♪ jeff: good evening. >> tonight, an appeals court ways arguments over access to mifepristone. jeff: a deal to allow ukraine to export grain is extended a and alleviating food shortages. >> judy woodruff this oklahoma where -- >> we have tried over the last 20 years as a community to have those conversations around race in our city that should've been happening for a century. ♪

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i am stephanie with newshour west on here are the headlines. president biden and congressional republicans are giving fresh signals tonight that the deadlock over the debt ceiling may be easing. both sides voice optimism on striking a deal to avert a national default, perhaps by this weekend and president biden said he is confident that negotiators can agree to raise the current limit of $31 trillion before the june 1 deadline. pres. biden: we are going together because there is no alternative but to do the right thing for the country and we have to move on and to be clear, this negotiation is about the outlines up with the budget would look like not about whether or not we will in fact pay our debts. leaders will all agree that we will not default. stephanie: mr. biden said he will have more to say after attending the g7 summit in japan. house speaker kevin mccarthy backed by fellow republican said a deal is doable by sunday, but

criticize the president's travel plans. >> the only thing i know that if you've thought for the less 97 days you are going to negotiate, what are your priorities? i think america wants us to solve american problems first. stephanie: republicans are pressing for spending cash and work requirements for federal benefits in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling. in the president has now left for that overseas trip to japan and departed late this morning and would join leaders of other major economies for the pre-day summit in hiroshima, japan. the president canceled stops in australia and papa new guinea so he can return to the debt limit negotiations in d.c. the u.s. supreme court is letting illinois banned the sale of some semiautomatic guns on large capacity magazines, for now. the justices refused to die to block the law pending a legal challenge and barred sales of assault-style weapons like the ar 15.

those who owned such guns have to register them with police. in pakistan, have police surrounded the home of the former prime minister imran khan, raising new fears of unrest. he had been arrested last week on corruption charges then released amid violent protests. tonight, police set up barricades outside imran khan's home and say he is sheltering supporters blame for the violence a charge that he says is ridiculous. imran khan: if 40 terrorists are hiding at my residence, then it is a threat to my life. please come, but come like civilized society with a search warrant and we will show you the house and you will see where these terrorists are. stephanie: pakistani officials say they will rate his home in less he hands over the suspects within 24 hours. back in this country, democrats in pennsylvania still controlled the state house after winning a special election on tuesday and

the outcome has major implications for abortion and gun rights legislation. montana became the first state to completely ban the social media cap tiktok today. the fbi has warned that user data from the chinese-owned company could be shared with the chinese government and republican governor greg jen forte said the new law protects montanans from chinese surveillance and tiktok and the aclu say that the action infringes on free speech rights and legal challenges are expected. and, plebes at the u.s. naval academy in annapolis, maryland celebrated an annual rite of passage today ending their first year. they work together to scale the 21-put monument slathered with grease for the occasion. and they finally reached the top but they replaced a freshman's cap with an upperclassman cap in the slippery feet took over just two and a half hours. still to come on the newshour data shows a disparity in excess

deaths among black americans compared to their white counterparts. tulsa, oklahoma, struggles to reconcile its troubling past with urban renewal. immediately and morgan discusses her unusual road to success ahead of her new special and much more. ♪ this is pbs newshour west, from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. >> access to medication abortion faced a critical test to date in the conservative for circuit court of appeals. a three-judge panel of republican appointees heard arguments about whether the abortion pill that the priest first approved by the fda more than 20 years ago should stay on the market and is the latest legal battle since the supreme court overturned roe v. wade last year. joining us with reporting and analysis is a correspondent for

kff health news reporting for the newshour about abortion access and the overturning of roe v. wade. and a professor at the university of texas school of law and an expert on federal courts. his new book on the supreme court is the shadow docket. thank you both for being with us. sarah remind us why this case is so significant and said to be the most consequential and's the overrning of roe v. wade? sarah: in the last number of years the number of women who rely on medication abortion pills has grown to more than 50%, so access to this regimen is incredibly important for women around the country was so when the judge issued his decision in taxes before that decision was stated said mifepristone would have to come off the market and that would have to affect the abortion medication and to terminate a pregnancy and is used in early miscarriage management treatments so that is something that physicians and others around the country regularly turn to. jeff: steve, the new

