wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. the xfinity 10g network. made for streaming. amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz. geoff: and i'm geoff bennett. on the newshour tonight, much of the country languishes under extreme summer heat as the effects of climate change become more apparent. amna: a federal court assesses the controversial river barriers at the u.s. southern border.

geoff: and the lawsuit brought by survivors of the racist mass shooting in buffalo against social media companies, gun manufacturers and the shooter's parents. >> a lot of times we are considered to be persons who are not injured by this situation but the trauma that we are experiencing in our everyday life is an injury. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour, including kathy and paul anderson, and camilla and george smith. >> pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymondjames financial advisor tailors advice to help you live

your life. life well planned. >> the jonas and jane l knight foundation, festering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

geoff: good evening and welcome to the newshour. tropical storm harold barreled through south texas today. it's the state's first tropical storm of this hurricane season to make landfall, bringing much-needed rain to drought-stricken areas. amna: some of those areas could see as much as six inches of rain, along with wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour. thousands of homes and businesses in corpus christi are also without electricity. meanwhile in california, crews in mountain and desert towns are still digging themselves out of mud and debris left behind from tropical storm hilary. geoff: in the day's other headlines, more than 800 people on maui are still unaccounted for two weeks after the deadly wildfires first erupted. teams have searched all of the single-story residences in the disaster area. they're now focusing on multi-story properties, including commercial buildings. the confirmed death toll stands at 115 people. in greece, authorities have recovered 18 bodies from a major

blaze burning in the country's northeast. they were believed to have been migrants who crossed the border with turkey. hundreds of firefighters are battling infernos across greece fueled by strong winds. one hospital had to evacuate patients to a makeshift clinic aboard a ferry boat as flames approached. >> i've been working for 27 years, i've never seeanything like this. it's like war conditions. stretchers everywhere, patients here, iv drips there. it was like a bomb had exploded. geoff: meantime, in spain's canary islands, police say a wildfire in tenerife was ignited deliberately. but they haven't made any arrests. that blaze has been raging for a week, and has burned about 50 square miles. much of it is now under control. john eastman, the conservative attorney indicted with former president trump, surrendered today in georgia on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results. eastman turned himself in at the

fulton county jail. he was a close adviser to mr. trump leading up to january 6th. meantime, two other co-defendants, former justice department lawyer jeffrey clark and former georgia republican party chair david shafer, filed paperwork to transfer the case to federal court. donald trump says he'll surrender thursday. a new un report paints a grim picture of the situation in afghanistan since the taliban took over. it found that more than 200 former afghan officials and security forces have been killed by the taliban in the last two years. the un documented over 800 cases of serious human rights violations. the taliban mostly targeted members of the former army, police, and intelligence forces. the fukushima nuclear power plant will start releasing treated radioactive wastewater into the pacific ocean as early as thursday. the japanese government says it's essential so they can keep cleaning the facility. the water has been accumulating

since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused nuclear meltdowns at the plant. an executive in charge of the release said safety is their highest priority. >> staying on our guard, we will promptly proceed with the preparations for the release. we have decided to start by discharging small amounts in a careful manner, while checking the impact of the release on the surrounding environment. geoff: the decision sparked protests in neighboring south korea, where some fear the wastewater release poses a threat to the environment and safety of seafood. the un's nuclear watchdog has already approved the plan. there are new concerns today about the toll the conflict in sudan has taken on children. the group save the children estimates that nearly 500 children in the east african country have died from hunger since fighting started in april. that includes two dozen babies in a government-run orphanage in khartoum. the aid group estimates that at

least 31,000 children there lack treatment for malnutrition, since the charity was forced to close 57 of its nutrition centers. and stocks were mixed on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average lost 175 points to close at 34,289. the nasdaq rose 8 points. the s&p 500 slipped 12. still to come on the newshour, how gop contenders might break through in tomorrow night's debate. the impact on troop readiness from one republican senator holding up a raft of military promotions. and a new exhibit chronicling how a massachusetts town helped shape the artist edward hopper. >> 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: a heat wave is baking much of the country right now, leading to record highs and triple digit temperatures in the

midwest and the south. it is the latest in a series of extreme weather events that have led to damage, destruction and death this summer. that includes the wildfires in maui, a month of broiling temperatures in parts of the southwest, and flooding in vermont and upstate new york. michael mann is a presidential distinguished professor and director of the penn center for science, sustainability and the media at the university of pennsylvania and author of forthcoming book "our fragile moment." welcome back. thank you for joining us. these seem like different events, storms environs. what is the connection between all of these we need to understand, behind why they are so extreme and what is fueling them? michael: it is great to be with you. at some level, this is pretty basic. you make the planet hotter, you're going to have more frequent and intense he waves. we are seeing that. you dry out the soils, you will get worse drought. you put heat and drought together, worse wildfires.

