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. xfinity internet. made for streaming. amna: good evening, i am on the nowise. geoff bennett is away. the focus of the race for the white house turns to the upcoming presidential debate

with donald trump threatening to back out. we need families in sudan whose lives have been devastated by civil war with many forced to flee time and again. >> the future of my children is very dark. we have to believe that we are one nation. amna: and author stephen king reflects on his long career and discusses his new book of short stories. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by -- the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions, and friends of the news hour, including hundred enormous clore vine and the judy and peter bloom cochlear foundation. >> two retiring executives

turned their focus to greyhounds, giving these a real chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and how you give back. a life well planned. >> for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and promoting institutions for a better world. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible for the corporation for public broadcasting and by

contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. amna: welcome to the news hour. with both conventions in the rearview mirror, the 2024 presidential campaign enters its final stage. there are now new questions over whether the candidates will debate at all. tonight donald trump turned his attention to national security and kamala harris's record. lisa: former president donald trump campaigned in michigan as he seeks a second term as commander-in-chief. mr. trump: i am here today because america's future is under threat like never before. lisa: trump accused the biden administration of disastrously mishandling the afghanistan withdrawal. the biden administration said it was set in motion by trump.

in the chaos exactly three years ago today, a suicide bomber in kabul left three american service members killed. mr. trump: kamala harris and joe biden, the humiliation in afghanistan set in motion the decline of american credibility and respect all around the world. lisa: this morning trump laid wreaths at arlington national cemetery in their memory. meanwhile, kamala harris and tim walz were off the campaign trail today, but they are awash in cash, reporting a hall of more than $.5 billion since launching month ago, including $82 million during last week's convention alone. the man who wants harris's current job faced direct questions on meet the press over the weekend. >> can you commit, sitting right here to me today, that if you and donald trump are elected,

you will not impose a federal ban on abortion? >> i can absolutely commit that. >> he would veto a federal abortion ban? >> i think you would, he said explicitly he would. lisa: he was also asked about his running mate, especially donald trump's repeated words questioning if this election would be fair. >> do you have faith this election will be free and fair? >> i do. we are going to make sure that happens and pursue every pathway to make sure legal ballots get counted. lisa: trump is signaling he may bow out of the first head-to-head debate scheduled for december 10, writing, why would i do the debate on nbc? the nurse kim -- the harris campaign said the issue is more specific, that it wants microphones to remain on during any debate and that the trump campaign staff has not agreed. monday morning, trump would not commit to taking part as planned.

the two campaigns will both be on the road this week, harris-walz and trump focusing on georgia. stephanie: i am stephanie sy with news hour west. russia sent a barrage of some 200 missiles and drones across more than half of ukraine overnight and into day. ukraine's air force commander said the attack was the biggest aerial assault of the war. it killed at least four people and injured more than a dozen. in kyiv residents took shelter underground huddling in subway stations. the attacks targeted power and water supplies in the capital. president volodymyr zelenskyy responded in a video address. >> [translated] it was one of the heaviest strikes, a combined one, more than 100 missiles of

various types and about 100 drones. and like most previous russian strikes, this one was just as vile, targeted critical civilian infrastructure. stephanie: president biden called the assault outrageous unpledged defense to be sent to ukraine first. dozens have died in southwest pakistan in three separate insurgent attacks across the region. gunman killed at least 38 people in one province. separatist groups have long fought for independence in that part of pakistan. funeral prayers took place for the victims today after gunman blocked highways, drag people out of their vehicles, and shot them. they also attacked a police station. the military said that security forces killed 21 militants in the response. in germany, chancellor olaf scholz has vowed to toughen the country's knife laws, following

friday's late-night stabbing at a festival that left three people dead and eight injured. scholz visited the western city of solingen today and laid a white rose at the scene of the attack. investigators believe the suspect, who turned himself in over the weekend, shares the radical ideology of the islamic state group. sholz vowed to take action. >> [translated] this was terrorism. terrorism against us all, threatening our lives, our togetherness, the way we live. i want to make it clear with regard to the perpetrator that i am angry and furious about this crime. it must be punished quickly and severely. stephanie: scholz also pledged to get tougher on deportations, after german media reports said the suspect was denied asylum last year but was never deported. a federal judge in texas ordered a temporary pause today on a biden administration program that would allow undocumented

