>> good evening, i am jeff bennett. amna: i am none of oz. president biden's son hunter pleads guilty on federal tax and firearm charges. jeff: an update on the submersible near the wreckage of the titanic. >> we are seeing this crisis in learning loss and widening the achievement gap, and a reluctance to look at it in the eye and recognize how much we have to do. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs

newshour" has been provided by -- the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour, including kathy and paul anderson. camilla and george smith. >> q not is a proud supporter of public television. the world awaits. a world of flavor. diverse destinations. and immersive experiences. a world of entertainment. and british style. all with the white star service. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect.

our u.s.-based customer service team can help you find a plan that fits you. visit consumercellular.tv. >> the john s and james l knight foundation, fostering engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> 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 by viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to "the newshour."

the president's son is admitting to gun and tax crimes but is unlikely to spend time behind bars after reaching a deal. jeff: hunter biden is set to plead guilty to a pair of federal misdemeanors after failing to pay taxes. the agreement also calls for him to admit to felony gun possession. he won't face prosecution as long as he remains drug-free for two years and doesn't commit other crimes. but the political drama is far from over. to tackle the legal and political implications, we welcome in legal correspondent carrie johnson, and adam and his, a correspondent for "the new york times." this investigation was in the works for five years. president biden captain in place the trump appointed u.s. attorney who oversaw the probe to avoid the appearance of interference.

remind us what prompted the investigation and how we got to this point. >> there were a number of reports in 2018 that prompted the to launch an investigation into hunter den. david weiss, opened up the probe. this covers a period in hunter biden's life when he was in the throes of drug addiction and making poor decisions in his life, including poor decisions with his finances. geoff: i want to talk about that in a minute, but first, donald trump and republicans are suggting that hunter biden got special treatment. here is how house speaker kevin mccarthy spoke about it this morning. >> it continues to show the two-tiered system in america. if you are the president's opponent, the doj tries to put you in jail.

if you are the president's son, you get a sweetheart deal. geoff: how does this plea deal compare with what any other american accused of similar wrongdoing might get? > one of the messages we hear constantly from the justice department's they want to treat like cases alike. in this case, it is unusual for the justice department to bring these tax charges against somebody who has repaid their tax bill, as hunter biden has, and it is unusual to bring an unlawful possession of a weapons charge against somebody addicted to drugs absent some other pattern of lawbreaking. if you look at the record and consider what the supreme court did in upending the system of gun regulation in the country, allies of hunter biden and former procutors suggest that this plea deal is somewhat harsher on hunter bid than it might be on somebody else with

hisrather than being an unduly favorable plea deal, it could be somewhat harsher in part because of who he is and the political environment we face. geoff: the white house released a statement that reads this way -- the president and first lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. we will have no further,. hunter biden is 53 years old. addiction has haunted him for much of his life. what was happening with him during this period that was subject to this doj investigation? >> what happens is that hunter has been struggling with alcoholism since the early to thousand's, but his brother beau would always take him to rehab and make sure he went to the aa meetings. his brother dies in 2015, and after that, the safety net disappears. hunter doesn't have his brother

beau anymore, so hunter goes into a deep depression, and during this period, the alcoholism comes back, and he tries crack cocaine and is instantaneously addicted to it. that is the context here. you have to understand what is going on with joe biden at this point. he had just lost his son beau, and the way hunter spoke to family members and friends was scary. he would say things like, you all think the wrong son died. the context is this fear within the family that hunter himself, they were afraid for his future, so that is the context. he is trying to make money to pay for a lifestyle's family had that they couldn't afford, so he is getting into business deals

that raised ethical questions and made personal decisions about himself and what he was doing that reflected his state of mind. the tax charges and the gun issue are all at this terrible moment when he cannot keep track of anything in his life. geoff: let's talk about the politics. republicans trying to win the white house and try to link hunter biden's legal problems with his father and suggest that they are both in on these illegal deals in china and ukraine. does anything in your reporting or anything from this investigation support that? >> there is this rule in the family that goes back before hunter -- it involved joe biden's brother jimmy who is