the center is warmer. when you get a storm, there will be more rainfall. it can produce more precipitation. we see greater extremes at both ends of the scale. there is something else going on which is a little more subtle, and it is an effect that is not perfectly captured in the models we use to predict future climate change. and to attribute events to climate change. that is an important caveat. there is something the are not doing well, which is capturing the way that pattern of warming, it is warming more in the arctic than it is down here. that changes the difference in temperature as a function of the latitude. turns out that is what drives the jet stream. you slow down the jet stream and under certain conditions, you get this slow, wavy jet stream where the high and low-pressure centers stay fixed in place for days after day. that is when you get those hugh downs, like the record heat dome we are seeing in the central u.s. that is when you get the excessive flooding, like in new

england, like we saw in association with that hurricane, the tropical storm that made its way into california. what that means is yes, there are some uncertainties in the science. there are some surprises. but they are not pleasant surprises. in many respects, we are seeing that the impacts are worse than we predicted. amna: if i can be clear about this because you mentioned climate change, is it fair to say climate change is fueling more extreme storms, and with greater frequency? michael: climate change is showing us all of its weapons. these last couple weeks, it is showing us everything it has to offer. it is -- it's full arsenal. that is good we are seeing. climate change is no longer some subtle, far-off possible thing. it is here and now. it is impacting us here and now. the dangerous impacts are occurring now. it is a question at this point of how bad we are willing to let it get. amna: we've spoken about events here in the u.s.

but this is all over the world. we saw those deadly landslides in india after torrential rains, new heat records in morocco and japan. another heat wave in europe. i read recently, one estimate put the deaths of last year's he waves deaths at 60,000 people. we talk about damage in destruction. what about the death component of this? are these events something we should not look at as something to be endured, but something will struggle to survive? michael: let's make no mistake about this, climate change is deadly. we are seeing human deaths that can be attributed to climate change. that are caused by events that would not have been as intense or catastrophic as they were, if not for the warming of the planet. i fear we are probably going to see a toll of as many 1000 people from those wildfires in maui wheall is said and done. there were various attributes of that event and we can get into the complexities. basically, climate change contributed to this -- to that

event in various ways. as deadly as the pandemic was, as many lives that were lost due to the pandemic, far more lives will be lost due to climate change. if we fail to act while we still can. amna: the last nine years have been the hottest nine years ever recorded on planet earth. science has shown us to change that trend, we need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally. how would you say we're doing on that front? michael: we are not doing well enough. we are making some progress. so it's important to recognize that. carbon emissions seem to have plateaued. they are no longer sort of following that ever upward trajectory that they were on just a decade ago. that's the good news. the bad news is, they've got to come down dramatically. it's not enough to just be at the summit of that carbon mountain. we've got to come down and we've got to come down quickly. 50% within the next 10 years and all the way to zero within a couple decades. we are not doing that yet. and what we need to see, you know, later this year when we get cop 28 the next round of international climate

negotiations, we do need to see the countries of the world commit to a substantial move away from fossil fuels, ending new fossil fuel infrastructure, putting in place policies that will dramatically move us away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy. we need to do it now. it can't be five or 10 years from now. it has to happen now. amna: in the 30 seconds or so i have left, i have to ask you, because folks will ask, you look at the summer and temperatures are usually hotter. is there any chance these events we're seeing are just an outlier. michael: no. unfortunately, they are even worse than a new normal. normal just means oh, well, we just got to cope with what we have. it will get worse if we continue to warm the planet. that's the bad news. the good news is that science tells us that it will stop getting warmer if we stop polluting. so there is an immediate and direct impact of our efforts to de-carbonize our world. that's what we've got to do. and we have to do it quickly. amna: pm michael mann, thank you so much

for joining us tonight. always good to have you. michael: thank you. ♪ geoff: the battle over floating barriers on the rio grande reached the courtroom today. a federal judge in austin heard arguments from the state of texas and the justice department over republican governor greg abbott's use of giant buoys to deter migrants crossing the river. the justice department sued the state, saying the barrier violates federal law and must be removed. following the latest is our own laura barron lez. what arguments did the judge here in the courtroom today? laura: the central argument from the justice department is that this violates a federal law that covers the rio grande. and specifically, the rivers and harbors act of 1899. i spoke to a local reporter from austin's npr station. she was in the courtroom today.

