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. ♪

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"newshour." i'm stephanie sy. the u.s. house is voting right now on the debt ceiling deal, after republicans got some help from democrats to pass a crucial hurdle. the vote follows weeks of heated negotiations and criticism from the right and the left. lisa desjardins has been tracking it all on capitol hill and joins me now. finally, the vote has begun. where do things stand as you see them? lisa: as our viewers know, the delivery of this particular proposal has been very complicated and labored over the last few weeks. this is the final step in the house of representatives. just looking right out the vote total, we so far in early numbers see bipartisan support for this bill. but it remains to be seen with the final totals were. i do believe it has the votes to pass. one of the things we will be watching very carefully is whether or not kevin mccarthy,

the republican speaker of the house, is able to get a majority of his conference. that could have impcations for his job security down the road. we will see. it does seem like many of the undecided votes today have been starting to lean yes. what is interesting about his vote is its bipartisan nature. neither party seems to be ecstatic about this bill. but as you listened to floor speeches today, it was clear also everyone had support for amongst their misgivings. stephanie: take us through the drama of the last day. what sorts of things have seemed to sway members? lisa: that's right. there have been a number of dramatic turns today. one of them was one the procedural vote to actually bring this up for debate made it through the house. this is something i usually would not talk about but it was a fascinating moment because usually the majority party, republicans, would be entirely

responsible for the votes to start the debate. but there were a few dozen republicans who are still opposed to this bill and tried to block it. what happened? very unusually, democrats had to get on board in the middle of the vote, change their votes, so that they could support this and get it through in a bipartisan way. it was really interesting listening to the speeches right before that. when you listened to leaders from both parties, you could hear both sides had misgivings. >> 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 negotiation when you are the victims of extortion. nobody likes to pay a ransom note, and that's exactly what tonight's vote is. our payment on the ransom of the american people.

lisa: the one thing you can gather from all of this, bipartisanship is indeed unusual, something we have not seen in washington offer mise -- washington offer. neither side is satisfied but for the most part they have come to the middle. stephanie: so what are the concerns of those still planning to vote no? lisa: there will be significant groups on both sides of the aisle voting no. let's take a look at those concerns in terms of what is at stake. let's look at what is at stake exactly. if you go through the bill, of course number one, this is about spending and the federal spending dollars for the next two years. in addition, food benefits for hundreds of thousands of people are on the line. some who would lose benefits, some who would gain benefits. this also has major proposals in it that would affect very large-scale energy projects.

that is something the pro energy forces like, but environmental groups say they are worried about what this does to the extent of environmental review processes. they believe perhaps this bill limits those environmental processes too much. republicans say the bill doesn't cut spending enough, some don't think it cuts it at all. democrats meanwhile believe some cuts to food beneficiaries, snap, are something they feel. i spoke to the head of the progressive caucus, she is a no tonight. and jahana hayes, a connecticut representative, used to be national teacher of the year. she told me she was really thinking of the faces in her community. she especially thought new food benefit changes would affect older women, women of color. she told me those constituents of mine have no lobbyists, they only have me. stephanie: thank you forutting a face on all of this.

i know you want to get back into that room where this is all happening. lisa desjardins with an update for us on the capital. thank you. lisa: you're welcome. ♪ stephanie: 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. mr. kirby: 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. stephanie: in south korea, the launch triggered air raid sirens and an evacuation alert in seoul. officials said later the alert was sent in error. sudan's army is suspending peace talks with a paramilitary force it's been battling for six weeks. the military accused the rival group today of repeatedly violating ceasefires. the conflict has killed hundreds of people and forced 1.6 million from their homes. back in this country, republican governors are responding to

texas governor gregg's abbott's request for troops at the southern border. the leaders of south carolina, virginia, and west virginia announced today they were ordering national guard troops to texas. abbott had said it was to deal with an increase in human trafficking and fentanyl smuggling. california utility company pg&e avoided trial for the deadly 2020 zogg wildfire today after a judge dismissed criminal charges, including involuntary manslaughter. as part of a settlement to avoid trial, the company agree to pay $50 million to local entities in shasta county. calfire investigators blamed the start of the fire on a tree making contact with a pg&e power line. four people were killed. also, in california, governor gavin newsom has announced that the state will provide up to $4500 in financial assistance to undocumented immigrants who were impacted by last winter's series of destructive storms. they are not eligible for federal disaster assistance. they have one year to apply or

until funding runs out. still to come 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 foster care system. >> this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: a federal appeals court has ruled that the billionaire owners of purdue pharma, the sackler family, will be protected from civil lawsuits linked to the opioid crisis in exchange for a $6 billion settlement. purdue, which filed for bankruptcy in 2019 amid thousands of lawsuits, made drugs like oxycontin and is blamed for fueling the opioid epidemic. william brangham has more.