immigrant spouses of u.s. citizens a path to citizenship. the pause comes one week after dhs began accepting applications and follows a lawsuit from 16 states that say the policy will encourage illegal immigration. the order puts the program on hold for two weeks while a legal challenge continues. special counsel jack smith is asking a federal appeals court to bring back the classified documents case against former president donald trump. the case was thrown out last month after judge aileen cannon, a trump-appointee, ruled that smith's appointment was unconstitutional. even if the appeals court reinstates the case, it would be unlikely to go to trial before the november election. a colorado man was charged today with making numerous online death threats toward election officials in colorado and arizona. investigators also found messages to judges and law enforcement, which included threats to shoot or hang officials. the case was brought as part of the justice department's election threats task force,

formed in 2021 to investigate intimidation and harrassment of election officials. nearly 50 million americans were under excessive heat warnings and advisories today. in michigan, schools released early. in minnesota, fair-goers were treated for heat illness. highs approached the century mark in the nation's heartland, combining with humidity to make it feel as hot as 115. and over in the pacific, hurricane hone weakened to a tropical storm over the weekend. but not before dumping at least a foot of rain over parts of southern hawaii as it passed the state. floods shut down major highways on the big island. and the archipelago is not in the clear yet. officials are watching two other storms. one of them, shown here, hurricane gilma, could reach the islands by this weekend. two grocery giants, kroger and albertsons, were in federal court todato defend their

plans to merge, as the u.s. government tries to block them. such a merger would be the largest among supermarkets in u.s. history. the federal trade commission says the $25 billion deal would eliminate competition and raise food prices during a time when inflation is already high. the grocery chains argue that joining forces would curb costs, and allow them to better compete with big retailers such as costco and amazon. the trial is set to last for 3 weeks. still too, on the news hour, tamera keith -- tamara keith and amy walter break down the latest campaign headles. americans affected by hurricanes, heat and floods speak out about the nation's worsening weather events. and how nasa plans to get two astronauts stranded in space home. >> this is the pbs news hour, from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. amna: a dam in a remote part of

sudan collapsed this weekend. the united nations says at least 20 villages were destroyed, and at least 30 people were killed, although the death toll could be much higher. the dam is about 25 miles north of port sudan and provided the city, located on the red sea, with drinking water. port sudan is where many civilians fled because of the country's bitter civil war between the army and a rogue militia, the rapid support forces. in total, 11 million sudanese have been forced from their homes in what is now the world's largest displacement crisis. up to 150,000 people are feared dead and millions more face unimaginable trauma. in her third report from the front lines in sudan, with support from the pulitzer center, special correspondent leila molana-allen follows along with some of the families desperately searching for sanctuary. leila: a perilous journey inching along the front line

with only the occasional cover of the mountains. as we are led through the rough sands, black plumes of smoke rise through the air. but we're not going to the battle zone. we're here to meet sudanese families trying to outrun the conflict. to get out, they have to make it through this treacherous strip alone. this is the northernmost point of omdurman, where displaced people arrive, having escaped from the front line and rsf-held territory. we're wearing protective equipment because in recent days the rsf has been shelling this area. even as people make it here after their dangerous journey, they are still not safe yet. an exhausted mother who's made it here with her baby and toddler. >> [speaking another language] [translated] the fighting is very intense in our area. there is no food there. we have nothing to eat. leila: she's at the very end of her strength.

her eyes glazed, she sits, staring, a brief moment of rest before they have to move on again. >> [translated] we're sick, hungry, and we have small children. we are so tired of this war. we won't survive. living like this is so very hard. leila: all these families arrived just this morning. they are a few of the millions of civilians traversing the country, forced from their homes by this bloody war. if they're lucky, they can afford a seat in a minibus, or a donkey cart. but for most, it's an arduous journey on foot, covering hundreds of miles in the baking heat. they're running from the greatest of horrors -- looting, killing, rape at the hands of rapid support forces militia men. at this construction site in qadarif, the air is thick with the trauma of what they have endured.

there are thousands of people staying in this makeshift reception center. they're practically in the open air, completely exposed to the heat of the day and the wind of the night. they're hoping for a spot in an official displacement camp, but with so many people arriving there just isn't space. and many of them have come from other displacement camps that have now been overrun by the rsf. in the past few weeks, the rsf's latest offensive has swept through the southern state of sennar, sending its residents running for their lives. for most here, it's far from the first time they've had to flee. this is the fifth time salma's family has been displaced by this war. four of her six kids are younger than five. the journey was long and rough, sleeping on a blanket on the roadside each night, fending off snakes and scorpions. >> 10 days on the road from place to place until we got here. when they said they were hungry, i told them we're almost there. when they said they were too tired, i told them we're almost there. i would point and promise them,

