♪ amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz. geoff bennett is away. on the "newshour" tonight, former president trump calls for the judge overseeing the 2020 election interference case to recuse herself and change the venue. he argues he cannot get a fair trial in dc secretary of the interior deb haaland discusses a new monument near the grand canyon that protects sacred indigenous land and bans mining. and many american cities look to convert vacant corporate spaces into housing units as the future of downtown office work remains in question. >> what we're seeing right now is a lot of developers and owners making that decision to go residential because there's a lack of confidence in the office market.

>> 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 and camellia george smith. >> pediatric surgeon, volunteer, topiary artist. a raymondjames financial advisor taylor's advice to help you live your life. life well planned. >> foundation fostering informed informed and -- fostering informed and engaged communities. >> 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. the nation's weather has etched more entries today in the journal of extremes that's marked this summer. millions of americans faced everything from steaming heat across the south to stormy destruction in the northeast. laura barron-lopez has our report. laura: in north baltimore county, emergency crews cleared through the damage, enormous trees, completely uprooted, left homes crushed, and roads impassable.

this morning, maryland governor wes moore said it's a long road ahead. >> this is going to take some time to fix. the damage from last night is significant, and it will take time to make sure that we are getting everything done. laura: a fast-moving storm swept through the east coast on monday night, prompting severe weather advisories in 10 states and the district of columbia. tornado funnel clouds whipped through gray skies. tree falling nearly 30 million people were under a tornado watch yesterday, as strong gusts caused tree limbs in several states to snap. >> this is the worst i've seen it. i mean, i have no trees left, they're all gone now. laura: the storm the storm killed two people, officials said, after a tree fell on a 15 year-old boy in south carolina and a 28 year-old alabama man was struck by lightning. last night, more than 1.1 million households and businesses lost power.

by midday today, that number was down to 240,000 customers. the huge storm front also wreaked havoc on air travel in the region. yesterday's storm led to some 10 thousand flights being canceled or delayed. by midday today, more than 2500 flights in and out of the u.s. were delayed and 370 canceled, according to flight aware. and in washington, d.c., as ominous clouds rolled over the white house on monday, federal offices shut down early, giving government employees time to dodge the hazardous commute. today, about 10 million residents in new england remained under flood watches as the system moved north. elsewhere in the u.s., dangerous heat is in the forecasfor 67 million people, roughly 20% of the u.s. population, from southern california to the florida panhandle. summer temperatures are increasing and along with that increase is an increase in the frequency, the duration and the intensity of heatwaves.

laura: kristie ebi is a professor of global health at the university of washington. she says health problems caused by extreme heat are becoming more and more frequent. >> people, for example, who have a heart attack who didn't have a heart attack otherwise. or pregnant women of having an increased prevalence of low birth weight babies, with babies coming sooner. and so you see a wide variety of impacts that people experience that show up in doctor's offices, urgent care facilities and our emergency departments. laura: blistering heat, and severe storms, both made more frequent and deadly by climate change, creating a more unpredictable world to live in. for the pbs newshour, i'm laura barron lopez. amna: severe weather also dominated northern europe again today, as a powerful storm battered the region. heavy rainfall inundated norway, denmark, sweden and the baltic states.

downpours in western sweden sent a river pouring out of its banks, flash-flooding a nearby town. a day earlier, a train derailed when the rail bed was washed away. so far, the storm is blamed for two deaths in the baltics. forecasters say the rough weather could continue through tomorrow. there's fresh evidence of global warming affecting antarctica. a study out today finds sea ice in the southern polar region hit a record low in february, and minimal ice levels were 20% below the 40-year average. the findings appear in the journal "frontiers in environmental science." in niger, leaders of the military coup rejected a proposed visit today by u.n. and african diplomats. they cited popular anger at the west african regional bloc "ecowas" and its threat to use force to reinstate niger's elected president. meanwhile, a delegation from neighboring burkina faso and mali, arrived in niger's capital, in a show of support for the coup.

