geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna nawaz is away. on the newshour tonight. congress works to push through the deal that would raise the debt ceiling and curb spending. a major opioid settlement grants the family behind purdue pharma immunity from civil lawsuits, in exchange for money to treat addiction. and certain groups of asian americans who are disproportionately affected by police violence open up about their often overlooked experiences. >> it was just an incredible amount of force applied at a situation when what really was needed was for someone to provide care. ♪

>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ >> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> actually, you don't need vision to do most things in life. i was excited to be part of the team did -- driving the vision forward. >> people who know, know bdo.

>> we offer a variety of no contract plans and our team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit consumer cellular.tv. >> the walton family foundation, working for solutions to protect water during climate change, so people and nature can thrive together. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. for information at macfound.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. thisrogram was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by coributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: welcome to the newshour.

the u.s. house is set to vote on a debt ceiling deal tonight, after republicans got some help from democrats to pass a crucial hurdle. the vote follows weeks of heated negotiations and criticism from the right anthe left. lisa desjardins has been tracking it all on capitol hill and joins us now. there has been lots of action on the house floor already today. ring us up to speed on what happened. lisa: as many people know, the delivery process can be complicated in some instances, and that is the situation here now. this was a critical moment in the lifespan of this debt will. it had to get pastor hurdle allowing it to even come up for debate on the house floor. usually what happens is the party in charge decides which bills come to the floor, and they all vote to make that happen. but as we have been talking about, there were two dozen plus republicans who opposed this bill and wanted to block it. so what happened?

a slew of democrats in the middle of the vote changed the vote, tsitsipas of them, in order to help this debt deal continue to move forward. it was a bit of quick drama, but the democrat said we needed to do this, we felt like this is too important for our country. it shows that what happened today, number one, this is a very high wire act that both parties are trying to conduct here. and number two, it is in fact bipartisan, that this bill moving through, it's survival depends on both parties. geoff: so we are a short time away from the big test, which is the houseboat on the bill itself. are the votes there, lisa? lisa: i been checking in all day with folks who were undecided yesterday and this morning. i will say in just the last hour, one republican and two democrats have said they are now voting yes for this bill. that seems to be the way the momentum has gone over the past

day. it hasn't been easy for either side, and we do think this vote will matter for kevin mccarthy's leadership. we will be counting how many republicans vote yes. he needs a clear geordie of his conference, or else his job could be at stake as well. geoff: remind us of the major issues, the concerns that republicans and democrats have about how this bill will affect everyday americans. lisa: that's right. on thing about this is first, the reason so many people are undecided is because they are thinking about those mistakes. i want to first lay the sound of two of the leaders of both sides showing how bipartisan this was. neither side is exactly ecstatic about this, but both are saying that they have to move forward. here is what we heard on the floor today. >> it is not a perfect bill, but it does represent a compromise

between the administration and congress that's necessary in divided government. nobody got everything they wanted, but the end result is a truly historic bill. >> there is no perfect negotation when you are the victims of extortion. nobody likes to pay a ransom note, and that's exactly what tonight's vote is. it's our payment on the ransom of the american people. lisa: what is interesting is those are two leaders who are both in support of this hill. to your question, what is at stake here, why are there still undecided votes? at stake in the bill, first and foremost, two years of federal spending. that is trillions of dollars that will affect host every aspect of american life. food benefits, food stamps, the snap benefit for hundreds of thousands of people, the way the benefit is changing will mean some thousands of people lose a benefit and thousands of others

will receive it. there's also major energy projects that are at stake in this bill, because permitting would intentionally move more quickly. on the other hand, there are those on the left to say there's a problem because the extent of environmental reviews or those huge projects would be much more shallow and they are worried about the environment impact. take all that together and you have misgivings from some democrat worried about the environment and worried about those food stamps programs. i want to talk about one other democrat from connecticut, a former national schoolteacher of the year. she had a powerful moment today when she said, i am thinking about my constituents who might lose their food stamp benefits. i'm thinking especially of older women, she says older women of color don't have any lobbyists, they only have me. so a very emotional vote for

