- has more. laura: the latest revelation from murdoch's deposition follows another filing in the case, that showed us some of fox's biggest stars privately dismissed former president trump's election fraud lies. publicly, however, they gave air time and support to these known falsehoods and brewing conspiracy theories. the findings come as house speaker kevin mccarthy has given fox host tucker carlson first access to more than 44,000 hours of the security footage from january 6. here to discuss is timothy heaphy who served as chief investigative counsel to the select house committee on the january 6 attack. thank you for joining us. in dominion's court filing, they included exchanges from the deposition. i want to run through that with you now dominion attorney asked murdoch, you are now aware that fox endorsed at times these false notions of a stone on -- of a stolen election. maybe maria bartiromo as

commentators. the attorney asked him about other hosts, fox host janine puro, murdoch, i think so. fox host sean hannity. a bit. finally, the attorney asked, this is about their endorsement of a stolen election. murdoch, yes, they endorsed. you investigated the january 6 attack for months. how did fox news' coverage and the lies about election fraud in the weeks and months contribute to january 6? tim: what the fox news hosts were repeating without foundation was part of a chorus of repeated bogus theories of election fraud. they came from the former president himself, they came in the formf social media posts, repeated. they came in the form of fundraising material sent out by the trump campaign which became a stop the steal money machine. there were lots of different

places where this false narrative, no foundation in fact, was repeated. it absolutely had a lot to do with people getting really angry and going to the capital believing, albeit misguided link, that the election had been stolen. amna: now, speaker mccarthy is handing over footage, tens of thousands of hours of footage, to tucker carlsen. what is the impact of that footage being shared? tim: it is dangerous. the committee got access to at footage under tight controls. we had a dedicated terminal, only a couple of staff had access to it, it was password protected. even after we reviewed footage, if we were going to use any of it in a public hearing, we had to negotiate with the capitol police to try to trim how much of it might compromise a camera location or a route of evacuation, or any security issue. we took very seriously the law enforcement sensitivity of that

information and took sps to minimize the damage of disclosure. i don't know if mr. carlsen or others who might get access to it will abide by those same rules. that is why it is dangerous. . if it is posted, it will make it easier for people to evade those security protections in the future. laura: there has been footage out there already, whether through your investigation or other people's personal body cameras. some capitol police officers told my colleague that they are not worried about the security risk, or about people finding out camera locations. but what they are worried about is the potential for fox to cherry pick a narrative out of that footage like this. >> the doj has been allowed to prosecute and jail hundreds of nonviolent political protesters whose crime was having the wrong opinions. laura: he said nonviolent, but what do you say to that? tim: there is no question you can look at all of that footage

and find some people that were there and not engaging in violence. not everybody was assaulting police officers, not everyone was breaking windows. that does not take away from the fact that this was a fight -- this was a riot. it is misleading to take a piece of footage from over here where there are people walking with signs, when 50 feet away, there were people hitting police officers and breaking windows. it is important to look at the entirety of what happened, not everyone there was bent on violence. there is no question there were people there who were not violent. the crimes extend beyond violence. the crimes breach a barrier in trespassing on the capitol grounds. there are a lot of people who have been charged with nonviolent offenses who have played guilty to those crimes and not getting jail times. there are degrees of culpability as there are in any mass demonstration event. laura: your ultimate report, your committee recommended donald trump, the former president, be charged. in court, you have to show

specific actions and convincing journey -- a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. what did the former president do that you think he should be charged for? tim: degrees of culpability, he is the main proximate cause of the riot. the committee found evidence of his specific intent to obstruct, interfere, or impede the joint session. that is the main statutes, obstruction of a official proceeding. . there is a lot of evidence of specific intent that president trump and his co-conspirators took to ensure the joint session did not go forward, that the transfer of power did not occur. that started well before january 6 with efforts to use the justice department, pressure state officials, put pressure on the vice president, and ultimately, on january 6, a brilliant speech to a crowd he knew was armed and angry. and then in action once the ride occurred, despite repeated encouraged to quell violence. he did not act. all of that informed the

committee's recommendation that there is evidence of the violation of federal crimes, by the former president and others in his immediate circle. laura: the special counsel investigation could potentially get more evidence than what your committee was able to get, namely in your investigation, you spoke to senior staff, to former vice president mike pence. there is a fight going on about whether the formerrivate -- the former vice president will testify. privileges aside on the substance, given what you learned in your invesgation, do you think a vice president mike pence testimony would have vital information about what prompted and his actions, his statements aroundn the lead up to january 6? tim: yes, absolutely. it is predictable the special counsel would want to speak to him. we did speak to his chief of staff, his national security advisor, everyone around him. the first-hand account of the vice president himself,