also in business -- where they would not talk about business with joe, the senator. hunter would not tell his dad about what he was doing. when he joins the board of burisma in ukraine, he doesn't join his dad. his dad finds out from reading the clips that were sent to him from aids at the white house, and he calls his son after this and says, i hope you know what you are doing, son. hunter responds by saying, i do. that's it. there was no more discussion. geoff: in the meantime, republicans are promising to step up their investigations into the biden family. how will the case affected that effort? >> we heard from jim jordan, chairman of the house judiciary committee, and james comer, head of the house oversight

committee. they said they are full speed ahead on these biden investigations. they've been pressing the fbi for documents in these biden family investigations. we don't know where it is going to end. hunter biden's attorney chris clark says he hopes things are at an end, but we don't know how much longer this investigation might go on. it was interesting to see federal prosecutors from baltimore signed on to these plea documents. lawyers who have prosecuted corrupt police officers in baltimore. it could be a clue as to the ongoing nature of this investigation. geoff: carrie johnson and adam entes, thank you both. ♪

amna: now to the day's other headlines -- a federal judge in florida set august 14 for former president trump's documents case go to trial. he's plead not guilty to obstructing justice and illegally keeping records. the trial is set to take place in fort pierce, florida. searing heat and soaring demand force to the texas power grid operator to call for conservation today for the first time this year. days of heat index readings in the triple digits forced people to cool off anyway they can, and dogs are taking dips as pet owners look for cooldown spots. power outages from weekend storms meant another day without air conditioning for another 200,000 customers across the south. in greece, nine egyptian men appeared in court in one of the

mediterranean's deadliest migrant shipwrecks. they arrived at a courthouse and plead not guilty to human smuggling and other charges. the tragedy prompted new calls for change by europe's top elected official. >> it is horrible what happened. more urgent is that we act. we need among us clear rules that everyone coming to the european border is treated in the same manner. amna: a search has recovered 81 bodies with 104 survivors, but new accounts say as many as 750 were aboard the crawl -- crowded fishing trawler. a federal judge struck down a ban on gender affirming care for transgender minors. judge moody ruled that "rather than protecting children and safeguarding medical ethics, they are prohibiting medical care that improves the mental well-being of patient."

the arkansas statute was the first of its kind, but 19 other states have similar laws. a federal jury in new york has convicted one american and two chinese men of trying to bully an expatriate in new jersey into returning to china. prosecutors say today's verdict is a victory against a chinese campaign to threaten and silence critics living abroad. beijing says the effort is aimed at corrupt officials who flee overseas. secretary of state antony blinken said he expressed deep concern about china's military ties to cuba during his trip to beijing. he spoke today in london as new reports surfaced about chinese activity on cuba. blinken said the u.s. and china are working to ease tensions. >> china also sees the utility and importance in having greater stability, but a lot of work remains to be done. of course, there are very profound, very significant

differences. amna: blinken is in london for a conference focused on rebuilding ukraine. russia launched a barrage of missiles and exploding drones into ukraine today. ukrainian forces said they repelled most attacks around kyiv. other strikes reached the western part of the country. ukrainians released footage of their own attacks, reportedly hitting russian tanks in the southeast, as part of an ongoing counteroffensive. india is making huge new aircraft buys ahead of the prime minister's visit to washington this week. air india ordered 470 airplanes from boeing and airbus. the u.s. also reportedly plans to sell jet engines to india. on wall street, stocks took a break after a recent run-up in value. the dow jones lost 245 points to

close below 34,054. the nasdaq fell 22 point. the s&p slipped 21. it is the stuff of horror movies come to life in northern nevada. tens of thousands of blood red crickets are swarming the countryside, eating everything they can, including each other. they are covering highways, and when they are crushed, residents said they smell like burning flesh. the invasion could last until mid august. our thoughts are with the people in northern nevada. still to come, tensions rise as violence erupts between palestinians and israelis in the west bank. president biden meets with tech leaders to discuss the future of ai. the director of the national institute on aging ways in on the fight against alzheimer's disease. a drag performer explains with the artform means to her, and

