geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna nawaz is on assignment. on the newshour tonight, the supreme court steps into the battle over the abortion pill. the 21-yr-old suspected of leaking highly-classified government documents appears in court to face criminal charges. pressure mounts on democratic senator dianne feinstein to resign over her prolonged absence from capitol hill. and david brooks and jonathan capehart offer their takes on the week's political news. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by

the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour. >> actually, you do not need vision to do most things in life. yes, i am legally blind, and yes, i am responsible for the user interface. data visualization. if i can see it and understand it quickly, anyone can. i am excited to be a part of a team driving technology forward. that is the most rewarding thing. >> people who know know bdo. >> the john s and james l k night foundation. fostering engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> and with the ongoing support

of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs news station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: good evening and welcome to the newshour. the u.s. supreme court has blocked any restrictions on the abortion pill "mifepristone" -- at least for a few days. late today, justice samuel alito stayed a lower court's restrictions that would have taken effect tomorrow. that followed emergency requests by the biden administration and drug maker danco laboratories. the matter is now onold through wednesday, giving the full court time to act. our other top story tonight, the u.s. government charged the air

national guardsman accused of leaking classified information with two charges under the espionage act. airman jack teixeira made his first appearance in a boston court today, as president biden directed the military and intelligence community to limit the distribution of sensitive information. nick schifrin starts our coverage. nick: he appeared in front of a federal judge. the 21-year-old who followed his family into the military now accused of exposing the military's secrets. jack teixeira joined the air national guard in september 2019 and was assigned to otis air national guard base in massachusetts. and the 102nd intelligence wing, which receives near real-time imagery collected by groans and spy planes around the world. >> your job is to make sure everybody else has the opportunity to finish our mission and save lives.

nick: that's the job that teixeira had, not an intelligence analyst, but a cyber transport systems journeyman, an it specialist. to maintain the network, court documents today confirmed he had a top secret clearance and "sensitive compartmented access," or sci to "other highly classified programs" since 2021, when he was called to active duty. the documents detail how, in december, teixeira began posting the text of classified documents. but he was concerned he would be discovered, so in february, he accessed this particularly sensitive document mentioned in court filings, and one day later allegedly posted a photograph of it. he could face decades in prison. u.s. law says the unauthorized disclosure of top secret information reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security. attorney general merrick garland.

>> people who sign agreements to be able to receive classified documents acknowledge the importance to the national security of not disclosing those documents, and we intend to send that message, how important it is to our national security. nick: teixeira posted on discord, a social media site popular among gamers. today, court documents revealed discord provided the fbi with tails of teixeira's account and the private group he administered where he originally posted the documents. it's a fall from grace for a proud military family. his mother posted these photos online. that's his stepfather, retiring in 2019 from the same massachusetts air national guard unit, after a 34-year career. >> what do you think he was trying to accomplish? nick: but today, outside the courthouse, his father faced a media gauntlet. his son accused of exposing the very information he was assigned to maintain.

for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin. geoff: so, how does the government determine who should have access to secure computer networks and the information on those networks? for that we turn to retired special agent frank montoya, who served 26 years in the fbi, and heidi beirich, co-founder of the global project against hate and extremism. a welcome to you both. frank, jack was a cyber transforms journeyman, what civilians would call an i.t. specialist. explain how he would have had access to such see it -- such top-secret material. frank: as the young man presenting that informationsaidd thinking indications networks on which all this information is stored, is collected. in that regard, he has access to that kind of information, kind of like a systems administrator, but not as many privileges. still very much involved in the

actual management and storage and transmission of that data. geoff: heidi, texiera was granted security clearance in 2021. that means he would have signed a nonbinding agreement acknowledging that leaking protected information could result in criminal charges. should he have had a security clearance based on the current standard? heidi: it depends on whether or not the kind of things he was posting online were inaccessible to the pentagon to find. but if they were not, he should not have had a clearance. you cannot trade in racism and anti-semitism, as he did, and have clearances. the clearance system was tightened up in september 2021 to provide continuous monitoring of social media. somehow he slipped through that net is unclear, but he shouldn't have.

