wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. '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 bennett is away. on the "newshour" tonight, the flooding catastrophe in libya sparks renewed scrutiny of the nation's divided government, as the rising death toll forces officials to bury thousands in mass graves. president biden's son hunter is indicted on federal gun charges weeks after a plea deal fell apart. and, facing the daunting prospect of trying to detect countless unexploded mines, ukraine looks to advanced drone

technology to protect its civilians from the byproducts of war. >> we realize that our citizens, children, and women will walk on these lands. even here, in the field, workers and combine harvesters are working, and people's lives depend on our work. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymondjames financial advisor taylor's advice to help you live your life. life well planned. ♪ >> the kendeda fund. committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in

transformative leaders and ideas. carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security, at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the newshour. we're following two major stories tonight. the president's son, hunter

biden, has been indicted by a special counsel on federal firearms charges. we will have more on that in just a moment, but first, to libya, where deep fears are becoming horrific reality. the death toll from devastating floods has spiked to more than 11,000, with thousands still missing, submerged in the muddy mire, or washed out to sea. stephanie sy has that report. stephanie: from the sky, drone footage captures an apocalyptic scene. nearly a quarter of the city now a washed out wasteland. on the ground, the human toll is personal. the bodies of thousands of victims, some wrapped in plastic, others in blankets. without ceremony, they are loaded onto trucks and buried anonymously in mass graves. it has been four days since the floods, and rescuers are still coming through swampy streets and searching for the mediterranean for survivors. >> it is a disaster that has

gone beyond imagination. we thought it was just floods, water going down, but the mud is the greatest problem. bodies are buried under piles of mud and debris, three or four meters high. stephanie: the driving rain was bad enough, but it was the failure of two dams upstream that doomed the city, a torrent barreling toward sleepy communities, sweeping everything and everyone in its path all the way out to the sea. >> we woke up at 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning. everyone awake must have heard a loud bang. everyone in the valley was swept away. when we went outside, there was no more city. it had been razed to the ground. stephanie: officials say the dams had been neglected for more than 20 years, despite repeated warnings. one point $3 million allocated to fix the dams unspent.

now derna's infrastructure has collapsed. miles of road have crumbled, blocking access in and out of the port city. >> slowly things are getting organized, but it is chaotic and it is the fourth day. stephanie: mohammed is an expert on libyan affairs. you were in the worst hit area. what are things looking like on the ground? >> the situation looks difficult to the front of finding bodies, getting them out, and cutting out the identification process and the burial process. but then you have the people who survived. it is a struggle to organize and coordinate to ensure that people have drinking water. there is no drinking water in the city. that people have the necessities of food. stephanie: more than a decade of political conflicts contributed to the disaster. after the u.s. backed overthrow

of dictator mohammed qaddafi in 2011, cities like derna were left governed by militia groups. >> it started with having a postintervention strategy by the international community to ensure there was a proper transition to functional government in libya and that there was a failure of leaders to meet the aspirations of the people. so there is no doubt that we could have avoided the magnitude of loss of life, of injuries, the suffering. stephanie: casualties also continue to mount in morocco. aftershocks persist nearly a week after a 6.8 magnitude quake struck the atlas mountains. the threat of tremors make urban areas too dangerous for displaced people to relocate, but remote regions are no better. bodies are decaying under untouched piles of rubble, and

homeless families say makeshift tents are not enough to shield them from the elements. >> we want to transfer people to marrakech. if they stay here under the tents they will suffer a lot. we don't need help in food. people don't die of hunger. they can die because of the snow and cold. stephanie: two north african nations grappling with extreme natural events and their own extreme losses. >> you can feel the trauma across libya. everyone, they feel a responsibility to help, that they need to do something, so it is a trauma for the whole country. stephanie: for the pbs newshour, i'm stephanie sy. amna: turning to our other lead story, hunter biden's indictment on gun charges, which sets up a high-profile legal battle ahead of president biden's reelection campaign. the indictment comes days after house republicans opened an impeachment inquiry into the president and his family's business dealings. a plea deal for hunter biden collapsed in federal court this july.