much more. >> this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. amna: the international effort to find and rescue a missing summer civil is continuing tonight -- submersible is continuing tonight. the u.s. navy is sending special equipment to help if the craft is found. the challenge is is enormous. rescuers are racing against the clock and a dwindling oxygen supply to find the submersible lost at sea. u.s. coast guard officials in boston updated the public on what they called an incredibly complex operation. >> the coast guard is coordinating search efforts with the u.s.-canadian coast guard,

and have searched a combined 7600 square miles, an area larger than the state of connecticut. those search efforts have not yielded any results. amna:amna: for the five passengers on board, time is of the essence. >> we know there are about 40 hours of breathable air left. amna: owned by washington state-based ocean gate expeditions, the vessel, known as the titan, takes passengers into the sea to see wreckage of the titanic. the submersible began its dissent near where the titanic went down around newfoundland, and all contact was lost about an hour and 45 minutes after it began its dive. no one on the surface knows why. one of the passengers said this year brought "the worst winter in newfoundland in 20 years, but

a weather window just opened up to attempt a dive." rescuers report that the water in the area is fairly calm, but their search covers a vast expanse of ocean on the surface and below. the titanic upon wreckage rests more than two miles underwater, the equivalent to 10 empire state buildings stacked on top of each other, more than twice the depth of the grand canyon. those on board include the ocean gate founder and ceo stockton rush, a british-pakistani executive at one of pakistan's largest conglomerates, and his son the. along with a french explorer, director of the company that owns the rights to the titanic's wreckage. if found, it is unclear how or if they could retrieve the vessel. >> we have a group of our

nations best experts, and if we get to that point, those experts will look at what the next course of action is. amna: i am joined by retired u.s. navy submarine captain david mark eight. you heard what the rescuers are up against. if the vessel has not surfaced somehow, still underwater, how are they carrying out a search like this? >> there are two components to the search. first, the search on the surface of the water. you can cover wide areas with airplanes that fly relatively quickly and have radar. during the daytime, you can use your eyeballs. i am pretty confident if the ship were at the surface, it would've been found by now. underwater at the depths of the titanic, it is a different story.

first of all, you hope that if they were in there and capable, they would be making noises, using piggy owners or underwater telephone or banging on the whole of the summary. we are not hearing that. i am fearful that something catastrophic has happened. when there is an abrupt termination of communication, it would signal multiple systems going down at the same time. amna: captain, if they located the vessel, what then? is there a way to rescue people underwater? >> there is no way to rescue people underwater on this type of ship. what you need to do that is have two ships with the same type of surface that would come together, and the ship, the

hatch is bolted on from the outside. the rescue ships that have those kinds of surfaces don't go that deep. we need to get that ship up to the surface. we either glued to use lifting equipment that comes under, like a sled, then inflate and go up, or, we drop a two mile cable with a hook on it. then we can real it up to the surface. we need to get that equipment to newfoundland and then on a ship and out to the rack of the titanic, which is 400 miles away. amna: you can see there is news that leaders in the submersible

sent a letter to the ceo expressing concerns that he wasn't sticking to their guidelines, warning of the catastrophic potential ahead. does it surprise you? >> that was reported in the "new york times," a remarkable letter. we see this tug with innovation where innovation might get ahead of regulation and the ability of the governing laws, as to how those vessels and how that area should operate, and then it goes back and forth. i admire the spirit of innovation and pushing the boundaries and not wanting to be fettered by rules written in the industrial age, but at the same time, it is people's lives here. we take great care of our submarines. they are designed with multiple

redundancies. we will test everything at the dock, and then we go to sea in shallow water, it's a very deliberate process, and it is hard for me to see how a commercial company will have as many resources. it is a very harsh environment. the pressure is 380 times atmospheric pressure down at that depth. amna: david, captain, thank you for your time.