geoff: is it possible for the government to continuously monitor all the people who have security clearances to ensure they are living up to the standard they are supposed to live u to? frank: it is a terrifically challenging task, especially when you look at the kinds of informatiopeople have access to on-duty as well as off-duty. one of the challenges we faced after the snowden disclosures when we were trying to get a handle on who has information and how they handle it and how we can protect it from being disclosed, especially in the internet age, was trying to develop guidelines to continuously evaluate their excesses not only on their government systems, but also when they are at home surfing the internet. that is a bigger challenge for a lot of reasons. one, there are so many people with clearances, but also there are first amendment concerns.

it is important that, even when you join the community and rendering a lot of your personal rights as far as access to information is concerned, you still have first amendment rights as an american off-duty, or when you are not at work. there is not a lot of management or control over what you might see on the internet. this is a classic example of that. geoff: i know you say this jack teixeira cases serves as an example of the way people are radicalized online, and that he is in many ways typical of the people you track. in what ways? heidi: a young male involved in gaming culture. he was posting this on a private server on the discord system, which is used by gamers. he was apparently using this material to show off to his friends there, who were very young, some of them teenagers. that is where they were trading in racist memes and posting all kinds of things about guns and so on.

this unfortunately is very typical. we have aided lot of young people getting radicalized in this way. geoff: frank, this trove of late pentagon documents were circulating online apparently for months without it being discovered by the u.s. government. why didn't the federal government noticed the leaked documents until it was apparent in the news media? frank: this is kind of an old-school espionage thing. i am not saying he committed espionage. the charges are about unlawful removal of classified informion, but he was looking at it and taking notes and writing stuff down. later, he was taking specific documents out of the workspace and photographing them, and i would imagine returning them back to the workspace so that it was harder to track how that kind of stuff is monitored. it is harder to monitor things that way because the emphasis is on looking at the computer

networks, the digital trails, what you are looking at, downloading, maybe printing out on your printer or copy machine. this is stuff had access to and was smuggling it out of the workspace, taking photos at home, and then bringing them back. much more old-school in the way he was doing it, and harder to monitor, but because was the workspace doing back-checks at the end of the day? probably not, because of concerns about first amendment rights and personal freedoms. here he difficult to monitor this kind of activity. he is posting it on these close ho social med networks where only a small group of people know about it. in fact, if that one individual had not posted it on other sites, we still probably would not know about it. geoff: all of this speaks to the

question of, how can the u.s. better defend against the insider threat. heidi: that is right, the insider threat is the issue. if we do not get a hold better of what is happening on social media and enforcing the rules that were placed on this front a couple summers ago, we may find this again. i should add that extremist people with racist and anti-semitic beliefs are a particular threat when it comes to insider threats. that is what we have seen in this case and what we have to be worry about -- worried about in terms of domestic extremists being in the military. geoff: my thanks to you both. frank: thank you. ♪ geoff: in the day's other

headlines, the u.s. justice department charged 28 members of mexico's "sinaloa" drug cartel in a sweeping investigation of fentanyl trafficking the drug has fueled a surge of overdose deaths. today's indictments name several sons of convicted drug lord joaquin "el chapo" guzman -- the so-called "chapitos" -- known for their brutality. >> to dominate the fentanyl supply chain, the chapitos kill, kidnap, and torture anyone who gets in the way. in mexico, they fed their enemies alive to tigers, electrocuted them, waterboarded them, and shot them at close range with 50-caliber machine gun. geoff: most of those charged to remain at large. the probe also targeted a complex supply nwork, including chinese chemical and pharmaceutical companies. montana is poised to impose the nation's first total ban on "tiktok". state lawmakers headed toward final approval of the measure this evening. it would bar the popular video-sharing app in the state and impose hefty fines on app stores or the company itself.

the federal government and nearly half of the states already ban "tiktok" from government devices over concerns about its ties to china. the constitutional council of france gave its approval today to a government plan raising the retirement age to 64. the decision means the bill can now become law, after months of public outcry. in paris, protesters gathered outside city hall to condemn the decision, and some set fires. riot police charged at one point, trying to disperse the crowd. in yemen, the saudi-backed government and rebels linked to iran have started a three-day exchange of nearly 900 proners. some were greeted by loved ones today in the capital held by the houthi rebels. the international red cross hailed it as a breakthrough toward ending the long-running civil war. the look of despair changed now