orleans-based fifth circuit is considered one of the most conservative appellate courts in the country and have routinely ruled against the biden doj. what lines of inquiry did the judges explored today and what can you glean from it? steve: there's a lot of talk about this technical legal doctrine which is basically asking are these the right plaintiffs to be challenging the fda's 2000 and subsequent approvals of mifepristone. what we heard from all three of the judges who are republican appointees was real efforts to bolster and support the judges analysis of why these doctors could challenge the fda's actions. even though in almost all of these contexts, the doctors were claiming an injury based on something that may or may not happen in the future, which is that patients who have taken mifepristone will need some kind of emergency or urgent care. that is usually not enough under

the supreme court presidents, and i kind of hostility has been a staple of conservative jusprudence for the last 50 years. jeff: so this will likely head back to the supreme court. the fact that the supreme court preserved access to met the per stone what does that suggest? steve: it is tricky because the ruling had no analysis so we don't know why a majority of the justices voted to keep the ruling on hold. we don't know how many voted. we just know it was five or more but it is a pretty good sign that at least five of the justices are likely to reverse and be unsympathetic to the judge whether because they don't think the plaintiffs have standing or they are willing to side with the biden administration on the merits. what is so important is now is nothing the fifth circuit decides will affect the status quo to state the supreme court issue in preserve nationwide access will remain in place until the supreme court acts, regardless of what the court of

appeals does. jeff: sarah, you have talked to abortion providers experts and advocates how did they see this moment? sarah: well, they are very relieved that mifepristone remains on the market while this plays out which could take months if not years to reach the supreme court. you know this as we were discussing is just really about the state of the judges order, that there is a whole other trial that can happen to discuss the merits of this case. one of the things we heard from the judges to date is can we basically get the file from the fda with a sort of full file going back to 2000, and the doj has not produced that yet in part because it is a quarter century and she said we have to go back into, so you know this case could take many, many months if not years to resolve itself. jeff: steve, on the specific question of safety, we know that mifepristone sends fewer people to the er than tylenol and

viagra, so if this case is successful, if the court effectively bands access to mifepristone, what does that mean for the fda regulatory authority over other drugs? steve: it means it is open season and we will see challenges from the left, right, the anti-science part of the community to a wide range of fda approvals both old and new from over-the-counter medicines to vaccines, to every kind of experimental treatment you can think of. it is essentially the wild west and that is part of why we saw the u.s. supreme court step and not because the conservative justices were especially sympathetic to the nationwide availability of mifepristone, but because some can see the writing on the wall in which 23 years after the fda approves of medication and you walk into a handpicked federal courthouse and get a federal judge to second-guess the decision.

jeff: when you say handpicked federal courthouse you mean the fact that this case was filed specifically in texas because they knew that it would end up before the specific appellate court? steve: that'right, not just texas, but amarillo, the northern district of texas with the plaintiffs, the alliance for hippocratic medicine had a 100% chance of the case being signed to the specific judge, who is pretty well-known as an anti-abortion advocate before he was on the federal bench. folks will have their own views about whether that is a healthy practice or not. when anybody can take advantage of the kind of manipulation of the trial court system that is potentially why this has such cataclysmic implications for the entire universe of medication that drug safety approval because now you're going to see copycat lawsuits that have nothing to do with abortion were you did not even have the same political imbalance and it is everything that fda -- fda has done is open to political challenge.

jeff: sarah, you have been following this from the beginning what are you watching as this case unfolds? sarah:sarah: while this case of standing is very interesting and i agreed that it's unlikely justices at al towthtoure wedate antiabortion groups to gain some credibility and in their standing question. um, the other thing i thought was interesting as one judges at trump appointee kept saying several times it seems that your argument is the fda can do no wrong and he recited several other drugs that had been removed from the marketplace. the justice department attorney said what that was because the fda went through a review process and remove the drug, but there does seem to be some hostility from the judge about this idea that we should leave these decisions up to scientific and medical experts at the fda. the other think that i thought was interesting was his big question about doctors practicing medicine and use sell several of the judges as well, should the doctors have to use an ultrasound? should they have to see a patient in person? the justice department would come back and say we asked