geoff: there was more violence today in the occupied west bank as israeli settlers were shot and killed by palestinian gunmen. it followed a bloody raid yesterday and is raising fears of escalation. here is stephanie tsai. stephanie: near eli in the occupied west bank, palestinian attackers gunned down four israeli settlers at a gas station. three of the victims were young men 21 and under. the fourth victim was 63. four others were injured. both gunmen were also killed, one by an armed civilian. prime minister benjamin netanyahu called the assailants murderers. >> i want to say to all of those who seek our souls, all options are open. stephanie: hamas says the gunmen

remembered who carried out an attack in a refugee camp. palestinians are morning those lost in the raid, including a 15-year-old whose family graves. what was a routine israeli raid against palestinian militants became even more serious as the israeli troops left. a roadside bomb exploded under two israeli vehicles, an unusual weapon in the west bank. israel deployed a helicopter gunship, the first time in two decades it used an armed helicopter over the area. >> amna: the use of israeli helicopters amna: firing missiles into the area, that is a huge escalation. > a senior fellow at the brookings institution fears that with today's attack on israeli settlers, violence could

intensify. >> we have calls by the israeli national security minister who has been from the far right and has been calling for major measures in the west bank, including the return of targeted assassinations and the destruction of buildings. > the recent burst of violence is linked to the expansion of settlements in the west bank. >> palestinians don't see any possibility of ending occupation soon. there is a lot of despair. >> israel announced a new round of settlement expansion, 00 units. from washington, the state department issued a four-sentence statement saying the u.s. was deeply troubled.

>> it is a perfect storm whereby you have a vacuum in the west bank filled by militant groups, and you have a government in israel ■thathas elements to it that would like to not have just two states, but preclude it from ever happening. stephanie: the director of arab relations at the washington institute says far right policies in israel have further weakened the palestinian authority. the minister of finance earlier this year seized tax marks -- earmarks reserve for the pla. >> the finance minister in israel who represents more of the hardline factions has not been providing the support that the security establishment wants to bolster the pla. clearly, there are vacuums in

governments. settlers are taking matters into their own hands with reports of revenge attacks against palestinians mounting tonight. for the pbs newshour, i am stephanie psy. ♪ geoff: in san francisco, president biden convened a group of artificial intelligence experts and consider the role of the federal government. joining us is a professor of information science at the university of washington. all of the warnings about ai's present future and concerns about information and misinformation, how should the federal government approach regulating ai without stifling

innovation? >> it is a hard question. on the one hand, the biden administration recognizes the transformative power of artificial intelligence and is worried about rival nations china getting better at ai than we are, and at the same time, it is hard to deny the fact that there are consequences to the deployment of this technology. those are things like the things you mentioned, privacy, misinformation. geoff: the european union is taking steps towards passing what would be the first major law in regulating artificial intelligence. it would abandon facial recognition. it would require more disclosure for programs that use artificial intelligence. how is the eu moving so quickly, and could their model be fitting

for other countries? >> absolutely. the european parliament passed a draft of the ai act to heavily regulate some risky ai, ban some things they are not interested in seeing, and uses a light touch on other stuff. the experience shows it is possible and wise to have regulation around artificial intelligence. why are they ahead of us? there is just a different culture, just a different thought process about technology in the eu. in the united states, we are much more concerned about making sure we capture the productivity and efficiencies and innovation and military edge something like ai could confer, and concerned about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, whereas in europe, they are much more cautionary. geoff: how long might the process take in this country? it strikes me it took 50 years

to regulate cigarettes. regulating social media is still an open question. might this come down to companies themselves having to establish their own guardrails? >> i hope not. all we have right now is this blueprint for an ai bill of rights, which is awfully similar , a similar blueprint to what the obama administration worked on years ago. what would have to happen, of course, is congress would have to get involved or individual states would have to pass laws. congress and individual states are going to be worried about regulating, but it should not be left to the companies to make these kinds of decisions. left to their own devices, they are not going to fully address for mitigate the range of harms,

whether to the environment or job displacement, bias, privacy, misinformation, they will not internalize those costs unless the government makes them do it. geoff: and the minute we have left, can we talk about the promise of ai, setting aside the risk assessment. what generative artificial intelligence can do is extraordinary, original essays, composing music, generating code. what do you see on the horizon? >> the fact we have moved from artificial intelligence spotting patterns to coming up with output that is as good as a human in some contexts is powerful. my hope is that it will unleash productivity and creativity within the arts, within music. i hope it will also help people with differences, people who are

