amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz. geoff: and i am geoff bennett. on the newshour tonight, hollywood writers reach a tentative deal to end the months-long strike that upended the industry. amna: congress barrels toward a deadline to fund the government and avoid a shutdown as republicans struggle to reach consensus. geoff: and a nasa spacecraft returns with samples from an asteroid that scientists hope could provide clues to the beginnings of life on earth. >> it's incredibly dark, darker than asphalt.

and we believed that that meant it was rich in carbon, which is the essential element for all life on earth and key to our origins investigation. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour, including leonard and norma glorifying and clue and patricia you vent. for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world, at hewlett.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. major hollywood studios have reached a tentative deal with writers after nearly five months of striking. geoff: in coming days, members of the writers guild of america will vote to approve the new contract, which includes pay increases to keep up with streaming and protections around the use of artificial intelligence. but when production on shows restarts is an open question since actors remain on strike.

janice min is editor-in-chief of the ankler, a digital media company that covers the industry. thanks for being with us. janice: thanks for having me. geoff: we should say neither the writers guild nor the studio have released the detailed terms of this contract. on the face, it appears the writers have won some concessions. what are they, based on your reporting? janice: one of the big ones was about minimum staffing in rooms. one of the things writers were trying to get the studios to agree on was a certain number of people that could be in a room so you could not have situations where soul show runners were being asked to create and write shows. they wanted to guarantee work for people in the union. another concession seems to be in artificial intelligence. anyone who has been paying attention probably has heard ai thrown around. writers consider this a big threat and actors still out on strike probably consider it a larger threat because their likenesses can be replicated and

used. and pay increases. seems like they want a pretty big pay increase in terms of streaming residuals in terms of pay in the room. i think one of the positive signs for the writers guild members is their language in the press release -- or the email sent to members yesterday was incredibly triumphant. in 2008 when they last had a strike and settled with the studios, they were much more sober about it, saying we put in the fight, we got what we could. yesterday felt more like a victory lap. geoff: let's talk more about the residuals. writers say the streaming revenue model has broken residuals, as writers and actors are typically paid a flat fee regardless of how well their show does on streaming platforms. we spoke with a writer named charles dewey, a staff writer

for criminal minds, who identified that as his top concern.

than the legacy studios and it's going to be all-you-can-eat. what i think none of the writers and actors were planning on or were expecting was how big streaming would become in this industry, how many millions of people would be watching their shows, and how little information they would have about that to give them any leverage in knowing if they were being paid enough, not enough, too much. that is where this gray area formed, which is the basis of so much being negotiated. geoff: our team also spoke with a writer named jorge reyes, who writes for shows on streaming platforms. he expressed some concern about the impact of artificial intelligence. >> they'd just hire us to tweak things and that would reduce us to a gig economy. it would reduce what a writer earns, it would reduce our pension, it would reduce our health care. so it would decimate us and in a way that we weren't willing to

accept. geoff: you can understand the ways in which the studios would want to expand into the realm of ai. what might a compromise look like on this issue? janice: it sounds like there are specific guidelines around credits and the usage of ai to originate ideas. it's also in the way actors are looking to protect their likeness. ai feeds off original existing i material. i'm going to have to guess there are provisions around using existing writers material to generate future material. if you were a writer on the office for eight years, that your voice cannot be used to create the new office spinoff that's coming out, that will come out 10 years from now. it's about protecting your original voice and not being replaced in the writers room.

i think anyone that has played around with chatgpt knows you can plug in, can you write me some aaron sorkin dialogue about trump's potential second term in office? it spits it out and is fairly convincing. that's probably one of the most terrifying things for writers today. geoff: in less than two minutes, what might an agreement for the writers mean for the separate actors' strike? the two sides have not spoken in more than two months, and so far as i know no talks are scheduled. janice: there are no talks scheduled. one thing we should look out for is the screen actors guild leadership has been much more strident and are asking for different things. fran drescher, the president of sag, formerly the star of the nanny, has come out with, even in these heated time, especially