doctors to practice medicine um and in fact you can ask a woman a lot of question to determine whether or not she has a pregnancy and if there is pain her shoulder for instance in these things are predictive of the type of pregnancy or when was your last period.that can give us a sense of how far along someone is in the pregnancy and use her ipod from the judges at least his real interest in not believing doctors not really trusting doctors to suss that out for themselves, so that's what i will be looking for as well. jeff: you are shaking your head in agreement about not trusting doctors. steve: yeah, at the end of the date the question is who do we pick and a better position to measure and weighed the scientific and medical evidence, the folks at the fda appointed by the president who are given those positions because they have those qualifications, or federal judges? no one is arguing the government's actions cannot be reviewed, but when you have a system where a single federal judge anywhere in the country is

in a position to just brush to the side 23 years of scientific and medical evidence that the agency has created to answer those questions has compiled, i think you see why biz has potentially such enormous ramifications far beyond even the enormous mifepristone -specific ramifications of this one case. jeff: thank you both for your analysis and reporting. i appreciate it. steve: thank you. ♪ >> a pair of new studies from the journal of the american medical association find that the toll of racial disparities in health for black americans is even starker than we knew, both in lives lost in the enormous economic cost as well. from 1999 to 2020 black americans expense 1.6 3 million excess deaths compared to white americans, resulting in 80

million years of life lost. covid widened that gap in depth further and the loss was felt especially among infants in older adults. in terms of economic cost of the study found that in 2018, racial health inequities cost the u.s. an estimated $421 billion, around two thirds of that cause came from premature deaths. to explain the significance of this data, i'm joined by dr. lisa cooper director of the johns hopkins center for health equity in the bloomberg to distinguish professor at johns hopkins university school of medicine. dr. cooper, welcome and thank you for joining us. after lisa cooper: thank you for having me. >> these numbers are staggering when laid out this way. you have long studied these issues. were you surprised by these figures when you saw these figures? dr. lisa cooper? on fort lee i was not surprised although i will have to say i was disappointed because i was hoping that we would have seen some improvement over what we saw in the last century and it

seems like the trends are looking pretty much the same. >> it is now well documented the systemic racism that exists specifically in our health care system ibenrss attributable to that? dr. lisa cooper: it is important to note that structural racism impacts our institution and i think racism and health care contribute substantially to the statistics but i think racism throughout all of our institutions and through all of our policies is contribute into these disparities because really those are the policies and practices that determine where people live, whether or not they have gainful employment and wet that they can get a good education and whether they have access to healthy food and access -- so all of these things shape people's opportunities to live healthy lives and determine whether or not they die prematurely. >> dr. cooper, these numbers are

staggering when you look at them but you still see a number of patients in your clinics and how did these numbers show update today in those patients? dr. lisa cooper: they show up you know in the young people i see, i see young adults people as young as 30, 35, 40, who already have hypertension, who already are obese, who already have had a stroke. i have seen people who are in middle age with diabetes and have suffered amputations and can no longer work. um and a lot of these people you know are from communities that have low income or they argue no african-americans um people who are hispanics. i see people at young ages with diseases that normally you would see in older people, so um you know it is very very painful and it is hard to see and there are few people who actually beat the odds but the odds are definitely not stacked in their favor.

>> there is an economic component to this study as well as we mentioned, the hundreds and billions of dollars in costs of those racial health inequities. why to you is that an important part of this argument? dr. lisa cooper: well i think it is an important part because um you know and lots of ways our economy and our businesses uh they respond to things like this. i think people don't realize the interconnection between health and productivity often times they see them as separate things and if we concede that our health is connected to everything we do. we cannot work. we cannot uh innovate. we cannot compete successfully with other countries if we have poor health, and if we have poor health in certain groups of people in our country but that puts our entire country at a disadvantage so it is important for people to understand the problem and that it is human suffering and that it impact

society and so many different ways but economically it is something that a lot of people really understand. so dr. cooper what does it take to turn these numbers around? dr. lisa cooper: well, it will take a lot of work, but one thing we need to do is to understand we have signs to inform a lot of the solutions, and what we need to do is to use what we know as we generate more information and more science. we need to use what we know already. we know that early childhood education improves health later in life so we should support policies and practices that do that. we know that a higher living age and higher income or a minimum wage will improve economic opportunities in the health of people in their adulthood. we know that changing due to life circumstances and the thing conditions in neighborhoods and housing quality and access to food we know all those things work to shape health and we know that providing universal access to health care improves health