>> to the brotherly people of niger, these are difficult times. mali and burkina faso have been through similar ordeals. we would like to reassure them most firmly of our support and solidarity. let us remain resilient and stoic. amna: the president of nigeria who chairs the "ecowas" bloc, , said the group now prefers a diplomatic resolution in niger. thousands gathered in ireland today to say goodbye to sinead o'connor. ahead of a private funeral, mourners lined up to view a procession through the late singer's hometown of bray. a hearse carrying the coffin drew rounds of applause, and flowers, as fans honored o'connor's legacy of music and activism. >> she was so passionate and she was so forthright and she stood up for people who couldn't stand up for themselves. and she spoke for people who couldn't speak for themselves. and she was vilified for it. and it was just wrong. and time has proven that she was right.

laura: o'connor died on july -- amna: o'connor died on july 26th in london. she was 56. back in this country, the supreme court has reinstated a federal regulation aimed at curbing the spread of "ghost guns." such weapons, privately assembled from parts, have no serial numbers. a biden administration rule sought to change that, but a federal judge in texas tossed it out in june. the supreme court today set that ruling aside, while the legal challenge proceeds. more than 11,000 los angeles city employees were on a 24-hour strike today. sanitation workers, lifeguards , and airport staff accused the city of unfair labor practices. the mayor denied it. two other major strikes are already under way in los angeles. hollywood writers have been off the job since may, and actors walked out a month ago. hotel workers have staged job actions through the summer. and on wall street, stocks retreated as china reported

sharp drops in exports and imports, and "moody's" downgraded credit ratings for 10 smaller and mid-sized banks. the dow jones industrial average lost 158 points to close at 35,314. the nasdaq fell 110 points. the s&p 500 slipped 19. still to come on the "newshour," ukraine continues its counteroffensive against russia but progress remains slow and casualties continue to mount . questions mount about the lack of consequences for covid misinformation that led to injury and death award-winning author james mcbride discusses the themes of race, religion, and personal history in his new novel 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: president biden headed to arizona today where he made an

historic announcement, designating some million acres of land around the grand canyon as a national monument, protected by the government. pres. biden: by creating this monument, we're setting aside new spaces for families to hike, bike, hunt, fish, and camp, growing a tourism economy that already accounts for 11% of all arizona jobs. folks, preserving these lands is good, not only for arizona, but for the planet. it's good for the economy, it's good for the soul of the nation, and i believe with my core it's the right thing to do. amna: the move would stop future uranium mining projects on the land, marking a key victory for environmentalists and tribal leaders who have long noted the historical and cultural native tribes. department of interior secretary deb haaland visited the area and met with tribal leaders just a few months ago. she joins me now. welcome and thank you for joining us.

sec. haaland: thank you for having me. amna: you've described your may visit to the area as one of the most meaningful trips of your life. explain to us why this land is so important to indigenous communities. sec. haaland: yes, well, earlier in the summer, we had an opportunity to hike down the grand canyon to the village to visit with the tribe there. who live at the bottom of the grand canyon. at one time, they were banished from their ancestral homelands and it took a lot of work by tribal leaders and supporters and some lawsuits. they were painstaking about meeting their travel homelands back. they were back on the floor of the grand canyon. they had a chance to visit with people where they are.

it's astounding. they are living on the lands that their ancestors lived on, this beautiful blue-green waterfall. they cherished that land. the bonds of their ancestors are there. i understand how important those places are to the tribes. amna: we should note, statewide in arizona there's broad support , for this move, but local ranchers have concerns, and from others -- republican senator mitt romney of utah says ranchers in southern utah will also be impacted. he also expressed concerns about u.s. energy independence. he says "by eliminating this , important source of uranium, president biden has increased both our dependence russia and china and our ultimate carbon footprint." is he wrong? sec. haaland: thank you so much. well, i will address collaboration issue first.

we had many public meetings. this is what we call collaborative conservation where tribes in organizations and people get together and work toward something that they want. but this did not just happen since president biden came into office. this is a decade-long, step-by-step -- one step forward. a baby step forward. people have been working on this issue for decades. and we were happy that we are able to get it done under this administration. with respect to the lands that are conserved as a national monument, it doesn't -- it excludes valid, existing rights. people who have valid, existing rights within that area will keep those. that includes folks who have current mining operations or those claims. additionally, we should all know -- i think most people do know

that this land has already -- we are going with the status quo. the lands have already been -- on these parcels of land. there are places to mine and there are places not to mine. this area, with the bones of these tribal ancestors, with thousands of cultural sites and ecosystems that sustain wildlife , and species that we don't see every day, those places are to special -- too special to mine. amna: this climate crisis message certainly resonates in arizona, where some of the hottest record temperatures have been recorded recently. but broadly, among americans 57% , disapprove of how president biden is handling climate change. why do you think that is? sec. haaland: well, the