she said governor greg abbott deployed a number of justice -- of justifications to the judge for why they implemented these barriers. >> abbott's defense team said they were acting out of security concerns and they would repeatedly cite human smuggling, cartel, illegal action across the border. but the judge struck the down and said, we are here to talk about water and how it relates to the u.s.-mexico border. laura: she said judge david ezra who is overseeing the case, that abbott's team did not actually cite a specific statute when they were making this defense. they simply said they have the right to defend their border. the judge said no, this is about international water law and the territory, and the fact that this potentially infringed on mexican sovereignty. what comes next is the justice department asked for them to submit their closing arguments and he plans to make a determination shortly after those closing arguments,

expected friday. geoff: justice department contract and -- confronted governor abbott. break the vernment's case for us. laura: justice department said today that abbott did not have a permit approval from the army corps of engineers which oversees this. he never got approval to place these floating buoys in the rio grande, which is a stretch of about 1000 feet or so next to eagle pass, that border community. and that also, they said in the court today that this action by abbott is harming u.s.-mexico relations. they also said in court briefings, prior to the hearing today, that this language used by abbott around invasion is not accurate. it is something he does not have the right to determine whether or not there is an invasion occurring to texas. that that is a federal right. ahead of the hearing today, local advocates, as well as border residents, came to speak out against operation lone star

tactics that the governor has deployed. karen gonzalez from the border organization of del rio, texas took issue with exactly what abbott is doing. >> dehydrated individuals denied water in extreme heat, small children being pushed back into the river, razor wire along the rio grande injury and forcing immigrants into deeper water, increasing the risk of drownings. and worst of all a pregnant woman stuck in wire having a miscarriage. laura: karen gonzalez captured what a number of residents have been saying, which is that while they may have supported governor abbott's operation lone star at first when it was deployed two years ago, they are not supportive of it any longer. geoff: the governor is undeterred. he makes the point that he has the authority and responsibility to protect the border. and he is not moving away from this operation lone star program. what is his argument? laura: governor abbott has

double down and defended this entire operation. just recently, another part of operation lone star is the buzzing of migrants to democratic led cities. he did that recently to los angeles, as the hilary storm was approaching los angeles. over the weekend, abbott was joined by four other republican governors from non-border states and defended his actions. >> the border between the united states and mexico is turning into a deadly welcome mat for the migrants who are coming here. as an example, last year alone, there was a record number of people who died crossing the border. joe biden is responsible for that deadly border. laura: according to the department of homeland security, in 2022, there were a record number of migrant deaths when they crossed the border. those were attributed to drownings. they were also attributed to

extreme heat, which migrants suffer from. when governor abbott first deployed operation lone star, he was asked if it would include any type of resources that would potentially help migrants deal with those conditions, and he said he was concerned with texans. geoff: the number of illegal border crossings, it is down across the board anyway, isn't it? laura: it is overall down. compared to last year at the same time. june had a record drop in border crossings and apprehensions. they were at their lowest in the last two years. this left month in july, homeland security released new numbers recently, and they increased by 30%. the border apprehensions. within that, we should know that there were more migrants processed because they are seeking asylum through the biden administration's new parole app, which they are trying to make possible, where migrants can seek asylum while they are in their country of origin.

overall compared to last year, border crossings are down. geoff: laura barron-lopez, thank you for that reporting. appreciate it. laura: thank you. ♪ amna: the first gop presidential debate will play out in primetime tomorrow, even as the leading contender for the nomination plans to be a no-show. lisa desjardins brings us the latest on what to expect from this historic debate. lisa: how do you debate a frontrunner who doesn't show up? that's the question for the eight candidates appearing tomorrow in milwaukee. here they are in their stage positions announced today. the debate is a major moment as well as a test for the republican party and for the impact of debates themselves. gail gitcho is a gop strategist and presidential campaign veteran. a disclosure, she previously worked for candidate vivek ramaswamy. she's been in the room for republican debate prep in the past and joins me now.