soon after, attorney general merrick garland appointed the u.s. attorney for delaware, david weiss, to serve as a special counsel overseeing the investigation. joining me now is devlin barrett, who covers the department of justice for "the washington post." you have looked at this indictment. it is short, about four pages long. it includes three different counts. what is hunter biden being accused of? delvin: he is being accused of lying on the form you fill out when you buy a gun. one of the things you're supposed to attest to is that you are not a user, an abuser, or addicted to illegal drugs. he said he was not, but by his own admission, and his biography in other places, he was dealing with a substance abuse problem at that time. so he is accused of a lie. the facts of the case are simple. it is everything around it, because it is hunter biden, it

has become a political hot potato even within the justice department. everything around it is very complicated. amna: do we know how hunter biden is pleading? >> his lawyer has said we will fight the case, and because the agreed to a plea deal, this indictment should have never been brought, and the conditions of that deal should still be in effect. that may be a hard argument to win over a judge, but that is what hunter biden's lawyers are -- that is their starting point. amna: it was just weeks ago that that plea agreement collapsed. that would have meant hunter biden avoided a criminal trial. help us understand what has shifted between then and now? delvin: the big problem with that plea deal is under the terms of that deal, he was going

to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and take what is called a diversion agreement, where you do not actually plead guilty, but you admit wrongdoing to a gun charge. basically, what the judge decided was it was not a proper use of the guilty plea system. when that fell apart, prosecutors decided they had no other choice but to charge him. now you've got a situation where hunter biden and his lawyers feel they have been misled and mistreated. they might have to go to trial with this. amna: you mentioned everything around the indictments. let me ask you about the political context. this comes days after house republicans issued an impeachment inquiry into president biden, and much of it is centered around questions about hunter biden. delvin: this investigation has been going on for almost five years. it always had as a jumping off point what money hunter biden

was earning from foreign sources, and whether he was declaring all of that money on his taxes. as a separate issue, was there anything inappropriate or illegal about the sources of that income? the tax issue, investigators felt like they could make some kind of case there, although hunter biden's lawyers say it is a very weak case. the corruption type of allegations that republicans have lodged have not had much to work with in terms of making those accusations, but they do make them, and that is sort of the fulcrum of all this political drama on the hill about possible impeachment. amna: we got about 30 seconds left, but these are specific gun charges. could there be more charges, like around the tax issue, raised ahead? delvin: i think it is possible we will see a tax indictment against hunter biden in the near future. that would be in delaware, where

the gun charges are. that would probably be in a different jurisdiction, because this is a complicated case. amna: it is. we will be following that and your reporting. devlin, thank you. delvin: thanks. ♪ stephanie: stephanie sy with newshour west. here are the latest headlines. u.s. auto industry nears a historic strike at midnight, eastern time. the united auto workers union and the detroit three auto-makers bargained through the day, hoping to avoid a first-ever walkout against the entire industry. the uaw said initially it plans to strike at selective plants. house speaker kevin mccarthy dared a hard-right republican faction today to try to oust him or stop using the threat. mccarthy was quoted as saying, "if somebody wants to file a

motion, file the f'ing motion," as he met with party members behind closed doors. later, he acknowledged he's fed up with freedom caucus members demanding steeper spending cuts and risking a government shutdown at month's end. speaker mccarthy: i showed frustration in here because i am frustrated with the committee. i'm frustrated with some people in the conference. i don't walk away from a battle. i knew changing washington would not be easy. i knew people would fight or try to hold leverage for other things. i'm going to continue just to focus on what's the right thing to do for the american people. and you know what? if it takes a fight, i'll have a fight. stephanie: congress has just nonworking days to pass the necessary spending bills or a short-term measure to avoid a shutdown. ukrainian president zelenskyy is expected to visit capitol hill and the white house next week. his visit comes as congress is debating ukrainian military aid and humanitarian aid package that could total as much as $24 million.

