amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz. geoff bennett is away. on the “newshour” tonight, fourth of july celebrations are marred by mass shootings in multiple cities across the u.s. we examine how the founding fathers and the american revolution have become a part of the current political divide. and a new reporting project reveals more than 100 u.s. leaders -- lawmakers, presidents, governors, and justices -- have ancestors who enslaved people. >> i think america right now, both in terms of legislation, debate, and just public sort of conversation, is grappling with a number of issues that touch on the legacy of slavery in america.

♪ >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the "newshour." >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no contract plans and our u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv.

>> 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. amna: welcome to the “newshour”" this fourth of july has brought all of the annual festivities and fireworks. but it's all happening in the shadow of more mass shootings, including two last night. today, president biden branded the attacks tragic and senseless, and renewed his plea for new gun laws. as the country marks this

independence day, more american communities are mourning victims of gun violence. last night, a heavily armed gunman wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire in a philadelphia neighborhood, killing five people. >> there was a shooter right there behind my red car, shooting a pistol into the street. within seconds there were like, 50 cops on this corner. amna: the shooting spanned several blocks. it ended when police caught up to the suspected gunman in an alleyway. >> what was supposed to be a beautiful summer evening, this armed and armored individual wreaked havoc, firing with a rifle at their victims, seemingly at random. amna: police found multiple victims in the street, and one who was chased into his home and shot to death. two additional victims, a two-year-old and a 13-year-old, remain hospitalized in stable condition. more than 1000 miles away in fort worth, texas, an independence day festival ended in terror last night when a shooter opened fire in a crowd of hundreds, and chaos erupted.

>> a lot of vehicle traffic, a lot of foot traffic. as you can tell, still fireworks were being shot off. lots of people just trying to flee the area. amna: three people were killed and eight others wounded. the gunman remains at large. meanwhile in a suburb of chicago, illinois today. >> last summer's shooting was the bloodiest day we've ever experienced in highland park. amna: a community gathered to remember the seven people killed in a july 4 parade mass shooting last year. >> we deeply mourn those who were taken from us, and we will forever honor and be true to their memories. it is impossible to make sense of the chaos as we look backwards, but what we can do is continue to support each other. amna: the city's parade celebration was canceled this year. instead, residents walked the route, moving forward together, one year later. in the day's other headlines, extreme heat baked the west and south again, as millions of

americans spent the holiday outdoors. in phoenix and other cities, people have flocked to public splash parks this week, in temperatures topping 110 degrees, with more to come this week. heat waves are also scorching china and north africa. and scientists with the u.s. national weather service report that yesterday, july 3, was the hottest day on record, worldwide. despite the heat, presidential candidates turned out for july 4 events around the country. florida's reblic governor ron desantis joined parade-goers in wolfboro, new hampshire. former vice president mike pence walked alongside locals at a parade in urbandale, iowa. and in washington, president biden hosted a late-afternoon white house barbeque for active-duty military families. in israel, a palestinian man drove his car into a tel aviv bus stop today and stabbed people in the crowd, wounding eight. police arrived shortly afterward. they said an armed civilian shot

and killed the attacker. the extremist group hamas claimed responsibility. and in the occupied west bank, smoke rose over jenin as israeli troops began withdrawing after a two-day hunt for militants. the israel defense forces said a soldier was shot and killed this evening in the ongoing conflict. palestinians say at least 10 palestinians have been killed there in recent days. russian president vladimir putin worked today to calm concerns about his government's stability. it came at an asian security summit, his first such gathering since a short-lived revolt. putin spoke via video link to a group including china, india, and pakistan, and sent a message of russian solidarity. >> the russian people are united as never before. russian political circles and the whole of society clearly demonstrated their sense of responsibility for the fate of the fatherland when they responded as a united front against the attempted armed mutiny. amna: putin's comments came as russian officials said they

foiled a ukrainian drokttneac on moscow. a prominent russian journalist, elena milashina, was brutally beaten today in chechnya. it happened in grozny, capital of the southern russian region. masked men hauled milashina out of a car and clubbed her. later, video showed the journalist in a hospital with her head shaved for treatment. green antiseptic covered her face, and she was bruised. milashina has gained acclaim for exposing human rights abuses. hong kong's government is warning that eight pro-democracy activists, now living abroad, will be pursued for the rest of their lives. it's the latest sign of china's willingness to hunt dissidents overseas. the eight were charged monday with national security offenses. but in london today, one called the accusations a badge of honor. >> they want to use this as a way to discourage other hong kongers, hong kong political dissidents, from continuing

advocating for democracy in hong kong. so this is something that i am afraid of, but i hope that, well, many of us, the eight of us could serve as a role model to keep on fighting. amna: the other dissidents now live in the u.s., canada, and australia. china has announced limits on exports of gallium and germanium, two metals widely used in computer chips and solar panels. it follows u.s. curbs on selling advanced chips and other high-tech goods to beijing. china is the world's largest producer of the metals, and the u.s. gets half of its supply from there. and the secret service is investigating how cocaine powder got into the white house. news accounts today said agents found the powder sunday evening in part of the west wing that's open to tour groups. the president was at camp david at the time. the discovery caused a brief evacuation to make sure the powder was not explosive. still to come on the “newshour”" we delve into a russian mercenary group's activity across africa.