"look, your father will be there when we arrive!" leila: but their father was not at the end of the long road. he stayed behind to earn money for his family when they first fled. salma hasn't heard from him since. the attacks happen so fast, family members are often separated. when the rsf descended on their first displacement shelter, her neighbour was out trying to find work, so salma grabbed the woman's teenage daughters, along with her own kids, and ran. >> i couldn't leave them behind. until now, there's no news about their mother, not even a phone call. leila: with no work to be had, they survive on the kindness of others. volunteers distribute one meal a day to the families, and locals from the city bring what they have to share. but now fears of an attack on qadarif are growing. salma doesn't know if she has the strength to run again. >> a few weeks ago there were shells, machine guns, and snipers.

we had to sleep under the beds. if the rss comes here -- the rsf comes here, i am not going anywhere. i will die here. i can't bear to be displaced yet again. leila: with nowhere to house the onslaught of people, schools, closed since the beginning of the war, have become shelters. at this girls school, students were clamouring to continue classes, but didn't want to make the temporary residents homeless. so the principal found a compromise -- the girls arrive at the crack of dawn, and take their lessons in the garden. they've even made space for an extra 250 displaced pupils. inside the school buildings, families living in limbo. amouna's been here six months with her four toddlers. at night, up to 200 people pack these two small rooms. so this is where you've been living? >> yeah, this is the place where i live with my family. leila: al nour's family are

staying in the classroom next door. he says they've seen little international support. >> they have forgotten us. because we didn't see them on the ground, usually. we see people in syria, we see people in ukraine, and something like. but they think this is africa, or something like this. they let us down. now we have two months. we didn't receive anything, especially food. leila: you haven't received any aid in two months? >> yeah, no, two months. leila: and how are you feeling about the future? for your children? for sudan? >> the future of my children right now, i see it is very dark, and it is very sorrowful. we have to believe in we are one nation and to look for the country that has a home for us all. leila: the recently opened displacement camp nearby can't even begin to host this number of people. aid agencies on the ground say without more funding and access

to the areas hit hardest, there's little more they can do. at schools across the country, similar scenes. these families have just fled tuti, a tiny island in the centre of khartoum's three -- of khartoum state. fleeing rsf territory is extremely dangerous. but for mohamed's family, facing daily shelling and shooting and arbitrary arrest by militiamen, the risk of staying any longer was even worse. >> [translated] they were firing shells, which hit houses and people. the bullets were the worst because they were everywhere. there was no water, no electricity for 11 months. people sent us medicine from outside, but the militiamen confiscated them. people died because of the lack of treatment. leila: both mohamed and his wife have diabetes. it was time to go. but only if they could afford the rsf's hefty exit bribes. it cost him nearly $1000 to get his small family out, life savings he was lucky to have, unlike many others.

no one knows what the future holds now. and at night, the children go back to tuti. >> [translated] the children are badly affected by the war. they know the difference between the sounds of bullets and shells. they're psychologically unstable and scared. all they talk about is the militias, even in their games. leila: many are fleeing evils even darker than bombs and hunger. maha, whose name we've changed to protect her, was out running errands in her home town of omdurman when a gunfight broke out. in seconds, her husband was dead and the rsf had kidnapped her. for six months she was held captive, subjected to horrifying abuse. >> [translated] there was beating, sexual assault, and death. everything was done to us. leila: finally, they gave her a choice -- work for the rsf or we will kill your children. >> that's where the torture and

training began. they trained us girls. my role was to be a spy to gather information for them. because my children were in their hands, i had no choice but to work with them. leila: eventually she was caught. now, she spends her days in a protection center in the army zone, dreaming helplessly of her three young kids. >> [translated] until now, i don't know if my children are alive or dead. leila: i tell maha we should stop if it's too much. no, she insists, people need to know what's happening. >> [translated] many other people have experienced similar things. i am not the first girl, nor will i be the last. some girls were raped in front of their parents. all sudanese have been psychologically damaged by the rsf. we live in fear. leila: with the war still raging, there's little space for

healing. escape, survive, escape, survive. a nightmarish cycle playing out on repeat for sudanese families who never know if their next stop will be their safe place, or their last. the distances displaced sudanese families have to cover to escape the fighting are vast. and they're often taking the long way around the mountains to try to avoid the shifting front lines. everyone we speak to is telling us that when the rsf assaults a new town or village they attack so fast and so brutally that civilians have to drop everything and run. even those who make it as far as port sudan, the military capital on the red sea, are little better off. children arrive in dire condition on the outskirts of the city. even those who look relatively healthy turn out to have malnutrition. even for those with some cash, most food is unaffordable now. the price of meat has risen by 6 times in the past two months. 75-yeaold khadija has been trying to make money at the central market since she arrived