zelenskyy is also expected to attend the united nations general assembly in new york. a judge in georgia ruled today that former president trump and 16 others will be tried separately from two co-defendants. all are accused of illegally trying to overturn the 2020 election results. lawyers sidney powell and kenneth chesebro have demanded a speedy trial, now set to begin october 23. mr. trump's legal team has pushed for a later trial date. a hurricane watch is up tonight from maine to the canadian border as hurricane lee closes in. the storm has lost some punch, but could bring heavy rain and 20-foot waves to coastal new england and canada by early saturday. parts of that same area have already been inundated with 10 inches of rain from an earlier storm that triggered flash floods this week. nasa says it wants to join the search for ufo's and make it a serious, scientific endeavor. the space agency released a year-long study today. it found no evidence of aliens

visiting earth. instead, it called for advanced satellites to aid the search. officials also urged reducing the stigma around what they call uap's, or unidentified anomalous phenomena. >> we want to shift th conversation about uap's from sensationalism to science. >> i think of this in terms of the signs we see around for security, which say if you see something, say something. i think in this context, we would summarize it as if you see something, collect high quality data on it. then we can learn. stephanie: nasa has hired a director for research in the field, but it's not publicly naming the official to prevent harassment and threats from critics who say the government is hiding evidence of ufos. new census data shows more americans are back in the office and back on the roads. in 2022, only 15% of workers did their jobs entirely from home -- down from nearly 18% a year

earlier. the rate of those working from home was only 5.7% before the pandemic. the census survey also found that with more people going into the office again, car commutes rose, and so did the average commute time. still to come on the newshour, political researchers make the case for halep minority rule is threatening american democracy. elon musk's i'll refer on what motivates the controversial tech ceo. theaters across the country fight to save their historic art form. plus much more. >> this is the pbs newshour. from weta studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. amna: america's democracy is in an uncharted and fragile place, according to two harvard government professors. with the presidential election a little more than a year away, laura barron-lopez explores the issue.

one of america's two major political parties has turned away from democracy, warn steven levitsky and daniel ziblatt. one key accomplice to the backsliding, they say, are politicians called semi-loyalists, who rather than expel anti-democratic extremists from their party ranks, accept and make room for them. why is this happening? their new book, "tyranny of the minority," concludes that part of the problem lies in the constitution. they join me now. thank you so much for joining. steve, can you first establish we knew, as someone as an expert in the collapse of democracies, diagnosed that there is now a popular authoritarian movement within the republican party? steven: there have been authoritarian movements in both parties historically. what is new is it became a primary majority in the republican party.

effectively took over the republican party. the first sign was trump's nomination in 2016. the reason we wrote our first book is because we were so concerned about the republican party's failure to stop trump. it was after trump was elected that we saw the removal, the retirement, the disappearance of non-trumpist elements in the republican party and a trumpist majority emerge in the republican party, after 2016. laura: daniel, some news this week from senator mitt romney, a republican of utah, speaks to what you two write about. he was the only member of his party who voted twice to convict former president trump. in an article out this week,

romney said a very large portion of my party really does not believe in the constitution. daniel, do you see senator romney's retirement as a sign that, rather than weed out the extremists in their party, republicans are weeding out moderate republicans like romney and liz cheney? >> you have to do three things. number two, not use violence to hang onto or gain power. number three, and some cents for mainstream political parties, you have to distance yourself and be open about condemning anybody who is an ally of your party that commits any of those first two types of acts. to be a party committed to democracy, in order for democracy to survive, political parties have to ascribe to all three of those principles. it applies to parties on the right and left. one thing that is so concerning, that steve described, is that

over the past four years, we have seen a decay of that in the republican party, including among mainstream members of the senate. this is a violation of that third principle, people who knew what was happening on january 6 and did very little to stop it. laura: steve, when you're talking about semi-loyal, small d democrats, who exactly do you see as those actors that are eroding democracy? steven: semi-loyal democrats are tricky because they look like regular politicians. they look like mainstream politicians. they are in fact mainstream politicians. they are in the halls of congress, wearing suits. they look, talk, and act like regular small d democrats, but the key difference is their willingness to tolerate, to condone, to justify, sometimes to protect anti-democratic

extremists. we have seen throughout history that when mainstream politicians on the left or right tolerate, condone, protect extremists, on the right or the left, democracies get into trouble. who are we talking about in the republican party today? mainstream republican party leaders, kevin mccarthy, mitch mcconnell, leading senators, leading governors. laura: daniel, you have said america will not necessarily become nationally like a country like hungary, but that states across america could potentially model the autocracy in hungary. daniel: we live in a federal system with checks and balances. for all the troubles that face americans today, one of the biggest differences between the united states and a country like hungary, where democratic backsliding is relieved under single party rule, there is a strong opposition to these forces. that is the case at the natural