some of these members. geoff: so as far as tracking what is happening in the house, what is the state of play in the upper chamber? lisa: it does feel like the votes are there as well. the question as always is the timing. the senate does not move quickly, but they don't have a lot of time. over the next couple of days we will see if the vote will move quickly, perhaps as soon as friday, or it may take several days past that. we could get close to the deadline. we watch that very closely. geoff: lisa, thanks so much. ♪ geoff: in the day's other headlines, the kremlin accused ukraine of striking more targets inside russia, including oil facilities and a border town. the governor of russia's belgorod region reported cross-border shelling.

to the south, officials in krasnodar said drone attacks hit two refineries. social media footage showed a huge fire at one of the refineries lighting up the sky. ukraine did not confirm or deny any involvement in the attack. the u.s. and south korea today condemned north korea's attempt to launch its first spy satellite. the north admitted the launch failed but vowed to try again. south korea's military said it located wreckage after the missile plunged into the sea. official photos showed a white metal cylinder described as part of the rocket. in washington, national security council spokesman john kirby warned the launch is a threat, regardless of the outcome. >> with each and every one of these launches, whether it fails or succeeds, kim jong un and his scientists and engineers, they learn, and they improve, and they adapt, and they continue to develop military capabilities that are a threat not only on

the peninsula but to the region. geoff: an evacuation alert and air raid sirens were triggered in seoul. the military accused arrival group today have repeatedly violating cease-fires. the conflict has killed hundreds of people and forced 1.6 million from their homes. back in this country, jury selection began today in florida for a former sheriff's deputy, in the parkland school shootings of 2018. scot peterson reached a classroom building just after gunfire erupted, but he never went inside. he's charged with felony child neglect. in a six-minute assault, a teenage gunman killed 14 students and three staff members at marjory stoneman douglas high school. the gunman is now serving life in prison. and on wall street, nagging worries about the global economy and inflation pushed stocks lower. the dow jones industrial average lost 134 points, the nasdaq fell

82 points, the s&p 500 slipped 25. still on the newshour, a new anti-gay law in uganda that threatens the death penalty sparks international outcry. judy woodruff examines tested strategies to bridge america's partisan divide, and a brief but spectacular take on transforming the ster care system. >>his is pbs newshour west, and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: purdue's opioid sales earned the sackler family billions of dollars, and this ruling would protect them from all civil lawsuits.

william brangham has more. william: purdue's opioid sales earned the sackler family billions of dollars, and this -- it requires that the sacklers give up control of purdue pharma. in total, drug manufacturers, pharmacies and distributors have pledged around $54 billion to state, local and tribal governments for their respective roles in the opioid epidemic. to understand where that money might be spent, we're joined by aneri pattani, she's tracking all of this for kff health news. welcome to the program. just remind us of the contours of this deal the sackler settlement, what it means for the sacklers and what it means for the people who are suing them. >> so this deal has been in the works for a long time. there's been almost a year that folks have been waiting on this next step in the bankruptcy and with the federal judge in new

york clearing this for the next , round. what it means is that the purdue pharma bankruptcy for the company can move forward and when the bankruptcy moves forward for people who filed lawsuits for the government's state and local government, they will be getting payouts from a total of six booming dollars, about, and what it means for the sacklers is that the individual sackler family members are protected from any lawsuits against them, that sort of a trade off in moving this deal forward that the judge okayed. william: it seems like there are these two competing forces here, very demonstrable anger against the sackler family for which there's a good documentary evidence that they knew how bad this crisis was, and yet kept going forward. and yet also this desire on behalf of all these states and communities to get that money to try to ameliorate. that's a very difficult tension to navigate. >> yeah, i think i've been