william: geoff, purdue's opioid sales earned the sackler family billions of dollars. and the $6 billion that they will pay in this settlement will be given to states, cities, and individuals harmed by opioid addiction and overdoses. it also 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 role in the opioid epidemic. so, to understand where that money might be spent, we are joined by aneri pattani. she is 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. aneri: 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 governments, state and local governments, they will be getti payouts from a total of $6 billion about. and what it means for the sacklers is that the individual sackler family members are protected from any lawsuits against them. so that was sort of the trade-off in moving this deal forward that the judge ok'd. william: i mean, it seems like there are these two competing forces here, the 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. aneri: yes, i think i have been hearing this from a lot of

folks, where people have been waiting for this 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, right, 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 there -- 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 those same family members who want the money and the same communities that need it also feel like there should be some personal responsibility for what happened. william: right. and, like, i guess that's just what they're going to have to live with now, that the money comes and it comes with this other stipulation. as you and many others have been reporting, the sackler money is just part of this other bit bigger pot of money from a lot of different -- from pharmacies, from distributors, from other

manufacturers, $50 billion-plus that's out there. give us a sense of how that money is going to be spent, generally speaking. aneri: right. so the money, as you said, 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, essentially, programs that will address addiction as it exists now or prevent it in the future. bt what that actually looks like is really varying from ate to state. there are some state and local governments that are investing heavily in mental health programs, in prevention in schools, in addiction treatment for people who are uninsured, in naloxone. there are others that are investing in their law enforcement, in police efforts and criminal justice, drug courts, things like that. so it really runs the gamut and kind of depends on each local entity, what they think is important when it comes to

addressing the opioid crisis. william: i mean, which, on some level, you can understand. you want to give communities the flexibility to say, hey, we really need the money for this. but there are no stipulations as far as the term that 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. aneri: yes, so the settlement agreements have this list called exhibit e that puts out potential strategies that local governments might want to use. and it includes a lot of the things that i just listed, but it's non-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 -- i reported on one local county in tennessee that used a lot of the money to pay back their debt and their capital projects fund because they said, for years, we have been paying for improvemen to the jail because it's been housing people largely due to addiction-related crimes.

and so how folks interpret what is related to the opioid crisis really varies widely. william: this is kind of what the concern was back in the 1990's with the big tobacco settlement too, that we don't know -- we think that money is going to go to tobacco prevention and smoking cessation, but not always. and most of that money didn't go to tobacco or anti-smoking programs at all. in fact, the campaign for tobacco-free kids, which tracks it, says about 3% of the annual payout. william: 3%? aneri: yeah. the rest of it has gone to everything you can imagine, like filling state budget gaps, transportation, paving roads and filling potholes. in north carolinand south carolina, they actually used it to subsidize tobacco farmers. the one difference i will mention, though, is, the tobacco settlement didn't have any requirements for the money to be spent on it, so 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. in the opioid settlements, it does have that requirement that 85% of the money be spent on opioid remediation. i think there's still 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 did not want to see a repeat. william: interesting. so, if i'm an individual or someone in a community, and i have been perhaps part of one of these suits 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? aneri: you may. it really depends where you're located. so, first, i want to clarify, because i know a lot of people ask this, are the families getting money directly? from the purdue bankruptcy, yes, and from one other mallinckrodt bankruptcy, they -- there are payments to individuals who filed claims. but the vast majority of that $54 billion we talked about with opioid settlements is going to governments. and so individuals can reach out

to their county commissioners, can reach out to their elected officials, can reach out to their attorney general's offices and say, i think it should be spent in this way, but they won't have direct control over that. william: aneri pattani of kff health news, thank you so much. aneri: thanks for having me. ♪ f:nds tee 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, it mandates the death penalty. as stephanie sy reports, the new provisions have upended the lives of gay ugandans, who now feel in danger. stephanie: the signing of the new anti-gay law by president yoweri museveni ushers in a dangerous time for uganda's lgbtq people.