how prescription drug shortages are increasingly disrupting patient care. a new podcast examines the sugar industry's mistreatment of workers. a book chronicling the espionage battle between russia and the west offers modern lessons. plus 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 american revolution and the founding founders, two parts of u.s. history celebrated on july 4. in recent years, they've also become political and ideological tools, including at times of some extremist groups on the right. lisa desjardins has more. lisa: 1776 is a symbol of freedom, reason, and the founding of this country. but two centuries later, that date, 1776, was a rallying cry for rioters disrupting a

national election at the capitol. >> 1776! 1776! >> 1776! lisa: it is an example of how the politics and rhetoric around the founding has become enflamed, and can eclipse the actual history involved. joining me to discuss are amy cooter, the research director at the center on terrorism, extremism, and counterterrorism at the middlebury institute. and jim grossman, historian and executive director of the american historical association. amy, i want to start with you. july 4 celebrates our history of men who were radical in their time in the founding, but i want to talk about the group you study now, those were in militias, are extremists. how do they use 1776 for their own purposes? amy: for them, 1776 has been

important for longer than what we just saw. it is their reason to be as a militia, as a man in society. they see themselves acting as a lineage of the founding fathers and think true patriots have the obligation to honor them and honor the date. lisa: i want to talk more broadly about political bloodstream. talking about founding fathers is oiler plate but especially recently for conservatives. this is republican tim scott, his july 4 message this year. >> our founding fathers were geniuses who should be celebrated, not canceled. lisa: obviously there was genius involved in the founding of america, but i wonder how you see the positives and negatives versus the rhetoric is amped up about the founding fathers. jim: the problem here is an inclination among many people to see things as black-and-white, to see things as it's either

this or that. and people talk about teaching the glory and the glory of american history. senator scott says they should be celebrated and not canceled. they should be understood. and that doesn't mean celebrated, it doesn't mean canceled. their ideas were brilliant. there is no question that the founding documents were in fact revolutionary. they contained insights into liberty, into freedom. but these men also -- they were men, there were no women present -- these men were also mostly men who owned, bought, and sold other human beings. and they lived and had grown up in a world where it was ok to own, buy, and sell other human beings. and to understand what they wrote, and to understand them, we have to understand that. this is not a theory, this is a fact. lisa: amy, one think we are

talking about here is patriotism that could morph into nationalism. can you talk about those two ideas and what happens there? amy: social scientist distinguish between patriotism as being love for one's country versus nationalism which is a negative comparison to everywhere else. it is not just i love my country, but everywhere else is bad. and patriotism in the militia world and beyond kind of appeals to our founding and pains us as this proverbial city on a hill without looking, as jim said, at some of the negatives that go along with the positives. lisa: why do you think this is bubbling up now? of course it is not unique in american history to have this divide, but why are we seeing this form of it now? what in the last 50 years could have led to this? jim: we are seeing this now -- and 60 years is about right.

because during the 1960's, things changed in ways that upset many americans. between the 1965 immigration changes in immigration law, feminism of the 1960's, and the civil rights acts and civil rights activism. for many americans, this is not the country that they thought it was or that it should be. because women are not acting the way their wives and daughters and mothers acted a generation before the 1960's. african-americans asserting rights that, quite frankly, were not granted to them before the 1950's and 1960's. and the opening of the doors to millions of immigrants since 1965. this is not the country that we were. so i think it goes back to the 1960's as to what has changed.