loaded language against the studios, calling them land barons. particularly insulting personally to robert iger, ceo of disney. she has definitely made it much more i would say a class war in hollywood, taking it far beyond even some of the rhetoric of the writers. getting these two to the table -- what we hear is the ceos are fairly stunned by the words coming out of sag. i think it's going to -- both of them will have to cool down a little to make that happen. but sag is asking for something the wga is not, which is revenue-sharing. they are asking for 2% of i revenue generated by the shows where there actors star. there with these big data companies, apple, amazon, netflix, they

don't share data. that makes it almost impossible to figure out how they could come to some sort of conclusion. geoff: a real pleasure to speak with you. thanks for your insights. in the day's other headlines, ukraine says it killed the commander of russia's black sea fleet, in one of kyiv's boldest attacks yet on the occupied peninsula of crimea. but kyiv did not provide any evidence to support its claim. that's as russian drones and missiles pounded a string of cities across ukraine. some of the worst violence was in and around odesa, where port infrastructure, a grain silo, and an abandoned hotel were destroyed. thousands of ethnic armenians are fleeg the nagorno-karabakh region to safety in armenia. the territory was controlled by separatists for three decades

until azerbaijan recaptured it last week. residents packed their belongings and headed for the border. azerbaijan said it would protect any armenians who stay, but those leaving say it's no longer safe. >> [translated] we don't know what will happen to us next. we don't know what's in store for us, but there's no chance we can go back. if we could, we wouldn't have left in the first place. it is very dangerous there. geoff: hours later, an explosion at a gas storage depot in nagorno-karabakh injured more than 200 people. there was no immediate word what caused the blast. in hawaii, residents began returning to what's left of their lahaina properties today, after wildfires destroyed the historic town earlier this summer. authorities cleared the first zone for re-entry in the northern part of lahaina. officials supervised the temporary visits and warned that the ash might still contain toxic chemicals. it was the first of 17 zones in the area to reopen.

the biden administration announced today it's investing $1.4 billion into improving the nation's aging railway system. it will fund 70 projects in 35 states and washington, d.c., and aims to increase capacity and improve safety. railway safety has been a major concern since a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in east palestine, ohio last february. free, at-home covid-19 tests by mail are back, as a wave of new infections continues to sweep the nation. starting today, the u.s. government will send up to four rapid tests per household to anyone who requests them on the website covidtests.gov. the program has been on hiatus since june. and stocks closed higher on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average gained 43 points to close at 34,700. the nasdaq rose 59 points. the s&p 500 added 17. still to come, president biden meets with pacific island leaders to strengthen relations

and counter china's influence. the family of a black texas teen sues, saying his school district discriminated against his hairstyle. and the co-founder of bet reflects on her groundbreaking career in a new memoir. >> 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: as the clock ticks down to a government shutdown and union workers continue their strike against car manufacturers, there could be major implications for the u.s. economy and the political landscape. here to break down the stakes, amy walter of "the cook political report with amy walter." and tamara keith of npr. thanks for being here. five days left until the deadline to fund the government or there is a shutdown. speaker mccarthy said he is a believer they can get a stopgap

funding bill done, but the hold up is it is republicans' inability to reach consensus. if there is a shutdown, is not clear to the american public, that this is a potential republican shutdown? >> i don't know if they are paying as close attention, there is a lot of other news. the reality is we are spending a lot of time talking about one person, kevin mccarthy, and the number of republicans in the house saying we are ok with a shutdown because we didn't get what we wanted. i think the fact the focus will be on him will make that somewhat clear. the real question is what the implications are in the months and weeks to come. does this last for a significant amount of time? so significant it has a real impact on real people's lives and the economy and how people see the republican party, who is trying to run in 2024 on making us stewards of the economy because democrats have not done

a good job making inflation low. if the conversation in the next few weeks is actually, this is the republicans creating unnecessary damage to the economy, that muddies the waters to their argument. amna: what about the democrats' role in averting a shutdown? we saw a number of them from the administration, from congress asked about it this weekend. is anyone saying we should play a role in averting a shutdown? tamara: they feel as though they can play a role eventually, but first republicans have to figure it out. i talked to congressman colin alred over the weekend and others are out there. the basic message is republicans can't pass anything now on their