to the look of happiness is exactly what it's all about. thank the parties of the conflict, who reached this conclusion, and we are sure that this is a good boost for better days for yemen. geoff: other flights carried prisoners to cities held by the internationally-recognized government. south korea and the u.s. conducted a new round of military exercises today, this time involving two b-52 bombers. the nuclear-capable planes were joined by south korean fighter jets. that followed north korea's latest missile launch. the north's state tv said it was a new, solid-fueled, long-range weapon. president biden has wrapped up three days in ireland. heisited a roman catholic pilgrimage shrine today in county mayo. his great-great grandfather had lived there before coming to america. at thehrine, the president also met a priest who had performed last rites on his son, beau biden, in 2015. here at home, minneapolis will become the first major u.s. city to allow broadcasts of muslim calls to prayer, day and night. the city cncil has voted to amend a noise ordinance, so the calls will now be heard on loud speakers five times a day.

minneapolis has had a growing number of east african immigrants for decades, and mosques are nocommon. on wall street, stocks fell after a federal reserve board member said inflation is still much too high. the dow jones industrial average gave up 143 points to close at 33,886. the nasdaq fell 42 points. the s&p 500 was down eight. a spanish mountain climber emerged today from a cave where she spent 500 days in a social isolation experiment. beatriz flamini greeted family and friends after living more than 200 feet underground since late 2021. cameras recorded her daily life, and she says she lost track of the outside world. >> i'm still anchored in november 2021. i don't know what has happened in the world, i don't know.

i've come out of the cave. for me it is still november 21, 2021, and seeing you all in masks, for me it's still the height of the covid pandemic. geoff: he spent time painting and teammates left items where she could find them. but water is limited, so she had her first shower in 16 months. the white house mourns of a new drug threat, fentanyl mix with a sedative. and we catch up with the man walking around the world. >> this is the pbs newshour. from weta studios in washington, and from the west from the wand crew -- from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: the senate returns to washington next week without its oldest member, california senator dianne feinstein. calls are growing louder for her to step down for good. earlier this week, the

89-year-old announced she would temporarily forfeit her position on the senate judiciary community while she recovers from an infection, a move to allow committee business to resume it. but that does not tamper critics who say she is no longer fit to serve. lisa, catch us up on why senator feinstein has been out since february and why it matters now. lisa: she has been recovering from a shingles infection. it has taken her longer to recover than usual. that happens with older americans more frequently than others. it is not unprecedented for a senator to be out for two months, but what is unprecedented as the math of the situation. democrats hold the senate with a 51 seat majority. they hold the judiciary committee with 11 democrats to 10 republicans. without feinstein, that committee is at a time. if it is a tie, the judiciary committee cannot pass on any judicial nominations.

the senate has not been doing anything else except for nominations. democrats wanted to get judge after judge on the federal bench. without feinstein, that entire thing has frozen. she has been requested to be replaced -- she has requested to be replaced on the community. it is not clear if republicans will agree to that next week. feinstein's absence has major consequences for the democratic agenda in the senate. geoff: i number of democrats have said the longer this persists, the greater the problem becomes, but some democrats are saying she has to resign now. what is your view on that? lisa: we have questions hovering about her abilities in general. two house democrats say she should resign, one of them a california democrat, ro khanna. he says it is no longer clear she can fulfill her duties. earlier today, a person closer to feinstein, senator amy klobuchar, raise concerns.

sen. klobuchar: i want to see what happens in the next month or so. if she can't come back month after month with this close cynic, that is not just going to hurt california, it is going to be an issue for the country lisa: there are a lot of unspoken layers. what is heard is senator feinstein is mentally unfit. i spoke to her in february. it was a short conversation, short but normal. other reporters have had different experiences. he did not seem to know when her retirement was announced, but her office tells me she is in charge, daily speaking with them , and my understanding is that unless something changes, she does not plan to retire. geoff: how does that compare to other senators you have covered? lisa: i can count on both hands -- i need both hands -- to say how many older male senators i have spoken to who have been confused, who have not understood made, including one who called me and had a rambling conversation that was very can sing. -- very confusing.