lisa: amy, i saw you nodding during some of that. how do race and identity in particular factored into what you are seeing with militia groups and extremists? amy: with most militia groups i have studied they are not racist at the root level, being the same as white supremacist or neo-nazis, that is not what we see with this particular movement. but like many other white americans who are part of militias, they perceive a partial view of history. they have not learned about slavery or native american genocide. they have not learned why those things still impact people very differently today. so when we have conversations about critical race theory or about transgender rights, it is really easy for those things to become kind of buzzwords that are dismissed without much in-depth investigation into what they really mean and some of the concepts behind them. it's all too easy to use that as an excuse to fight back is what

they see as too rapid social progress, but package it in a way that is appealing to a broader swath of america. lisa: as we are wrapping up, i want to focus on a survey that your group did looking at how americans learned history. they told you that they see history as facts. what, where, when. versus historians who view it as a conversation. and americans mostly get their history from sources of entertainment. what does that tell you about how we understand our history? jim: i think it tells you that historians have some work to do. that we have to do a much better job of connecting with the american people. and in fact this is one reason the american historical association has recently issued guidelines suggesting to colleges and universities that more professional credit go to historians who are writing and speaking to the general public

rather than to just one another. so i do think that those surveys do suggest that we as historians have a lot of work to do. we do have to help americans understand that facts are not very useful unless we know how to ask the right questions about them. lisa: i think this conversation was very useful, so. jim grossman, amy cooter, thank you to your both for a very complex conversation, and happy fourth of july. amy: you too. jim: thank you. ♪ amna: more than a week after the failed mutiny by wagner mercenaries in russia, there are lingering questions about the future of the paramilitary group. wagner boss yevgeny prigozhin has not been seen since agreeing to halt the rebellion and go to belarus. last week, new satellite images showed what appeared to be newly-built military bases in belarus that could house wagner mercenaries.

meanwhile, the u.s. has imposed sanctions on gold companies suspected of funding the group's activities, including in africa, where thousands of wagner fighters have been deployed since 2017. last week, russian foreign minister sergei lavrov said wagner troops would remain in the continent. >> the fate of the agreements between those african companies and the wagner private military company it's up to the leadership of those countries to decide. how much they are interested to secure the security of the authorities. uppo gt'ca'l sciesnce at barnard college, columbia university, and an expert on the wagner group. welcome to the "newshour." let's begin with the latest from prigozhin. we have no seen him since the attempted mutiny but we have heard him. from a telegram posted he thanked those supported and said the mutiny was aimed at, quote, fighting traitors and

mobilizing society. what do you make of that statement? kimberly: the tape itself was very odd, and of course we don't know when it was actually posted. but it was very short and very different from other things he posted, because there was no combativeness in it, as we are used to hearing from him, no swear words. it was very short and sweet and cooperative. so there was not much to it but it sounded very atypical for prigozhin. amna: what do you make of how putin has responded to that attempted mutiny, and also what it says about his leadership and his concerns in this stage about the war in ukraine? kimberly: now it is really out of the headlines in russia itself so things are going on as if it never happened. but i think at the time it made putin look very weak because he was slow to respond and because the wagner march to moscow was allowed to make as much headway as it was. he seemed very unprepared and frightened at first.

i think what we will see going forward is putin has been weakened. and some people should take advantage of that, but by attempting to get around what putin wants. amna: what about these wagner troops in africa? they have been there for a number of years. where are they and what exactly are they doi? kimberly: reports you would thik they are everywhere in africa, but there are only four countries where they had any substantial presence. their most successful presences in the central african republic where they have about 1000 troops and have essentially taken over security duties in the country becaused th to do that. the evidence indicates that they are commanding forces that are in the outlying areas of the central african republic, which has been helpful because they have down rebel movements. their second large presence is in mali, and there it's less clear that they are going to be

successful. they are obviously trying something very similar, where they are supporting the current military junta in its control over the country. but mali is facing two separate islamist insurgencies. while wagner would like to get access to raw material contracts there and more gold, it's not clear they will be successful because the gold in mali is mostly controlled by large western firms that are quite sophisticated. the other two areas in africa we are we know wagner is currently located, they have a few dozen in sudan, where they do not appear to be in combat, but they are engaged in the gold trade. the fourth place they are is in eastern libya working with the warlord there, and ensuring with their air defense systems that he can stay in place, and guarding oil and gas resources russia might find useful in the future. amna: knowing the relationship between this wagner paramilitary

force and the official russian defense forces and the military there, what does their presence in africa say to you about putin 's larger foreign policy? kimberly: they have all been put there with the support of russian state ministries of various kinds. they are acting on behalf of russia's foreign policy interests. they have never been an entirely private company. what it means is that putin is able to establish a relatively large presence in africa for russian security forces in particular and then also in terms of getting gold and other potential precious natural resources without having to spend a lot of money and without having to put the russian uniformed military at risk for casualties, which makes it much easier to sell to the audience if you just say it is just a bunch of private actors making money. up until 2014, russia did not have much of a remaining presence in africa. it never left the continent entirely, but its presence there