conversations he had with the president before january 6,'s lived experience during that day, would be directly relevant. they would bear potentially upon the president's state of mind. that is the cruciaissue for the special counsel. the vice president who had a lot of direct communication with the president might provide direct information about that. separate from him, the justice department could push through privilege assertions that limited us. there are a lot of witnesses like those vice presidential staffers, who asserted an executive privilege and said, i will tell you about what happened, but i cannot talk about direct communications i witnessed between the president and vice president. a grand jury investigation arguably overcomes that assertion, that may be litigated quickly. that is another procedural benefit the department of justice had that we did not. this issues could be resolved and they could get new first-hand accounts that we were unable to get because of the difference between a congressional process and criminal justice process. laura: thank you for your time. tim: thank you.

♪ geoff: we'll be back shortly with a look at a museum exhibit featuring uplifting historical portraits of black americans. amna: but first, take a moment to hear from your local pbs station. it's a chance to offer your support, which helps keep programs like ours on the air. ♪ geoff: for those stations staying with us, one key factor for the rise in housing costs in recent years is that building has not kept up with demand. so after decad of fights over affordable housing suburban counties of long island, east of new york city, are pushing for more development. paul solman has our encore report. paul: a 14 acre eyesore in huntington, long island, obtained by a local nonprofit to

build housing. >> matinecock court. 6 units of affordable housing. paul: right now it looks like scrub land. >> yes, right now that's what it is. and it's been like this for 43 years. paul: pilar moya-mancera runs housing help, e nonprofit which set out to build here when jimmy carter was president. legal opposition and approval delays have blocked it through reagan, bush, clinton, bush, obama, trump and biden. meanwhile -- >> the cost of housing on long island has significantly increased year after year after year, even for a young professional. because there is hardly any supply of rental housing. right over there, you can see the sign that bus drivers are needed. this is all throughout long island, not just here. paul: though battles over affordable housing are a national commonplace, the counties that make up long island have higher percentage of detached single family homes than almost any large county in the country.

where did you live? >> so i lived on the second floor over there. paul: how much did it cost? >> it was around $3,000 paul: for how big an apartment? >> for a one bedroom apartment. paul: for young folks who grew up here and wanted to stay, like 27-year old hunter gross, buying was a pipe dream. renting, a nightmare. >> hugo have a good public school, you go to a good university, you got a good the market rate apartments in paying the town of huntington job. the town of huntington are pricing out young professionals who are making upwards of $100,000. paul: where has the opposition come from? >> the nimbys in the town of huntington and across long island. and these are people who don't want affordable housing in their backyard. paul: the nimbys, the not in my backyarders, determined to preserve the quiet suburb they moved to and make their resistance heard. >> is not just the issue of affordable housing even if it

was exclusive housing, there are issues of density, traffic, and schools. >> we have to talk about making it affordable for everybody. when this gets built and there's 146 units, that's great for the 146 people that are going to live there, but what about everybody? paul: hector gavilla, lifelong local resident and real estate broker. >> developers like to build. and if they could put more people in the same space, they're going to the're going to want to do that. and that creates more congestion and more traffic. paul: but mainly, he insists, it is government subsidies to developers and lower income residents that taxpayers will ultimately pay for that drive his opposition to projects like matinecock court. >> we don't have an affordability problem. what we really have is a tax problem and we have some of the highest property taxes on long island. so all this is doing is just contributing to that. i'm okay with building any building as long as it doesn't

cause the taayers to suffer more in having to subsidize. because we're already suffering enough here by continuing to pay all these taxes. paul: moya mancera, though, thinks long islanders have long had a problem that precedes taxes. >> we do have a history of house segregation. there was a lot of fear, not only here, but all throughout longsland. >> levittown, community designed from modern living. paul: it is a fear with history. in the 1940s, farms across the island were being turned into neighborhoods. the iconic community of levittown was the model. single family homes built as a communy that g.i.'s returning from world war two could afford. people of cor? explicitly kept out. more recently, after a newsday hidden camera investigation,ew york state cited 3 real estate brokerages for discriminating against homebuyers of color. nourprise to pilar moya-mancera, who immigrated from peru and eventually settled

on long island in 1996. >> now i don't have to go from being a helicopter mom to being an airplane grandmother. there is a place for my grandchildren. there is a place for my adult children toove and so they can live in my basement. a place for me to live when i am a senior citizen. paul: but just as important may be the cost to long island's economy. anne shybunko-moore employs 82 people making parts for the military on long island, says she could hire ten more, has even lured employees from other states. >> i paid their rent for a year and then it was on them to find their own place. paul: year on you, you are paying the rent. >> went back. it was the sticker shock of the cost of living to buy a house, because renting a place here is upwards of $3500 a month. paul: so the ceo has a message for neighbors bemoaning density and taxes. >> you all taxpayers are