that person is no longer in the senate. there is a double standard. house speaker nancy pelosi this herself. speaker pelosi: i don't know what political agendas are at wo going after senator feinstein in that way. i have never seen them go after a man who was sick in the senate in that way. lisa: the other factories the age of the senate. right now, the one 18th congress, the average age of u.s. senators is 64 years old. in the department of labor, the average age of the u.s. workforce is 42, much younger. a third of the u.s. senate senate is 70 years of age or older. there are obviously a number of senators who have been there a long time. there is a question of when things need to change hands. another center over 80 years old, mitch mcconnell, is recovering as well from a concussion. he has been out for several weeks. he is to return monday. geoff: what are the larger politics happening around

whether senator feinstein stays or goes? lisa: there is so much around this race for her seat. just the democrats alone running, adam schiff, katie porter, barbara b, a battle royale for house democrats to try to get feinstein's seat. there are political reasons some democrats would like her to retire, not necessarily the good of the country, though some democrats say that as well. geoff: lisa desjardins, thank you for reporting. have a great weekend. lisa: you too. geoff: now the latest in our continuing coverage of how opioid addiction and overdose deaths have devastated the u.s. concerns are growing about overdoses that are linked with an animal tranquilizer mixed with opioids. and it's a problem increasing across the country. ali rogin has more.

ali: geoff, this week the biden administration declared the combination of that sedative xylazine and the opioid fentanyl a, quote, "emerging threat." it's the first time any drug has been given that designation. veterinarians have been legally using xylazine -- often referred to as "tranq" -- for 50 years, but it made its way into u.s. street drugs sometime in the early 2000's. in the past two years, its use has spiked nationwide. joining me now is dr. raagini jawa. she's an assistant professor and clinician investigator at the university of pittsburgh medical center. . what symptoms have you seen? >> i take care of patients in the pittsburgh area not only at our local needle exchange, but also in our addiction treatment clinic and in the hospital. a lot of my patients coming in for the last year have been exhibiting increasing symptoms

of wounds and more complicad overdoses. they have been telling me something does not feel right, and i am having new symptoms i have not had when i was using fentanyl or heroin alone. ali: how does it differ from fentanyl? the two are being combined, so what happens when that takes place? >> we are learning a lot right now from our patients. we know from the original studies done on animals that the most important effect is that it is not an opioid, but a sedative. it is used in procedures for veterinarians. but when it is mixed in with fentanyl, human patients are exhibiting many symptoms. one thing they are saying is there are prolonged periods of sedation that, if they are using the drug, they are out for

several hours and do not realize it. the second thing they are realizing is they have chronic exposure to xylazine mixed in with whatever substance they are using, or wounds. these wounds tend to happen all over their extremities, and they can be quite painful. those are a few of the symptoms my patients are experiencing. ali: so these are two different drugs, but narcanan still help, right? >> absolutely. it is important when we were thinking about public health messaging around xylazine, that the first step, if you are worried about someone overdosing, even if it is associat with xylazine, is to administer naloxone first. call for help and then monitor patients. wait two or three minutes before administering the second dose, then watch for breathing, oxygen level, and provide supportive care.

ali: what do y think of the biden administration's announcement this week that xylazine and fentanyl are going to be treated together as a threat? dr. jawa: i am glad they released this statement. as someone who works with harm reduction organizations, we have been doing a lot of this work on the side for a while now. communities of researchers have been banding together to meet our patients' needs. hopefully we can leverage some of the federal attention and funding and bng all of these people in the community who have been doing good work together. i think hopefully we can use this attention to bring them to the table as we are thinking about national strategies on how to deal with this problem. the second thing i hope is i hope that the funding helps with research and some of the funding goes to harm reduction organizations so that we can have access to low barrier drug checking. when you have a toxic, unregulated drug supply, my

patients do not know what they are using. they think they are buying heroin or fennyl, but it might be something totally different. they are having these really devastating harms. being exsed to adult runs like xyzine. ali: there is a lot to learn about this unknown substance. doctor raagini jawa, thank you for your time. dr. jawa: thank you. geoff: as the 2024 presidential race heats up, several republican hopefuls are headed to indianapolis and nashville for the nra's annual convention and the republican national committee donor retreat this weekend. we turn now to the analysis of brooks and capehart. that's "new york times" columnist david brooks and jonathan capehart, associate

editor for "the washington post." let's start by talking about guns and abortion, two issues where republicans have achieved their policy goals but are potentially threatening the party long-term viability. governor ron desantis last night quietly signed a six week abortion ban into law. the only evidence we have is the photo he tweeted out, very different from when he made a big event of signing a 15 year ban -- a 15 week ban into law. what might that suggest about the politics of the moment? david: apparently only women live in florida. abortion was obviously a big issue for the democrats in the midterms, and a lot of democrats think abortion will be a big issue in 2024, and it could be, but let me make a case for against that. first of all, only 68% -- 68% of americans basically agree with