president today in his remarks talked about his goal of conserving 30% of our land and waters by 2030. he has conserved more land and waters than any president since john f. kennedy, i believe. amna: i apologize for the interruption. why do you think people disapprove of his handling? sec. haaland: i say i feel very strongly that perhaps the message is not getting out, right? this has been the best president in modern history for conservation of our lands. those lands -- it helps avert the climate crisis. we are going to keep doing what we are doing. the president has clean energy goals. we have conservation goals. i feel very honored to serve under him. we are going to keep moving forward. amna: that is sec. of the

interior, deb haaland, joining us tonight. thank you for joining us. please come back soon. ♪ amna: in the federal criminal cases involving former president trump this week, we've seen the first legal skirmishes. significant questions over venues and evidence and from trump himself. a push for the judge assigned to his criminal trial in d.c. to recuse herself. lisa desjardins has more on the brewing legal fight. lisa: the former president has said on his social media platform that he could not receive a fair trial in a case presided over by d.c. district judge tanya chutkan. chutkan was nominated to the bench by former president obama and approved 95-0 in the u.s. senate. she has issued tough sentences in cases involving january 6 rioters.

this is one of the former president's recent arguments trying not just to shape the trials ahead but the perception of them in these important early days. joining me now is david kelley, the former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. david, let's start with this idea of venues. david: arguments are rarely granted in federal coronal cases are they are often thought of. applications are often made for it but rarely are they granted. part of that is the tremendous faced this system has and should have and the ability of jurors to abide their oath to decide cases based on the fact, putting aside any kind of preconceived notions of the issues involved. amna: the judge also in the florida case, the classified documents case, is raising a different question about venues. she's asking the justice

department why they had one grand jury initially start this case in washington and then transferred the case to a grand jury in florida. trump's team is making a lot out of that. what do you make? is that unusual to have two grand juries for one indictment question marks --indictment? david: i don't see it as a big deal. the rules for the federal system are pretty liberal in that regard. for example, if jack smith had presented a tremendous amount of evidence in d.c. on this particular case but then decided the venue was more properly placed in the southern district of florida, it would be very simple to for instance just sit down with the florida grand jury and simply read to them the transcript of the proceeding before the grand jury in d.c. it's a pretty simple procedure and i don't really think it is a big deal. for them to have used both grand jury is so long as sufficient evidence was presented to the southern district of florida and

i would have no question that it has been. lisa: the former president is known for taking on his opponents, sharply attacking them, and as we mentioned, he said he has problems with the judge in the d.c. case right now. our judy woodruff spoke to another former federal judge about his accusations against her yesterday. >> the former president is criticizing the judge who is hearing the case, saying that he cannot get a fair trial and she ought to be removed. how does something like that sit in a situation like this? >> now this is radical. and it's unprecedented in american history that any person, let alone a president of the united states of america, would conduct himself toward the courts of the united states in

the way that he has already begun to do and will continue. >> those are some strong words. is this kind of idea unprecedented and what do you think the chances are for the success of the judge removing herself? david: she is one of the more thoughtful and accomplished jurors in this country and i would not disagree with them at all. i think the accusations are completely baseless. he has not really had any contact with this judge and already, he's making claims that she should be recused. it's funny that he's not making those accusations. he has had about as much content with her as he has had with the judge in d.c. so it's really unfortunate that he is taking this attack and i think it is unfortunate because i think it sets a really bad example for people in the country, number one. number two, from a legal and strategic stamp, it gets him absolutely nowhere. lisa: i want to think a little

more big picture to all of this. is the job of every defense attorney to try and poke holes in what the prosecutors are doing? in this case, we know that the trump team, from my reporting, is raising a very broad idea. they are asking if their client can get a fair trial anywhere in this country. he is a unique defendant. most of this country decided whether they wanted him as resident or not and has rendered an opinion on him. what do you think of that idea that they are putting out there, that any fair jury might be hard to find? david: first off, on both issues, one of the old sayings is if you have a really good case, you pound the facts. and if you don't, you pound the table. a lot of screaming but no one is dealing with the facts here. i don't think it is a fair assessment to say you cannot get a fair trial anywhere. that is a bogus claim. and when you look at cases where