what are the stakes for this debate and for whom? gail: i think the stakes are high for everybody. in particular, they are the highest for governor ron desantis. he has restarted his campaign a couple times. he has done some shakeups and i think everybody is going to take pot shots at him as they have been throughout these last several weeks. i think the stakes are highest for him. he also has a really great opportunity to throw punches back if he chooses to. but really, what he should be doing is driving his message as to why he would be better, more electable, then president trump. lisa: you mentioned pot shots and punches. those are things former president trump excelled at generally in debates, but few others could land punches on him. one who did was carly fiorina in 2015 who asked about his criticism of her face. she brought up the access hollywood tape and the former

president's own words to billy bush about how he felt he could sexually grab women. here is what she said. >> mr. trump said he heard mr. bush very clearly. and what mr. bush said. i think women all over this country heard a very clearly what mr. trump said. lisa: i bring this up to ask you what does work in this environment in terms of landing a criticism or a punch on someone who is opposing you? gail: i remember that debate. that was the cleanest punch anybody ever landed on president trump. i was with bobby jindal at the time. he was not on the stage with president trump, but we were on the campaign trail. and everybody, not just our campaign, but all of the campaigns were trying to figure out, how do we land something? you do these silly attacks or silly insults, he is just going to punch right back. if you are going to punch at trump, you better land it. nobody did that better than carly fiorina. lisa: trump will not be there

tomorrow night. that is an issue because candidates there will be asked about him. going back to that 2016 cycle, here is ted cruz in a debate that president trump boycotted then. here is how he tried to handle that. >> let me say, i am a maniac. and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat, and ugly. and ben, you're a terrible surgeon. now that we've gotten the donald trump portion out of the way. [laughter] lisa: how do you think these candidates will handle the elephant not in the room? gail: i think that is what they're debate prep is about now. there are a couple of candidates that are probably going to go straight at trump, namely chris christie. because it is not in his dna to do anything but go straight at trump. we have seen that on the campaign trail. but the other person that has the opportunity to take him on specifically on accomplishments is governor desantis. what he could do tomorrow night

is say that he handled the pandemic better when he was governor during his time as governor of florida. he can say, donald trump, while you were shutting down the country, i was opening up florida. he is really the only person on that stage with the executive experience where he is able to say, i did it better. lisa: who else are you watching? a lot of folks will be watching vivek ramaswamy, a candidate you know well. this is a moment not just about this election cycle but may be future once. gail: i really like tim scott. his message is so different from anybody else on the stage. he has a message of positivity, of optimism, because that is who he is. he is sort of built for this because he has the resources to go the distance, not just the cycle, but next cycle. he also has got this life story to tel that republican orders are yearning for because we have not heard it in so long.

this optimistic message has gotten him pretty far in the iowa polls. lisa: gail gitcho, thank you so much. we will all be watching tomorrow night. gail: thank you. have a great night. ♪ geoff: last may, a white gunman killed 10 people in a racist mass shooting at a grocery store in a predominately black area of buffalo, new york. the gunman, now serving a life sentence, drove 200 miles to target that community. last week, 16 witnesses of the tragedy filed a lawsuit over the trauma they endured. they named youtube and reddit, sites where they say the shooter was radicalized, as as the retailer who sold his gun, and the manufacturer of his body armor. the suit also names the gunman's parents, who the plaintiffs say new about their son's violent tendencies and failed to act. one of those plaintiffs is

fragrance harris stanfield, who was working in tops that day. and eric tirschwell is the executive director of everytown law, which is representing the survivors in this case. thank you both for being with us. i read where you said you initially thought that a month or two after the shooting, that you would be ok. that the passage of time would bring some healing. but that ultimately, that was not the case. what has the last year been like for you living with the aftermath of this tragedy? fragrance: it's been horrible. i did not think it would traumatize me to the degree that i would still be feeling the effects, not be able to work and do regular normal things or remember things. like i'm suffering now. i did not expect that. migraine, headaches, lots of pain. geoff: this is a fairly novel approach filing suit on behalf

of witnesses, not those who were injured or who may have lost a loved one. explain the motivation and why you believe you have standing in this case. eric: it is unusual to sue after a shooting, evening mass shooting, on behalf of those who are not shot. in this case, fragrance and 15 other individuals who we sued on behalf of of, these are folks who were working and shopping at the tops market last may 14, going about their daily business. suddenly, they found themselves literally in the midst of a mass shooting. not knowing if they would live or die. running and hiding for their lives. we think it is important to establish a clear precedent in new york that these individuals, that folks who lived through the unimaginable, the unthinkable, what nobody should have to live through, a mass shooting, are entitled to their day in court and to have their case heard by a jury. and their injuries should be