hearing that from a lot of folks where people have been waiting for the bankruptcy to move forward for a long time. individual families want the money, right. i hear from grandparents who are raising their grandkids because their sons or daughters died of the opioid crisis and those bills are coming in now. like the caring for them, their school, their health, whatever it is, families that are dealing with funeral costs for people who have died of overdoses so they need the money now and then you talk about the governments that want to start addiction treatment programs or recovery housing, but at the same time, the way this money is moving forward and actually getting out to people is by protecting the sackler family from any personal responsibility and the same family members who want the money in the same communities that need it. also feel like there should be some personal responsibility for what happened. william: what they're going to have to live with. now that the money comes that comes with this other stipulation. as you and many others have been reporting, the sackler money is just part of this other bigger pot of money from a lot of

different from pharmacies or distributors from other manufacturers, 50 plus billion dollars that's out there. give us a sense of how that money is going to be spent, generally speaking. >> right. so that money is coming from a lot of different companies and they each have slightly different settlement agreements. most of them require that at least 85% of the money that any state gets be spent on what's called opioid remediation, esntially programs that will address addiction, as it exists now, or prevent it in the future. but what that actually looks like is it really varies from state to state. there are some state local governments that are investing heavily in mental health programs and prevention in schools and addiction treatment for people who are uninsured and naloxone. there are others that are investing in their law enforcement and you know, police efforts and criminal justice drug courts, things like that. so it really runs the gamut and kind of depends on local entity

and what they think is important when it comes to addressing the opioid crisis. william: on some level you can understand, you want to give us the flexibility to say hey, we really need the money for this. but there are no stipulations as far as the term you used as far as how this money has to be spent. there's no, it doesn't have to always go to what we most directly think of as drug prevention and drug treatment. >> yeah, so the settlement agreements have this list called exhibit ii, that puts out potential strategies that local government might want to use and includes a lot of the things that i just listed, but it's not exhaustive. so if you're a government official, you can choose to use the money in something that's not on that list either. and this is where you get into the loose interpretation sometimes. so there are some governments reported in one local county in tennessee that use a lot of the money to pay back their debt and their capital projects fund because they said you know for years, we've been paying for improvements to the jail because

it's been helping people largely due to addiction reled crime. and so how folks interpret what is related to the opioid crisis really varies widely. william: that's kind of what the concern was back in the 90s of the big tobacco settlement to that, we don't know we think that money is going to go to tobacco prevention and smoking cessation, but not always. >> yeah, exactly. and most of that money didn't go to tobacco or antismoking programs at all. in fact, about a campaign for tobacco free kids whose practice that's about 3% of the annual payout. the rest of it has gone to everything you can imagine like filling state budget gaps transportation, paving roads and , filling potholes in north carolina, something i've actually used it to subsidize tobacco farmers. the one difference i'll mention though, is that tobacco settlement didn't have any requirements for the money to be spent on it, so it was sort of assumed that because the money

was coming because of the public health crisis caused by cigarettes that it would be used for that, but it wasn't actually a legal requirement. it does have that requirement that 85% of the money be spent on opioid remediation. i think there's a lot of questions about how that will be enforced and if that will really come true, but that clause was in there because people do not want to see a repeat. william: interesting. so if i am an individual or someone in the community. and i've been perhaps part of one of these students and have been harmed in some very direct way. i don't really have a mechanism to say, hey, we need to be spending this money on this versus that. >> you may, it really depends where you're located. so first of all to clarify, because i know a lot of people ask that, you know, are the families getting money directly from the purdue bankruptcy? yes, and from one other mountain -- from one other bankruptcy there are payments to , individuals who filed claims, but the vast majority about 54 billion we talked about what -- with opioid settlements are

going to governments and so, you know, individuals can reach out to their county commissioners can reach out to their elected officials, can we talk to their attorney general's offices and say you know i think it should be sent in this way, but they will have direct control over that. william: aneri pattani, thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. ♪ geoff: uganda has enacted one of the world's harshest anti-lgbtq laws. same sex relations were already illegal in uganda, but a new law goes much further, including life imprisonment for anyone convicted of homosexuality and in some cases, mandates the death penalty. as stephanie sy reports, the new provisions have upended the life of gay ugandans who now feel in danger. stephanie: the signing of the new law ushers in a dangerous