level -- national level. what is surprising is that there are states in the united states where there are assaults on voting rights taking place, where there are extreme levels of gerrymandering so that it makes it impossible for the party that wins the most votes to actually take control of state legislatures, where courts are then impact at the state level as well. what we see across the united states is increasingly a divide between states where you continue to have voting rights and democracy, states where democracy is really under assault. laura: daniel, your book warns that the constitution, the world's oldest written constitution, is part of the problem, is part of what is imperiling democracy. what changes do you think need to be made? daniel: some of the things we discussed in the book, we have a 15 point set of suggestions in our last chapter, including eliminating the electoral college or the only democracy in the world with the electoral college, introducing term limits

and retirement ages for the supreme court we are the only democracy in the developed world that does not have term limits for judges. we also have proposals that do not require constitutional reform, like eliminating or weakening the filibuster. we are the only democracy in the world that has such a strong tool of obstruction in our chambers of congress. this often blocks majority supported policies, gun-control, efforts to address climate change, minimum-wage. things get held up in the national congress which frustrates citizens. there needs to be a sweeping reform agenda. we have discovered that when constitutional reforms come, they tend to cluster together. people regain faith in their political system. this is part of the american tradition, whereas today we are operating outside the american tradition. this is something we need to get back to. laura: steven and daniel, thank

you so much for your time. ♪ amna: among the many horrors of war, one lingers, and kills, for years, even decades, afterward -- landmines and unexploded ordnance. ukraine is now littered with landmines and bombs from both sides of the firing line. the task of clearing those explosives is massive and complicated, but a technological advancement tested in oklahoma could make that job far easier in the breadbasket of ukraine. with the support of the pulitzer center, special correspondent jack hewson reports. >> stepping into the farmlands of southern ukraine, these soldiers are on dangerous ground. in just over 18 months of conflict, ukraine has become the most mined country on the planet.

in this liberated territory, these engineers are practicing mine clearance the old-fashioned way. it is the process of walking out in lines of about 50 meters at a time with a piece of rope behind you marking where you have been. even on a clear stretch, that will take 15 minutes at least. if they find something, they are going to be digging it out for significantly longer than blowing it up. that is how long it takes for just 50 square meters. you can see how big this build is. it is going to take forever for just one build, never mind the rest of the country. more than 67,000 square miles of ukraine is reportedly littered with landmines, and landmass equivalent to florida. task with much of the clearance of ukraine's civilian areas is the state transportation

service, or ssts. this sergeant tells us it is slow and dangerous work. >> my squad leader had a traumatic amputation of his right leg. jack: what goes through your mind doing this job every day knowing that something that happened to your friend could happen to you? >> we realize that civilians, children, and women will walk on these lands. even here in the field, combine harvesters are working, and people's lives depend on our work. jack: just down the road, alexander knows this all too well. he was nearly killed foraging for mushrooms near his home. >> i don't even want to recall it. they i hit the plastic mine. considering the things i saw doctors extracting from me, i hit a high explosive mine.

the other thing i remember is that i asked the guys carrying me out of there to shoot me. i am used to walking on my two legs. jack: the area had supposedly been cleared several times. it is very difficult to find such mines. it is 30% likely you will find this mine and 70% likely that you will hit it. even if you run a metal detector over that mine, he will not see it. jack: the constant background anxiety leaves the community on edge. >> during the last month, there have already been three cases of people hitting mines. i was the most lucky, because i am alive. jack: it is not just lives threatened, but livelihoods too. 19,000 square miles of ukraine's agricultural land has been polluted by uxo. this man is unable to use 85% of his fields.