recognized, particularly with respect to various companies and individuals who contributed to the harm that they suffered. geoff: if i can, can you share what you experienced that day? and what do you hope comes from this lawsuit? fragrance: i can say that i saw things that are unimaginable that still, my brain sometimes does not want to accept that i actually saw. that i can't forget these things. but it keeps me up at night. that i wake up crying for days and days in a row. and that even my daughter, just having regular conversations, because she also worked at tops and was there that day with me. we struggle to even have regular everyday conversations. but i like the fact that eric distinguished that these are injuries. and a lot of times, we are considered to be persons who are not injured the situation, but the trauma that we are

experiencing in our everyday life is an injury. it feels like your brain does not work like it used to. you can't control these thoughts that keep coming back to you. it could be anything that pushes you right back into those memories. at some point during the day, something will cause me to be right back there. i remember it clearly as if it happened yesterday, but i can't remember yesterday. it is very -- it is a very different life i live now. geoff: the lawsuit names youtube and reddit for their roles and allegedly radicalizing the shooter. we reached to both companies, got statements from both. i will read part of them here the one from youtube reads, "youtube has invested in technology, teens and policies to identify and remove extremist content. we work with law enforcement, other platforms and civil society to share intelligence and best practices."

part of the reddit statement reads "our sitewide policies prohibit content that promotes hate, based on identity and vulnerability. we are evaluating ways to improve our detection and removal of this content." these companies are saying it is hard to pin this tragedy on online radicalization. what do you say to that argument? eric: it is one thing to say, as these companies regularly do, that they remove and eliminate this content. but what we have alleged here, and what we intend to prove is that youtube and reddit were unreasonably dangerous in the way they were designed. they are defective products, essentially. and that through their algorithms and other mechanisms, they drove content to the shooter, who as you say, helped radicalize him, inculcate him in his racist beliefs. some of this content provided him with knowledge and

information that he used to acquire and learn how to use military grade armaments, and learn how to carry out this massacre. believe under the facts of this case and what we intend to prove that these companies do bear legal responsibility. geoff: on that point, what does this case, and your approach, say about the ways in which every town and other advocacy groups are going after and trying to hold to account online sites, gun manufacturers, and in this case, the shooter's parents? eric: we take a holistic approach. the law recognizes that when people are injured, when people are harmed, there can be one or more contributive factors. in this case, there is no question that multiple companies and the shooter's parents, their actions combined contributed to the shooting. geoff: what is it like in buffalo now, on the city seaside? how are folks there grappling

with this violence, this tragedy that was visited upon them? fragrance: people are still trying to find a feeling of safety here. trying to redesign the area so that it does not appear the same. much like topps did with the store, it looks different. the city has sponsored and an organization has put on a series of community events in the area to try to change the thought process when people walk by or go by the area. i personally don't attend, because i try to stay away from that particular area of the city. for the majority of citizens, there is a push to try to find some comfort. i think that is a positive thing. i think there is a lot more that needs to bdone.

but that is for another conversation. geoff: frank --fragrance harris stanfield eric tirschwell and, we thank you for your time this evening. eric: thank you. fragrance: thank you for having me. amna: the constitution assigns to the senate the power to approve the president's nominations of officers of the united states. that includes general and flag officers at the defense department. but this year, one senator has held up all the promotions, including to some of the highest jobs in the military. nick schifrin has the story. nick: near an entrance to the pentagon, photos of the joint chiefs grace the wall. at least, the joint chiefs whose positions are full. those three black boxes, represent the officers supposed to lead the army, navy, and marines. none have been confirmed by the

senate. but it is not just three military services. the pentagon says 301 officers are waiting to be confirmed. among them, the commanders of united state space command, northern command, and cyber command. and most of the senior commanders in the pacific who deal with china, the indo-pacific commander, and commanders of the pacific fleet, pacific air forces, pacific submarine forces, and pacific special operations. alabama republican senator tommy tuberville has imposed a nomination block. he opposes the new department of defense policy that pays for the transportation of service members who cross from states that do not allow abortions, to states that do. >> this is really about taxpayers having to pay for something to do with abortion. national security is not a problem here, because you don't change a position just because somebody is not promoted. somebody stays there until the promotion is done. nick: defense secretary lloyd austin says it does threaten

national security. >> this sweeping hold is undermining america's military readiness. it's hindering our ability to retain our very best officers. and it's upending the lives of far too many american military families. nick: what impact is the hold on nominations having on the military and their ability to do their jobs? for that we turn to retired admiral mike mullen who was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff during the george w. bush and obama administrations. thank you very much. welcome back. what difference does it make if a military commander is confirmed by the senate as opposed to the job being filled by an acting officer who is not confirmed? admiral mullen: i think confirmation is the gold standard for legitimizing individuals in these leadership positions. it has been that way for over 100 years. that is a really important part of this. i think if i were to put this in