there have been changes venues motions that have been unsuccessful, you still see at the end of the day a very fair trial, one that is unassailable. and i think that is what we are going to see here. this is not an election. the issues for the jury to decide are not about public policy. they are not about politics. they are about facts. and jurors are sworn to uphold an oath to listen carefully to the facts, to the evidence, to the testimony, and make their decision based on that. then my experience, having tried a number of cases and been around the justice system, i think jurors -- i like to say -- when somebody comes to me and says they would like to get out of jury duty, they complain and moan but once they take those, the vast majority abide their oath dutifully. lisa: david kelly, thank you for your time. david: sure thing. thanks so much. ♪

amna: this has been a long and brutal summer in ukraine as kyiv's counteroffensive continues to re-take its lands in the east and south now occupied by russia. a leading british military think tank today reported that the ukrainian operation is going more slowly than expected, and blaming the slow provision of advanced weaponry by western partners. meantime, the fighting, and dying, continue at a horrendous pace. in the eastern ukrainian city of pokrovsk, a desperate search for survivors, a day after a deadly russian attack. residents still reeling from the shelling that killed at least seven people, and wounded dozens, even the most innocent. ukraine says russia launched two missiles, 40 minutes apart, to target rescue workers after the

initial strike, a tactic called a "double tap." the attack came late in the evening, destroying vehicles and apartment buildings. 58-year-old kateryna was at home at the time of the blast. the blood from injuries on her face still fresh. >> the flame filled up my eyes. i fell down on the floor, on the ground. my eyes hurt a lot, otherwise i am ok, just the shrapnel in my neck. lisa: meanwhile, ukrainian soldiers continue the fight against russia, in their now two-month counteroffensive. they have western training, nats -- they have western training, u.s. and european-made weapons, and seemingly infinite resolve despite soaring temperatures. >> we don't pay attention to heat. work must be done. we don't spare ourselves. lisa: -- amna: at the end of july, ukraine liberated staromaiorske, in a campaign that aims to cut russia's land bridge from the east to the south and occupied-crimea. but progress has been slow along the 900-mile frontline, and it comes at great cost.

there's no official figure for ukrainian casualties, but at field hospitals like this one near bakhmut, soldiers stream in from the battlefield, their injuries a relentless reminder of the toll of war. nats ukrainians are facing deeply dug-in russian forces, -- who've constructed and fortified hard-to-overcome obstacles including these so-called "dragon teeth barricades," and hundreds of miles of concentrated landmines, where now even russian corpses can kill. >> when they leave, they plant quite a lot of explosives under their own soldiers. and this is very dangerous for us. amna: despite the frontline dangers, last week president volodymyr zelenskyy said ukraine is succeeding. >> the occupiers are trying to stop our boys with all their strength. but whatever the enemy does, it is ukrainian strength that dominates. amna: for more on the state of the war, we get two views. michael vickers was a senior

defense department official under presidents george w. bush and obama, and served as the cia's chief strategist during the reagan administration. he is the author of "by all means available: memoirs of a life in intelligence, special operations, and strategy." and jennifer cafarella is the chief of staff and national security fellow at the institute for the study of war. a think tank that tracks military developments. welcome to you both. mike, i want to begin with you. you heard president zelenskyy say they are succeeding. what is your assessment? michael: they hold the strategic initiative but the counter initiative is proving more difficult than many hoped. while it is important to note, ukraine has not committed its primary force yet. they have not been able to make much progress against a dug in

enemy that has had a lot of time to prepare defenses. amna: jennifer, what is your take on that? why have ukrainian forces run into the problems they have eschenbach jennifer: the upper --they have? jennifer: the operation is an incredibly difficult one and they face an enemy that had time to prepare. what we are watching is the ukrainians do what all hard-fought military gains require, which is to learn and adapt on the battlefield. they are learning and adapting and they are experiencing some success although they have not yet achieved that breakthrough that we all hope that they will ultimately achieve. they are stretching russian forces and as was already mentioned, the ukrainians have a reserve. they can commit to the fight. russians do not. there are many reasons to think that while this is a grind, the ukrainians can still advance. amna: the expectations from the americans going into this counteroffensive were quite high. there was a lot of optimism.