had been relatively insignificant in comparison to the west, china, turkiye, the uae, and other actors. so it is a way for putin to keep control at relatively low expense and risk. amna: is this an military and security operation that prigozhin is running in africa or a business one? kimberly: it is both and they are really melded together. remember that prigozhin himself has no combat experience and not really any business experience. so he probably got assigned to do this as a middleman, as a contractor, because of his relationship to putin that goes back to the early 1990's in st. petersburg. so as far as we know the contracts in place, in places like the central african republic, mali, sudan, and to a lesser extent in libya, have forces associated with wagner regarding the mines, and personnel associated with prigozhin's more commercial

businesses engaged in the trade and transport of those materials, and perhaps in the processing of them as well. amna: a fascinating look about a group i am sure we would hear more about as well. professor kimberly marten joining us tonight. kim, thank you for your time. kimberly: thank you, amna. ♪ amna: the u.s. is in the midst of an ongoing prescription drug shortage, with more medications in short supply for longer stretches of time. laura barron-lopez has more on what's behind it all. laura: amna, drug shortages in the u.s. are the highest they've been in the last nine years. based on the most recent data, drug shortages increased by approximately 30% between 2021 and 2022. medications currently in short supply include chemotherapy drugs, antibiotics, adhd medication like adderall, and other critical drugs used to

treat a variety of conditions. it's a reality making treatment decisions difficult for doctors and patients. erin fox is tracking these shortages. she's a national expert on drug shortages at the university of utah. erin, thank you so much for joining us. can you help us understand what is happening here? how severe the current drug shortages are, and how many drugs are actually in short supply? erin: so i think when people think of a shortage, you think of something that is completely 100% out, and that's not the case with the drug shortages that we have right now. you can usually get some, but it's not enough. and so that means that some patients are getting rationed care. some patients are able to access medicines and others aren't. and so that's a really frustrating situation right now. laura: out of the drugs that are in short supply, which ones are having the most detrimental impact on patients? erin: i think the most frustrating and the most

detrimental to patient care, the chemotherapy shortages. we just don't have alternatives for these agents, and you know, it's one thing to have cancer and be struggling with that, but then to add on the fear that your treatment will not be available or you may get a lower dose, or your treatment just may be delayed in some way. that's really frustrating. so i think those are probably the most impact when we have right now. laura: and what is actually causing these shortages. is it manufacturing? is it competition with china? labor shortages? what exactly is creating this situation? erin: that's a good question. in a lot of cases, we don't know the true root cause of many of these shortages. drug companies are allowed to keep that a secret. but we do know from fda's data that most of the time it's a manufacturing problem, quality issue at the factory, and that's exactly what's happening with the chemotherapy shortages.

there was a factory in india that had some really severe quality problems last december. they had to close to fix those. unfortunately, the other companies can't make up the difference, and really, have an uninterrupted supply. laura: transparency is something that some lawmakers in congress are hoping to address. they want to pass legislation specifically to fix that chemotherapy drug shortage that you're talking about. though it's unclear if there are actually enough votes currently to get that done. one of the measures in particular would grant the fda new authority to require drug makers to alert them if there's demands in certain drugs amongst the population. would a measure like that actually fix this problem? erin: you probably wouldn't fix the chemotherapy shortage problem because fda knew that there is a manufacturing problem already. but the demand shortages that we saw for things like children's pain relievers, the amoxicillin

shortage, some common antibiotic shortages that we've seen over last winter, that really would help. in those cases, we did have big spikes in demand, fda was not aware. so fda couldn't use their usual toolkit that they have to try to prevent those shortages from happening without that extra awareness. so yes, i do think that would be helpful. laura: beyond that, if you could wave a wand and transform this drug supply system that we have/ what specifically needs to change to make sure that shortages like this don't happen again? erin: you know, right now, with many of these products, the only competition point, but between these generic products that are pretty low cost and low margin is price. and so we've had a race to the bottom, and sometimes that creates an incentive to cut corners on quality. and so, what we need are measures that would allow these companies to compete more on quality, their ability to supply, their ability to have redundancy in their supply chains. those things could allow them to perhaps charge a little bit of a

higher price, and then you know, it's worth it for hospitals to pay a little bit extra if they know they're going to have an assured supply of a higher quality product. and so we just really need to get away from this pass/fail system that fda has set up where the only competition point is price and let's look a little bit further onto quality measures. laura: erin, is there anything that the biden administration could do through executive action, as we were just talking about, because of the fact that congress appears not settled at all on legislation? erin: you know, i think back to the obama administration and some of the executive actions they took. they did require a notification rule. at that time, there was no notification required for companies to tell the fda when they were having a shortfall. so certainly that increased in demand notification might work for an executive order. but really the changes that we need to happen are coming from