possibly something the senator would understand, it is if i were a vying active football coach, no one would know how long i was going to be there. would someone really follow me? how could i recruit? with my players stay? it really impact over a period of time my ability to win? and a lot of that is the same thing with respect to our leadership. we depend on leaders in our military, in everything we do. and having somebody who is a permanent leader confirmed by the senate is very much a part of our background, and what we need out in the field in the fleet right now. nick: the senator and his aides argue this, that there are no vacancies, that each job is filled, even with an acting officer. and that officer is highly experienced. and for example, the acting chief naval officer said the navy was undistracted and unabated, despite the fact that she is in an acting position.

. what is your response? admiral mullen: that would be the position she would take. as a leader, she would want to say that. she is one of what is now three, and soon to be four, joint chiefs who will be acting without certainty about when they will be confirmed. when you are an acting leader, quite frankly, can you lay out a new strategy? and you lay out a new plan? i would argue that you can't. historically in washington, quite frankly, that term of acting is one that is of concern. because people are not really sure if you are going to be there. and you are not sure until you go through this confirmation process which has been proven time and time again. nick: what is the practical impact, safer sample, what we highlighted earlier in the pacific, where many of the senior leaders are not confirmed in terms of planning for a possible conflict with china, or

if that conflict were to start? admiral mullen: i think the senator is doing one of the most critical times in our history. . we are at a real inflection point with respect to the pacific and china and taiwan and the south china sea. and also the war in europe. impacting our readiness, impacting our leadership, at this particular time, is from my perspective, irresponsible. and the longer this takes, the longer we wait, the more it will impact. these leaders will not be in place, and in every case, there will not be someone who will easily stay. in addition to the incredible disruption in families, with kids going to school, with spouses trying to figure out how to continue to work in a new location and get settled in a new home. it really significantly impacts the people who sacrifice a lot, they are very patriotic, they

are privileged to do it, in what is a hard life. this just makes it a lot harder. geoff: cap personal impact is something that we all have heard about as well. you talked to folks in the military all the time. they have to be respectful of civilian leadership. but what is their perception at this point of these holds? admiral mullen: one of the concerns is the senator is politicizing the military at a time when the military is a trusted institution. it is degrading that trusted institution, in great part because of the politics going on in washington. i think the senator, he can make his point about abortion and have that debate. i think that is really important. that said, keep us out of it. we need to be a political fights. he is putting us, when he says on the one hand, it would be bad

to politicize the military, that is exactly what he is doing. nick: and quickly, in the 30 seconds i have left, what is the military's plan on how to deal with this if it continues? admiral mullen: we will plow through it. no question. we will do the best we can. i just think it will diminish readiness. oftentimesl readiness gets reflected in the face of a crisis or a really tragic accident, and people wonder, who is accountable for this, what happened when readiness degrades? in fact, will anybody at any time hold senator tupper ville accountable for any bad outcomes with respect to the holds he is generating? nick: former chairman of the joints chief of staff, think you very much. admiral mullen: thanks, nick. ♪ geoff: edward hopper stands as an almost mythical figure in

american art. as a new exhibition at the cape ann museum in gloucester, massachusetts reveals, the artist known for rendering the haunting isolation of urban life mastered his craft spending summers by the sea. special correspondent jared bowen of gbh boston reports for our arts and culture series, canvas. jared: the seagulls sail and squawk over glow stir, a coastal city and historic fishing port on the north shore of massachusetts. like the gulls, artists have also long flock here. including 100 years ago, edward hopper. >> when you think about edward hopper and his ultimate goal, to paint sunlight on the side of a house, he in this series of homes, found that opportunity. jared: oliver barker is the director of the cape ann museum which just opened its largest ever exhibition. a show that documents house by house, landscape by landscape, how edward hopper found himself

as a painter. >> this exhibition is about place. but it is also about an artists process. and learning a new medium and seeing the impact of that -- of that. jared: hopper had been to cape ann before, but in 1923 he took root. spending the first of five consecutive summers here painting the place. he was single, 40, and had only ever sold one painting. so his career was stagnant at best. he was far removed from the fame that would come from burrowing into the american psyche with his scenes of urban loneliness. most pointedly rendered in his painting nighthawks. >> he was really struggling to make a living. jared: elliot bostwick davis is the show's curator. she says hopper was drawn to the sea. and drew it himself starting as a young boy growing up in nyack, new york. >> he lived right on the waterfront. so from his second story bedroom window, he could actually see vessels sailing along the