differently abled, accomplish some of their goals. my own son made a birthday card using artificial intelligence. he struggles with reducing things to writing. there is a lot of potential there. we should not deny that, but there are also some real harms. this is truly a transformative technology of our age, and what needs to transform our our legal and law institutions. geoff: professor of law and legal institutions at the university of washington, thank you for being with us. ♪ amna: after years of work, there has been some progress in the fight against alzheimer's disease, the incurable brain condition that affects more than 6 million americans. several new drugs have shown

small but positive result in reducing the cognitive decline associated with the disease. william bring them has our look at the breakthroughs and what they could mean. william: an fda advisory panel earlier this month agreed that the drug known as look can be modestly slowed the progression of alzheimer's. a similar drug has shown promise in clinical trials. it could see fda approval as soon as this year. the results from these drugs are modest, and there are concerns about side effects like brain swelling and bleeding, so for more on these drugs, we are joined by the longtime director of the national institute on aging at the national institutes of health. doctor, so good to have you on the program. researchers have been trying for decades to find some crack in

alzheimer's armor. now we have some hope. when you look at the results, how promising do they seem to you? >> you put it well in context. for the first time, this is a set of results that in the analysis of experts is a clear, significant impact on slowing the course of the disease. where i think we would all agree is that this is an important first step, working upon this foundational, initial finding to get an even better ratio of positive effects, prevention treatment, and side effects, which is a significant point of data in these findings. >> you mentioned that these drugs seem to slow the progress

of the disease. explain why it is significant. >> alzheimer's disease, we recognize, is a slowly progressing disease. the findings of abnormalities in the brain actually begin years before the appearance of symptoms, and then there is a slow progression that varies from individual to individual. if these treatments were capable of not just curing the disease but slowing it to the point where people retain their function, have a meaningful life of high quality, this would be an important outcome. >> you mentioned this issue of side effects, and i know there is this debate about whether medicare should cover the treatments. >> what we need to do going

forward is understand which individuals are most likely to profit from the treatment, which individuals are higher risk. then families and care providers can make a judgment about the cost-risk-benefit. this kind of research is already ongoing. >> there are still so many questions and mysteries about this disease about who gets it and why, but we are learning more about risk factors and prevention. what is the best knowledge on that front? >> in addition to looking for cures and treatment, the ability to decrease risk is important. a few years ago, we had a study commissioned about what we knew

about risk factors and what we could do to reduce the risk, and the risk factors for which there is the best evidence intervention could help were three. one, control of blood pressure. the other, maintaining cognitive activity. third, physical activity. since the time of that report, one of them, blood pressure control, has been shown in a randomized clinical trial, which is the gold standard, that by more intensively controlling blood pressure for people in mid age and lower age, there was a decrease in the appearance of lesions in the brain, which are seen in alzheimer's disease, and cognitive impairment, a stage that precedes dementia. in the meantime, there are ongoing trials to see whether controlling diet for physical activity or cognitive training will have a similar effect.

>> you've spoken about the need to increase the racial diversity amongst the people knew researched with. why is that important? >> we could start with the ethical impairment -- imperative that we need to do research that benefits all people in the country, and for that matter, globally. we need inclusion of that diversity in our clinical studies. this is not just hypothetical. we have compelling findings to demonstrate that the risk in the genetic variant does not have the same risk in african-american populations. there are differences in genetics and experience that mean individuals of different parts of the population are likely to have different pathways to alzheimer's disease

and will likely benefit differently from treatment. we will only know that if we include a diverse population in our research. geoff:geoff: the director of the national institutes of aging, thank you for your time. >> thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. amna: the school year has either ended or is just wrapping up in most of the country. as another year finishes, there are real concerns about learning loss dating back to the pandemic and the ongoing struggles for students to catch up. lauren perrone lopez has the latest conversation. lauren: the federal government gave schools $190 billion to help them reopen, recover and respond to the impacts of the pandemic. the aide can be used for tutoring, adding teachers, summer learning and other ways of helping. some money has been spent for