time for uganda's lgbtq people. the anti-homosexuality act intensifies along crackdown on sexual minorities. ugandan legislators who passed the law nearly unanimously say it is their prerogative. >> as a country, as a people, we will completely have seceded our sovereignty. stephanie: the country's new bill is one of the most punitive. it includes the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" that includes a transmission of hiv through gay sex with children and disabled people. it calls for life imprisonment for anyone convicted of homosexuality, up to 20 years in jail for the promotion of homosexuality, and up to seven years for landlords renting to homosexuals. >> this is the time you're going

to show us whether you are homo or you are not. stephanie: and even harsher bill was passed in march. it still criminalizes their acts. for clear -- queer activist, it is a tragedy. >> you are arresting us for doing nothing. where are we supposed to go? how did we become refugees in our own country? stephanie: in other countries, including in south africa, the outcry has been swift. for months, civil society groups, the united nations and western groups implore him not to sign it, but his homophobic stance and rhetoric held steady. >> i want to congratulate the members of parliament on their

[indiscernible] it is good that you rejected the pressure from the imperialists. stephanie: in a statement this week, president biden called the bill a tragic violation of universal human rights. heaid the administration would evaluate the implications of the law on all aspects of u.s. engagement with uganda. that includes potentially cutting foreign aid. the u.s. provides uganda at nearly $1 billion each year, mostly in support public health programs, including to combat hiv. earlier this year, national security council spokesman john kirby warned the fallout could be economic. >> that would be really unfortunate because so much of the economic assistance we provide uganda's health assistance. stephanie: the u.s. sanctioned

uganda in 2014 after the president signed a similar law that was later overturned in court. but uganda is only one of more than 30 african countries that banned same-sex relations. uganda's anti-lb gt q sentiment is partially explained by the influence of british colonial rules. the bill follows a years long crackdown on lgbtq people that has also garnered broad support. >> what the president it was the right thing, of course. stephanie: for more on this law, i'm joined by the co-founder of truth lgbtq, a kampala based organization that provides mental health suppport and advocates for lgbtq rights in uganda. stephen, thank you so much for joining the newshour. i know this is a tough time for

you. i heard that yesterday one of your colleagues was attacked, just days after this bill was passed. i understand he's been hospitalized. tell us what happened d was this a homophobic attack? >> yesterday, as we were close in upper offices, he was attacked by rogue people and he almost lost his life. they were told they would find me. it has been a habit for these peoplenlo o tis oemendco a ut signed into law, we are going to

attack and you shoot as an example. so when they attacked and they couldn't find me, they -- very badly. right now he is fighting for his life but we pray he recovers very well. >> i know we were just showing some photos of how bad he is and the state he is in. it is disturbing for you i am sure to know that those attacks were meant for you. you are an openly gay man in a company -- in a country that now severely penalizes homosexuality. this is the kind of danger you are in now, threats to your life? >> yes, this is the kind of danger i am in right now, the kind of danger everyone is passing through right now, that is the lgbtq community. we asked for the international community to do an action and stop this on cgom community in .

>> the biden administration has strongly condemned this law, but even in 2014, sanctions by western nations, that hasn't seemed to stop the tide of this anti-gay legislation, and now this severe criminalization in your country. >> they have never respected human rights. we are asking format -- for more action then sanctioning the government. maybe sanctioning the figures that participated in passing it and their families. the u.s. government is quiet. we want the u.s. government to come out and not only sanction some individuals,

[indiscernible] it's just going to continue. religious leaders that are typically homophobic have been coming out to tell the public it is ok. so we are in great worry and in very great danger right now. >> when you talk about the religious values that ugandan legislators and leaders say undergird this discriminatory law, what is your response to that? they say these are african values. are they african values? >> when you sit down to have an open discussion with these people and you asked them, they

don't have a definition of it. african parties in african culture is diverse. there are different cultures. this is just trying to justify the homophobia. they not protecting any african culture. they are not protecting any religious culture, and justifying crimes against humanity with religion and culture. stephanie: stephen, what are you planning to do? is this law going to compel you to change the way you live, to change the choices you make knowing the penalty is perhaps your freedom? >> how can someone change from being gay, that is the first question. no, i cannot change. i was born gay and i am gay. we need help.