>> this is a disaster, but what can we do? we are trying to work with what we have. jack: the army has already cleared 4500 acres that he has now planted, but mining is agonizingly slow. agriculture accounts for 40% of ukraine's exports, and mining will be vital for the country's economy. >> de-mining the territory on foot without special machines will take hundreds of years. that is why i think using technology for de-mining is the only way we can use agriculture in our country. jack: it could take more than 700 years to clear ukraine's minefields with the resources it currently has, but new technology brings hope. two young american scientists are in the final stages of testing a machine learning algorithm that locates mines and uxo without having to take a

human life. >> it is called spotlight because it is going to find items from the sky similar to how spotlights would. >> the mines are small, and in high vegetation, it is hard unless you are standing right over them. the drones are always right over the mines. jack: the years long work and research has led to this application which can be harnessed by drones. >> all you have to do is upload the imagery to the platform, and it feeds it to the ai detection. the ai detection scans all the images you have uploaded. it is trained on what the munitions and mines look like, and it will drop boxes and provide locations as well. our platform is designed to be very easy to use for de-mine rs and other people, potentially

farmers, who have contamination in their field. jack: in this area occupied by russia at the start of the war, the application is being tested for real-world use. this is a spotlight on the cluster munitions that had been recently shipped here and need to be cleared from ukrainian land at the end of this war. >> this is our last test, so we are trying to break it. jack: operations director fred pollock and the software engineer are overseeing this final test. >> with the cluster munitions being employed, it is important that the ukrainians have the possibility of cleaning up after themselves. jack: in addition to unexploded cluster submunitions, te technology can also identify more than 100 different kinds of landmines. >> now we get data to my computer, uploading the data on

spotlight, the application. then we will have the results. jack: how much more effective is this? >> it is very effective. jack: since this successful test, spotlight has been used to clear its first active minefield in ukraine and is ready for deployment pending approval from ukrainian authorities. perhaps this app, dreamed up and tested on the american great plains, will save the lives and limbs of ukrainian civilians. as for alexander, whatever comes, he does not dwell on his misfortune. >> i will get a prosthesis and i will be able to walk again. as they say, movement's life, or the road his life. -- movement is life, or the road his life. jack: heavy keeps all the remnants of what he has found around his village, of which there is no shortage.

>> i have an idea to make a museum where we can educate people on how to protect themselves from mines and show them what they really look like. jack: learning to cope with the threat of mines will be a grim reality faced by millions as they return to their homes in eastern and southern ukraine. land they have won back yet tainted by the deadly legacy of war. for the pbs newshour, i'm jack hewson in ukraine. ♪ amna: elon musk is one of the most famous people on the planet for the tech companies he's founded and acquired, and he's one of the wealthiest. but musk is also among the most controversial public figures because of his behavior, including the spread of misinformation, racist and

sexist remarks, and his political ideas. now the highly-anticipated biography of tech mogul elon musk is officially on bookshelves. in its 600-plus pages, author walter isaacson shares an inside look at musk's rise to power, from a tumultuous childhood in south africa to now ceo of six companies, including "tesla" , spacex, and x, formerly known as twitter. walter, thanks for joining us. walter: ask for having me. amna: elon musk has had such an adversarial relationship with journalists, and i think it is fair to say a thin skin when it comes to criticism or hearing things he does not like. why do you think he trusted you to do this? altar: it was sort of amazing that he opened up and was so transparent. as you indicated, i am an old-fashioned journalist. i have been on the newshour before.

i've worked at time mazine, at cnn. it is somewhat surprising, given his populist tendencies, that he would open up. but i spent the past two years you riding along at his side just watching him, observing. he said, i'm going to be transparent, nothing is off limits, come to any meeting. the only part of the deal was that he did not have control over the book. amna: i want to add clarity, because i know there has been a lot of conversation around your book already, and you have had to walk back a pretty explosive part in one portion. he reported that last year musk ordered star link engineer is to cut off internet connectivity -- engineers to cut off internet connectivity to basically undermine russian forces incur male. you said that part was wrong. walter: that part is generally right. what happened was that night in

september, he said they are launching a secret attack and we are not allowing them to use start link, which meant it would thwart the whole attack. i thought he meant that night he had switched. he said no, it was ordered to be geo fenced, but the ukrainians did not know it, so they launched the attack not knowing it had been geo fenced. if you read all the text messages in the book, that september, the ukrainians are trying to do things in the don boss, texting them, saying, can you turn this on? he had a decision to make, should you honor their request or allow them to use s tarlink, or should they continue to forbid it when it came to crimea. that is the decision i made that night, and that is the essence, that one person had a lot of power to say no, you cannot use starlink to launch this attack on crimea. amna: you tweeted a response that you had mistakenly understood based on a conversation that you had with