the anti-hosexuality act intensifies a long crackdown on sexual minorities. ugandan legislators, who passed the law nearly unanimously, say it's their prerogative. asuman: if we don't stand our ground as a country, as a people, as a community, then we will completely have ceded our sovereignty. stephanie: the country's new bill is e of the world's most punitive. it includes the death penalty for -- quote -- "aggravated homosexuality." that includes the 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 of 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're a homo or you're not. [laughter] stephanie: uganda's parliament originally passed an even

harsher bill in march vetoed by museveni. the version approved by the president no longer criminalizes people for identifying as lgbtq+, but still criminalizes their acts. for queer activists, it's a tragedy. delovie: you are arresting us for literally doing nothing, for simply existing. 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 governments implored museveni not to sign it. but his homophobic stance and rhetoric held steady. pres. museveni: now, i want to congratulate the honorable members of parliament on your

stand on the ebitingwa. that's what the banyankole call homosexuals. it is good that you rejected the pressure from the imperialists. stephanie: in a statement this week, president biden called the bill -- quote -- "a tragic violation of universal human rights." he said 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 nearly $1 billion each year, mostly in support of public health programs, including to combat hiv. earlier this year, national security council spokesman john kirby warned, the fallout could be economic. mr. kirby: that would be really unfortunate, because so much of the economic assistance that we provide uganda is health assistance. stephanie: the u.s. sanctioned uganda in 2014, after president

museveni signed a similar law that was later overturned in court. but uganda is only one of more than 30 african countries that bans same-sex relations. uganda's anti-lgbtq sentiment is partially explained by the influence of british colonial rules. and the bill follows a years-long crackdown on lgbtq people that has also garned broad support. wilfred: what the president did was the right thing, because we cannot take what other people are doing in their countries to what, to bring it to uganda. stephanie: for more on this law, i'm joined now by steven kabuye. he's the co-founder of truth lgbtq, a kampala-based organization that provides mental health anorsudt steven, thank you so much for joining the "newshour." i know that this has been a tough time for you.

i heard that, yesterday, one of your colleagues was attacked just days after this bill was ssed. and i understand he has been hospitalized. tell us what happened. and was this a homophobic attack? steven: yes, yesterday, in the evening hours, as my colleague was closing up at our offices, he was attacked by a rogue -- by rogue people that injured him badly. he almost lost his life. and it was an homophobic attack because, in beating him, they were asking him to give out directions of where i am right now, because they were direct -- they directed the attack on me. they thought they would find me around. since day since the bill was tabled by the parliament, it has been -- it has been a habit online for these people to come out and tell me the moment the bill is signed into law, we are going to attack and use you as an example. so, when they attacked and they

couldn't find me, they beat very badly. right now, he is fighting for his life, but we pray he recovers very well. stephanie: i know that we were just showing some photos of how bad he is and the state that he's in. and it's disturbing, i'm sure, for you to know that those attacks were meant for you. you are an openly gay man in a country that now severely penalizes homosexuality. this is the kind of danger you're in now, threats to your life? steven: yes, this is the kind of danger i'm in right now. this is the kind of danger everyone is passing through right now that is in the lgbtq community. one, we ask for the international community not only to stop in condemning, but to do an action and stop this oncoming genocide on the lgbtqi community in uganda. stephanie: 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. steven: this is not new to mr. museveni. he is used to the sanctions. he is used to the condemnation, because he has never respected human rights. that's why we're asking for more action than condemnations, for more action than sanctioning the government, maybe sanctioning the individuals that participated in passing it and their families. and we have american natives participating in this. we have sharon slater, the head of family watch international. she has participated directly into the passing of this anti-homosexuality act. but the u.s. government, it is quiet about her. we want the u.s. government to come out and not only sanction some individuals, but sanction all, because, even if you sanction the speaker of

parliament in uganda, others, you haven't sanctioned them. they are going to -- the religious leaders are going to continue fueling this homophobia. we are going to have more than 20,000 christians coming together to celebrate martyrs' day. and they are going to be led by religious leaders are typically homophobic that have been coming out openly to tell the public that it's ok to kill the gays. so, we are in very great worry and in very great danger right now. stephanie: when you talk about the religious values that ugandan legislators and leaders say buck and undergird this discriminatory law, what is your response to that? they say these are african values. are they african values? steven: when you sit down to have an open discussion with these people that say they are protecting african values, and you ask them what are really african values, they don't have a definition of it.