we call on the international community to open its borders and help us fight this. stephanie: stephen joining us from camp allah. thank you for sharing your experience and your thoughts with us, and our thoughts of course are with your friend. we hope he does recover quickly. thank you. ♪ geoff: the national focus on acts of police brutality often overlooks victims who are asian american and pacific islander. that's because data show that, as a whole, they experience low rates of fatal police violence. but, new research shows the risks some in that community face are much higher. ali rogin starts this report in antioch, california. it is part of our race matters

series. and a warning, some images may be disturbing. >> this angelo's room, this is his altar. >> cassandra quinto-collins visits her late son angelo's bedroom often to help keep his memory alive. cassandra: i actually, i turn the light on every night. i say good morning to him every morning. i don't know. i'm just very sentimental. ali: of course. cassandra: i still feel like, you know, this is, he's here. >> angelo's younger sister bella remembers him by watching old videos. bella: he always wanted to entertain my friends and i. you know, he would just do cartwheels outside the house with us. >> happy memories growing up in the philippines and the u.s. but, his family says the navy veteran's thirty years were also shaped by mental health issues. >> he would have these infrequent episodes of, you know, fear and paranoia, and

during those episodes, he wanted us to be together to make sure that nothing happen to us. >> one evening in december 2020, angelo became paranoid and tried to restrain his mother and sister, something they say he'd ver done before. >> i really felt desperate for somebody to come and help de-escalate and just calm him down. because all of us were just really, really anxious. >> so, bella called 9-1-1. >> this is where it happened. he was laying here. >> police handcuffed angelo in cassandra's bedroom then, she says, they turned him on his stomach and knelt on him. within minutes, he was unresponsive. she filmed her son being carrie' whouent ito p paricam.ed that's when i started asking what's happening? what's going on? does he have a pulse? but nobody was answering me.

>> he never regained consciousness and died three days later. angelo quinto is part of a largely overlooked group of victims of fatal police encounters in this country: asian americans and pacific islandersor aapis. >> it's a hugely diverse community with dozens and dozens of countries of origin, really different histories of colonization and immigration. and all of those things shape their exposure to the police and their interactions with police. >> gabriel schwartz is an epidemiologist who studies public health and policing at the university of california, san francisco. america's more than 25 million asian americans and pacific islanders have roots in more than 30 countries and, as a whole, they experience the lowest rates of fatal police violence out of any racial group in the u.s. but, schwartz says, that hides a disturbing reality. >> at the regional level,

pacific islanders are experiencing levels of police violence that are lethal, on par with native americans, on par with black americans. and the lower southeast asian americans, whose countries of origin, were affected by the us war in southeast asia. vietnamese, cambodian, lao, hmong people are all experiencing much higher levels than other southeast asians even or east or south asians. >> americans from southeast asialike the quinto familyand pacific islanders make up less than 40% of aapis in the u.s. schwartz says their outsized risks are hidden when combined with other asian americans. he believes the unique histories of both small communities may play a role in the higher rates of fatal police violence they experience. >> when my parents and my sisters boarded that plane to come to the united states in 1979, it was the first time they've ever taken a flht.

>> vinny eng's family moved to los angeles after surviving three years in a labor camp run by cambodia's brutal khmer rouge regime. the engs were part of the biggest resettlement of refugees in u.s. history. starting in 1975, more than one million people fleeing u.s.-involved conflicts in southeast asia moved to america. >> for the 30 years following their arrival to los angeles they were learning something new every day. >> there was no long-term or support for this wave of southeast asian refugees when they arrived in the u.s. and many struggled to get out of poverty. researcher gabriel schwartz says that legacy may increase the likelihood of potentially fatal police interactions. >> because that then makes communities have higher rates of poverty, higher rates of discrimination in education, in the workforce, people are poorer, people are living in neighborhoods that are more overpoliced, and that puts them in the path of the criminal legal system. >> schwartz says that america's pacific islander communities also face those acute outcomes in part because of their