him one way, when you thought it had happened the other. walter: i thought he had made the decision that night. i had to correct it to say he reaffirmed a decision that had been made early. amna: as you know, ukraine is so dependent on that starlink connectivity. i am sure you have seen ronan farrow's recent reporting, he includes some things that suggest musk has shown support from vladimir putin, that he has tweeted things, like a proposed peace plan that would mean redrawing boundaries in russia's favor. i wonder if you have ever heard anything or seen and anything from elon musk that said he supports vladimir putin and russia's war in ukraine. walter: no, and all the text messages and tweets in my book, and he was the person who, when russia invaded ukraine, an amazing thing happened, all the communications outlets were knocked out by the russians. the one satellite, the one

communication link that is still around, was starlink. his. what he does is he rushes to the aid of ukrainians. he sends hundreds of thousands of starlinks over to ukraine. otherwise they would have been crushed in the first week of that bad, horrible russian invasion. without starlink, you would have seen an extremely successful russian invasion. what he does now, he says this probably should not be in my hands. he talks to mark milley, and eventually they work at a deal where a lot of the starlink satellites are sold to the u.s. government, and the u.s. government gets to make that decision. amna: what about elon musk's decision to buy twitter. it does give him a enormous platform. it is very influential, especially around political conversations, and he has in the past tweeted that he does not support democrats anymore. he calls them the party of hate

and division. he says he is now supporting republicans. do you think he wants to influence the next presidential election? walter: i think he is very material. this week he was with chuck schumer, chris coons, and other democrats. there were times when he would be talking during the day, telling me, i want to bring people together, i supported obama, and there are other times where he gets mercurial. he will get dark and upset and send out tweets that are pro-republican. that is the problem when he gets on social media, he is mercurial, and he has moods, and that is not pretty when you are doing it in public all hours of the day. amna: you have probably seen this, but i want to put you cara swisher's mini review in a tweet. she basically said, my mini

review, sad son morphs into father he abhors, except with cars, rockets, and more money. petty jerked always. does that ring true? walter: a lot of it. you will see it in the book. i had a wonderful time talking to her. it is a tale about somebody fighting his demons of childhood. the dark things about being bullied as a kid, having psychological problems with his father, turn into drives too, drives that get him to be the only person who can get astronauts into orbit from the united states, or reuse asked -- or reuse rockets and land them, or bringing us electric vehicles. but it also makes him a dark and crazed character at times. in all those words just used, i a lot of them described him. amna: a lot of folks have traumatic childhoods, and they

do not always turn into people who are abusive towards their staff, or as he has done, tweeted racist, sexist, or offensive things. he has a very huge platform. he is a very powerful man and very wealthy. i wonder if you think he is also potentially dangerous, because of those combinations. walter: i will not agree with all of the characterizations you have put on some of the tweets, but i will say that yeah, i think at times, that dark personality makes it a particularly difficult when he is running a social media platform like twitter. he has very good and stinks on engineering, how to make the raptor engine, as you read in the book. also, manufacturing, like, how are we going to get to the era of electric vehicles? but he does not have a feel for human emotions or social media.

that makes it problematic and part of what he is trying to do when he is on twitter. amna: that is walter isaacson, whose new biography on elon musk is out now. great to speak with you. walter: thank you so much for having me. amna: regional theater has been a glory of the american cultural scene for decades, bringing plays and musicals to audiences in cities across the country. but the pandemic and a host of other social shifts have led to cutbacks, cancellations, even closures of theaters. what if, to tweak "hamlet" a bit, the play is no longer the thing? jeffrey brown has a look for our arts and culture series, canvas. >> the ladies of our holy order will lead us in prayer. jeffrey: somehow, someway, the show must go on. it is the abiding mantra of theatre, and for years that

has been true of this new haven theater, showcasing a who's who of actors. now the show will go on with a very different look. >> welcome to the theater. this will be transformed. jeffrey: either in one traditional theater space, says the artistic director, it might be here at this boathouse. >> you're looking all around new haven for what? >> i think of it as our city and region has many stages, and our model allows us to activate all these different stages of us the city -- across the city and region. maybe it is a library, a high school auditorium, a boathouse. it is all about, what is the right container, what is the right space for this story are artists want to tell? jeffrey: it is a bold experiment, but one born of dire need. finding its audience dwindling,