hudson. we have in the show an early drawing that he made in pencil. and his mother was an artist which is an interesting aspect of him. jared: it would be another woman though, who ultimately changed the course of hopper's career. in the summer of 1923, he met josephine nivison, an artist with whom he had crossed paths before. >> she had a lot to be proud of. her work was being shown in the daniel gallery in new york. she also had her paintings selected for an important traveling exhibition in 1923. it was when to be shown in both paris and london. jared: in short order, the pair found both artistic and romantic connections. also an art teacher, she pushed hopper, moving him out of his comfort zone where he meticulously planned his illustrations and into wallach -- into watercolors. >> watercolor is hearted -- harder to control. it is essentially pigment suspended in water. ultimately it helps him get out of his own way and to let himself be a little more

spontaneous and perhaps tap into more of that subconscious. it is maybe for athletes, the way you think of that moment of flow. when you are in it, you know it. jared: she becomes his biggest champion. do we have an understanding of why she started to step away from her own career and identify him as the person who should move forward? >> i think she was a pragmatist. she understood that one of them had to succeed. and i think she saw what it took for him to become edward hopper. jared: a year later, the pair were married. together, the hoppers toured cape and. often capturing the same subjects like glow custard -- gloucester's landmark church. edward was especially drawn to fishing scenes, to the immigrant community in the city's italian neighborhood, and to the signals of modern times. he also dwelled on dwellings. what do you think it is about this particular house that

speaks to that hopper? is it loneliness, mystery? >> 228, he comes back in the painting in the show is really his first house portrait in oil. there is almost a split personality between the light facade, edges much more ornate, and the stark facade on the front, is much more somber. jared: and perhaps a metaphor now for the light and dark in hopper's artistic life. after that first summer in gloucester, his career began to crack open. he sold his first work in more than a decade. this watercolor of a grand gloucester home. he had a new artistic eye and fervor. and it, davis says, transformed him in ways that can be traced through the rest of his career. >> i love motifs that show up here in gloucester, like in tony's house, we have the fire hydrant on a mound in watercolor and of course, the most famous fire hydrant i think anyone ever painted in american art is in early sunday morning, where we see it as the sole object on the sidewalk casting that long

shadow. hopper for some reason loved intersections. he loves this unusually shaped building at the corner of portuguese hill, where he -- and of course, those buildings became the subject of his nocturnal drugstore scene of 1927. jared: and it all happened here, at this intersection of cape ann, josephine and edward hopper. for the pbs newshour, i am jared bowen in gloucester, massachusetts. amna: a new memoir, out today, reveals how a family's picture-perfect life hid the turmoil and trauma roiling behind closed doors. author prachi gupta unpacks how the model minority myth and pressure to succeed impacted her indian-american family in her debut work, "they called us exceptional, and other lies that raised us." we spoke recently here in our studios.

prachi gupta, welcome to the newshour. thanks for joining us. prachi: thanks so much for having me. amna: so for anyone looking at your family from the outside, you were the picture of success, right? the american dream fulfilled, successful immigrant parents and high achieving children. but the story that you detail about life behind closed doors is starkly different. so why did you decide to share all of those details, often painful ones, with the world? prachi: i decided to share them because we need to hear these stories. we need to hear and really understand what the pressure of success and achievement does to a person's psyche, to our relationships, to our family. i think we live in this hyper capitalist culture that really only values us for what we can produce in the world. and as immigrants coming in to this country, well, my

grandparents came to canada and they came here in search of better opportunity. and really had to buy into the american dream, which i think the same pressures exist in canada, in order to belong, to assimilate, to fit in. but when they spent all of this energy focusing on projecting this image, on making sure their kids had these opportunities, there's also hidden costs and a hidden toll to that and a lot of pressure that comes with having to fit that mold. and america and i think canada, too, really only accepts or wants immigrants if they look a certain way, if they behave a certain way. and i wanted to write an honest story about what that pressure can do to a person's psyche, what they can do to their relationships. and my story does not speak for everybody's. but there's so much pressure to hide these things, to not talk abou them.