history. >> many pacific islanders are here because of u.s. colonization that has made the economies of the pacific islands much more reliant on the united states, have fewer opportunities than they otherwise might have. >> gaynor siataga is a samoan-latina community advocate in san francisco. she says police killings were a fact of life growing up. gaynor siataga: i've seen it first hand, you know, i had four folks that are very close to me, family, all shot and killed by police. >> several of her family members were incarcerated and she joined a gang when she was eleven after being sexually assaulted. >> it was just it was a group of folks that were way older to me that i finally was able to share this secret with. as a kid, you don't know what's wrong or right.

>> gang life led to repeated violence, she says >> tnk fir ti wa shot was 13. >> and run ins with law enforcement. >> they even had my picture on the dashboard, you know and i was just a kid. >> it's a cycle siataga is now trying to stop. today, she heads the hut, a new space dedicated to addressing the stark disparities in her community. here, pacific islanders can access or be referred to tailored services from a pacific language library, to immigration assistance, to career training. >> there's some things that causes the behaviors or the life that many of us are living right now. and that's what i'm addressing. >> on top of economic support, schwartz says, targeted mental health services are also needed. >> people are dealing with mental health crises with fewer mental health resources. all of those things make it more likely they're going to be interacting with the police.

>> vinny eng experienced that first hand. his sister, jazmyne, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and psycho-dissociative disorder, he says, partly caused by her childhood experience of working in a labor camp. >> that trauma of the experience of surviving such unspeakable experiences left unresolved can lead to potentially violent outcomes. >> in 2012, at age 40, jazmyne was shot and killed by l.a. sheriff's deputies after she had an episode of paranoia at her community clinic. >> it was just an incredible amount of force applied at a situation when what really was needed was for someone to provide care. >> one thing i'm still working on is the website. >> back in antioch, angelo quinto's family has spent the last two and a half years advocating for reform.

in 2021, they helped pass a new state law banning police restraints which impair breathing. cassandra: he's not here to tell his story. the advocacy we're doing right now is to prevent other families go through what we are going so hopefully his story helps. >> and earlier this month, the city of antioch launched a new crisis response team that 911 dispatchers can send to respond to low level mental health crises and disputes. the team is named after angelo. for the pbs newshour, i'm ali rogin in antioch, california. ♪ geoff: over the past few years, this country has seen a dramatic

rise in partisan animosity with dangerous implications for the health of our democracy. judy woodruff profiles some of the work being done to understand what's driving that trend, and what might be done to reverse it. it's part of her ongoing series, america at a crossroads. >> i would describe my views as part of the new right. quick side say i'm left. n beercialeineer holds important lessons for our democracy today. >> if you are a man, be a man. or if you're female, be a female. judy: people on both sides of the line are interviewed on hot button issues, then paired up and asked to build a bar designed to create a sense of

teamwork. through a series of proms, they get to know each other. >> we know each other better than people who have known you -- have known people for 10 minutes should. >> he's really got a glow. of got to save your aura is pretty cool. so transgender is very odd. we are not set up to understand or see things like that. >> i am a daughter, a wife, i am transgender. judy: an awkward moment, and then a question posed. do they want to continue to talk over a beer, or walk away because of their differences. >> i'm only joking. >> what's interesting from our perspective is that showing people this video, it was actually the number one intervention we found for

reducing partisan animosity. judy: rob wheeler is a sociologist at stanford university who directs the polarization lab dedicated to studying what is driving division in this country, and how we might orcome it. >> polarization has essentially paralyzed certainly the federal government and a lot of state and local governments. if you're working on a problem where you want to leverage the power of governmento take action, st of the time you're going to need some kind of plan to deal with polarization. >> can bringing people together to talk about their disagreements help? >> a phd candidate presented some early findings into her research on how participants in different sides of the political spectrum engaged in conversations online over divisive issues like immigration , gun-control, and climate change. >> conversations can actually