african values and african culture is diverse. we have a lot of ethnic groups in africa that have different cultures. we have different ethnic groups in africa that embrace homosexuality. so, this is -- they are just trying to justify their homophobia, but they are not protecting any african culture. they're not protecting any religious culture that want to kill people and justifying their crimes against humanity with religion and culture. stephanie: steven, 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, especially now that the penalty is perhaps your freedom? steven: how can someone change from being gay? that's the first question. can i change? no, i cannot change. i was born gay, and i am gay. so, all right now we need, as the ugandan lgbtq community, we need help. we call upon the international

community to open its borders to the most vulnerable activists in uganda, most vulnerable lgbtqi. let us at least have temporarily help, as we fight this draconian law. stephanie: steven kabuye, joining us from kampala, thank you for sharing your experience and your thoughts with us. and our thoughts are, of course, with your friend. we hope he does recover quickly. thank you. steven: you're welcome. ♪ 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's part of our race matters series.

and a warning, some images may be disturbing. cassandra: this is angelo's room. this is his altar. ali: cassandra quinto-collins visits her late son angelo's bedroom often to help keep his memory alive. cassandra: 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: it's like i still feel like this is -- he's here. ali: angelo's younger sister, bella, remembers him by watching old videos. bella collins, sister of angelo: he always wanted to entertain my friends and i. you know, he would just do cartwheels outside the house with us. ali: happy memories growing up in the philippines and the u.s., but his family says the navy veteran's 30 years were also shaped by mental health issues. bella: he would have these infrequent episodes of fear and paranoia. during those episodes, he wanted

us to be together to make sure that nothing happened to us. ali: one evening in december 2020, angelo became paranoid and tried to restrain his mother and sister, something they say he'd never done before. bella: 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. ali: so, bella called 911. cassandra: this is where it happened. he was laying here. ali: 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 carried out to paramedics. cassandra: that's when i panicked. that's when i started asking, what's happening? what's going on? does he have a pulse?

but nobody was answering me. ali: 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 islanders, or aapi's. gabriel: 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. ali: gabriel schwartz is an epidemiologist who studi public health and policing at thuniversity 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. gabriel: at sort of 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 u.s. war in southeast asia, vietnamese, cambodian, lao, hmong people, are all experiencing much higher levels than sort of other southeast asians even, or east or south asians. ali: americans from southeast asia, like the quinto family, and pacific islanders make up less than 40% of aapi's in the u.s. schwartz says their outsized risks are hidden whecombined 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. vinny: when my parents and my sisters boarded that plane to come to the united states in 1979, it was the first time they had ever taken a flight. ali: vinny eng's family moved to los angeles after surviving three ars 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. vinny: for the 30 years following their arrival to los angeles, they were learning something new every day. ali: 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. gabriel: because that then makes communities have higher rates of poverty, higher rates of discrimination in education, in the work force, people are poorer. people are living in neighborhoods that are more overpoliced, and that puts them in the path of the criminal legal system. ali: schwartz says that america's pacific islander communities also face those

acute outcomes in part because of their history. gabriel: 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. ali: gaynor siataga is a samoan-latina community advocate in san francisco. gaynor: so pacific islanders here in the city have the highest disparities in everything. ali: she says police killings were a fact of life growing up. gaynor: i have seen it firsthand. i had four folks that are very close to me, family, all shot and killed by police. members were incarcerated, and she joined a gang when she was 11 after being sexually assaulted. gaynor: it was a group of folks that were way older to me that i finally was able to share this secret with. like, as a kid, you don't know what's wrong or right.

ali: gang life led to repeated violence, she says. gaynor: the first time i was shot was 13. ali: and run-ins with law enforcement. gaynor: they even had my picture on the dashboard, you know, and i was just a kid. ali: it's a cycle siataga is now trying to stop. gaynor: you know, we have everything you could want here, the one-stop shop. ali: 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. gaynor: 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. ali: on top of economic support, schwartz says targeted mental health services are also needed. gabriel: 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.