congress, coming from, you know, perhaps cms, and also some public/private partnerships as well. laura: that's erin fox of the university of utah. thank you so much for your time. erin: thank you so much. ♪ amna: although america declared its independence on this day in 1776, it would take nearly 90 years for black people enslaved in this country to obtain their freedom. a new reporting project from reuters found that some of the most powerful people in the country today are direct descendants of powerful slave-owning early americans. i recently spoke with tom lassater, an editor who worked on the reuters project. while he was seeking responses from republicans and democrats alike about his team's findings, he, too, was reckoning with new details about his own family's ties to slavery. tom lasseter, welcome to the "newshour." thanks for being here. tom: thanks for having me.

amna: so, you spent years and years overseas as a foreign correspondent. when you came back to the u.s. in 2020, you decided you wanted to focus on the legacy of slavery in america. why? what drew you to that? tom: well, we moved to washington shortly after the killing of george floyd, and sitting there in a corporate apartment in d.c. watching the coverage of the protests which followed, watching also sort of the protest and debate about the removal of confederate statues, confederate monuments, as sort of an outsider to my own country, sort of watching these things, it just it occurred to me america was having a moment of reckoning and that part of that, at least, was the question of whether we've sort of fully explored the legacy of slavery in america. amna: you sought to look into the family histories of our political and institutional leaders. there's a number of details in your full report, but some of

the findings -- i want to hit the highlights here -- are eye opening. among the 536 members of the last sitting congress, 100 and had ancestors who enslaved people, that includes 28 senators. you're talking about both republicans and democrats. president joe biden, every living former u.s. president except for former president trump, whose ancestors came to the u.s. after slavery was abolished. did the results surprise you? tom: well, i would say first of all, that was a very much an at least number. those were the cases in which we could reach a high degree of confidence that the family tree that we had built for that sort of american political notable was from the very first rung being the member of congress or a member of supreme court, goes back to the ancestor that we identified as having been an enslaver, and then that ancestor had actually enslaved someone. so, there were, you know, a great many other cases where we thought we had probably linked it, but just couldn't reach that

degree of confidence. amna: you've reached out to a number of members of congress and these other leaders as well for responses. did everyone respond? tom: the majority of them did not. the majority of them did not respond with either a statement or an interview. but we did, we reached out to each of the 118 people that we've named in this report. amna: i wanted to ask you about one response in particular. this was from former representative mo brooks of alabama. he said, quote, hopefully everybody in america is smart enough to know that slavery is abhorrent. so the question then becomes, if everybody already knows it's abhorrent, what more can you teach from that? what did you make of that response? and was that similar to other responses you got? tom: well, i spoke with former representative brooks on the phone a couple of times, and his response was sort of a sort of a type. certainly, some people responded that, of course, the institution

of slavery is a stain upon american history. it was morally wrong. everyone agrees about that. but it does not have anything to do with the present day. it does not have anything to do with me, the person speaking. and so, why look at it, why sort of ask these questions about it? amna: you got a different response from the likes of someone like senator tammy duckworth, for example. how did she respond? tom: senator duckworth, met with in her senate offices. she said, you know, look, i part of my part of my ancestry, this is from her father's side, which is from virginia, fought in the american revolution. and if i'm going to talk about that publicly, if i'm going to claim that part of my heritage and be proud of that heritage, then i also have to look squarely at the fact that some of my ancestors enslaved people. in her case, it was two separate ancestors, which she had not known before. amna: tom, you uncovered your own family history as part of your reporting and discovered

that your ancestors had also enslaved black people. what was that like to make that discovery? tom: it started with a memory as a teenager, going walking across a farm my family used to own in forsyth county, georgia, and walking past a water well. and my grandfather just sort of gesturing at it in an offhand way and saying, the slaves built that. and i, sort of in a way that i think is typical for some white families in the south, sort of knew but didn't know. had this memory, this piece of information, chose to do nothing with it for my adult life. so i say that i did not realize i had ancestors who enslaved people, but also, it was something that i could have explored and had sort of found out in any of those intervening years. but yes, i have at least five ancestors who enslaved people in three different counties in georgia. amna: as part of your work, too, you met with a woman whose ancestors were enslaved by yours.