the idea that with the provision of those advanced military systems, with cluster bombs, the ukrainians could break through russian lines. were those expectations unrealistic? michael: let me say, we have given ukraine a lot of military assistance, but i don't think we have given them enough to win. and they can win. while the munitions were a big step forward, we have not given them long range surface to surface missiles or the army tactical missile system that can reach out 300 kilometers. a fighter aircraft is still on the way. as are some armored vehicles. and the ammunition supply is being built up over time so you know, we would not fight the way we are asking ukraine to fight. we hope they will have success but if we really want them to win this thing, we will have to provide more assistance. amna: jennifer, do you agree with that? jennifer: i would agree. we would never fight this way because the casualties are so high and the cost is so high,

but by god, the ukrainians are committed to this fight and go advancing. this is a question of enabling them to fight faster, reduce their costs, and overpower the russians before the russians are able to patch some of the vulnerabilities that plagued them thus far. amna: what about those t's? we talk about --those casualties? what about the casualties on the ukrainian side and the more out there -- morale there? jennifer: what we know is that ukrainian commitment to this fight remains extraordinarily high. the ukrainians do not seem deterred by the slow progress they are experiencing on the battlefield. in many respects going into this offensive, they may have had more realistic expectations about the nature of the fighting and the costs they would take then some in washington, hoping for a major breakthrough. amna: some of the conversation leading into the counteroffensive was with enough

support, ukraine can make enough gains that they at least improve their position for a better potential negotiating position down the line. do you see that happening? michael: it may take into next year. there is a chance the russian army could collapse this year but if we want to increase the onset of the outcome, and i sure hope we do, we will have to make up a little kid -- the political case for it. amna: jennifer, what do you make of that? jennifer: it is important that we do not impose upon ukraine a desire for what they might regard as a prima care -- premature negotiation. they expect to retake all their terrain and they expect the russians to pay for damages and for war crimes to be prosecuted. those are the ukrainian war aims in this case. diplomacy always has a place and we would hope it would be possible to negotiate an end to this conflict that sees a withdrawal of russian forces. so far, vladimir putin has shown a willingness to negotiate.

amna: do you see this conflict changing shape significantly as we move into the end of the fighting season later this year? michael: eventually, the weather will slow down offensive operations but you know, the conflict morphed in a variety of ways since the beginning and the ukrainians have performed in a spectacular fashion throughout. the decisive phase is yet to come. as i mentioned, the ukrainians will need more assistance to give them the best odds of doing that. we are asking them to fight world war i style right now and military affairs has moved way beyond that. >> are we moving into a much longer term frozen conflict? they are more short range

antiaircraft systems and while that will help with mobile air defenses, the ukrainians will need more than that to achieve fire superiority and cut off the land routes into crimea from the russian mainland. that is really the next phase. jennifer, amna: jennifer, look ahead for us if you will. jennifer: concerns about a protraction are further argument for why the west needs can you to not only provide aid but to accelerate the provision of a but we need to keep in mind that this kind of war is not going to be linear so i'm sure that there will be further surprises and those surprises can include a loss of russian morale or a breakdown in russian defenses. it could fundamentally change this conflict. it is difficult to predict when or where that could happen that it is very much on the table so there could be some surprises to

come in the coming months. amna: jennifer and michael, thank you both for joining us tonight. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> thank you. ♪ amna: what happens when in the middle of a pandemic, doctors ignore information and endanger -- what happens when, in the middle of a pandemic, doctors spread misinformation, potentially endangering people'' lives? william brangham spoke recently with a reporter who set out to answer that very question. william: the washington post looks at why doctors who pushed medical misinformation, particularly about alleged covid remedies or treatments, faced so few repercussions for their behavior. one of the lead reporters on

that investigation is lena sun. she covers health and infectious diseases for the post and joins us now. you looked at complaints against doctors in all 50 states from the start of the pandemic until just recently. before we get into what you found, can you tell us what were these doctors alleged to have been doing? lena: it covers the range but many of the doctors we looked into were prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. those are two treatments that are shown to be not effective for treating covid-19. they gained a lot of popularity during the pandemic because they were pushed by former president trump and his allies. that was the prescription side but then there were other physicians who were spreading false and misleading statements about vaccines and masks and treatments, saying things like equating the covid vaccine to needle rape. yes. and that was one idaho

pathologist who is under investigation in washington state. or saying that ivermectin, if you take it, it's up to 90% effective in getting rid of the disease. these are blatantly untrue, but what happened is that they would fill the vacuum out there on social media a lot of people wanted to to know -- during the pandemic, there was a lot of confusion. a lot of people latched onto these conspiracy theories, these ideas, and then would march into the hospital er is demanding these medications. william: were there actual harms that came from these untruths? lena: what the disciplinary documents show us is some doctors would prescribe these unproven treatments to people and then days later, the person died. now, they died whether it was a direct linkage or if it was -- if they were going to die from other causes.