ali: 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. vinny: that trauma of the experience of surviving such unspeakable experiences left unresolved can lead to potentially violent outcomes. ali: 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. vinny: it was just an incredible amount of force applied at a situation when what really was needed was for someone to provide care.rkg is the websit. ali: back in antioch, angelo quinto's family has spent the last 2.5 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 and what we went through. so, hopefully, his story helps. ali: 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 political views as the new right. >> i would say that i'm left. judy: if researchers are right, this heineken beer commercial, which first premiered in 2017, holds important lessons for our democracy today. >> it's absolutely critical that trans people have their own voice. >> that's not right. you can't -- you're a man, be a man, or you're a female, be a female. judy: in it, people on different sides of the political divide in the united kingdom are interviewed about hot-button issues, then paired up and asked to build a bar, a task designed to create a sense of teamwork. through a series of prompts, they get to know each other.

>> we know each other better than people who've known eachot. >> you seem quite ambitious and positive, and you have got this really -- got a glow. i'm trying to say, your aura is pretty cool. judy: and then are shown clips from the interviews they gave earlier. >> so, transgender, it is very odd. we're 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. [laughter] robb: what's interesting, from our perspective, is that showing people this video was -- it was actually the number one intervention wfound for reducing partisan animosity.

judy: robb willer is a sociologist at stanford university who directs the polarization and social change lab dedicated to studying what's driving division in this country and how we might overcome it. robb: i mean, the way we think about it, polarization has essentially paralyzed certainly the federal government, but also a lot of state and local governments. and so if you're working on a problem where you want to leverage the power of government to take action, most of the time, you're going to need to have some kind of plan to deal with polarization. luiza: can people bringing people together to talk about their disagreements help? judy: on the day we visited, phd candidate luiza santos presented some early findings into her research on how participants on different sides of the political spectrum engaged in conversations online over divisive issues, like immigration, gun control and climate change. luiza: conversations can actually reduce people's animosity, improve trust, and reduce moral disengagement.

judy: to her surprise, she found participants were far better at disagreeing than she'd expected. luiza: similar to other people, i had negative expectations about how these dialogues will go, and i think partially because what we see on social media and we see when we turn on our tv is just this really negative heated interactions with people who disagree. so one of the reasons why is because people have such negative expectations that, when they find a reasonable person that disagrees with them on these issues, they're a bit shocked. judy: that's reflected in willer's own research too, that the way americans have sorted into political tribes with little contact across difference has led to strong stereotyping of the other side. robb: technology has definitely contributed to it. people are more lily to be consuming information in a homogeneous-information environment. there's also a phenomenon called the big sword, where democrats

or republicans are increasingly likely to live in different parts of the country, to work in different occupations. and 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 is an acquaintance in your neighborhood, who you have a positive feeling towards, but has a different party affiliation from you. judy: last year, willer's team partnered with researchers from four other universities to take different approaches for increasing support for democracy er party, things like honoring election results, regardless of the outcome, ratcheting down partisan animosity, and decreasing support for political violence. they crowdsourced hundreds of ideas from academics, activists, and nonprofits, then tested 25 of them on a representative sample of americans online. >> i have been brought up in a way where everything's black and white.

but life isn't black and white. >> yes, well, i'm just me. judy: the heineken beer commercial was among the most successful. robb: i think it's a good example of something that's called vicarious contact. so, one thing that can be helpful is foreople to have a warm, direct interaction, cross a group divide and find their stereotypes disabused, develop a personal connection. sometimes, we can't do that. we definitely can't do that easily at scale. but what if you watched the same thing happened? you know, what if you watch two people from either side of the divide have an interaction? you then kind of vicariously have that interaction yourself. gov. cox: we are currently in the final days of campaigning against each other. chris: but our 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 peterson, during their 2020 race.