reduce peoples animosity, improve trust. judy: to her surprise, she found participants were far better at disagreeing then she'd expected. >> similar to other people, i had negative expectations about how these dialogues would go. i think personally because what we see on social media and what we see when we turn on the tv is just these really negative interactions with people who disagree. one of the reasons why is because people have such negative expectations that when they find a reasonable person that doesn't agree with them on these issues, they are a bit shocked. judy: that is reflected in willer's own research, too come the way people have resorted -- retreated into tribes. >> technology has definitely contributed to it. people are more likely to be consuming information in a

homogenous environment. democrats and republicans are increasingly likely to live in different parts of the country, to work in different occupations. so you're less likely to encounter somebody who is a friend of yours from high school or a friend of yours from your workplace or an acquaintance in your neighborhood who has a different party affiliation from you. judy: last year, his team partnered with researchers from four other universities to test different approaches for increasing support for democracy over party. things like honoring election results, regardless of the outcome. ratcheting down partisan animosity, and decreasing support for political violence. that crowd source hundreds of ideas from academics, activists, and nonprofits, then tested 25 of them on a representative sample of americns online.

>> i've been brought up in a way where everything is black-and-white, but life isn't black-and-white. judy: heineken beer commercial was among the most successful. >> it's good example of something called vicarious contact. one thing that can be helpful is for people to have a warm, directed action across a divide and develop a personal connection. sometimes we can't do that. we definitely can't do that easily at scale. but what if you watched two people through either side of a divide happened interaction, you can then vicariously had that interaction yourself. >> are common values transcend our political differences. judy: another intervention that showed promise, politicians announcing their support for voting and elections, regardless of the outcome. something utah republican governor spencer cox did with

his rival, democrat chris petersen, during their 2020 race. >> whether you vote by mail or in person, we will fully support the results of the upcoming presidential election, regardless of the outcome. >> we are both committed to american civility and a peaceful transition of power. >> we found that when you show that, it increases people's -- people's commitment to democracy. it is a very powerful video, it is a cool thing they did. to get high-level donors say i'm giving money to this race, but it is contingent on you participating in something like this. judy: taking a different tack, yet another intervention highlighted how bad inks can get when countries betray democratic norms, showing news clips of civil and economic unrest in countries like zimbabwe, venezuela, russia, and turkey. >> when people saw this, the

reaction was, i need to prioritize democratic norms, it's not something to be trifled with. judy: but he says the number one strategy for reducing support for political violence -- simply accurately describing what members of one party believe to the other. >> democrats estimate republicans are for political violence at levels that are 400% higher than they actually are and it is pretty much the same for republicans perceiving democrats. when you give people information that fixes those misperceptions, you find that people will ratchet down their own support for political violence. it's almost as though people are supporting political violence at the levels they do because they don't want to bring a knife to a gunfight. those effects can persist for weeks afterwards even if you

just give them a small amount of statistical information. judy: you came up with that conclusion last summer. is it having an effect in getting the word out? >> no, not really, i don't think. we don't have a clear means to mobilize that information that we've learned about what works and what is true about what people think, and put it into action. most of all i think social media platforms, but also cable news network's have a lot of potential influence and not a lot of motivation to take action on this problem. in fact, they may have the reverse, they may be benefiting from polarization and from increasing it. you don't have any obvious actors who have an interest in a means to effectively intervene on this problem. judy: so while we are waiting for cable news to change some of its typical new in focusing on

division and politics, while we are waiting on social media and the donors to reward working together, rather than going to extremes, what can people, what can individuals do? >> one thing is to engage across lines of political difference in a respectful way, try to run towards the fire rather than away from it. have conversations with your socialist or tea party supporting uncle. it's always the uncles. whoever that person is in your family or your neighborhood, engage with them respectfully and try to give them that interaction they are not getting now. so they see you can disagree with somebody and it can still be a respectful conversation. judy: willer and others were heartened by the 2022 midterm results come in which many republican candidates who promoted election conspiracies lost their races. and yet, with former president