what was that meeting like? what did you say to her? what did she say back? tom: we met a couple of times. you know, i wanted to sort of have something sort of to show, i guess. and i had a packet of genealogical information tracing out her family tree and then tracing out where her family tree intersected with my family. and it named two of those enslaved people. and i had been following those people forward. and they were her ancestors. amna: when you began this, you mentioned your editors raised the question, you know, by looking into our leaders' family histories, what can you learn about how they lead today? what does their past, in other words, mean for america's future? do you feel like you could answer that question now? tom: well, i think america right now, both in terms of legislation, debate, and just public sort of conversation, is grappling with a number of

issues that in one way or the other, touch on the legacy of slavery in america. i mean, most directly, there's reparations. there's also, of course, a fair amount of debate about how this history should be taught. we want to inform that debate with an establishment of a basic set of facts. and from the beginning of this project, to me, the fact that i've grappled with both personally and more broadly is, slavery didn't just happen. there were people who enslaved other people. and to me, the question was, well, who? who enslaved them? what did it mean for those families? what did it mean for the enslaved, and what did it mean for the descendants of the enslaved? and just to start out with again, just an establishment of a basic set of facts. amna: it's a stunning piece of work. it's available to read online. and the journalist is tom lasseter of reuters. tom, thank you for being here and speaking with us about your work. tom: thank you for having me.

♪ amna: sugar is in many of the foods we eat every day, and that's not by accident. the multi-billion dollar sugar industry is the subject of a new podcast from iheartmedia and imagine entertainment. stephanie sy has more. stephanie: the u.s. is the fifth largest sugar producer in the world, with more than 20 states supporting the industry. the average american consumes more than 100 pounds of sugar in a year, according to the usda. more than citizens of any other country. and there is broad scientific consensus that too much sugar contributes to diseases, including type two diabetes, heart disease, and fatty liver disease. celeste headlee is host of the podcast "big sugar," and she joins me now to talk about the

industry's political power and the impact that's had on workers and public health. celeste, thank you so much for joining the "newshour." so, i understand the idea of your podcast came from previous reporting starting in the 1980's from alec wilkinson, who wrote the book "big sugar," and marie brenner, who in 2001 wrote an article in vanity fair. why did you want to look at this issue again now? celeste: well, because many of the issues that they were looking at in terms of immigrant labor, visas, health care, the environment, they're still relevant today, as well as the power that corporations and the people who are behind those corporations have over our politics. so, especially as the farm bill is up -- as it rarely is, it's up for reconsideration again, it's only up for reconsideration every five years. we felt it was time. stephanie: and of course, the farm bill would include a package of subsidies, including a sugar program. let's get back to this question of migrant labor that the sugar

industry had to contend with in the 1970's and 1980's. i want tor podcast where an attorney for the workers talks about the dangers of the job. >> you're swinging a machete eight or 10 hours a day. it's going to slip or you're going to be careless or the field will be uneven or any number of things that will cause you to accidentally cut yourself. every year it was about a one third of the workers were injured at work in a manner serious enough that it required them to miss at least one day of work. that's an awfully high percentage of the workforce to be injured during a year. stephanie: so, celeste, that lawyer, greg shell, files a lawsuit on behalf of the workers saying they're underpaid. what changed as a result of that and other lawsuits? celeste: well, they ended up filing a class action lawsuit on behalf of a large number of these workers, and they

discovered some incredible things. at one point, they got a former u.s. sugar worker who gave them some details showing that these workers had been underpaid to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. in fact, they had documents showing that the companies had budgeted only $3 per ton when in fact, they should have been budgeting over $5 per ton if they were paying what the u.s. government had said that they had to pay. so, they had what seemed to have been a pretty tight case. what ended up happening was that a number of the sugar companies settled. one of the sugar companies owned by a couple of brothers from cuba who had fled the castro regime did not. they kept it in court for years and years and years and years. they ended up losing that case because of a centuries-old law, and they ultimatme the fields. that's sort of the core of what this story is about. but it involves so much drama and intrigue. and ultimately, these poor

workers, they were just out tens of thousands of dollars. and it's the kind of money that really could have transformed their lives. stephanie: so, justice was not fully served even after the settlements, it sounds like. i wonder if you see a connection between the ways migrant workers were treated in the sugar cane fields and the sugar beet fields and the ways migrant workers are treated today. celeste: although most of the sugar that is farmed in the united states is mechanized, it's still harvested by hands in many areas of the united states today. and what's more, we are still subsidizing the growing of sugar to the tune of billions of dollars through that farm bill that we talked about before. in other words, we are paying growers millions of dollars to grow sugar, and as consumers, we're paying more for our sugar when we get to the grocery store than almost any other nation is. so our sugar is expensive in a number of different ways, and it's expensive in terms of labor