democrats on the issue, so it is a minority position the republicans have embraced, but when you ask people they really care about, abortion is way down there, about 5% who care about it. when you look at what they really care about, the economy and protecting democracy are really big, so it may not be as salient of an issue as it has been. secondly, brian kemp of georgia also signed an aggressive abortion measure. did not seem to hurt him at all in his race against stacey abrams. finally, i think it is likely that donald trump will be on the ballot in 2024, so donald trump will be an issue in 2020 four. that is a case why it may not be as powerful as iwas last time. geoff: a six week ban could spell trouble for desantis trying to get independent and suburban voters on his side. jonathan: absolutely. i am going to take issue with

what david said. i disagree that abortion is an issue that is not top of mind. maybe if you asked specifically about abortion, but when you wrap it into the overall threats to liberty, attack on liberty, voting rights, abortion rights, and other things happening in school libraries, people look at that and look at what is happening in florida, looking at what happened with the texas decision, and see, whoa, this is not what we want. this is a big issue for democrats, but what we saw in kansas over the summer, but we saw in wisconsin a couple weeks ago is that this is clearly becoming an issue where women who are democrats, independents, and republicans, and particularly the republicans might not say whole lot, but they make their voices heard at the ballot box. we have seen that in two places and i think we will continue to see that, which is why governor

desantis hiding under the cover of darkness signed in a six week abortion ban. that might play well in the only place where the red wave hit last november, but it is not going to play well if he is a candidate for president or any republican running in 2024. >> to jonathan's point, there were republicans who derisively referred to florida as a sanctuary state in the south, because it had a less restrictive abortion policy until now. there are people who say desantis took this step of signing a six week ban to make the point that he is a reliable antiabortion voice. >> you've got tbe there in the republican party. six weeks is where you've got to be. i did there is going to be complete unanimity. to preserve the wreckage of my case for why it wi not matter -- [laughter] david: i would say a couple of

things. it was not only brian kemp you did fine. desantis was pretty clear of where he stood on abortion and did fine. greg abbottn s te ifiendi vxaoty voice heard on abortion, like in kansas or wisconsin, then they are going to make their voices heard, but a presidential race is the sum total of where this country is going, and they tend to be highly polarized. so, we'll independent voters be moved on this issue? maybe. it is the future. it will wait to be heard. geoff: let's shift our focus to the debate around gun fety, because some of the republican candidates are addressing the nra's convention in indianapolis. we have a picture of the folks who are planning to address the convention. you can see mike pompeo there. he told foxnews tonight he is actually not going to seek the presidency, so you can mark a x by his name.

david: i will never smile again. geoff: but in terms of the and ra, you still see republican after republican flocking to that convention even as nashville and louisville are mourning the massacres in their cities. david: i think what has happened with the gun issue is there has been an evolution in the republican world about it. it was, why do we want to have guns? we want to protect ourselves. that is a position you can argue with, but it is a position. then it became a cultural sign, you support guns because you do not like these are the latests -- you do not like the northeastern elitists telling us what to do. but it has migrated into a form of idolatry. if you are a republican congressman sending a christmas card, you are going to gather the family around the tree with your assault rifles. it is just what you do. that is the maga-ization of the republican party.

it has become aggressive "own the libs." it has morphed into an unreasonable version of what is, in my view, pretty unreasonable. geoff: on the left, gun safety has not been as potent o an issue as abortion access or public perceptions of donald trump and his influence. might that change? jonathan: i take issue with that. and safety has been a big issue. it's just that now we are living through a time where we have children living through their second mass shooting event at school. geoff: well, in the sense that voters do not always a site gun safety as their top issue. jonathan: that may be, but let's see what people say come 2024 when we get into the presidential election and go through yet another period of mass shootings. the donor conferences in nashville, were six people were killed, three of them children,