those purposes, but fears remain about the long-term impacts of learning loss from remote schooling. alan mcginnis has been reporting on efforts to deal with this, including in richmond, virginia as part of a joint story for "the new yorker" and pro public. you've reported on the magnitude of learning loss including in richmond, virginia as well as other places across the country. >> the gap is just enormous. it is hard for us to comprehend how enormous the gap is. i've talked with a lot of experts, and they are completely alarmed by how large the disparities have gotten. we've succeeded in closing some of the racial and economic disparities in our schools. it has been blown completely wide open in the last couple years largely because of the school closures and the shift to

remote learning. there is evidence that the longer the district stayed close, the worse the learning loss was, and it just so happened that a lot of the districts that stayed clos the longest were our cities where we had a lot of black and hispanic students who suffered the most from the shift to remote learning. lauren: mueller report in some districts -- you reported in some districts schools are grading more generously. does that mask the problem? >> one expert spoke to the urgency cap where a lot of families and parents are not aware of how dire the situation has become because they are seeing their kids get decent grades. there is a recognition among teachers that these kids have been through a lot and we should take it somewhat easier on them. meanwhile, you can see these

standardized test scores that have just fallen off a cliff, really to a degree that researchers and economists have never seen before. one economist describes this as having a massive economic effect on par with the great recession. because skills are so directly tied to income, you will see a lifelong effect for students in the communities in which they live, building lifelong loss into their economic well-being. lauren: you took a particular look at richmond, virginia where the student body is almost entirely black. there was a push for a 200-day calendar. what was behind the push? >> it was a recognition that there has been so much time lost, and the key challenges finding additional time to make up some lost ground. richmond school stayed closed the longest of any district in

virginia, and test scores reflected that. one estimate was that students lost two years in math learning. there was a push to add time to the calendar and somehow extend the school year, add more days to the school year for some students, and shrink the summer vacation so that there is less of the summer slide, build more time into the calendar for students. i went there to tell that story. lauren: that extended calendar came from a few places. some school board members, white people in particular appear to more opposed, in addition to some teachers. why were they opposed? >> there were many arguments against the shorter summer break . there were practical things like, we've got a summer job, scheduled summer vacations, we don't want to change those

plans, but there is a general sense, why are we disrupting the way things have been done at a time when there has been so much disruption? we need to get everyone back to their normal routine. the other argument is that this is exactly the moment we need to do something different. lauren: in the end, roughly 1000 of the district's 22,000 students will be in school the next several days on the calendar. what has been your take on the struggle to approve a pilot project for these students? >> in the end, only two schools got a part of this pilot, just a small step forward for the city, and it is a sign of how strongly

complacency and inertia have become on this issue. we almost not even talking about it anymore. it's been striking how much the educational debate has shifted to culture war issues. meanwhile, we see this crisis in learning loss. there's been this real reluctance to look at it in the eye and recognize how much we have to do. i did see some of these educators in richmond who did recognize this and were fighting as hard as they could to move forward, and it will be interesting to see how these schools in this one city fair with these extra 20 days they are getting. lauren: that is allocable gillis with new reporting in "the new yorker" and pro public up. thank you so much. >> thank you. geoff: by many measures, drag

is more popular than ever. there are a growing number of states passing laws to restrict it or ban it entirely, but what does drag represented those who created it? jeffrey brown has a look at this for our culture series "candace." jeffrey: hey show at nightgowns. >> welcome to nightgowns. jeffrey: it has been running in different forms since 2015 and been adapted into a streaming docuseries, showcasing many of today's leading drag performers. it's founder and host, 36-year-old sasha valour. >> 's heightened performances of gender. we take all the ideas that make characters in this world, which are always gendered ideas, and we twisted them around, exaggerate them, invert

expectations and create something new in the mixing of singing opposites. jeffrey: sasha who is gender fluid and uses she/her pronouns gained attention in 2017. rupaul: the winner of rupaul's drag race is sascha v alour. jeffrey: as winner of "rupaul's drag race." she rocked the crowd with her so-called big reveal, and that is the title of her new book, one that explores the history and art of drag and her own life in it. >> i wanted to present drag as an art form tied to a community and is a site for people to advocate for change. jeffrey: what is the art in drag? >> from beginning to end, drag is an art.