itself. so, it's a type of issue that is costly and it's also costly to environment. i mean, it's just -- there's layers upon layers to the story. stephanie: for its part, the american sugar alliance, celeste, says your podcast presents a, quote, antiquated and inaccurate picture of the sugar industry from the 1980's. they say planting and harvesting is now mechanized and workers are unionized. do you think they've rectified the big problems? celeste: i stand by our journalism. they are correct that quite a pbit of our storytelling begins in the 1980's with the class action lawsuit that we were talking about. you know, this is an investigative story, and so we begin in the 1980's, but we bring it all the way forward to the present. and like i said, we were very careful in our fact-checking and the journalism. and i stand by it. it is very carefully done. and you can rely on the facts that you get. stephanie: celeste headlee, host

of "big sugar." thanks so much, celeste. celeste: my pleasure. ♪ amna: for decades, the u.s. and russia have been locked in a war of espionage and compelling new details about those stealth operations are now coming to light. geoff bennett recently spoke with author calder walton about the revelations in his new book, "spies, the epic intelligence war between the east and west. " geoff: calder walton joins us now. thank you for being with us. calder: thank you for having me, geoff. it's great to be with you. geoff: in the book, you write about the 100-year intelligence war between russia and the west. of course, russia has a long tradition of espionage that dates back to peter the great. the question is, why? why is spycraft such a vital part of russia's existence? calder: well, it's a great question. i think that there are probably lots of different answers.

the first and foremost is there something inherent within russian dna that makes that makes russians particularly interested in susceptible to espionage. there could well be something in that. but i think more importantly, geoff, the answer is that since the early soviet days after the bolsheviks seized power in moscow in 1917, the soviet state was actually incredibly fragile and weak. and the early bolsheviks, lenin and stalin, used intelligence, foreign espionage, deception, disinformation, as ways to punch above their weight on the international stage, particularly against their ideological enemies in the west. so espionage was something inherent within the bolsheviks, who had been an underground party before seizing power. and then once in power, they did what they knew best, which was to continue on in the same tradition. geoff: well, fast forward to the current moment. what should we make of the

wagner rebellion that aborted mutiny against vladimir putin recently? was that an intelligence failure on the part of the kremlin? and what does it say about vladimir putin's standing within russia? calder: i think we can definitely say that it was a colossal intelligence failure on the part of putin, his regime, and his intelligence services. why didn't the russian security service know about this? what does it say about putin's rule himself? well, first and foremost, there was -- is a challenger to his rule, it seems. his rule has been dented for two decades and counting, putin has ruled russia with an iron fist, literally often eliminating his rivals. that seems to be have been challenged over the last weekend by prigozhin. i'm looking at events with a degree of pessimism, i'm afraid. history shows that a wounded dictator is often a very dangerous dictator. putin's regime and his rule himself has been wounded. will he now try to do something

dramatic in order to try to prove his strength to the russian people and the rest of the world? i'm afraid that history suggests it's exactly in those situations where dictators lash out and do something, quote unquote, bold. geoff: returning to the book, you write about a clandestine operation in which russia tried to kill a cia informant in miami who had been a high-ranking russian intelligence official. and that represents quite an escalation. russia trying to kill a valuable informant for the u.s. government on american soil. tell us about that. calder: it absolutely does represent a dramatic escalation . during the cold war -- and we have to remember that putin is a former kgb officer, so his worldview is shaped by his kgb experience. during the cold war, there was always a bright red line by which soviet intelligence would

not conduct assassinations on u.s. soil. europe and britain were different matters, and this continued on into the post-soviet era. and putin has, until this story came out in my book, has adhered to that bright red line. he challenged that. and as i showed in the book, putin and his intelligence services were in the late stage planning of an assassination on u.s. soil, a dramatic escalation. what does it say about him? it shows that he was prepared to take risks and that he was emboened. my big question, which i have not been able to answer, but other investigative journalists, i hope, are on the case, geoff, is, did this risk calculation on his part, has emboldened behavior, contribute also to putin's risk calculation about ukraine? this was in 2020, and it all fed into this part of his calculation about what he thought he could get away with on western soil.

geoff: let's shift our focus to china. what lessons can the west take away from its experience with russia and apply to the new superpower conflict with china? calder: the first lesson, it seems to me from the first cold war in the postwar years is that western governments can effectively be in a cold war before they know it, before they're prepared for it. this was one of the things that came through loud and clear in my research for the book, that in the postwar years, western governments were thinking about how they could try to continue relations with the soviet union in a good way. and in fact, stalin and his intelligence services had dramatically different ideas. this, it seems to me, is exactly the same position that we're in with china at the moment. in recent years, there's been an attempt by which western governments thought that through economic development, china would perhaps democratize.