care outcomes, especially for those who cannot afford it based on who they work for, so we just know a lot that we are not implementing because we need to generate stronger political will. and it doing that means engaging with people and communities that are impacted by health disparities and making sure that they are specifically engaged typically and thatow they haou e involvement in the input at the decision-making tables, and i think in so doing, we will you know we will achieve the goal but it is something that everyone needs to understand that it impacts us all. >> that is dr. lisa cooper director of the johns hopkins center for health equity joining us tonight. dr. cooper, thank you. dr. lisa cooper: thank you for having me. ♪ jeff: today, russia agreed to extend the deal that allows

ukraine to export grain to the rest the world here the agreement is -- world. the agreement is a lifeline at the moment of world food insecurity. nick, how did this green deal extension come about? i should not of said the u.s., i should've said the united nations. >> the turkish president decided unilaterally to extend this deal by 60 days and as you said, the united nations and turkish negotiators have been trying to negotiate fiercely ahead of tomorrow's deadline to get russia to do a longer extension. moscow has been asking for concessions claim this deal does not allow it to celt at some grain and fertilizer to the rest of the world, something the u.s. by the way denies, but even only at 60 days this deal is vital. ukraine has historically been a breadbasket for the world especially when it comes to corn and grain. some 340 5 million people around the world are food insecure and access to this ukrainian grain

can help to prevent hunger and famine, especially in the horn of africa. jeff: this green deal as you said is a rare agreement as the war continues. we know that russia has stepped up their missile attacks in recent days. how is ukraine dealing with that? nick: it is an incredible stepping up by russia because of how they're trying to attack ukraine's critical infrastructure. they have been using one of their most advanced weapons a hypersonic weapon that was unveiled about five years ago by russian president vladimir putin to great fanfare. he said that it could flight mock 10, which means 10 times the speed of sound and would be launched from russian jets but this is russian defense ministry video right there. putin called that weapon "invincible." that assumption was that could avoid air defense but it turns out that it is very vulnerable to an air defense system called the u.s. patriot which the u.s. has only recently delivered to ukraine.

a defense official confirms to me that one of the missiles did do some light damage to a patriot missile, but the missiles were about to shoot down half a dozen hypersonics and i asked a person at m.i.t., who explained that the reason the patriot was able to shoot the missile down was less about the patriot and more about the missile itself. >> what people tend to forget is the high-speed mach 10 is the maximum top speed they reach and that they slowed down as they reenter the atmosphere, so as they dived towards their target, they had very thick atmosphere and that drag tends to slow them down and by the time they get to low altitudes, they are going slow enough that i had predicted a patriot might be able to shoot them down and it appears ukraine has showed that. the reason >> this is important for ukraine is that it is proven that pressure even with its most advanced missiles cannot be

guaranteed to hit kiev's critical infrastructure ahead of this offensive. u.s. officials say it has begun in earnest with what are called shaping operations which are attacks inside occupied territory including with a long-range british missile the storm shadow that has just been delivered and in the coming weeks we expect barrages of artillery from ukraine to begin ahead of a grandson since with western weapons and training. jeff: meanwhile president biden left for the g7 gathering in japan but because of the debt ceiling negotiations he canceled visits to australia and what would have been the first ever visit by a sitting president to papa new guinea. what has been the reaction? toodhy prime mister -- president biden had to cancel and they hosted ambassadors from the countries undescribed to be that the respondent with en trying to expand its.s. has

footprint in the pacific beyond its two huge bases to a handful of locations and you see the location of papa new guinea there that the coast of australia. in order to complicate chinese were planning and relay across the region and during the visit president biden was expected to sign with papa new guinea's prime minister a defense cooperation agreement that would have eventually gotten u.s. troop stationed in papa new guinea and around the papa new guinea. white house and regional officials say that the agreement is not in peril, but jeff, remember what the white house argues that democracies can deliver in the u.s. can deliver despite domestic political dysfunction and what china will argue is that no, u.s. domestic politics can interfere with u.s. commitment to the region according to zerrick cooper of institute.an enterprise >> leaders in asia what they're looking for is the united states to be a reliable partner and that means showing up sometimes