we think about colors and textures. we tell a story on stage. we dance. other people tell stories or jokes. i lip-synch, which is a tradition. there is also artistry and appearance. we paint our faces like a painting, design costumes that go wilder than contemporary fashion, bigger and more colorful, and it is a place to have fun and try things and experiment. jeffrey: is a place to have fun and experiment, but it is also a place for saying something. >> yes. the thing i want to say is, first of all, queer people, non-binary and trans people are normal, we can have beautiful lives in the world, and that it is good to be truthful about who you are, to exaggerate it if you

want, or to simply not hide from it. jeffrey: i think the disconnect for many people would be, but you are appearing in a way that does not appear "normal." >> why is that, i would ask. that is so funny to me. any time you watch morning tv, they have on as much makeup as i do. the difference is they don't have any fun with it. this is very normal. it's just i make very strong and personal choices that are bolder than the things most people are willing to do. i guess in that sense, i am not afraid to look abnormal because i know that this is just as normal as everyone else. jeffrey: the book explores the history of drag, including new york's ballroom scene in the 1920's and 1930's, participants in the stonewall uprising and key figures who push boundaries along the way. it also presents more personal stories and photos. sasha grew up in a loving and

accepting family in central illinois, the child of a russian history professor and academic editor, and always loved addressing up. >> learning about drag made sense. it showed a path for people, regardless of what gender they are, to create characters and tell stories they connect with. one of the reasons i wanted to share this history of drag, this history of queer and trans people and the art and communities they make, is because i needed that context to make sense of how i fit in the world. jeffrey: should drag be understood as a performance, as an identity, as both? >> drag is definitely a performance. even when it is not on stage, it is purposefully exaggerated and over-the-top. sometimes it is connected to queer identities we have outside of drag. of course, when i feel most

natural, i don't dress like this, but in a weird way, something truthful about me is best understood through the makeup and styling. jeffrey: there is a connection to identity. >> there is, but we don't think that drag is real. drag is a very needed escape from reality, into a world that has more freedom. jeffrey: is it a political act? should it be understood that way? >> not always. sometimes drag is just for fun or sometimes for a job. a chance to entertain people, make money, have a party, put on a great show, but there is something political about this space that has always been welcoming to people of all gender expressions. jeffrey: according to the aclu, 20 states have introduced drag ban bills. thre arkansas, florida and north dakota, have laws against

performance that could be applied to drag, while missouri and tennessee have expressly banned drag in front of minors. >> they are trying to convince people not to be gay. and we believe everyone should have freedom of choice over their own body and own life. we just create a space -- our goal is to create space within the ssible. jeffrey: how worried are you in this moment we are in? >> i am not worried for myself. i've been at this for a while, and i've seen the timeshift in the 10 years i've done drag. i worry for people in more rural areas like the place i grew up in central illinois, young people without access to a strong community. that is who will be affected the most.

jeffrey: the new laws, as drag is more popular than ever in the culture with national shows like "rupaul's drag race," drag brunches and story time many cities. >> people are going to drag shows. they are introducing drag to young people. for us, it feels exciting. we remember being kids and not having the same access to that knowledge. the hopeful thing is that so many minds have been changed already, and it is not a question for us. this is not a debate. we know that our identities are real, and our community helps people and allows us to live our lives. it will be impossible to go ckwards. jeffrey: the book is "the big reveal." sascha, thank you very much. >> thank you so much.

geoff: and that's "the newshour" for tonight. i am geoff bennett. amna: and i am amna navaz. thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> actually, you don't need vision for most things in life. yes, i am legally blind, and yes, i am responsible for the visual interface. data visualization, if i can understand it, anyone can. it is exciting to be part of a team driving technology forward. people who know, know bdo. >> pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymond james financial artist taylor's advice to help you live your life. life well-planned.

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hello, everyone. welcome to amanpour and company. here is what is coming up. torifficials party as covid rages then leader boris johnson faces and accountability moment. i speak to former attorney general dominic grieve and tom mctague. america celebrates juneteenth. civil and women's rights advocate anita hill joins me to reflect on her own family history, and where the nation stands now. then -- >> i remold immediately. i rebuild