own. democrats are not willing to bail them out by passing a partisan measure. on the a bipartisan measure that can make it t of the senate is something democrats in the house would be willing to support. in the end, whenever the shutdown ends, and we don't know when that will be, a large number of democrats are going to end up voting for it. it's possible more democrats will vote for it than republicans, because that's the way it always is with every government funding bill. there are something like a dozen house republicans right now who have never once voted for funding the government. the challenge for kevin mccarthy is the majority is so narrow that some people who have never voted fun the government before would have to do it for them to pass a partisan bill, which would get sent to the senate where the senate is not going to support it and you would be back at square one. that's why a lot of house republicans, and they don't seem upset about it, are protecting the government is going to shut down this weekend.

amna: the strike by united auto workers has widened. they say there is progress in the ford talks. president biden is going to join them on the picket lines in detroit tomorrow. former president trump on wednesday will address auto workers. let's look at how union households have viewed the parties in the past. in 2020, union households made up 20% of voters and broke decisively for mr. biden. we know unions make up a strong part of the constituencies in a number of key swing states, michigan among them. how are they viewing this and is there room for them to break one way or another! amy: michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, very important states. the white house is looking at polling that says union members and unions have never been more popular with the american public

than they are now. they feel that the president being on the side of workers is better for the president than being on the side of business. going to the picket lines is a big way of showing that. i interviewed congresswoman debbie think all recently of michigan. she said in 2015 and 2016 she was shouting from the rooftops that donald trump was talking about trade and showing people in the union movement that he cared deeply about them. did he follow through on all the things he said he was going to do with trade? no, but she said there was a risk to democrats if they don't show support for union workers. amna: the big picture is there is a government shutdown looming, autoworkers strike, and messages being sent to unions about how this is unfolding. inflation has been coming down,

unemployment is at historic close, but what does this mean for democrats, for president biden if the economy doesn't continue to improve? amy: i want to make clear the difference between what the challenges are for uaw unions and the realities of electric vehicles and what that means for specific union workers. the building trades are very happy with president biden because they have so much work thanks to the infrastructure bill. each state is going to have different constituencies that are unionized so when we see a big number like labor households, there are different workers and trades involved. tamara: not all unions are the same. amna: almost all members of the afl-cio endorsed resident biden earlier than ever. uaw held back, though they have made clear they have no intention of endorsing donald

trump. amna: no endorsement yet though. >> the bigger picture is for a president looking at a pessimistic public, anything that makes them feel as though there are headwinds driving down the economy besides the cost of things is not going to be particularly helpful. amna: in the two minutes left, just days after the doj indicted him on corruption and bribery, new jersey senator bob menendez said he will not resign. he said he will be exonerated. we have seen a number of new jersey democrats call for him to resign. there have been some who are silent, for instance fellow senator cory booker. what does the silence say? amy: it's fascinating. only two democratic senators have called for his resignation. i think there is a reticence

among many democrats after what happened a few years back with senator al franken at the height of the me too movement. there were accusations he had sexually harassed someone he worked with, there were photos. almost immediately many of his colleagues called on him to resign. many of those people looking back say, maybe we jumped too soon. we should have allowed this process to play out. this is challenging for democrats. this is 2023, we have democrats running on a message in phonied 24 on don't elect donald trump because of the corruption. do not come out -- when we say corruption, we mean everybody, no matter who you are. i am very curious to see, now that we have seen two senators stepped out, if we won't see more. he also has a challenge from a fellow congressperson in new

jersey. tamara: this is not his first rodeo. this is not the first time he has been indicted on federal charges. he went to trial last time and the jury was deadlocked and there was a hung jury. he didn't resign then either. that might be some of the history. we are in a time in politics where shame and people calling on you to resign is not enough to make people resign. look at george santos, also indicted and everyone on earth has called on him to resign from congress for his many lies, and he is staying put for now. there is this thing in the justice system where you are presumed innocent until proven guilty. you might lose your committees but you can stick around. amna: we will watch as it plays out.