and republican legislature, what did they do? they kicked out two democrats who were advocating on behalf of peop who were mowed down in a mass shooting. i think this aspect of owning the libs, they don't realize that their own constituents are dying. their own constituents want something done about this. the fact that they don't feel any compunction to do anything about it because of the nra, even though it is a shell of its former self, says a lot about the nra, but says a lot more about the republican party. david: i could play the moralist and when i think about guns, but we probably don't disagree much about that. just as a coldhearted political pundit, a, it is low down when u.s. people what they are going to vote on. two,t used to be a powerful issue for democrats when they were running against republicans

and affluent suburbs, northern virginia, delaware county, pennsylvania, when that, illinois -- winnetka, illinois, those places have already turned democrats. those are former republican ples that have shifted. finally, where is the election probably going to be fought out? the democts put their convention in chicago for a reason. it is the upper midwest. will the gun issue help win voters in rural michigan, wisconsin, those upper midwest states? maybe. i am not saying whether it is right or wrong. i am just trying to assess whether it will be a powerful issue. geoff: as we wrap up, dianne feinstein says she plans on serving out her term despite growing calls for her to resign. she is 89 years old. she has not cast a vote sce february 16. she has missed nearly all of the senate's 82 votes so far this session.

what do you think of the democratic pressure on her? to include a tweet from congressman rowe, that said we need to call for her to step down. jonathan: very aggressive move by the congressman, but he got an assist from amy klobuchar of benesova, who said, let me give her some time. but there is an issue on the city judiciary commiee, which i think lisa desjardins pointed out well, that the whole goal of the senate majority is to get some judges through, get the presidential nominations through , and you cannot do that if you do not have a functioning democratic majority on the judiciary committee. i think what we are going to see over the coming weeks, especially with the senate cong back into session, maybe a growing call. something needs to be done. if there were a 60 seat democratic majority, no one would care. the senate would function, but it cannot function when it does not have a key vote on a key

committee. geoff: wha is your take on this perceived pressure campaign? there is an active campaign to replace her in california. >> one might have ulterior motives. i don't think ro khanna does. he said he's not running. that i have an extremely high regard for ro khanna, so when he said that, i thought, oh. this is a question we can solve. if she has a press conference and can answer questions, issue over. have i seen senators who were incapable of that and were still serving? yes. geoff: is there a double standard? what do you think? david: i have been around members of the senate who were not up to their job, let's put it that way. jonathan: yes, it is a uble standard generally, but i do think because of the issue with

the judiciary committee, and let's also keep in mind that does not so much the a that is the issue, because folks keep talking about bernie sanders running for president, and he is, if not in his 80's, almos but it is about her health. and her health, she is recovering from shingles now, but before then there were questions about mental acuity, her mental fitness. i think that is also feeding this. this is not coming from out of nowhere. geoff: thanks to you both. have a great weekend. >> tanks. >> you too. ♪ geoff: many parents wrestle with lancing the competing demands of their personal and professional lives. it's a struggle npr co-host mary louise kelly recently discussed with amna nawaz, and it's also the focus of mary louise's deeply personal new memoir, "it.

goes. so. fast: the year of no do-overs". amna: welcome to the newshour. this is a book about you, your family, your boys, but you put it's a singly in the book early on, this is about what happens -- he put it assisting plea in the book early -- you put it succingtly in the book. what did you mean? mary louise: i have tried to balance a family i love, a job i love, and the deals i was cutting with myself were getting harder as my children got older, which was not what i was expecting. i decided to write what was the last year i knew my family would be intact and under one roof.

we were under one roof, and i thought about the choices i had made over the years, and i thought, i want to wrestle with this in real time. so i read the book in real time to see whether it stuck. amna: tell me about your kids. mary louise: i have two boys, teenagers. the oldest was heading into his senior year of high school last year area the thing i kept circling back on, because it brought it to such a short point, was that child loves soccer. his gains are at 4:00. that is when my show goes on the air. i cannot be there. for years i said let's figure this out next year, but ninth-grade slid into 10th, into 11th, and suddenly he is a senior and i have no more chances. there are no more do overs, no more getting this. -- no more rethinking this.