even when we have domestic challenges and i think there will be a lot of questions about you know look, the debt ceiling we knew roughly when it was going to be a problem so why did we schedule a whole series of meetings when we knew that these negotiations were going to go up to the last minute? and alternatively, if as the president said today, they have agreed that they are not going to default then why can't the president stay in asia? jeff: was officials are trying to get antony blinken there, but bottom line is at the u.s. and china will continue their competition through the region. jeff: we should acknowledge that this week you're taking time off or paternity leave. nick: i am. jeff: you will be dearly missed but we wish you all the best. nick: thank you. i appreciate it. fantastic. ♪ >> over the past few years, as the country has been reckoning with questions of race, justice,

and inequality many state legislatures have passed laws restricting how american history in particular institutional racism and its legacy today can be taught in public schools. the night, judy woodruff visits her native tulsa, oklahoma to try to understand how that city amid its own reckoning is navigating this moment. it is her latest installment of america at a crossroads. >> this is where the theater was located, and my great aunt janie when she was 17 years old she went on a date. who would have known that during the state the massacre happened? >> immunity axis christy williams is a descendant of janie edwards, who is just a teenager and tulsa more than 100 years ago and she snuck out one saturday night for a date and found her say fleeing for her life. >> she remembered that there were gunshots flying everywhere that there was fire everywhere

and she said they dropped bombs, and you could smell the fire and the smoke for miles and miles away. judy: the day before a young black men working as a shoeshine or was arrested for allegedly assaulting a white wan on an elevator and a confrontation at the courthouse followed and on the morning of june 1, 1921, a mob of white men chased a group of black men into greenwood and the 35-block district of black-owned businesses and homes known as black wall street, killing an untold number of residents and burning the community to the ground, yet the stories of what happened in tulsa that we can work for a long time buried in fear, intimidation, and shame. christy: they did not want to repeat it because they always feared that if they talked about it around the people who did it, who were looting the homes and burning the homes and killing

people, so you did not want that to happen again so you kept quiet about it. judy: for decades, other stories have been told about tulsa. place once known as the oil capital of the world but more recently new residents drawn by unaffordable cost-of-living and by transforming downtown, rich in music, history, culture, including greenwood. in fact, my own story began here. i was born and spent the early years of my life in this, the second largest city in oklahoma. i only lived in tulsa for five years but came back often to visit family, especially my grandmother who lived in this house in north tulsa. i never remember hearing anything about greenwood until news reports began to circulate a few years ago. >> are at the epicenter of the tulsa race massacre, the

worst incidents of urban racial violence in american history, and it was not discussed openly for nearly 75 years to 80 years, so this represents the evolution of tulsa was racial history. judy: the mayor of tulsa comes from a long line of tulsa citizens as well as mayors on both sides of his family. >> the goal at the top is reconciliation for us as a community. judy: in 2021, he apologized for the city's failure to protect black tellson's 100 years earlier and from decades of discrimination after. >> i think the greatest change i have seen in my lifetime and especially in the last five years to seven years is the open with -- openness with which racial disparities are discussed in our city, and we have tried to over i'd sayhe last 20

years as a community start having those conversations around race in our city that should have been happening for a century that we tried to compact all that in the last 20 years, and really in earnest in the last decades. judy: historians estimate that 300 people may have been killed in the massacre. in 2018, the mayor announced an effort to find out more using ground-penetrating radar, and excavation to explore four sites were victims of the massacre may have been buried. eyad sequence dna from sixunced sets of human remains exhumed from oaklawn cemetery and now seeking the public's help in identifying them. >> it is an opportunity for us to make tulsa the kind of city that this generation wants it to be. we want it to be a city that was horrible things happen to people , we as a city rally around them

and do our best to find out what happen and be there for their families and descendants. at the same time, there is a human challenge and great lack of trust towards the city because the city did not do enough for so long. christy: banned the banned tulsa citizens have is what are you going to do about it? these are abandon homes you see throughout my district. judy: vanessa hall harper who represents tulsa's first district in the north recently gave me a tour of her district where many black tolson -- tulsa citizens live today. vanessa hall harper: you have bacon houses and vacant lots. judy: following the massacre, many businesses were rebuilt but in the decades that followed the developers know the highway through the heart of greenwood, which combined with housing discrimination in the force of race-restricted covenants and redlining drove many residents north. vanessa hall harper: this was