always good to see you both. thank you. geoff: in washington today, president biden hosted a gathering of pacific island leaders that was equal parts about the u.s. growing its relationships and working to counter china's power in the region. lisa desjardins looks at the tensions across the pacific rim. lisa: we are talking about some of the most remote and most beautiful places in the world. these 18 pacific island countries cover an area as vast as the entire continental united states. and they hold an increasingly important position on the map, potential military and economic footholds, as the titans of asia, especially china, wrestle for power. at the white house today, president biden promised economic and climate-related help, dedicating a new coast guard mission.

pres. biden: the united states is committed to ensuring that the pacific region that is free, open, prosperous and secure. we're committed to working with all the nations around this table to achieve that goal. so this year, we shall send the first u.s. coast guard vessel solely dedicated to collaborate and train with pacific island nations. lisa: among the many watching this closely is zach cooper with the american enterprise institute. he also served in high-level security posts during the george w bush administration. these nations are in the middle of a global climate disaster and in between two world powers. how do they see their predicament and especially tensions between the u.s. and china? zach: the u.s. and china didn't really come up in the public statements. in the joint statement, china is not mentioned once. it also didn't come up when president biden made his opening

remarks with the leader of the cook islands. but it is in the background because it is a concern for the united states and some of the pacific islands that fear china's increasingly active political role in the pacific. i think you are right to note that for a lot of these islands, more existential is the threat of climate change. that is probably priority one for most of them. lisa: as you said, a notable lack of mention of china at least so far. what does the u.s. need to do long-term in this region? what's the real concern and what does it need to be looking to do? zach: several concerns from an american point of view. one is the need for military access in the pacific. anyone who remembers world war ii history will remember that 80 years ago this month, some of the worst fighting of world war ii happened in the pacific in these islands. if there was a conflict, those

pacific islands and accessing those islands would be critical. the united states is looking to maintain access to some of them. this is going to require not just a military commitment from the united states, but an economic and political equipment. the islands want additional development assistance and a long-term commitment from washington, so that's what president biden is trying to sell on this several day visit to washington. lisa: these are critical pillars, but for the united states, is this more of a military or economic priority? zach: the pacific islands are not a giant economic generator of gdp for the united states, so at the end of the day i think a lot of americans are going to think about the pacific islands from a military before an economic standpoint.

the united states is looking for additional military access and in exchange, the pacific islands want additional diplomatic recognition. the president today has recognized cook islands as two states for the first time. they are looking for additional economic and development assistance, so the peace corps is entering the pacific now permit you could say this is a bargain. the united states is offering some degree of economic development and diplomatic assistance in exchange for the promise of military access. lisa: you mentioned that recognition of the cook islands is a sign of new relationships in this region. at the same time, the summit has had a couple setbacks, namely the solomon islands boycotting. they developed a close relationship to china and it's

been an issue to foreign policy for countries throughout that region. how serious is that idea, that at least one mayor player in the region does not want to be there? zach: it was a disappointment for the biden team. they were hoping the leader of solomon islands would be present in washington. the challenge for many pacific islanders is they want to be united, they want to show the pacific islands are together in how they approach the united states and china. when one of the leaders does not show up to a fairly significant summit, that's a disappointment not just for washington but the other pacific islanders. i think you are going to see a variety of views across the pacific, some countries leading more -- leaning more toward washington. the united states has compacts of free association with three

islands. those islands really lean toward washington. solomon islands and a couple of the others are leaning toward china. the challenge for the islanders is to manage this dynamic without a fracture among the pacific islands. that's going to be a challenge. lisa: a quick question about u.s. leadership. you mentioned those compacts. three of those island nations depend on the u.s. for things like mail, but we are heading into a possible government shutdown and that could be cut off. is there a question about u.s. government leadership and stability because of what's happening in washington? zach: absolutely. in may, the president had to skip meeting leaders in papua new guinea because he had to worry about a debt crisis. now we are talking about a government shutdown a couple days after they leave. many leaders want sustained commitment and this is going to be a concern going forward. lisa: zach cooper, thank you for joining us.