its budget in deficit, last year the theatre announced it was leaving the theater it had occupied for decades to try something new, hoping others, along. >> american theatre is challenged, that we need support from corporations, founders, donors. we need our communities to come together and support live theatre. jeffrey: fewer shows at seattle's act contemporary in philadelphia's arden. layoffs at new york's public theater and elsewhere. closures of smaller theatre companies, including triad in north carolina. it is happening all over. according to a recent study, regional theaters programmed about 40% fewer shows last year than in the season just before covid. the term crisis is in the air. long wharf's managing director uses the word "cautiously. she spoke with us at one of the

company's pop-up spaces, a library. >> there is crisis happening. i would not say american theater is in crisis, perhaps the regional theater. we are going to sell all of our tickets ahead of time to a large group of people. jeffrey: that does not work. >> it can work in certain places. each organization right now, if they are not looking at their communities, the relationship with their audience, and what is working and has not been working , really taking your rose-colored glasses off and looking at where you have had success and where you have not, then your organization might find itself in crisis. >> in long wharf's case, that means relying more on contributions and philanthropy, while also working to connect to new haven's larger community,

that long wharf thinks have not felt included in the past. >> for years, i think theater companies were not paying attention. it was not just about the shows you were doing on stage, but who is the makeup of this staff? who is on your board? who are the partners across your city supporting network -- supporting that work? jeffrey: the pandemic was a major blow to theaters across the country, and they have yet to recover. government help has been given, but largely spent. it is also clear that pandemic only exacerbated long-standing trends. we visited another regional theater with a grand tradition, west for shanahan has been involved here for years and will take over as artistic director in 2024. >> there are a variety of reasons, as we struggle to get

audiences back in the theater, it is hard to compete with electronic media, hard to compete with a soft economy, and it is hard to ask people who were sitting at home during the pandemic to say, remember how great it was to come back to the theater, to make that a practice again. all those things are challenges. the only path forward is to create great work, getting the word out, and reminding people how much they love coming here. jeffrey: the posters on the walls and photos in the halls a test to some serious theatre history. lillian and dorothy gish, james earl jones, a young jane fonda, contemporary stars including paul rudd and leslie odom junior. this theater began an old barn in 1941. there was a renovation and expansion following a $30 million funding campaign under the leadership of joanne woodward. her husband, paul newman, joined

in to help raise money. but this year, westport announced cuts in production and layoffs of 75% of staff. and they issued an emergency $20 million public campaign to "save your playhouse." >> it was not something we did lightly. there was a lot of thought that went into it, but we believed our community we would rally, and it was a way to let them know that we were worse off than we were in the past. the same time, i was confident our community would come together and help us in our time of need and show us how important we are to them. jeffrey: a major advantage, this is a very well-off town. the 2 million-dollar target is just about reached, and philanthropy will remain a key to survival. >> have you met mr. sutherland? >> yes. jeffrey: but theatre leaders are counting on another strategy, using their space for more days of the year, in this case using a staged -- doing a staged

reading of a play. it nearly filled the theater, leaving a sense of excitement. >> ? i'm looking grim ? jeffrey: westport is also becoming a theater with acts beyond its productions, including most recently musical theater star patti lupone. >> we realized that was a wise model, and it allows us to do theatre, which is at our heart who we are, and it allows us to bring in the community and work with community partnerships. i think with those added into the calendar, it is really going to help. those will help new funders come in and will help new audiences come in. jeffrey: as for theater programming itself, mark

shanahan points to a recent production of dial m for murder, a new classic with old twists, as something that works well here. >> the theater is all about problems and problem solving. what player we going to do? who is going to be in it? who is going to do this at? how are we going to tell people it is out here? how are we going to make any of this happened? why are people surprised we have problems? we just have a new set of problems and we have to figure out how to solve them. jeffrey: that is the old can-do spirit of theatre. the show must go on, even as the future of american regional theatre hangs in the balance. for the pbs newshour, i jeffrey brown in westport and new haven, connecticut. ♪ amna: the rat population is on the rise. going from occasional public