the only part of town where blacks could live. two today she says that area suffers from poor housing, nutrition, employment and a 2015 tulsa health department report found a greater than 10-year difference in the lifespan of those living in a zip code in the north versus just a few miles away and south tulsa. >> the community living in tulsa is largely african-american black brown and poor people, and south tulsa is largely white affluent. that is a problem and not only for north tulsa, but for our city. two she campaigned on a promise to address the food deserts in her community. vanessa hall harper: there is nothing that is helping. two and in 2021 with the support from the mayor she helped to deliver fresh fruits, vegetable and dairy in the oasis fresh market but she says a lot more needs to be done to make this community whole. the nessel hall harper: you know i grew up and i had to apologize and say more than i was sorry, i

had to do all that i could do to make right what i had done. jeff: she is currently helping to lead a series of community conversations called beyond apology to engage residents over what more the city should do, including on the questions of reparations. so when you speak of reparations, what you mean exactly by that? vanessa hall harper: we are in the process right now having those conversations beyond apology but if you're asking me vanessa hall harper, reparations is land and cash to me. judy: to whom? vanessa hall harper: to everyone involved, not only victims, but descendants, but not only were individuals destroyed, community was destroyed. this entire space with this entire area was impacted and so what does that form of reparations look like? i think that those are conversations that we must have. vanessa hall harper: the mayor.

>> we need to do right by those murdered in 1921. that is why we are doing this search for grades and have allocated over $1 million in city funding supported by the city council and the public. the public has overwhelmingly supported our work around economic development. one could view all that work is reparations. um, there are others who say we have this levy of a property tax on everyone who lives in tulsa and issue cash payments. that to me is that much more challenging question because you are financially penalizing everyone who lives in tulsa today for something criminals did 100 years ago, but we are going through a dialogue in the weight that you address it is to keep the dialogue growing. and yet judy: republican state lawmakers have arguably made that more difficult. >> more difficult from the signing of husband 1775 in oklahoma. judy: in 2021 despite opposition from scoreboards and public universities across the state,

the governor signed house bill 1775, legislation restricting how history can be taught in public schools. >> and as governor, i firmly believe that not one cent of taxpayer money should be used to define and divide young oklahomans about their race or sex. judy: on its face, 1775 is about preventing discrimination on the basis of race or sex, but it includes a provision that says "no individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex," which some worry is so broad and subjective that it is having a chilling effect on the teaching of difficult subjects like the 1921 massacre. >> i think it is ridiculous. i think it is totally ridiculous you do not teach history of what actually happened just for fear of making someone feel guilty. teach them also in order for

this not to happen. these are the things that we must do. >> tulsa public schools is the first district in oklahoma accused of violating a new state law that regulates how district teach about race and gender. judy: the law is already having real-world consequences. last summer, the accreditation ratings of two oklahoma school districts, tulsa and mustang, were downgraded. in tulsa because teachers took part in implicit bias training. house bill >> 1775 was created to create accountability and transparency. judy: one tulsa-area resident spoke in favor of the downgrading at the july state meeting in oklahoma city. >> i ask you today and follow through and let tps bd example across oklahoma that breaking the law is unacceptable and illegal and as a district you will pay the price for that decision. judy: a mother of two boys was in public school was in private, in 2021, he founded the tulsa

chapter of moms for liberty, a nonprofit parents rights group started in florida during the pandemic that has now spread across the country. the group is officially nonpartisan, but aligns itself with conservative causes. they say the tulsa public schools which for years have struggled with low funding and test scores need to focus on academics. >> that should be the only thing they are focusing on and not diversity, equity, and inclusion. judy: are you saying that it is wrong for teachers to be conscious of diversity? >> not at all. judy: then what is the argument then? >> well, critical race theory or diversity equity inclusion equity is making everyone equal. that is not the case, right? we can't all have the same thing. that is marxism, literally. we want equitable, not equity, where everyone has the same opportunity.