zach: thanks for having me. ♪ geoff: the family of darryl george, a black high school student in texas suspended over his dreadlocks, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against governor gregg abbott and attorney general ken paxton. his family alleges that abbott and paxton are not enforcing the crown act, which went into effect in texas on september 1. it bans race-based discrimination at schools and in the workplace by saying there can be no action taken against someone based on their hair texture or hairstyles, including locks and twists. darryl george was suspended for violating the school's dress code in the way he wears his hair. we are joint now by texas state representative rhetta bowers, who authored the texas crownct , and is asking for the school district to end the suspension. thank you for being with us. california was the first state

to pass the crown act in 2019. why was it important for texas to have the same protections? rep. bowrs: there are so many student -- students and individuals in business and the workplace who were either being held from walking across stage at graduation, going to prom and celebrating these achievements, but more importantly help from classroom instruction. in addition, people on the workforce, in the workforce. we have been talking with many corporations -- ibm, spring health, hewlett-packard, where people are either help from promotion or don't feel comfortable showing up as their authentic selves at work or for that job interview.

this is why it was important in texas. geoff: in the case of darryl george, school officials say his dreadlocks violate the dress code because they fall below his eyebrows and earlobes if they are not pinned or pulled back. the crown act covers hairstyles, not hair length. with the crown act even apply in his case? rep. bowers: it absolutely would. it is a direct violation of the crown act because those protective hairstyles are listed in the law. the fact that he wears his hair in locks, culturally people grow their hair in locks, so that is why. the hairstyle itself speaks for itself. locks are grown long. it is a direct violation of the crown act. geoff: do you know if the school district or school has discipline white students for having hair that is too long, or

has it only been enforced in this way against a black student? rep. bowers: to my knowledge it has only been enforced in this way and this is the first school district and school when this happened before, when it was deandre arnold. that case is in litigation as well. it is the same school district and they have only been for students of color and african-american students. geoff: the district superintendent said he believes there's address code is legal and teaches students to conform as a sacrifice benefiting everyone. what do you make of that? rep. bowers: at this point the crown act is law in texas and it's a direct violation. i believe students should not be held based on race-based hairstyle discrimination and that is directly what this is.

i do believe that his dress code and grooming code policies need to be updated. we are working with organizations, whether that is the legal defense find and the texas education agency to make sure they are notifying school districts of the policy changes that need to occur. i have been in direct contact with state board of education members that are helping make sure our school districts are updating their policies. geoff: thanks for your time this evening. amna: you may have heard about a nasa probe that yesterday successfully brought back to earth some samples from a deep-space asteroid. it took four billion miles to

get them, but researchers believe it will be worth it. you also may be wondering just why scientists want these samples from what's essentially a huge rock flying through space. well, miles o'brien explains. >> we have confirmed parachute deployment. miles: it looked like one of those nail biting rover landings on mars. but the team in this mission control is savoring a safe arrival on this planet, of some precious pieces of an asteroid. the utah test and training range was the final stop on a seven-year mission to harvest a payload of rock and gravel, so-called regolith, from the surface of an asteroid named bennu. >> then we heard "main chute detected," and i literally into -- literally broke into tears. and i'm probably going to do it again just thinking about it, because that was the moment i knew we made it home. miles: university of arizona planetary scientist dante lauretta is the principal

investigator for osiris-rex. >> these up here are the actual images we acquired from the spacecraft. miles: i first met him two years after launch, when the spacecraft was homing in on bennu. i caught up with him again a few weeks ago. >> bennu is a very rare type of asteroid in the inner solar system. it's incredibly dark, darker than asphalt. and we believed that that meant it was rich in carbon, which is the essential element for all life on earth and key to our origins investigation. miles: "origins" as in the origins of life on earth. asteroids are rocks left over from the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, orbiting in the deep freeze of space ever since. anything mixed in, like water or organic chemicals, likely remains pristine. earth, on the other hand, is a geologically active place. in its early days, it was made

up almost entirely of magma, not a cushy berth for life. but what if vast swarms of asteroids like bennu bombarded earth just as it was cooling down -- say, about 4 billion years ago? >> we believe they delivered the compounds that are essential to making the earth a habitable world. the water that's in our oceans, the air that's in our atmosphere, and the organic material that makes up our bodies and all life forms on earth. miles: that's what makes lauretta and the team so excited about bringing some asteroid regolith to earth. they cooked up a creative approach to collecting the sample -- the "touch and go" method, kind of like a pogo stick. >> just make a brief, maybe five second contact, scoop up as much material as you can, and then back away with that treasure safely in hand. miles: the bennu bonanza is destined for hallowed ground in the world of space retrieval missions -- nasa's johnson space center, the keeper of the apollo moon rocks. bennu's regolith will reside