it brought home to me all the choices i have made and thinking not so much what i do differently, because you cannot turn back the clock, thinking, how have these choices impacted my family? how have they impacted me? what would i learn if i reckone with this for a year? on the -- amna: there is a particularly poignant moment when you are in baghdad and you decide these things have come into conflict and no longer sustainable. tell me about that moment. mary louise: i wasn baghdad, covering an event i the defense secretary. what threw me off was an incoming call from the school nurse in washington who wanted to tell me that my youngest one was sick, and when could i get there. you can see where i am. it is not happening today or tomorrow or anytime soon. she started speaking more loudly saying, i don't mean to bring him home, he is really sick,

struggling to breathe. need to get him to the hospital. i starte running through the times and calculations, where is my husband, where is the babysitter -- my time zone cut deletions, where is the husband, where is the babysitter? i had to get into a helicopter. i remember being in the air looking over the traffic and thinking, what am i doing with my life? i son needs me and i am halfway around the world, and i love my job and i am good at it and worked hard to get here, but this is not working for my family. i hit a wall. amna: you decide to leave. eventually you do come back to this work you love. as you know, this job requires you to get up and go sometimes, so that guilt can weigh heavy on you. you write about later in life, though, you cornered one of your sons and asked him about it -- has there ever been a time when you really need to me and i was not there because of my work? mary louise: i was so curious

what the answer would be. i asked him that question, he looked at his shoes for so long, i could feel my heart thumping like he was about to -- mike, the litany of things i have done to damage this child must have been very long. he looked up and said, i am sure there must have been times, mom, but i can't remember, and could i have 50 bucks -- 15 bucks for chipotle? i must have done something halfway right if that was the biggest grievance. amna: there are a lot of working parents who are going to read this, and we have to remind everyone that we work in a country where the childcare crisis is real, we don't have paid family leave for most people, families with two working parents are still struggling to make ends meet. what do you hope they take away from your story? mary louise: i hope tt, whether you look like you are at the top of your game or not, not a single one of us has figured

this out. i have had so many conversations as i was writing this with girlfriends, with work colleagues, and i wil speak for myself -- i have spent a lot of time beating myself up over the years for my inability to do what is in fact impossible, to be in two places at once, to be at the white house doing the interview you have spent months firing to get -- trying to get, or to be in the blackhawk in iraq and get home when your kids need you. the graciousness have ted to extend to myself, which i am good at extending to other people but have not extended to myself in these years, i am realizing i am fortunate, my kids are fine, i cannot be in two places at once. i have done a lot of on ramping and off ramping and leaning in and out over the years. but i think that is the takeaway , we probably are all doing a little bit better than we think. amna: you also write very

honestly about aging and how you think about it in this stage of life. you have talked about women who have allowed their hair to go gray and how men are granted the assumption of credibility and gravitas when they get older, something women do not have. do you feel like that is getting better? is that double standard going away? mary louise: no, to be honest. i just turned 52. i write in the book about wrestling with feeling invisible in a way that i did not imagine at 52. people stop drivi past and giving you a wolf whistle. i cannot believe i aadmitting this out loud, because it drove me crazy in my 20's and 30's, but now i kind of sit. -- kind of miss it. my 20 or 30 something self would slap me for saying that. i am not claiming i ever was cindy crawford or something, or that i am condoning men behaving, or anyone behaving in offensive ways.

it is not that, it is how we move through the world and how the world perceives us changes. amna: have your boys read the book? mary louise: they have read parts of it. they were required to read chapters in which they are featured pminently, partly because i needed them to fact-check, and they did and had good suggestions. they had veto power over it. it is my book about my struggles, but they are right in ther, and i did note -- they are right in there, and i did not want to put anything in the world they were uncomfortable with. it has been fun to watch their reaction and laughing over chapters that they remember fferently from me. amna: mary louise kelly, thank you for being here. mary louise: it was my pleasure. thanks, amna. ♪

geoff: lots of people track how many steps they take every day, but it is a safe bet they are not close to paul solomon, who is now trekking across china to these in point, the southern tip of south america. stephanie sy recently spoke with him about his progress. stephanie: the national geographic explorer is trekking the globe on foot for a project dubbed the "out of eden walk." we've checked in with paul along the way, from georgia, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, and pakistan, but it's been some time since we caught up with him. and paul joins us now from shaanxi province in china. my first question to you, paul, is what it was like doing this journey in the midst of the pandemic and the lockdowns? i know it wasn't the peak at that point, but i'm curious how that affected your plans.