nuisance to public enemy number one in some cities. to explain what is fueling this furry infliction are courtney noris and producer deborah hastings bring us this report. >> on a hot wednesday afternoon in the nation's capitol, gerard brown is patrolling the alleyways of northwest d.c., looking for signs of rats on the move. >> i'm concerned about any rat in the city. you know, one rat is too many. reporter: brown has led d.c. health's rodent abatement program for 22 years. and recently, he says, rats have become more unpredictable. >> so in the years with the pandemic, it went up, you know, rats started coming into residential areas from the closed restaurants and stuff. and they were desperate. reporter: last fall, the pest control company orkin ranked washington d.c. fourth on its

list of america's most rat infested cities, behind chicago, new york and los angeles. that makes washington, d.c., the second rattiest city on the east coast. renowned urban rodentologist bobby corrigan says many cities are dealing with a similar issue. are we experiencing a rat boom? >> i characterize it more like we have been on a slow boil for 50 years, but not really paying close attention to the numbers scientifically the way we should. for many years, we just considered this as a vermin issue instead of a wildlife species. we just figured, if you see rats, just put out some poison, hire a pest control professional, it's not a big deal. at the city level, around the world, it is a big deal. courtney: d.c., like many cities, has experienced an uptick in rat extermination calls. when rats are reported, brown's

team heads to the site to treat the scene, putting rat poison inside burrows and covering holes. >> we really are out here doing as much as we can, as hard as we can, because we understand, i don't want rats running around in my yard. courtney: that's a sentiment shared by d.c. resident joel edwards. >> d.c. has the biggest rats i've ever seen in my life. courtney: edwards moved to this neighborhood in northeast d.c. in 2020. >> i would say since the day we bought the house and months going on. after that, we were dealing with trying to poison rats outside our house and finding giant dead rats all around. courtney: other cities across the u.s. have been tackling the same ratty problem. >> everyone who knows me knows i hate rats. courtney: in new york city, mayor eric adams last year declared rats public enemy number one. rat sightings were up 71% from 2020 to 2022. >> when we're talking about rat fighting, it's not easy, but it's achievable to get a big mark down in populations. courtney: kathy corradi is the first ever citywide director of

rodent mitigation in new york city. in the new role, her sole focus is reducing the number of rats across all five boroughs. as part of new york's city-wide approach, restaurants, bodegas, delis, and grocery stores are now required to dispose of trash in secure containers, rather than directly on the street, a policy impacting 40,000 businesses. >> one of the tricky things about rats is we have no rent rat census, so there is no firm counts of rat populations. we can, you know, engineer our way out of a lot of this. but then we need people to do the behaviors. and as anyone knows, behavior change is really hard. reporter: in the last three months, the city has seen a 20% decline in rat sightings. in d.c., mayor muriel bowser allocated $3.4 million in next years fiscal budget to begin replacing all residents' trash cans over the next eight years.

for joel edwards, that's a welcomed move. after several visits from d.c. health, hiring a pest control company and a home renovation to seal off holes, he's had some relief in the last few months. the rats may be gone, but the emotional damage is not. >> there's a little rat ptsd. once it's in to you, it's in you. you can't really get it out of your mind. they are everywhere. courtney: but if you think you hate rats, corrigan says think again. >> the rat has added 25, maybe 30 years to our longevity as a species. you know, we studied it backwards, forwards, upside down, psychologically, medically, we've opened them up. so to some degree, i would say to everybody, when you walk down the street, if you do see a rat before you think about how are we going to manage it, say, by the way, thanks a lot. courtney: easier said than done. for the pbs newshour, i'm courtney norris. amna: you can watch and read more of our reporting on the rat problem many cities are facing online at pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for

tonight. i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour, including -- >> consumer cellular. this is sam. how may i help you. >> this is a pocket dial. >> i thought i should let you know that with consumer cellular, you can get nationwide coverage with no contract. that's kind of our thing. >> actually, you don't need vision to do most things in life. it is exciting to be part of a team driving technology forward. i think that is the most rewarding thing.

people who know, know bdo. >> the ford foundation. working on the frontlines of social change nationwide. 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. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] >> this is pbs newshour west, from wta studios in washington and former euro at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university.

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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. ♪♪ -"ok's country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table. we're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the diss. we go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real pele cook, and we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today. we bring that inspiration back to our test kitchen so we can share it with you. this is "cook's country." ♪♪ today on "cook's country,"