nearby. scientists are anxious to get busy running the rocks through a gauntlet of tests. they've done several dress rehearsals to get ready. they dress for a raging pandemic. but why? perhaps life might imitate art? >> these people were cut down in midstride. >> everybody is dead. miles: in the 1971 film "the andromeda strain," a satellite crashes in new mexico and infects earth with a virulent extraterrestrial pathogen, killing nearly everyone who comes into contact with it. great science fiction, but -- >> the "science fact" of it is that it's a very low risk for earth. miles: elaine seasly is nasa's deputy planetary protection officer, and yes, that is a real job. her office is on a mission to ensure extraterrestrial rocks don't unleash uncontrollable harm to earth and its inhabitants.

>> most of our missions that explore the solar system are doing so in an unrestricted manner, so we can bring back samples from asteroids, samples from comets, solar winds, those types of particles. all of those don't have a risk of biological contamination. miles: researchers say it's all but impossible that anything is alive on a small asteroid, which is bathed in deadly doses of radiation from the sun. seasly says the main reason scientists need to suit up and do their work in a clean room is to protect it from us. >> this is a case where earth could potentially contaminate the samples once it lands. and so that's why there are special protocols and special handling procedures in place to try to maintain the cleanliness of the samples through that delicate handling process. miles: bennu's rocks may be low risk, but the asteroid itself is a potential threat to earth, a so-called near earth object. astronomers say it's on course

to whizz between us and the moon in 2135 and perhaps paint a bullseye on us in 2182. while nasa monitors that threat, interplanetary contamination garners more attention, as the agency aims to grab and return rocks from the moon and mars. >> when we bring these samples back, we are going to keep them very, very well-protected until we have assured ourselves that the samples are safe. miles: lori glaze is nasa's planetary science division director. she heads the team at nasa that , along with the european space agency, is planning a mission to retrieve and return rocks from mars in the next decade. the first phase of the mission is underway. nasa's perseverance rover has been gathering and sealing up small pieces of the martian surface for a few years and planetary scientists think its location, the jezero crater, was warm and wet 3.5 billion years

ago, a great place to search for signs of ancient life. but they don't expect to find anything that's alive now. >> the current environment on the surface of mars is incredibly harsh. it's cold. it's dry. it is exposed to the sun's radiation, which we know kills off organic materials and breaks it down. so it's highly unlikely that there's anything alive there now. but what we might see is the kind of fossil remnants of early microbes and pre-microbial life. miles: a mars sample return mission is the holy grail for scientists like dante lauretta. he says it's all well worth any slim risk, akin to the andromeda strain. repeal finding life on mars, especially an independent origin of life, would be one of the most profound scientific discoveries in human history. it would be as important as when copernicus showed us that the earth was not the center of the

universe and that, in fact, the earth revolved around the sun. it's that huge of a mind shift because all of a sudden it's like two planets, one system. both had the origin of life. life has to be everywhere. miles: and maybe the best messengers of the ingredients of life were asteroids. bennu might help unlock that secret, once scientists begin their careful work, equal parts probing and protecting. for the pbs newshour, i'm miles o'brien. amna: she made history as america's first black female billionaire after co-founding the black entertainment network, or bet. sheila johnson has broken barriers and found success as an entrepreneur, a business leader, a hotel mogul, and co-owner of multiple professional sports teams.