benefiting from my employees working hard. the number of employees i hire, the number of employees that are getting paychecks, buying food at all of the stores, i am your ecomic impact that's making this region successful. and i'm telling you, as a business owner, my people can't afford to buy a house. they are going to leave. it's hard enough to compete for talent. now i have to find someone talented and able to afford housing. paul: in fact, she's so desperate, she's looking for help from above. >> i'm looking at my roof. a 57,000 square foot building. wondering, like, obviously there's structural engineering issues and sewer issues. but i'm thinking the footprint of this building, how many apartments can i put up there? paul: come on. seriously? >> i'm thinking, why not? can i put a second floor on here where i can put 20 of my employees right on top? we got to do something. we gotta find square footage somewhere.

paul: for the moment, the weeds still rule. but by early next week, shovels will up will -- will uproot them and 146 units of affordable housing will rise here. for the pbs newshour, paul solman on long island. ♪ amna: on this last day of black history month, we feature the stories of black southerners during jim crow, as told in a single frame. the newshour's digital anchor nicole ellis visited the university of virginia to see how historical portraits are helping redefine a generation in its own voice, and through its own lens. it is for our arts and culture series, canvas. >> henry martin, born the enslaved, working all of his life, either as an enslaved

person or working as a menial labor. never learned to read or write. but was able to speak for himself through photography. nicole: john edwin mason is the curator of an exhibition of portraits like martins on display at the university of virginia's special collections library. martin's larger than life portrait is featured along with historical items that contextualize it. he was a man so iconic, a poem was written about him a century later. >> someone will pause to whisper, henry, and for a moment, my name flies free. nicole: martin's self-portrait contradicts and undermines how white students and alumni would portray him. >> it is a way of saying this is who i am. this, no trace of his job as a janitor and bellringer.

nicole: all of the portraits featured in the exhibit were taken at the studio several decades after the south lost the civil war. the people photographed were soldiers, seamstresses and stable managers. >> they are really stunning in the way that they show dignity, respectability, style, panache, among african-americans who lived in central virginia in the late 19th century and early 20th century. that is a time of jim crow segregation. that is a time when there were lynchings in this area. and yet, you could see none of that. nicole: the university of virginia used at least 4000 enslaved black people to build and maintain the school in the 19th century. in 2020, the university of merit -- a virginia erected this memorial to enslave laborers to honor the black people enslaved by the school. the project aims to show a different side of the people enslaved and their descendants. those portraits told the story of his life through his eyes. a story still being told by those who were connected to him, like edwina. >> his first wife was -- would

have been a great, great aunt of mine. he is special to me. reporter: saint rose's other family members, a great uncle and grandfather, owned a business in charlottesville. their photos are also featured in the exhibit. >> they were operating a barbershop that their father would have, been my great grandfather, established in 1865. people now understand that there is a segment of the society that needs to have their story told. and celebrated. >> nobody in these portraits looks oppressed. nobody looks bedraggled. nobody looks beaten-down. and that is by design. nicole: like much of the country, it is reckoning with racism is ongoing. there were attempted lynchings in the city as late as 1970.

historic black communities were raised to the ground by the city. in 2017, a white supremacist mob held a violent deadly rally in response to a decision to remove a robert e. lee statute. >> the university has not always been a good neighbor to the african-american community. we have learned the hard side of history. we have learned about oppression. we have not learned about black life, black joy, black family, black churches, black schools, black politics, black style. all of those things have been in the background, and through these portraits, we are bringing them into the foreground. nicole: the exhibit features other examples of black self-expression, like the only known surviving copy of charlottesville's black newspaper from that time, the charlottesville messenger, and juxtaposes them with white media portraying racist stereotypes. >> i want to tell stories about history through this exhibition. portraits said to me, we can

explore a side of history through these portraits that has been not completely ignored, but has not been given its due. nicole: portraits like that of henry martin, a bellringer, but also a man of dignity and a story to tell. a story that would long survive him. for the pbs newshour, i am nicole ellis in charlottesville, virginia. geoff: you can see more of the university of virginia exhibit online and find more of our stories on black history month including one about how students digitizing historically black newspapers are rediscovering forgotten histories about their hometowns. that is at pbs.org/newshour. amna: and join us again here tomorrow night, when we will explore the laws state legislatures are passing this year aimed at limiting lgbtq rights. that's the newshour for tonight. i am on none of as. geoff: i am geoff bennett. thanks for spending part of your evening with us. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by --

♪ carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, in the advancement of international peace and security, at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thk you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] >> you're watching pbs.