again, because of the image that we're expected, especially as asian americans with the model minority myth to portray. and i think we need to be honest about the harm that this myth causes our on our bodies, our lives and within our families. amna: you document your father's emotional and sometimes physical abuse, too. one story really stuck with me, which you tell in the book of a family driving to a prestigious school that you and your brother hope to maybe one day attend. and your father becomes angry with your mother and berates her when she can't get the directions and read the map correctly. and sent kicking her out of the car. and the family goes on to the school and you and your brother have to pretend like nothing happened. i wonder how can that disconnect between what you lived and what people thought be so vast? -- people sought be so vast? prachi: in many ways, i felt like i was living a double life. and i think that that's a common experience, not just with abuse, but with with our life, my life

as the child of immigrants. i think for all of us, there is this public face and this public image that we have to portray. and then there's your private life or your home life, and that the pressure to maintain a certain appearance, i think any sort of person of color can relate to that experience in a country where whiteness is idolized and is the standard and is default. there was a lot of shame in what was happening. but i also didn't know if it was normal or not for people who looked like me. because we just didn't talk about it. amna: you also talk about your family's own struggles with mental health. to even acknowledge that there are any issues in your family in the first place. and even today, it's worth pointing out that asian-americans remain one of the least likely groups to seek any kind of mental health support. i wonder why you think that is. prachi: there are so many complex reasons for that.

there are so many barriers to accessing adequate mental health care in this country. and our mental health institution comes from a very eurocentric perspective. it's really not designed to acknowledge or address a lot of the issues that people of color are facing. another reason is, too, that therapy for a lot of us has been a form of control and domination. the british empire actually ran lunatic asylum in south asia and used these what they called lunatic asylum as a way to assert control. so they rounded up people of south asian origin who didn't adhere to victorian social norms and then said that they were giving them therapy. but really they turn into for profit labor camps where they extracted productivity from them. that has had an astounding impact generationally on creating stigma and creating skepticism around what is mental

health care and what is not. i think also there's a culture of struggling with not talking about feelings. i know that my grandparents definitely struggled with that as well. and i know that for me personally, therapy really only started becoming effective when i sought out a therapist who treated all of these conflicts not as brokenness, none as contradictions, but as normal, because this was part of my normal experience. amna: you write so openly and so intimately about some incredibly painful moments throughout your entire life and your family's lives. and i just wonder, what has the reaction from your family been to the book? prachi: you know, there are a lot of varying reactions. but i think that the the most -- the one that really kind of kept me going throughout their writing process was that of my grandfather. my babaji, who died earlier this year at the beginning of the

year. amna: i'm so sorry for your loss. prachi: thank you. we were very close. and he is somebody who really inspired me because he grew up in colonial india and made the very difficult decision to leave india and moved to canada and raise his family there for better opportunity. and he was in many ways a very conservative, very patriarchal father and husband. but in his later years, he actually began to identify as a feminist. and he said that it was seeing his granddaughters that really changed him and seeing that, you know, he didn't see us as future mothers or as partners. he saw us as full people, and he wanted us to be able to have all the rights in the world that he had had. and when i told him about this book and why i needed to write it, even knowing that i would be critical or interrogating some of the decisions that he had made, unearthing things that we had tried to bury or forget in

our family. talking critically about my own family system. he said he understood and he supported me and he was proud of me. and he said, you know, i understand you need to tell the story and you need to tell the full story or it won't have any teeth. amna: you tell that story beautifully in this book. it's called "they called us exceptional and other lies that raised us." the author is prachi gupta. prachi, thank you for joining us. prachi: thank you so much for having me. geoff: as always, there is much more online, including a visit to a farm outside detroit, where formerly incarcerated citizens earn an income growing and selling kale, strawberries and other crops as they get a new start in life. that is at pbs.org/newshour. amna: join us again tomorrow

night when we will have an inside look at the plan for lease of treated radioactive water from the fukushima and nuclear plant into the ocean. and that is the newshour for tonight. i'm amna nawaz. geoff: and i'm goeff bennett. thanks for spending part of your evening with us. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular, this is sam. how can i help you? this is pocket dial. somebody's pocket, i thought i would let you know, you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of everything. have a nice day. ♪ >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement in 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.] >> the pbs newshour, continuing 50 years of unbiased reporting. >> the speech that is the foundation for democrats as they push for voting rights. >> the protesters have not been moved. basically having their run of the place. >> covering a broad range of stories. >> they are running out of water. >> what is it like on that stage? >> there is this magic. >> i am amna nawaz. and >> >> geoff bennett. join us every weeknight on the pbs newshour. ♪

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