but that success came at a cost and it masked deep pain and trauma that johnson carried for decades. i sat down with her recently to talk about going public with her story for the first time, in "walk through fire: a memoir of love, loss and triumph." thank you so much for joining us at the newshour. sheila: it's an honor to be here. amna: you stayed silent about much of your personal story for years. your family, behind the scenes of the power struggle -- behind the scenes of the power circles in washington. why share all this now? sheila: because the silence was killing me inside and it was time for me to open up those wounds. and it was time for them to heal. it's been a journey. i have been through three acts in my life. in each one of them, you know, carried certain problems, the second act especially, and unusually painful problems. and now i'm in my third act, and i'm healing and i'm happier than i've ever been. amna: i want to talk about each of those acts, but let's start

closer to the beginning. your father was a military veteran. he was a doctor. your mother was an accountant. life seemed relatively comfortable for you growing up. but all that changed when you were a teenager. and your father basically tells you flat out, i'm leaving. sheila: absolutely. amna: you write about it in the book and you say, "that's how i learned after 18 years of marriage, after raising two children, buying a home, achieving what looked like the american dream, my father had decided he wanted something different out of life." why start with that story in the book? sheila: because that was the time where i realized i had to grow up suddenly. because women back then, and i've learned this over the years, they had very few rights. i mean, just to up and leave two children and a wife that depended on his income, she -- her bank account was in his name, credit cards, you name it. she didn't know which way to turn.

and i think it just really manifested itself where i found her with a nervous breakdown. and it just was the most painful thing for me to ever watch. that has stuck with me for the rest of my life. amna: you moved a lot as a kid, too. sheila: yes. 13 times. amna: 13 times. why? sheila: because my father is an african-american neurosurgeon, was not allowed to practice in white hospitals. also, he could only really work with patients that were of color and couldn't perform operations unless they were black. and then once you ran out of patients, then they moved us again. it was about every ten months until we settled outside of chicago. amna: you talk about these hard lessons of racism. you write this one line that stuck with me. you said "i was always drawn to places that black people don't usually go. what did you mean by that? sheila: i just got tired of not being able to move forward. and i think what happens in the

african american race is that we're suppressed so much. we're taught to not speak out. we're taught to not talk about each other. communication is very little. and even as a young person, they were saying you should be seen and not heard. and it just went against who i am. it's not my in my dna. and i love challenges. i'm a risk taker. so it's just important that i just -- these doors would open and i said, why can't i go through them? and i decided i was going to go through every door that came my way. amna: you do devote a lot of time in the book to your 30 year marriage, to bob johnson, your co-founder of bet, and to his infidelities. and you write very candidly about the shame that you felt, and you write about people coming up to you at parties and asking you to please stay with him, to stay together.

because the community needs you. what was that like? sheila: i think because of how successful bet was. you know, you're the king and queen of media, you know. you're the first black company on television. and they're proud of the fact that there was that representation there. and for it to have scandal where we would break up, it sort of shatters the image of what we were trying to build. but in the meantime, behind the scenes, there was so much going on that people knew it, too. they didn't really want to speak about it. but there were people out there that really loved watching what was going down. they loved hearing about it. there were digs made at me. it was the ultimate betrayal. and i was there really trying to shine a spotlight on him. i was, quote, the good wife, you know, and i was there pushing

him forward and really wanting him to shine. but i was doing so much work in the background and i was literally erased, literally erased out of that company. and i got fired by my own husband because i found out what was really going on. and when i confronted him, he wanted to get rid of me. amna: you also write about the intense trauma of carrying and losing a child. sheila: yes. amna: about delivering and holding your son for the hour that he lived. why was it important for you to include that in the book? sheila: when people read the book, the thread that kind of goes through that, because from the emotional abuse, i felt like a failure. i felt like a failure in everything that i did, the way i looked. i was either too fat or too

thin. i was too outspoken or i didn't speak enough. it was this constant berating of who i really was. amna: this is from your husband. sheila: yes. and my identity was being stripped. i was losing my power. and it was just the case i said, well, okay, once i found out i was pregnant and i had this child and he died an hour later, there i was a failure again. you know, i just couldn't do anything right. i couldn't do anything to please him. and this is what i lived with during that 30 year marriage. amna: divorcing bob, selling bet launches you into this whole new chapter of your life. you're now newly empowered, newly extremely wealthy. you build a luxury resort from scratch out in middleburg, virginia. and you call it salamander. sheila: yes. amna: why? sheila: because when i bought my farm in middleburg, i bought it from a man by the name of bruce sandlin, and he was a world war