judy: i asked danforth how teachers are supposed to manage how a student feels about a historical event like the 1921 massacre without worrying about hurting the districts accreditation or jeopardizing their teaching licenses. how do you carefully make that separation? >> i think that you can shout there were some people in that timeframe that were not good people and they had ku klux klan was a terrible organization that did terrible things to black people and i think kids can learn about it without having to have that concept put on them police like police it is their fault. judy: and you think teachers are able to make that distinction and should be able to make that distinction? >> absolutely. if you worried about how you are teaching it than you are probably teaching it wrong. > i would not want any student in tulsa taught they are less than anyone else because of their race, but at the same time there are legitimate concerns about making sure we do have

difficult conversations and burn about difficult history. judy: for his part, the mayor, a republican, says if in fact a new state law is preventing the teaching of history like the events of 1921, legislators should amend it. we >> our home to the -- we are home to the consequences of not talking about difficult history for three quarters of a century right here in tulsa where the city fathers after 1921 decided we will not talk about this race massacre because it is such an i thaansdt lef investigate it 0 years after the fact, which is really challenging. >> i also want to keep educating ourselves and our own. that is really important. judy: community activist christy williams is not acting -- waiting for the legislature to act. she recently started her own program black history saturdays for young people, their parents, and local teachers do meet once a month to learn in an

environment free from the fear of saying the wrong thing. kristi: you know, history and learning it is uncomfortable but if you understand someone else's history, then you will not treat them like they are an outcast. if all you were taught i am a slave in my people were slaves you don't see that much in me, so it is a benefit for all people to learn black history. judy: a community that remains divided over its past and how to move forward, but still trying to engage. for the pbs newshour, i am judy woodruff, oklahoma. stephanie:stephanie: take a look online where judy shares her personal reflections on reporting on tulsa. that is at pbs.org/newshour. jeff: leeann morgan finds comity in the chaos of marriage and motherhood, a storyteller who draws from her experiences in rural tennessee being married

for over 30 years and raising three kids and becoming a grandmother for the first time. foundey would say "their" baby. [laughter] and we would say, "our" baby. [laughter] and then they use words like "boundaries." [laughter] jeff: her standup career is taking off and she's just released her first netflix standup special. leeann morgan: they're going to have this precious baby and they will be up all night and that will go into weeks and months and my little daughter-in-law will start hallucinating. and, we will see who has got boundaries. [laughter] jeff: i sat down with her in new york city to talk about her unconventional comedy career. most comedians get their starts in comity clubs or in writers

rooms. you found your way to professional standupy selling jewelry is that right? leeann morgan: yes, my darling, ok, so my husband and i met at the university of tennessee and when he graduated he bought a used mobile home business where he refurbish mobile homes and sold them and moved me to tennessee in the foothills of the appalachian mountains and i start selling jewelry. jeff: you are going house to house doing this? leeann morgan: i'm going house to house at night while my husband was watching the baby and i did not talk about jewelry, but i talked about breast-feeding, hemorrhoids, and developed an act and women thought i was funny and startedo wow. that gave me the confidence and people said you need to be a stand up. leeann morgan:leeann morgan: i wanted to be in show business and i thought it was funny and always love comity but i did not know you know what it would end up but standup i knew i could

tell his story. >> ladies and gentlemen, leeann morgan! jeff: after two decades on stage , her first special on youtube has more than 50 million views. her new netflix special reached the top 10. leeann morgan: my husband and i met and i was so cute and i was little and had a little britches. [laughter] in my thyroid was functioning. [laughter] now, i truly leave he would not pull me out of a burning vehicle. [laughter] jeff: your family provides fodder for so much of your back. how did they feel about that? leeann morgan: they feel fine about it now. when they were in middle school when my children said do not speak my name and they also said do not come up to the school with yoga pants on. [laughter] so that was a dry time for me and my husband only one time has said to me, don't say that again. i said something about i wanted something but it was of bad mobile home year and he said i am always providing for you.

did not say that again and it hurt me for him and i've never said anything like that again but he does not care about anything else. [laughter] and in my twisted mind i think, oh, i can do is 40 pounds in four weeks. [laughter] jeff: her back is relatable and a reflection of her life. comedy with the common touch.avy leeann metn: in thore worlgad pa sister and i took dexa trim. you remember dexatrim? it was speed. [laughter] we took speed. [laughter] as a family. [laughter] they sold it on the shelves everywhere. we were all taking dope, i mean, and that is funny how things resonate with people because i have had more comments and people saying oh my gosh my mom and i took dexatrim together in my mama gave it to us and i was this big around and i was raised by farming people out in the middle of wheat new where our

beef was coming from. i was tiny and then taking diet pills and talk about, i would not now, but i think my heart would flutter. jeff: right. [laughter] leeann morgan: i am out here on the porch and looking rough. jeff: when covid hit, she was about to start a 100-city tour and like many others leaned into social media and cooking. leeann morgan:leeann morgan: you just mix it together and chill it and it is really good. i started talking about my recipes and taking care of my mama and daddy. they needed me. what i was feeding them in my ever thought it would, so that was a helpful thing. as horrible as all that was, i think it helped to grow my art is because people were at home. jeff: leeann morgan: and it gave them leeann morgan: a point of connection. and people started making cello all over the united states and i know -- jeff: it is controversial. [laughter] four banned leeann morgan: leeann morgan: it is very controversial, but from where i'm from an middle tennessee we have a salad with a little pineapple,ip.