it is not that clear. but we do know that they were prescribed this medication and then they died and you have to think about the delayed opportunity cost. if i am prescribing you some quack medicine and that prevents you from getting a vaccine or antiviral that can actually prevent you from getting serious disease or dying, well, you know, you figure it out. the reason this is so important is for the american public, doctors are the people who are most trusted, have the greatest credibility, and for those doctors to go out there and spread this misinformation is a huge disservice and harm. william: you examined what happened to so many of these doctors where complaints were alleged. what did you find overall? lena: we surveyed all 50 state medical boards, asked for their records. it was a very long process. and we found that nobody really monitors complaints about covid misinformation or misleading statements about vaccines

and masks but we were able to get related complaints. and then we looked at the disciplinary records and showed that at least 20 doctors nationally were sanctioned in some way. william: seems like a very small fraction. lena: it is a very small fraction because it is not the entire universe. this is just what we were able to find. a lot of states do not monitor or even if they do, they are not going to share with us. and then of those 25 -- of those 20, 5 doctors lost their licenses and only one had his license revoked which is the ultimate nazi. william: how do you --the ultimate penalty? william: how do you explain that? lena: there's over one million licensed physicians in the united states and they are regulated by state medical boards. each one is different. they are covered under the acts in their states. and they are historically underfunded, under resourced.

they have to be the ones who give you the license in the first place. they have to do all these other mundane tasks. they don't have time to monitor social media. and in most cases, the complaint process only darts if there is a complaint filed. somebody has to file a complaint. and then finally, these boards are made up of doctors and may be public members and doctors are loathe to tread on the right of a physician to do what he or she thinks is in the right judgment. william: -- off label prescribe something. lena: off label is something doctors do all the time. that is their medical judgment. but what we have here is doctors prescribing medications that aren't way outside medical consensus. you know, it's not like, ok, this might work. and this was done after the centers for disease control and

prevention and the food and drug administration expressly warned against doing this because of potential harm. william: your reporting also shows that not only are these oversight board overtaxed and have myriad set of different rules, but they are taking specific steps to make it harder for them to do you this job about this issue. lena: you have state medical boards that are underfunded, under resourced. they have their hands tied. and then you have state legislatures or attorneys general who say, you know what, you guys, you don't have the authority to discipline any doctors if they are prescribing ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, those specifically. william: really a tremendous investigation. thank you. lena: thank you. ♪

amna: in american cities, two problems loom large, a housing shortage and an office glut, with millions of square feet of office space sitting vacant since the onset of the pandemic. office to housing conversions are becoming an increasingly popular two-in-one solution for city leaders. but will they result in housing that's affordable for all americans? paul solman heads to new york city to investigate. >> this is one of the places in new york city where the vacancy rate is so high, the tenants, the people who have been renting these offices, are gone. paul: in midtown manhattan, he is advocating for people like him in new york's shelters. >> everyone deserves a home. housing justice is racial justice. the owners of these buildings

still have to pay property taxes, still have to pay insurance. all of those things with no income. paul: eventually, they give it back to the lender. >> it becomes an anti-building. how does that make sense in an environment where we have so much of a need for affordable housing? paul: a migrant crisis has swelled the homeless population, driving more than 100,000 to the cities tour shelters. >> -- the city's shelters. he left them for the streets. but what is the alternative? the average rental rate in manhattan is $3236 per month for just a studio apartment. therefore, -- >> let's take these buildings that are now empty and let's convert those and produce affordable housing there. paul: but hey, conversions are already happening, says architect stephen fincher. >> we are seeing a lot of

developers and owners making that decision to go residential because there is a lack of confidence in the office market and there is a real housing need especially in places like manhattan. paul: at 160 water street, not far from wall street, his firm is converting a 1972 office building 24 stories high into nearly 600 apartments. what do you have to do as a designer to make this into housing? >> the first thing we do is analyze the buildings. the right bones, the right structure, the right depth from the elevators to the windows to make perfect units. paul: 160 water fit the bill. the core of the building, 60 feet from the windows, was dark, uninhabitable, and useless for apartments. >> we demolished it out and closed it. we were able to redeploy that space to create great rooftop amenities that have used

across the city. this is the amenity floor so we have that 30,000 square feet of amenity appear. -- up here. paul: a teris, a barbecue. conversions are old hat in new york. obsolete manufacturing spaces in offices became loft apartments in the 1970's. a push for residential conversion in the 1990's turned lower manhattan from offices into a community. and 9/11 accelerated the trend. >> some of these changes felt unfathomable at the time. and now, they are just part of the experience of being in new york city. paul: new york's director of city planning things much of the square feet of vacant office space, picture more than 29 empire state buildings, is right for conversion. >> we have seen the population go up and we have not kept pace. in the last decade, we created

800,000 jobs and only 200,000 new homes. we have a housing crisis. we need to find ways to create housing. paul: what is stopping you? >> there is nothing stopping us other than our own process for changing the rules. paul: rules dominated by old zoning restrictions which make conversion of pre-1961 buildings impossible. in lower manhattan, the cutoff was raised in 1977, making 160 water eligible. >> we now support and want to see mixed-use 24 hour neighborhoods, so we are looking to update our own rules to allow for more opportunities for office residential conversion. paul: as cities almost everywhere are, says policy research director matthew murphy. >> any urban place in the country that has office space, we all went through the pandemic. they are all asking the same

question. paul: chicago recently announced a plan to turn about a million and a half square feet of vacant downtown office space into mixed income housing. mayors and washington, d.c. and san francisco plan to ease financial burdens to encourage conversions and rollback the zoning restrictions stopping them. architect painters firm has looked at nearly 1000 office buildings in the u.s. and canada. >> san francisco, calgary, boston, chicago, seattle, denver. >> it's about 30% of the buildings across the u.s. and canada that makes good conversion candidates. paul: here's a question i had. will these conversions really do anything to address new york's and other city's housing crises? this one will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, a cost that will be passed on to future tenants. >> our studios will range from 3500 up to two bedrooms, up to $7,500. paul: the street vendor on the

corners response? that's a lot of money. >> [speaking spanish] paul: where do you live? >> brooklyn. paul: four people, $1800 a month. >> is tough. paul: barbara, who was just passing by, is looking to move on from her parents and get a new york apartment closer to where she works. she earns $54,000 a year. this building is being converted from offices to apartments. a studio starts at $3500. >> i will never take it. i cannot afford that. paul: and on the property itself? there are hundreds of people working here but they will not be able to afford to live here. i asked a couple of them, and they said no way. >> this is not an affordable housing project. what i will say is that what we are doing, we are helping that

overall housing crisis. paul: how so? >> we are putting more units on the market. you put more units on the market, more supply into the system, and that will bring prices down. paul: which would mean more affordable housing for some. but of course, not everyone. >> we are not going to get affordable housing, purposeful low-income housing. paul: not if the market dictates price, says murphy. >> to get the type of housing that really reaches the workers, that really takes purposeful subsidy and that model has worked in new york city. there is no reason we could not make it work for offices, too. paul: at the moment, they are left out and the constituency left out in the cold. for the pbs newshour, paul. ♪

amna: the national book award-winning author, james mick wright, has a new novel out today, the heaven and earth grocery store. it is rooted in race, religion, and personal history. he turns the page for our arts and culture series, candace. ♪ jeff: a rehearsal for a musical -- make that a would-be musical. james mcbride actually wrote it 35 years ago and it has since done nothing. no productions zero success. , but mcbride is unfazed. >> i just can't let it go, in part because i think it's good. and also, i don't mind failing. writers, what we do, most of what we do fails. and that's the lesson that writing teaches you. you know, i tell young writing

students all the time,fail and fail better. jeff: by that and pretty much any standard, the 65-year-old mcbride, who lives in lambertville, new jersey, has been failing quite well. he's author of five novels, including "miracle at st. anna," made into a film by spike lee, and "the good lord bird." >> my name is captain john brown , and i am here in the name of the great redeemer. jeff: an irreverent take on the abolitionist john brown that won the 2013 national book award and was later made into a showtime series. he's also written a biography of singer james brown, and the bestselling 1996 memoir, "the color of water: a black man's tribute to his white mother," the story of his white jewish mother, ruth. ostracized by her family for marrying a black man, she converted to christianity and raised her twelve black children in new york, much of the time on

her own. mcbride's new novel, "the heaven and earth grocery store", began with the story of another family member, but one he never knew and only learned about later in life, his grandmother. >> my grandmother was jewish and my mother was jewish, of course, but my grandmother i never met. she died in 1942, but i wanted, -- and she died, and she was an immigrant from poland and she had a very unhappy marriage, and i wanted my grandmother to be, to have a wonderful life. i wanted her to be loved. so i wrote a book in which she was loved and i made her loved. jeff: so this became a kind of alternate life of a grandmother who you didn't really know. >> that i never knew. jeff: through fiction. >> through fiction. yeah, yeah. fiction is magical that way. fiction allows your dreams to come true. jeff: like his own grandmother, mcbride's main character runs a grocery store in a predominantly black neighborhood. he's grounded his fiction in a

real place and time, pottstown, pennsylvania in the 1930s and 40s. >> this is just a notebook that i keep notes in, that i have all kinds of, you know, jewish faith, can't touch money on friday night. jeff: combing through archives and local histories, he took notes about the largely black community of "chicken hill", with a mix of jews and other immigrant groups, all facing levels of discrimination and antipathy by the surrounding white majority. >> everyone was just kind of trying to stay in their own lane. but it was impossible because of outside influences. and so in that regard, pottstown represents, it's my mayberry. you know, mayberry was where andy griffith was, and everyone was happy and all the folks were white and everything was, you know, good old america. which is just fiction. pottstown, my pottstown, my mayberry, which is pottstown, is real. it's much more real, it's more in my opinion, accurate in terms of its depiction of american life.

jeff: mcbride has always grounded his life in music, often tying it to his writing as , when he toured the country with his 'good lord bird band' when that book came out. ♪ >> ♪ i hear a song about freedom ♪ jeff: he's also taught music to children at "new brown memorial", the brooklyn church his parents founded in 1954. his art, he says, explores big themes in american life, including race, but always through characters he creates who live and survive on the margins, like the people he's known and loved. >> if you're a writer and you're writing about race, the best thing you can do is forget about it and deal with the humanity of characters. you know what the boundaries are. now you have to see which characters can kick up against those boundaries or illuminate those boundaries, so to make your story go. so i look at it from that point of view.

and also from the point of view that, you know, cynicism is like, cynicism in a story is toxic. you have to really have a desire to see the good in people, to them push past their boundaries. >> an openness to who they are. >> an openness to who they are, because they will lead you into a story that shows you good stuff. and so i'm trying to get these characters to move, to show readers, in a way that's not boring, that this history is important. someone came here before you. and, believe me, it's going to be okay. watch what he or she did. >> that sense of hope amid adversity clearly comes from his mother, who died in 2010, and the story mcbride told in his memoir has remained a touchstone for many, as mixed-race families have become more common. >> when my mother was married my

father and had us and we'd go on the subway and so forth, people would call her names like i remember one time in the subway and somebody went at her, you know, calling her n-lover and all this crap. and we got off the train and later on i said, i said, 'ma, why do you, why do you, you know, you can'let people talk to you like that.' she said, 'their names can't hurt me. i'm happy. i just, what --did you do your homework? where is your homework? she didn't care. her world was good. self-definition is the first step towards self-control. and peace. now that journey is difficult, i agree. and i've been through it. but ultimately, the best way to be happy in that regard is to just appreciate everyone for who they are. jeff: in that light "the heaven , and earth grocery store", weaving together characters from different backgrounds is james mcbride's latest 'appreciation' of the lives lived just below the surface of american history.

for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in lambertville, new jersey. ♪ amna: a great line. fiction allows your dreams to come true. thanks to jeff brown. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no contract wireless plans to help people do more of what they like. our customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. ♪ >> 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.] >>

♪ hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. >> the rules-based international order must be restored. >> productive, honest, and open. ukraine's assessment of weekend peace talks in saudi arabia, as russia continues to pound civilian targets. then -- artificial intelligence and the military. i'll speak to the pentagon's first-ever chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, craig martell. is this a pan see ya, or a p pan pandora's box? plus -- >> the crack epidemic really chged the way our society operated on a number of different levels. >> when crack was king. the devastating epidemic, and how it affected the african american american community. what we can learn from it