ii fighter pilot, and he had been shot down over nazi occupied belgium. his entire unit was captured into a pow camp. he was able to escape and he went into allied territory of france. the u.s. came to him and they gave him the code name salamander. and i say, what does the salamander mean? he says, well, mythically is the only animal that can walk through fire and still come out alive. and if you chop off its limbs, they regenerate. all of that meant so much to me. it really resonated in this part of my life at the time, of going through a divorce and still trying to figure out who i was, it resonated. and i said, can i have that name salamander? he said, what are you going to do with it? i said, well, i'm thinking about starting a company and i would like to brand it salamander, which stands for perseverance, courage and fortitude. amna: sheila, you're a philanthropist.

you are, i think, the only black female co-owner of three professional sports teams, including the championship 2019 winning washington mystics. shout out to them. sheila: yeah. amna: what is next? what does this chapter look like for you? sheila: the doors are still starting to open up again. i'd like to get a couple of more properties in my collection. it's just whatever comes towards me, you know, instinctively. if it's the right thing, i'll embrace it. i just don't want life to be over because i'm enjoying it more than ever now. amna: i have enjoyed our conversation so much. sheila johnson, thank you so much for being here. the author of the new book "walk through fire." appreciate you being here. sheila: thank you. geoff: writer mary otis' work grapples with issues of addiction, artistic purpose, and mother-daughter relationships.

she recently performed excerpts from her debut novel, "burst," at lincoln center in new york city. tonight, she shares her brief but spectacular take on finding her voice. mary: i basically became a writer by accident. when i first moved to los angeles and was at a bit of a crossroads in my life, i only had one friend and i would call this one friend every day. and at a certain point he said, "why don't you take a writing class? " and that's how i ended up completely changing the course of my life. tonight we're going to be hearing the opening pages of my novel, "burst." "burst" is about viva and her mother charlotte, and their untraditional, complex, sometimes fractious relationship, but one that could also be considered a kind of a love story. her mother had two speeds, drunk or driven. here she is on an august afternoon in 1979 at the helm of their vw van, laughing and

waving her hands, alternating one and then the other on the steering wheel. momentarily, no hands on the wheel. then charlotte's left hand flies out the window, slices the air carelessly. her fingers stretched wide as if she'd flung a fist full of pearls at passing cars. artistic purpose and addiction are two central themes in my book. i think those themes can sometimes be intertwined because of the ability for art to take you out of yourself no matter what the art form is. when people are deep in addiction, i think they're in the throes of also trying to reach that place, but with a faulty method. "people used to drink wine for breakfast. did you know that?" said charlotte. she was worldly and once toured with a band called yesterday's horoscope. "what people?" asked viva. "renaissance people," said charlotte. that past year in the fifth grade melody makers, viva had learned a madrigal, a fussy overwrought song that circled

round and round. a renaissance person wrote it and it did make perfect sense to her that they might have been drunk when they did. mary: writing from a child's point of view gives me access to a kind of clear consciousness radio where there's no filter, where there is no obstruction to the truth because kids can often say whatever they think. so i think it's wonderful to have kids come in and have their perceptions running counter to the adult perceptions. mary: when viva learned the planets in science class, mrs. kenmore said that when the earth is closest to the sun, that point is called perihelion. and that was how she thought of herself and her mother. she was the closest anyone could get to charlotte maybe until the end of time. thank you. mary: i'm mary otis and this is my brief but spectacular take on finding your voice. geoff: you can find more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs.org/newshour/brief.

amna: tomorrow, join us for an exclusive interview with vice president kamala harris. and that is the newshour for tonight. i'm amna nawaz. geoff: and i am geoff bennett. thanks for spending part of your evening with us. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> architect, beekeeper, mentor. your raymondjames financial advisor taylor's advice to help you live your life. life well planned. >> it was like an off moment, this -- like an aha moment, this is what i love doing. early-stage companies have energy that energizes me. these are people trying to change the world. when i volunteer with women entrepreneurs, it's the same thing.

i am helping women reach their dreams. i am thriving by helping others every day. people who know know bdo. >> the kendeda fund, committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through restorative ideas. more at candidafund.org. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. more information at macfound.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

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