had to adapt my route. there were parts that were locked down. and so my walking route through western china looks a little bit erratic. there are no mountains in the way, but there are these invisible boundaries of hot covid zones that i had to skirt around. stephanie: i read in one of your dispatches that you spent some time with a poet that believes he's an incarnation or recarnation of an ancient chinese poet. that was really interesting. what other stories and anecdotes and people have really stood out for you while you've been in china? paul: this is my first time in china. and so i had, to some degree in my mind, built up this stereotype this kind of cartoon image of china that we get from international media of the, you know, the factory of the world, a country of megacities of tens of billions of people, of robotic ports, of massive traffic and highways, bullet trains, all of that

exists. but what startled me a bit about coming from southwestern china is that i'm coming through a frontier province of yunnan, it's one of these last enclaves of rural, pastoral economies in china, so it was very much an amazement to me to walk through mountain ranges and into valleys where people were still doing, you know, tinker, tailor, candlestick maker kind of economies or doing things with your hands. meeting people like horse traders who were still moving cargo by horseback over mountains through yunnan province, people doing subsistence farming, people who were doing artisanal sort of crafts, working very much by muscle power, not robotics. stephanie: speaking about that narrative, so much of what we here in the u.s. media these days is about u.s. competition with china. what should viewers understand about the china that you've encountered? paul: it sort of comes with the territory of crossing the world on foot. you can't really skim over a

country or a culture or a society. it really forces me to slow down my observations and to absorb the china that i'm seeing in a very slow, immersive, nuanced level. [11.2s] at the very beginning of my walk through the province of yunnan, i was walking through more than 25 different minority communities that each had their own language. they sometimes had their own cosmologies. i was walking through landscapes that varied from tropical rainforests to, you know, the eastern himalayas, snowfields up around 14,000 plus feet, walking through taoist communities, through buddhist communities. this project is about the micro-level stories of the world. yes, we're extraordinarily, kaleidoscopically different, you know, but at the same time, the things we talk about our like, 90% the same. stephanie: have you become a weary traveler, or do you still have a lot of gas in the tank? paul: i am talking to you from

10 years in, 12,000 miles in, and all along the way, people are helping me. they have no reason to, but they reach out their hand and say, hey, do you need anything from directions to the next village or across this river valley, to, do you need a glass of water? every single time i am privileged to hear somebody's story that they're willing to share it with me, gives me positive energy to take the next steps to keep going. stephanie: it is also a privilege to be able to choose to live this sort of nomadic lifestyle. and i know you have also written about the tens of millions of people around the world that do not have a choice, they feel, you've written about that and had some profound insight. we live in an age of migration. it could be mass violence like war. it could be economic hardships and increasingly climate change. climate crises are pushing a whole new wave of people out of their homes. i have no illusions about

romanticizing the difficulties of migration, but at the same time, homo sapiens have been rambling around this earth for about 300,000 years, and until only about 10,000 or 12,000 years ago, wwere doing it constantly, moving the way true nomads do from encampment to encampment, from landscape to landscape, following wild animals, following resources. human movements the oldest tool of coping and survival that we have in our toolkit, and i don't see it as a problem, per se, on a big level. it's a solution. and boy, we had better start getting used to it because i'm not sure of any society or any polity in the world through time that has ever succeeded building walls. just ask the chinese. stephanie: what a unique and profound view you've gained of the world in the last 10 years. national geographic explorer paul salopek, thank you so much for joining us. good luck on the rest of your journey. paul: thank you very much. pleasure to join you today. geoff: remember, there is much

more online, incding a look into maternal health disparities and why black women face a greater risk of death and trauma from childbirth. you can find that on our website, pbs.org/newshour. be sure to tune into "washington week." our own amna nawaz will speak with a journalist roundtable about the abortion pill battle and the fallout from the classified ukraine documents leak. and watch pbs news weekend tomoow for a story on a native american tribe in louisiana forced to move because of climate change. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. thanks for joining us. have a great weekend. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪

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announcer: this program was made possible by the john s. and james l. knight foundation, the andrew w. mellon foundation, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna nawaz: for riz ahmed, his acting career... and his music career have always gone hand in hand... and in his new film "mogul mowgli," which he cowrote, the two art forms collide with a story that hits close to home. the main character zed is british like ahmed, of pakistani descent like ahmed, and a rapper, also like ahmed. you know, it's in english, it's in urdu. it's an acting piece and a rapping piece, and though it's rooted iny specific experience, i think a lot of people can really relate to that