chris: now, whether you vote by mail or in person, we will fully support the results of the upcoming presidential election, regardless of the outcome. gov. cox: although we sit on different sides of the aisle, we are both committed to american civility and a peaceful transition of power. robb: we found, when you show people that, that it increases people's commitment to democracy, people in the general public. and, as you watch the video, it's a very powerful video. it's a cool thing that they did. could we get high-level democrat and republican donors who care about democratic stability to say, i'm giving money to this race, but if it is contingent on you participating in something like this? judy: taking a different tack, yet another intervention highlighted how bad things can get when countries betray democratic norms, showing news clips of civil and economic unrest in countries like zimbabwe, venezuela, russia, and turkey. robb: and when people saw this their reaction was, oh, i need to actually prioritize

democratic norms more. democratic backsliding is not something to be trifled with, and they showed less support for democratic backsliding from their own party. judy: but willer says the number one strategy for reducing support for political violence, simply accurately describing what members of one party believe to the other. robb: democrats estimate republicans' support for political violence at levels that are 300%, 400% higher than they really are. and it's pretty much the same for republicans perceiving democrats' support for violence. when you give people corrective information that fixes those misperceptions, you find that people then 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. they assume they're in a gunfight. when they find out they're not, they sort of stand down a little bit. and we even find this -- effects can persist for weeks afterwards, even if you just give people small amounts of statistical information in an

online survey. judy: i mean, you came up with that conclusion last summer of 2022. is it having an effect, i mean, in getting the word out that this is what you have learned? robb: no, not really, i don't think. [laughter] yeah, we don't have a clear means to mobilize that information that we have learned about what works and what's true about what people think and put it into action. then you have, most of all, i think social media platforms, but also cable news networks have a lot of potential influence, a lot of power, but the problem, not a lot of motivation to take action on this problem. in fact, they may have the reverse. they may be benefiting from .olarization and from increasing and then you don't have really any obvious actors who have an interest in and the means to effectively intervene on this problem. judy: so, while we're waiting for cable news to change some of its typical ways of focusing on division in politics, while

we're waiting on social media, while we're waiting on the donors to reward working together, rather than going to the extremes, what can people do? what can individuals do, do you think? robb: well, i think 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. i don't know why. but whoever that person is in your family or your neighborhood, like, engage with them respectfully, and try to give them that interaction that they're not getting now, where they see that you can disagree with somebody, and it could still be a respectful conversation. judy: willer and others were heartened by the 2022 midterm results, in which many republican candidates who promoted election conspiracies lost their races. mr. trump: 2024 is the final battle. that's going to be the big one. judy: 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. robb: i think it's very possible it's going to get even worse before it gets better. we haven't reached that point where powerful interests on the left and right, party leaders, high-level donors have realized, oh, we actually should be working together to work on this pandora's box that we have opened up. we haven't gotten there yet. and that might be the way that it's most realistically going to happen, is that the harms of political division, destabilizing our society, our economy, that unites powerful interests to take some sort of action together. but, in the near term, all we have is us. and you can never tell what can happen from the results of collective action. 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 in place to support them. it's an issue that sixto cancel is working to address. he's the founder and ceo of think of us. that's a nonprofit organization that aims to change child welfare systems across the country. he's also experienced foster care himself. tonight, he shares his brief but spectacular take on what's known as kinship care. sixto: i think the hardest secret that a lot of people who've experienced foster care carry is that 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 into foster care because of my mother's drug addiction and poverty issues. i was adopted at nine. and that adoptive 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 to 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 have 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 have actually could have been raised with family if we would have had prioritized family members. when i think about the experiences that i had, i wish i was saying that they were unique, but they're not. and 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 know, it'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 navigate life. and without the human beings who are in our life to be there to guide us, how much opportunity do we really?

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 was my brief but spectacular take on prioritizing kinship care. stephanie: the house of representatives late this evening passed to the debt ceiling bill 314-117. lisa desjardins reports they were cheers on both sides of the aisle.

the measure now goes to the senate. the white house said president biden welcomed the passage and urged the senate to quickly pass it to avoid a government default. we will have more details on the program tomorrow and on our website. that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm stephanie sy. have a good evening. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the "newshour." >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television. on a voyage with cunard, the world awaits. a world of flavor, diverse destinations, and immersive experiences. 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.

>> the pbs newshour has a rich legacy of in-depth reporting, strong storytelling. >> only four people have sat in that chair before us and the enormity of this moment is not lost on me. people turn to us because they know they can hear from trusted sources of information and news. >> that will not change a bit, even as he faces behind desk change. good evening. i'm geoff bennett. >> and i'm on than the vase. >> this is "pbs newshour" west from weta studios in washington and from our bureau at 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.] >> you're watching pbs.

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