when you look at and understand the chinese intelligence perspective, there was no such understanding that they wanted to be part of the western club. they wanted to completely upturn the existing rules, and we're seeing that play out. the second lesson is that the chinese intelligence services are like the kgb on steroids. they conduct espionage in a far more sweeping way than even the soviet intelligence services did. and the third lesson, it seems to me, geoff, is that although history is important and i would argue and i paint a picture in the book about how we are in a new cold war as far as intelligence is concerned with china, the answers to this cold war don't lie in the past. the future of this cold war and the intelligence and national security challenge for western countries, including the u.s., from chinese intelligence, lies with commercial open source intelligence.

i think that we need to set up a new open source intelligence agency specializing in commercially available intelligence, not clandestine intelligence. geoff: calder walton. the book is "spies, the epic intelligence war between the east and west." thank you for being with us. calder: thanks for having me on. ♪ amna: ben sheehan is a comedian on a mission to educate the public on civics. a former executive producer in the entertainment industry, he pivoted to politics when he realized how little people actually knew about how government works. he has since run multiple campaigns to get out the vote and authored the book "omg wtf does the constitution actually say?" tonight, sheehan shares his brief but spectacular take on knowing your power. ben: hi. how's it going? sorry to interrupt. i'm ben. that actually looks really good what you're eating, but i wanted to give you a couple of questions about civics.

let me ask you the following. what are the three branches of government? how does the electoral college work? who is your state's attorney general? how many voting members are in the house of representatives? if you didn't do so well on the quiz, do not feel badly. you are not alone. in truth, less than 50% of adults today can name the three branches of government, probably including some congress members. i grew up in washington, d.c. i was surrounded by government from a very early age, having two parents that worked in and with the federal government. i was about five years old. my mom had a napkin and a pen, and she wrote a number, 435 on one side, 100 on the other, drew a house, and that was my first lesson about congress. in 2016, i ran a company that made videos that helped get young people to register to vote. we were able to register 50,000 voters just through online video. in 2018, i realized firsthand how little people actually know about how government works.

i would be doing events for a state attorney general or a state secretary of state, and friends of mine would come to these events and they would have no idea what i was talking about. they didn't know the jobs even existed, let alone who was running to have them. >> schools ought to turn out good citizens. >> yes, good citizens. ben: coming out of world war ii, there was a massive resurgence and interest in feelings of patriotism in the school system. we had classes like american government, u.s. history, civics, foundations of democracy. fast forward several decades later, some federal and state policies like no child left behind, common core, every student succeeds, created these incentives toward teaching and getting good test scores in reading and math. and as a casualty, civics has fallen by the wayside. only eight states require at least a year o government at some point between kindergarten and 12th grade.f ci my book is called "omg wtf does the constitution actually say," and there's also a kid's version titled simply "what does the constitution say?" not only is our constitution the oldest national constitution in

the world of any country, but we have the ability to change it. and we've done that 27 times. we have the right to free speech because of the constitution. we no longer have slavery because of the constitution. we no longer have to pay a tax in order to vote because of the constitution. and women and people over 18 have voting rights because of the constitution. the better a society is educated in civics, the better they can dictate a government that is supposed to, by design, represent their interests. i think one of the biggest threats to our democracy is ignorance. not just not voting, but not understanding why we should even vote in the first place. my hope for civics education in the future is that every state requires at least three years of it. you have to take some sort of exam to show proficiency in order to graduate, and that we make civics a part of our everyday lives from a cultural sense. what gives me hope is seeing younger generations step up and participate in a way that i don't think recent generations have, and it really inspires me. my name is ben sheehan, and this is my brief, but spectacular take on knowing your power.

amna: and you can watch more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs.org/newshour/brief. and stick around for pbs's very own july 4 concert. a capitol fourth features performances from musical guests and fireworks from the nation's capitol. that's tonight on pbs. check your local listings. and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on behalf of the entire "newshour" team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by. >> pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymondjames financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well-planned.

>> carnegie corporation of new york, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security, at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these 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.]

ogo whooshes] [upbeat music] - hello everyone, and welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. - one thing i've learned in my long life is if a policy looks crazy, it probably is. - [christiane] the patron saint of whistleblowers. i speak to the man who blew the lid on the vietnam war. at almost 92, daniel ellsberg joins me on the life and death lessons he's learned holding government to account. and. ♪ i'll take the world apart ♪ to find a place for a peaceful heart ♪ ♪ i know - [christiane] legendary singer songwriter yusuf/cat stevens comes to the studio to talk about his new album and getting the legend slot at glastonbury this summer. plus. - we don't know what happens to our identity, how we communicate, how we think about ourselves when these things arrive.