jeff: wow. that is beyond the july no. leeann morgan:leeann morgan: i know, it's a lot, but to us, you know, it's nice to do that. jeff: the thing i loved about your a is there is no underlying political or social message andc is just about the laughst and finding the funny moments in family and growing older. leeann morgan: and i understand how people want to do that and do the comedy that way, but i just never have written that way or ever thought that way, plus i thought nobody cares what i think, and i want it to be fun. i don't want anybody to feel uncomfortable but yeah, that is how come i don't write that way, you know? i probably don't read enough to know what is going on. [laughter] jeff: she says this run of success could nav hote enhaed at a better time. she just signed on to sign onto a will ferrell and reese witherspoon company and back on the road in a national standup

tour this summer. thtour is ca just getting started. is that how it feels? leeann morgan: yes. ok, when you're the country like i am a we are cooking pinto beans and how stress is an thought i will bow out of this thand then it happened. when i look on it and i've had television sitcoms and my children were little and i would be devastated and i look back on it now unlike, oh my gosh, that was not the right time. i got to raise these children in knoxville, tennessee, and then now they don't need me like they used to. they still need me. and this happened to me at this time in my life. jeff: yeah. leeann morgan: and i am having a ball. i'm having a ball. it is bigger, more wonderful, and more special than anything i dreamed of. stephanie: i love that she says your name with two syllables. jeff: as part of her tour, she

sold out the grand ole opry, which is a big deal, but certainly somebody from tennessee. she is something else. and that interview was part of our arts and culture series, campus. meantime may is aapi heritage month and we are explain how food is tied to culture and identity. stephanie: in hillsboro, oregon, our student reported that the beaverton academy of science and engineering has a story of a cambodian refugee whose restaurant helps him heal from a provtres aam s fpaceic tyo shils culture. dreamabout it.>> and now i'm livi it. it is easy for me because this is wnti haedwamy. name -- i uh was born in cambodia in 1970 and i came to the nine states when i was 10 years old in 1981.

communists rebels took over cambodia in 1975, anything with knowledge and intellectual stuff uh, they don't want it anymore and want to reset the country back to year zero. my father was a well-known person in our community in town. he was a teacher. when the khmer rouge took over in 1975, he could not hide one night in the middle of theis night and they took him outside of town and they beat him to death. when we were there, we were moved from town to town. my mother was put to work and work camps and my sister and i were orphaned for several months. i was the one who had to book for a way to feed my sisters and myself, and my grandmother. we were suffering a lot, but

fortunately, we made it. my w i wantedife ad venue where we could host a lot of people for events and stuff like that, and so, this together with our own nds prettyuch. [laughr]il buteel really good about wihat e do here, and my goal was to get closer to my community, uh to be more connected and have a better networking system. you know, we serve foods, it is also more than food here. we build relationships. we create good memories. ♪ bring light to what happened in cambodia. i also want people to not forget about the genocide. cambodia has been cambodia is more than just the killing field.

cambodia is a country full of rich culture, arts, foods, entertainments, and everything else, so i wanted to at least shed some light on cambodia and the cambodian culture. jeff: that is the newshour for not. nd ai am geoff bennett. >> on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by. >> for 25 years, consumer savings goal has been to provide wireless service to help people communicate and connect with a variety of plans. we can find one th fyoitu.s visit consumer cellular.tv. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions, and friends of the newshour including -- kathy and paul anderson. >> a proud supporter of public

television, on a voyage with -- the world awaits. a world of flavor, diverse destinations, and immersive experiences, tertaia nmwoenrltd, all with -- white start service. -- star service. ♪ >> the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. funding for america at a crossroads was provided by. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions.

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions tos ypbyor thk you.♪ this is pbs newshour west, from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] ♪

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