donald trump, who continues to deny his own loss in 2020, looking like the strongest contender for the republican nomination in 2024, willer says we are not out of the woods yet. >> i think it's possible it is going to get even worse before it gets better. we have it point where high-level donors, party leaders, have realized, we actually should be working together to work on this pandora's box that we've opened up. we haven't gotten there yet, and that might be the way that it is most realistically going to happen, the harms of political division destabilizing our economy. that might unite powerful interest to's -- to take some kind of action together. in the meantime, all we have is us. judy: amid some very real challenges, signs of hope that

americans can find a way forward. for the pbs newshour, i'm judy woodruff in palo alto, california. ♪ geoff: 22,000 young people at night -- age out of foster care each year without family structures iacn epl issue that r and ceo of think of us, a nonprofit organization, that aims to change child welfare systems across the country. he has experience foster care himself. tonight he shares his brief but spectacular take on what is known as kinship care. >> i think the hard secret that a lot of people who've experienced foster care, carry is that, you know, we all wish that we had family and that we could be raised by people who truly are in our corner and who love us. but for so many of us, that's just not our story.

i was 11 months old when social workers placed me in foster care because of my mother's drug addiction and poverty issues. i was adopted at nine. and that adopted family was supposed to be my forever family, but unfortunately it was riddled with racism and extreme abuse. the things that i had to do to prove what i was going through really fired a passion in me to say the system has to function differently. i shouldn't have had to literally tape a recorder to my chest to actually tell the world what was happening to me and to be believed. and so when i turned 15, i joined the youth advisory board at the foster care agency. and that's when i started to be able to give recommendations to be able to work with the state legislators to understand how is it that you actually fix a broken system? i started think of us in 2017 because i knew that the foster care system was broken and so many of us who have experienced it want to transform it. the foster care system has about

400,000 young people in it at any time. where foster care really failed me was the fact that i could have lived with people who could have loved me. three years ago, i realized that i had four uncles and aunts who were foster adoptive parents who had been fostering longer than i had been alive. and this whole entire time i've actually could have been raised with family if we would've had prioritized family members. when i think about, you know, the experiences that i had, i wish i was saying that they were unique, but they're not. i believe we can have different solutions to those things. kinship care is like a version of foster care, but instead of it being an unrelated person that you don't knowit's an aunt, uncle, cousin, a sibling who's acting in that space of providing you care. we now know that when children are placed with a relative, that they graduate high school more on time, that they have less moves, that there's less trauma, and that young people have their family members to be able to nagate life. and without the human beings who are in our life to be there to guide us, how much opportunity do we really have?

recent laws and legislation allows for us to do things differently. now, child welfare is able to actually provide services without having to separate a family. how is it that you get a family the housing support, the mental health support, the things that will keep them together instead of taking that child and having to place them in foster care. and that's a very new function for the child welfare system. and so if we need to separate family, like let's make sure we have exhausted every other option before we do that and if we do have to separate family, that we place them with a relative. this has the potential to really make our foster care system a family first type system. my name is sixto cancel and this is my brief but spectacular take on prioritizing kinship care. geoff: you can watch more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs.org/newshour/brief. join us again tomorrow night

when we'll look at how republican presidential candidates are courting voters this week in states that will hold some of the first primaries next year. and that's the newshour for tonight i'm geoff bennett. omnivore's is back tomorrow. thanks for spending part of your is back -- >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television. a world of entertainment and british style. all with cunard's white star service.

>> the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines 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 to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

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hari: hello, everyone and welcome to "amanpour & co." >> this morning a terrorist attack in the moscow area. michel: ukraine denies it is behind a drone strike in the russian capital. i ask nato ambassador julianne smith about this. the never ending work of stacey abrams. we bring you the conversation with the author and activist who changed the conversation on voting rights in america. then -- >> we are part of the family and we deserve to be seen and understood as much as anybody else in this country. michel: