>> good evening. on "the newshour" tonight, dozens are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed as crews continue to battle the raging wildfires in hawaii. iran moves several detained americans from prison to house arrest, a step toward potential release in exchange for oil assets being unfrozen. and the family of a detained afghan engineer and american citizen speaks out about his unjustified incarceration by the taliban. >> he preferred to live there to work for his country, to work for the future of afghanistan.

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>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> welcome to "the newshour." part of the island of maui in the state of hawaii is being described as a veritable wasteland as wildfires continue to burn. the death toll has spiked. at least 53 people are reported dead tonight, and the governor warns the toll will rise. it has become the second deadliest wildfire in modern u.s. history. over 1000 structures have learned.

>> oh, my gosh, look at the harbor. >> the resort town of lahaina is shrouded in a blanket of smoke. the popular tourist spot steeped in native hawaiian history dating back to the 1700s, was virtually unrecognizable today, even to locals. >> oh, my goodness, look at all these houses. >> adding to the devastating human toll is the loss of cultural treasures. quentin lee were not prepared for what we saw. lahaina used to be the capital of all of hawaii. all of the places that are tourist areas that are hawaii history are gone, and that cannot be replaced. you cannot refurbish a building that is just ashes now. it cannot be rebuilt. it is lost forever. >> another casualty, the famous 60-foot-tall banyan tree marking where a hawaiian king's palace

once stood. the fire sparked tuesday night, catching islanders and tourists by surprise. some even fled into the ocean to escape the flames. thousands of maui residents were forced to evacuate. >> woke up this morning to pictures of our house just down to the slab. nothing but smoke. >> the flames were fueled by dry vegetation and low humidity along with strong wind from a hurricane further south. >> for the past several decades as agriculture declined across the state, these spaces filled in with literally tons of fuel, and these grass and fuel are highly sensitive to quick drying out and really easy to ignite. >> entire neighborhoods were destroyed. block after block revealed charred shells of homes and vehicles, some still smoldering. today, thousands of customers were still without power and cell phone service. the only road in and out of lahaina was closed to most

traffic to clear the way for fire and emergency crews. hawaii's national guard flew chinook helicopters to put out fires and help with search-and-rescue operations. president biden also approved a disaster declaration for hawaii, bringing federal assistance to the state. joining me now from maui is kitv 4 island news' meteorologist. this is one of the stories you are not just covering but living through. i understand you had to evacuate when the tires began. i wanted to ask how you and your family are doing. >> we are doing as well as we can. i think we are still in a state of shock, and we began to mourn. there are moments of just sobbing outbursts where i just have to let it out, and there are other moments where i'm just trying to keep things normal and happy for my children because this is a really dark time for us.

>> i'm so sorry for what you and everyone else is going through, hearing words like catastrophic and apocalyptic to describe the scenes on the ground. you are they are. what does it look like and feel like and sound like around you? >> fortunately, i evacuated from my home. i'm in a safe place where we have power and water and a roof over our heads, and we are all safe, so i have not seen it with my own eyes, but i have seen the videos and the pictures. i have heard the stories. i'm constantly updating on instagram. these days, that is where you get most of your information from on the ground and witnesses, so i have been hearing just devastating stories from people and when you think about the people that are telling the story -- for example, one woman this morning shared that she ran for her life . the fire moved a block in 15

seconds, so she ran for her life, jumped over the seawall into the water and was basically in the water for seven hours. in the meantime, one of her apartment-mates died right next to her. she saw that happen, and then she felt like she was getting hypothermia, so she would approach anything that was on fire in order to get some warmth which then would burn her. a story like that, those are the types of stories that we are hearing, and those are from mobile, able-biting people who are able to run, so to think of all of the people, the elderly, those that are not mobile, children maybe even -- you know, we don't know, but we see the entire town leveled. we know 271 structures have gone . those are businesses and homes. history is lost. lahaina town is so full of history. it is definitely the most

historic town on our island and one of the most historic in the entire island chain, so to lose not just the homes, the businesses, the history, but also now to hear that we are losing lives, and the number is just going to keep rising is devastating. >> we understand the fires are still burning across maui. there have been reports of more fires in maui and oahu. do you have updates on how many of those have been contained? >> the most important update just came minutes ago. lahaina fire is 80% contained. that is such good news. my husband just went over to the fire that was threatening our home. he did not go over to it, he can see it because the mountain shows us a good view of what is happening. he said that it is still active, but it does not seem that our home is in danger, but we still

have not gotten the all clear. we are kind of in a wait-and-see pattern right now. >> we know thousands of people still do not have power, cell service as well. have you heard anything about how quickly any of those services could be reinstated? >> no, the thing is in lahaina, what potentially even caused the fires was the power lines that went down. 29 power lines went down. there is no easy, quick fix to this. the fiber-optic cable was damaged over in lahaina as well. this is not in 24 hours, this will be fixed. that's not the kind of situation we are in. we are in a years to recover phase for that side of the island. as far as the other side of the island, there are other people on other parts of the island

that are without power. those will probably get fixed, but we still don't know when. i still don't have power in my home, for example. >> we are thinking of you and everyone else they are, keeping you in our thoughts. we cannot thank you enough for joining us tonight. >> in the day's other headlines, former president trump's ballet plead not guilty for a second time in the classified documents case. he was arraigned in fort pierce, florida, under charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements. the arraignment for mr. trump's mar-a-lago property manager was postponed again until he gets a local lawyer. and in washington, special counsel jack smith asked for a january 2 trial date on charges

that mr. trump tried to overturn his 2020 election loss. that would be 13 days before the republican presidential caucuses in iowa. ecuador began three days of national mourning today after a presidential hopeful was shot dead in the capital city. the crime shocked a country already awash in violence. >> ecuador's presidential candidate, moments before he was assassinated in broad daylight. [gunshots] in the hours after the attack, police hundred for the assassins across quito. they say one suspect died of his wounds in police custody after a firefight. the ecuadorian president suggested this attack could be linked to organized crime and declared a state of emergency. >> [speaking spanish] >> the armed forces from this moment are mobilized throughout the national territory to ensure the safety of citizens, the

tranquility of the country, and the free and democratic elections on august 20 as planned. >> the journalist turned politician may not have been a front runner in polls, but he was one of the most vocal candidates on organized crime and its links to state corruption. on the campaign trail just days before he was killed, he said he wore a sweaty shirt, not a bullet-proof vest, but the drug lords come, he said -- let the drug lords come, he said. >> i'm not scared of him. i've spent 20 years taking stands against these criminal structures, and i'm not scared of them. >> ecuador, a coastal country on the western edge of south america between peru and colombia, is relatively safe but has seen an unprecedented spike in drug trafficking led by foreign mafias in recent years.

this assassination marks a shocking escalation 10 days before the august 20 presidential election. >> he was 59 years old. ukraine's government has ordered nearly 12,000 civilians to leave the eastern part of the country as russian forces launch a new push. authorities say 37 towns and villages are being cleared out with fighting getting markedly worse. russia had occupied the region until last september when ukraine recaptured it. the west african bloc ecowas announced it is activating a standby force to restore democracy in niger after a military coup, but the group gave no details on when that might happen. also today, the associated press reported that coup leaders of niger have threatened to kill the ousted president if there is any military intervention. back in this country, the cdc

reports there were 49,500 suicides last year, the most ever reported. that was up 3% from the year before. older adults and white men had the highest rates. suicide experts cite the availability of funds and higher rates of depression. the supreme court temporarily blocked a nation-white settlement with oxycontin maker purdue pharma today -- nation-wide settlement with oxycontin maker purdue pharma today. the justices granted an emergency request from the biden administration that raised objections to the settlement. the court will hear oral arguments in december. and virgin galactic has joined the ranks of space tourist flights. a twin-fuselage carrier took the plane aloft this morning from new mexico and released it. from there, the plane rocketed to the edge of space with three passengers and an instructor before gliding back to earth

after 15 minutes. russia launched its first lunar mission in nearly 50 years today. luna 25 blasted off from the far eastern part of the country. it is expected to reach the moon on august 20 third. russia is racing to land on the lunar south pole before an indian spacecraft launched in mid july gets there. still to come on "the newshour," a new report details supreme court justice clarence thomas secretly benefiting from a network of wealthy patrons. alcohol-related deaths rise at a faster rate among women than men, particularly for the elderly, and arctic sea ice falls to a record low this year as a result of rising global temperatures. we assessed the economic juggernaut that is taylor swift 's eris -- eras tour. >> this is "the pbs newshour"

from weta studios in washington and in the west at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. >> white house issued a statement this afternoon saying, "we have received confirmation that iran has released from prison five americans who were unjustly detained and has placed them on house arrest. the associated press reports iran's move is part of an agreement in which billions of dollars frozen in south korea will be released to iran. secretary of state antony blinken was asked about this late today. >> my belief is that this is the beginning of the end of their nightmare. in any respect, iran will not be receiving any sanctions leave, and in any instance where we would engage in such efforts to

bring americans home to iran, iran's own fights would be used -- own funds would be used and transferred to restricted accounts so that the moneys can only be used for humanitarian purposes, which, as you know, is permitted under our sanctions. >> the chief of any negotiator also wrote on the x platform formerly known as twitter that iranian prisoners jailed in the united states would be returned. a journalist whose own rain and attention january -- whose own detention in iran ended in january. what did you think when you heard the news? >> i have been tracking the story of these fellow americans for years. any time someone is released from prison, i'm ecstatic for them and their families.

also, you remain vigilant and nervous because there's a period of time before they fly home and anything could happen between now and then. >> the deal as it has been reported and as iranians claim is $6 billion of oil revenues unfrozen, jailed iranians in the west freed. u.s. officials are not confirming any of this right now. i have to ask -- is this a deal worth doing to bring these people home? >> i'm asked that, and any time we negotiate the release of an american who has been wrongfully detained, held hostage by a foreign government, to me, it is a real stark binary choice right now, either negotiating the release of fellow americans or leaving them behind. leaving them behind means longer detentions, imprisonment, potentially death, and i think the hard truth is what we should be talking about is what can we do, what will we do to deter hostagetaking in the future?

right now we are not doing enough in countries like iran, russia, and china are doing this more and more because they don't see anything standing in their way, but i think to the question of if we should do deals, it is really a choice of bringing people home or leaving them behind. i'm proud and thankful to live in a country where our government cares about its citizens enough to try to bring them home. >> to that point about fueling potentially more hostagetaking, we have already seen criticism of this particular deal. particularly from republican lawmakers. some have called it a dangerous a dangerous deal. former vice president mike pence said it is a ransom payment. are these valid concerns? >> i think concerns are always valid, but the reality is these funds are being held in a restricted account. restricted accounts exist in other countries like india and turkey. those accounts were spent down

with no oversight by the u.s. government. in the situation, my understanding is that korea has said we don't release these funds unless the united states gives us permission. if we are going to have leverage against a country like iran in the form of their money being held in a third country, what better way to use it and americans? >> the u.s. has been able to bring home americans from other adversarial nations. >> i don't know if we are being treated differently, but what i will say is that the administration has been able to get individuals who are being held hostage out of russia as russia is currently in a war. >> she was concerned that somehow somehow -- that somehow

they are being treated differently because their fathers are being held in iran. is it more complicated? >> i think it is more complicated first and foremost because we don't have diplomatic relations with iran, even though the situation with russia is at bottom. we have maintained direct ties with moscow since the cold war. we have never broken them. another thing to consider is that while i don't consider the argument that these are will nationals and that iran does not recognize dual nationality, they think of these people as single nationals, the truth is they think of them as single nationals, subject to iranian court proceedings as if they were iranians and when it comes time for a deal, they become tradable americans. it is more complicated just because we don't have the direct communications with them that we do other countries, and in a way, the iranians have been doing this for so long, so often

that there may be -- they may be a bit more seasoned at hostagetaking and negotiations than some of these other countries. >> i know you and i and everyone else are hoping they are back home with their families safely soon. thank you for joining us. now to another story of an american held a broad unjustly. in an exclusive interview, i recently sat down with the family of an afghan american businessman who has been held for more than a year in the land of his birth. his family has decided to go public now in the hopes that the taliban will release him. >> for the last year, he has. his family will be together. many were able to leave afghanistan over the last

decade, but one is left behind -- his brother. >> he is youngest, younger than me by two years. we are like best friends. >> in august 2022, he says his brother was taken by the taliban and has been held ever since. >> he has been detained, but we have no information about him. >> his wife made it to the u.s. with their daughter. she has asked we don't show her face for cultural and security reasons. >> this is me. i was doing the surgery. >> a former doctor in kabul, she is studying to restart her career in america. without her husband's income, she is totally dependent on family. >> we have not heard a word from him or a word about him. >> she was in qatar at a temporary u.s. military base for afghan evacuees when she learned of his detention. when was this taken? >> when we were in qatar, he was

trying to work. >> some of their last moments together months before he returned to kabul for work and disappeared. >> he would live anywhere, but he preferred to live there, to work for his country and work for the drive afghanistan. >>'s civil eight and expert, he was an engineer and wunderkind -- a civil eight and expert -- a civil aviation expert. his expertise that the u.s. to grant him a visa. he was a consultant with arx communications, an american company operating infrastructure for afghanistan's airports. his work often took him back to kabul. >> when the taliban came, everybody from the family suggested he should leave

afghanistan, but he said he is not a political person. also when the taliban announced they would become officials, he was confident that he could work there and be safe. >> did you ever tell him you did not want him to go back, that you worried about him? >> i did, but he always wanted to go back. he said if i leave and other people like me leave afghanistan, who will rebuild? >> but his loyalty came at a cost. on august 10 of last year, he was arrested by taliban officials outside his home. >> they told my sister that they are taliban and they wanted to search the home and they searched the home and took some paperwork. at the same time, 30 other employees were detained from the company he works for. i realized there might be something about the company that he works for. >> days earlier, a cia drone

struck this complex in the heart of kabul and killed one of the world's most wanted notorious terrorists, osama bin laden's successor, the force behind many of al qaeda's terrorist attacks. do you think that might have had something to do with his arrest or detention? >> when we spoke with some of the employees, they said the taliban asked them about the strike, so we have an little sense that the company or the arrests might have something to do with the strike. >> you think that's what the taliban believes? >> we think that is what the taliban believes, yes. >> arx communications said arx was not nor any subsidiary involved with any strike on al-zawahiri. they confirmed 31 of their personnel were detained in august 2022 and 29 have been subsequently released.

that at that they do not know why they are being held or by whom. a recent u.s. delegation led by tom west met with taliban leadership last month and pressed for the immediate and unconditional release of detained u.s. citizens. mahmoud's family has met with senior u.s. officials. u.s. officials tell "the newshour" they cannot comment directly on any details of the case. to date, the taliban have not confirmed mahmoud's detention. >> i have been talking to the u.s. government. they are supporting us, but sadly we have no updates from the taliban side. >> you believe your brother could be held as a bargaining chip? >> we think so. >> that has been a year now and

there's been no update, and there's no confirmation that anyone has him. i have to ask a difficult question, which is how can you be sure that he is still alive? >> i think he is alive because he was detained by government and he was innocent. they want the world to recognize them as a legitimate government. >> their father showed pictures of his son through the years. i asked him what he thinks about when he sees them. >> what i think about, what i think to myself is that he has done nothing wrong. he has done nothing to end up in jail. he has never done anything like that in his life. >> she says when she looks at her daughter, she sees her husband. >> her eyes, her mouth. it is just like her father. >> maureen is almost two, not

quite old enough to understand what is happening. still, she has learned to keep him in her prayers. she copies you, she is listening to you pray for him? >> er. she is innocent and does not know about these things. it has been a year that i have been recording her so when he is back, he can see all the time when he was not with her. >> you can show the videos to show what he missed. >> we were happy for almost a year. >> for a year, the family stayed silent hoping for a resolution. why are you speaking out now? >> i want the people to hear the story of mahmoud. i want the leadership of the taliban to hear us, and i want them to know that he is innocent. >> until then, the family says they will wait and hope for the day they can all be together again.

there were more disclosures today about the gifts supreme court justice clarence thomas has received from wealthy businessmen. >> today, pro-public a provider the fullest account yet of the gifts justice thomas has gotten from wealthy and well-connected people, and there are far more than previously known. one of the republic of reporters who unearth these details and a host of slate's "slow burn" podcast whose currencies and is becoming justice thomas joined me now. who are these benefactors that you uncovered, and what sorts of things did they give? >> these are three new titans of industry. there's tony novelli, who is an oil baron from st. louis. the former heir apparent of berkshire hathaway, and the man

behind blockbuster, autonation, and waste management. for about three decades, as you've said, they have given him a sort of laundry list of vacations. we have found in our reporting, there's at least 38 destination vacations in there. something to the order of two dozen or so private jet flights. for more helicopter rides. tickets to sporting events in the skybox, resort stays, and outstanding invitation to an exclusive golf club, and that is just sort of what we know at this point. >> did he report any of this? >> he did not. that's what the ethics experts told us is the big concern here because he was bound, as all justices are, to disclose most gifts, and these, the ones we have reported on, many of the ones we have reported on, would not be falling into the personal

hospitality exemption that some of your viewers may have heard about before. things like private plane rides, yacht cruises, that is not personal hospitality according to folks we talked to. >> there is so much focus on the justices' activities outside the court building. earlier this year, there were questions raised about justice sonia sotomayor, apparently prodding schools and libraries where she spoke to buy her book. how does what justice thomas did compare with his colleagues? >> we have been actively pursuing all the credible leads and tips on all the justices. we continue to report on all of them. so far what we know now is that justice thomas is an extreme outlier. we brought the reporting to former federal judges, including those who sat on the judicial committee that reviews disclosures, and jeremy vogel told us that he has never seen anything like this before.

thought it was unprecedented for both the volume and frequency of the largesse. these are not one-off vacations. this is consistent, steady stream of luxury vacations that justice thomas has received, a the other justices who you may have heard about, like justice breyer, justice ginsburg, accepting vacations from benefactors -- we know about those because they disclosed them, and that is the important distinction, that they were on the disclosures. we will continue to look at all of the justices for the same type of evidence, but right now, justice thomas is the extreme outlier. >> you have done a deep dive into justice thomas' life and personality. how do these lavish trips compare with the image that he tries to project in his speeches and interviews? >> for a man who understandably prides himself on his bootstrap origin story, it is not surprising that he hides the

truth about these wealthy white republican benefactors on what they have been doing for him. when he first became a national name during his supreme court confirmation hearing in 1991, his aides and the people that supported him tried to promote the pinpoint myth, which is his impoverished background growing up on the coast of georgia just outside of savannah, and that's part of the truth, but that's not all of it. he actually grew up fairly middle-class and went to private school throughout. that is not something that is well-known nationally, is that story. it is always a sort of thing that -- he wants people to believe he is "regular stock." that is something you will hear him say a lot, but it is a little more complicated than that. >> as you say, likes to talk about his up from the bootstrap's life, but the affirmative action case earlier, he said that he thinks affirmative action actually hurts minorities. how does that fit in with what you just talked about?

>> in some ways, it makes sense. i think justice thomas understandably is very proud of how far he has come, right? he had to work very hard to become the second black justice in the history of the supreme court, but that's not all of the story. the first person to hire him out of college wasn't heir to the purina fortune. when he was admitted was the first year they had an exquisite racial quota system. when he got a holy cross, that was the first year they ever recruited a substantial number of black students, and he has instead said this maligned me, this ruin my reputation among people that would have thought that i was capable, so he has always sort of had to deal with that contradiction in a way. >> this is a man who once wanted to be a priest. he went to seminary. he says in speeches he never wanted to be a federal judge,

what he wanted was to be rich. you talked to a lot of people in his life. what motivates him, what drives him? >> there's a lot of things. that's a really complicated and a really smart question. he was raised by his grandfather who grew up in jim crow georgia, really pushed him to excel in spite of his circumstances. that's one piece of it. another is that he really never recovered from what he went through in the 1994 supreme court confirmation hearing. that has unleashed a lot of anger that he has never really gotten over. if you read his autobiography, you will be sort of surprised at the amount of anger that is in those pages. also, he has always wanted to get paid. he talked about it. he worked at monsanto in the 1970's. the friend that went to visit him at the time noticed he had taken down a malcolm x poster and put up a picture of a rolls-royce. this is a guide motivated by money. i should note when he started working in the reagan administration, he wrote a memorandum for missouri senator

danforth. it said, we have power, now what? he's motivated by money and power. >> thank you both very much. >> pleasure. >> in the last two decades, more and more americans have died from drinking-related causes, but a new study shows alcohol-related deaths are rising faster among women than men. >> deaths from excessive drinking spiked during the pandemic, especially among women, though more men than women die overall from alcohol-related causes. the gap is shrinking. a study published in the journal of the american medical association found that from 2018 to 2020, alcohol-related deaths increased by 14.7% per year for women compared to 12 point 5%

increase per year for men and from 2012 to 2020, those deaths rose 6.7% per year among women 65 and older. for more on the larger impact, i'm joined by a physician who specializes in addiction medicine and host of the podcast "addiction files." thank you for joining us. were you surprised by the study's finding that an increase occurring in alcohol-related deaths among women? >> unfortunately, i was not surprised. as in the medical community were not surprised because we have been seeing these trends of increased alcohol use amongst women and for quite some time, particularly over the last few years we have seen increased usage, so it makes sense that the related mortality rates have been going up. >> the study did not provide a specific reason for this faster increase. what do you think is contributing to this? >> i think there are several

reasons. alcohol use has been normalized amongst women. we are seeing the gap narrowing amongst all age groups, especially younger women and teenage women are now increasing their use of alcohol far more than they used to. marketing is targeting women for their alcohol use. they are doing this in very clever ways, and it is being effective. women are experiencing more stress, and i think in distress-related drinking as a result, and i think the effect of social media has had its effect on women increasing drinking as well. >> the study specifically highlights the rise among women 65 and older. what could be causing that rise within that specific population? >> we are seeing increased substance use and alcohol use in baby boomers in general. as they age, they are using more. this group of women particularly are subject to the same effects we were just talking about. the marketing effects, the stress effects, and estate leave

the workforce, there's an interesting effects of women in terms of increased rates of anxiety, etc., and more likely to reach to alcohol to kind of mitigate some of the effects of that. >> there's been some studies in the past that have told the public that one glass of red wine a night is ok, but how much drinking is too much drinking? because some of the dietary guidelines say that one glass a night for a woman is ok, two for a man is ok. what do you say? >> this has been very confusing, but lately, the american heart association, the american cancer society have come up with a really clear guidelines saying that really know alcohol is safe . before, when we used to say maybe a glass of wine at night was helpful for your health and your heart especially, now alcohol has more risk than benefit, so even though moderate drinking may be ok for some people, one drink for women or

less, two drinks or less for men, there are many people in the population who should not have alcohol at all, and the health benefits of alcohol have really been negated in research. >> what happens physiologically speaking when women consume alcohol versus when men consume it? >> well, there's several differences. women both chemically and physiologically in their bodies handle alcohol differently, so women have a higher body fat percentage than men who have more water content, so alcohol concentrates more quickly and at a higher concentration in women than in men. obviously, the effects are quicker, which means the effects on organs are more. women have hormonal fluctuations , which can increase the target organ effect compared to men. also, women have negative effects on their organs at a quicker rate than men do, and that could be due to a decreased

amount of enzyme in their gut so they don't metabolize alcohol as quickly, and they are just more sensitive to the negative effects. >> how often do you talk to patients who may not realize that the health consequences that they are suffering from are related to drinking, and what do you think physicians or the public could do to better educate women and men about their alcohol consumption? >> i think this is actually quite common. i think people come in with complaints into primary care or they have high blood pressure, anxiety, maybe cannot sleep well at night or they have more serious problems like breast cancer or other kinds of cancer, heart disease, cognitive decline, and these problems are directly correlated to alcohol use. more so than the obvious ones like liver disease and gastrointestinal problems, so physicians and other health care

providers should always have alcohol on their list of possible contributors to health problems, including mental health problems, and the public should be aware of how alcohol could be playing into their physical and mental health and maybe look at the guidelines of where they fit in terms of their alcohol use. >> thank you so much for your time. >> you're welcome. >> as temperature records are broken all over the planet this summer, scientists are also increasingly concerned about what is happening to the sea ice around antarctica. william brangham has been talking with some of those researchers and is here now to explain. what is happening down there? it is wintertime. you would assume there is more ice, not less.

>> right, you would assume that. remember, antarctica is this colossal continent covered completely in ice. it is the size of the united states and mexico combined covered with huge ice sheets and glaciers. that's not what we are talking about. we are talking about cis, which is frozen sea water, and that grows every year from the periphery of antarctica outwards. it is this incredible halo that grows out across the ocean. we can see this nasa animation of what it looks like. that growth of that sea ice is so massive that it doubles the size of the continent every single year, but the problem is that this year and last year, to a similar extent, that ice has not been growing nearly as quickly. i want to put up this other chart here. this shows the traditional -- that line at the top is what normal growth of the sea ice is. that red line below is where we are now. it is a market difference. that's roughly the size of

alaska that is missing ice now. >> that's remarkable to see in that graphic. you have been talking to researchers. do they know why this is happening? >> it is a complicated picture, and there are some leading suspects, and these are all suspects that we have your fingerprints on. the first is that the ocean is warmer. we have seen that all over the world. as we burn coal and oil and gas and warm the atmosphere, that warms this planet, and the oceans absorb the bulk of that warming. warmer ocean water makes it harder to grow ice. pretty standard physics. the air is warmer as well. that makes it harder to grow ice. wind is also complicit in this. wind is really important in how ice grows off of antarctica and where it grows. those things are changing. again, scientists believe we are one of the main drivers of this, but the exact mechanism is not totally clear. >> what's the bigger concern in all of this? if that sea ice is not growing at the rate it is expected to,

what are the consequences? >> this is the biggest issue, and the reason we care is that that ice provides all sorts of incredibly valuable things for us. first off, that ice keeps the southern hemisphere cooler. you think of ice as this black, white surface that reflects the sun's radiant energy off into space. if that ice is not there, that sunlight hits the ocean and warms the oceans. this is part of a complicated engine that drives ocean currents and weather patterns globally. disrupting that could cause huge problems. the sea ice also protects the glaciers that are sitting up on land in antarctica. we want those glaciers to stay there. if they slip into the ocean, that raises sea level rise globally. that sea ice is like a buffer, like a big innertube protector around that ice. we don't want that to go away. thirdly, there are animals that live all over antarctica, and they in one way or another benefit from that ice.

penguins, seals, whales, the tiny krill that live in the water there, all spend part of their life on that sea ice, and it is important. one of the researchers i talked to recently, in addition to explaining a lot of this to me, i asked her how she sees this data. here's what she had to say. >> there is a part of me that is scientifically interested in what is happening. like, what is at work here? that is completely separate from the other part that is a citizen of the world part that says this is really shocking, and it is not good. it is not good news for our system, and not just the antarctic system. i look at the curve daily, but i look at that curve early, and i'm almost willing it to inch upwards, but it's not listening to me.

>> researchers all over the world are willing that graph to go up, to grow more of the cis, but there's no evidence that it is. we are about to hit the antarctic winter, so if its chances of growing to its fullest extent are about to run out, soon the sun will return to the southern hemisphere, and that already shrunken ice will continue to melt and break up and go away. >> incredibly sobering information. thank you for your expertise and your reporting. >> my pleasure. >> pop superstar taylor swift ended the first u.s. leg of her parents -- of her eras tour, leaving u.s. fans waiting until next year to see the torah capturing the zeitgeist of the summer.

>> it is the end of an era for now. taylor swift closing out the first leg of her blockbuster errors tour that has enchanted swifties -- her blockbuster eras tour. inside the stadium and tailgating in the parking lot. ♪ >> she wears short skirts i wear t-shirts ♪ quickly pop phenom is showcasing the torah predicted to be the highest grossing in history. demand alone broke records. she sold a whopping 2 million tickets in the first 24 hours, temporarily shutting down ticketmaster, driving resale prices through the roof and even prompting calls for action in washington.

>> ticketmaster out to look in the mirror and say, i'm the problem, it's me. >> at her first stop in arizona, renamed swift city for the event, i scored tickets for me and my daughter. the links -- the links -- the l engths swifties have gone to to see her perform surpassed only by the length of the show, surpassing three hours. fans met the excess with their own. >> on average, people spend $100 to $500 on any given concert. people are spending $1300 on average to go see taylor swift. >> an economic analyst and a swifties herself, she has tracked the tour's official ricochet. >> they are doing things like getting help for -- getting

outfits and hair and nails to match their favorite era. they are going out to dine at bars and restaurants that have themed menus. the whole experience is unlike anything we have ever seen. >> the tour has left economic booms in its wake. in denver, an estimated $140 million in local revenue. in cincinnati, $92 million. in philadelphia, the federal reserve reported the strongest month for hotels since the start of the pandemic. they said in large part due to an influx of guests for the taylor swift concerts in the city. what were your impressions of the show? >> i've never really seen a live performance like that in my life. >> a senior editor at the new yorker made the commute from manhattan to philadelphia to see the show and write about it. swift's stardom rivals some of the biggest names in history.

the beatles, bruce springsteen, michael jackson, but with lyrics that we've an invisible string. tying her to her fans. >> she herself has said that it has been a very therapeutic process, experiencing things, we had a breakup or something else happening in her personal life and then writing extremely personal songs that she then performs in front of thousands of people, and i think that's why people like taylor swift so much, because of that diary stick -- diaristic style of songwriting. >> she has not always been so widely praised. fans still shudder at this moment in 2009, big 19-year-old swift accepting the award for best female artist, surpassing beyonce. it ignited a years-long viewed

with kanye west and lyrics on the album "reputation." she eventually shook it off, but the nails were sharp and for years to come. which brings us to scooter braun. 10 years later, no longer the rising country star, swift denounce her former record label's $300 million deal, given control of her studio master albums to scooter braun, with whom she had bad blood. she outsmarted the executives. could you be recorded? >> oh, yeah. >> might you do that? calexico, yeah -- >> oh, yeah. >> re-taking ownership of her music has made her the man to even the early skeptics. >> and a lot of her current fans who were not friends before that she said that was internalized misogyny, and now i respect taylor swift the way i always

should have -- and she has reframed the project into something very political. it is a feminist act to listen to the taylor version rather than the original. >> swift's concerts kicked off the girl last summer, one also defined by grady gerwig -- greta gerwig's blockbuster "barbie" movie and beyonce's tour. >> we are seeing women that have a strong voice and strong message, and it has been really inspirational to a lot of women. >> and more women will get to see it live as taylor swift goes abroad and adds new american tour dates next fall. for "the pbs newshour" and for the swifties, i'm stephanie sy. >> i always knew steph was a

swifties. that does it for us tonight. thank you for joining us. >> major funding for "the pbs newshour has been provided by -- the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of "the newshour," including leonard and norman korff i and cool and patricia ewing. >> architect. gate. mentor. your raymondjames financial advisor taylor's advice to help you live your life. life well planned. >> the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide . and with the ongoing support of these institutions. and friends of "the newshour."

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. this is "pbs newshour west," from weta studios in washington and from our bureau at walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪

introducing a technological achievement so advanced... it rivals the moon landing. wow! ok. rude. that's one small step for man.

one giant leap for mankind. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -today on "cook's country," i'm making a streamlined one-pot chicken jardinière, toni explores the history of cooking in a single pot, adam reviews bird's beak paring knives, and morgan is cooking an easy one-pan mediterranean shrimp. that's all right here on "cook's country."