here from her besieged home town. a sympathetic local gave her some cash to start a business. but the going is tough. >> [translated] i am currently living in a house without a door or window. rain and wind are over our heads. we have no money. we fled and left everything behind. we only escaped with our lives. all i own is this shawl that i'm wearing. do i look like i know the price of a can of oil now? i don't have the budget to even ask about it, let alone buy it. leila: homeless, penniless, constantly trying to outrun the next attack. this conflict which has devastated the lives of millions of sudanese shows little sign of slowing on its path of destruction. for the pbs newshour, i'm leila molana-allen in port sudan.

amna: there are just 70 days left until election day and the campaigns are ramping into high gear. that means there's a lot to break down this weekend politics. for that we are joined by our politics 20, amy walter of the cook political report with amy walter and tamara keith of npr. so one week after the democratic national convention -- amy, as you know sometimes candidates get a convention bounce. this is a weird year. are we seeing that or do we expect to for kamala harris? amy: that's a good question because unlike any other election where the candidate really just came onto the scene less than a month before the convention, she got a lot of that bob before we even got to chicago with the base rallying around her. but she has had the wind at her back so to speak for the last --

really since she has been in this race, and it has not abetted. if anything, the convention crystallized the kind of momentum that she has been able to sustain for the last month. if you have democrats leaving chicago, but also you are feeling it around the rest of the country. more enthusiastic and energized than at any point this year and maybe for the last two years. so she may get a little bump out of that. but overall, i think this is the real question going forward and this is what trump is trying desperately to stop, that she has been able to basically control the narrative of this campaign on the terms that she wants to talk about, whether it is on issues like abortion or putting the economy, the economic question, in terms that work for her. most important, she has been able to, even as the incumbent,

grab the change candidate. she is part of the status quo but has somehow managed to also be the person turning the page. if you are donald trump, you have to find a way to blunt that. amna: broad and out to bo's camp -- to both campaigns. this is a condensed timeline, 70 days to go. you have a new ticket late in the cycle. what are you seeing from the campaigns at this stage that tells us the priorities and strategies at this homestretch? tamara: trump's campaign did put out a memo over the weekend saying, there is going to be a bump. harris will see her number are rise. don't worry, it will go away. everybody sees this and it goes away. it is not clear because it is a tight schedule what will happen but what i do know is that donald trump is campaigning like he is losing. what i mean by that is he is doing a lot of events. he is doing a bunch of different types of events. he is doing everything he can to wrest attention away from harris.

today what that meant is he went to arlington national cemetery outside of washington, d.c., then he went to a vietnamese restaurant in northern virginia campaigning with a senate candidate, doing these small retail type events. that is not something he has typically done. he is doing everything he can to get attention. harris, on the other hand, is going to have a bus tour this week through georgia. what is interesting about that is it is the same strategy they employed in pennsylvania, which is to say that atlanta is not georgia. the state has many other areas. rural areas where there are democratic voters. they may be outnumbered, but they could still hear from the candidate and reduce their losses in some of those areas. she is doing a bus tour, not just big rallies. both campaigns are running like it is a real race. because it is a real race. amna: there is another factor that could have an impact on the race that we know will be won on

the margins. that is friday's announcement that robert f kennedy is suspending his camping and endorsing donald trump. amy, we already saw his support drop after harris became the nominee. have his support went to her. does his endorsement mean what? the other half go to trump? amy: it is true, before biden dropped out of the race, about 8% of voters said they were voting for rfk junior. today it is down to half of that. most of those went to harris. what is happening now, at least in surveys we did a couple of weeks back, looking just at the battleground states, voters who remained kennedy supporters, if you push them on the question of if you had to, who will you support, almost half say they are trump supporters. do they show up or do they stay home? they are sitting there because

they really liked rfk and they are disappointed and maybe now they don't show up for trump. if they do show up for trump, especially the undecided voters, if they combine a lot for trump as well, you are talking about movement of a point or so or a little under a point. it doesn't look big. but when we have had the last two elections decided by 10,000 votes here and 15,000 votes there, if i am the trump campaign i would be ready to bring those people back into my camp. amna: and if you are the harris campaign, as we saw, the campaign chair put out a statement after rfk junior dropped out basically saying vice president harris wants to earn there support. also saying this, for any american tired of donald trump and looking for a new way forward, ours is the campaign for you. are those voters winable by harris?

what is their best argument? amy: part of that is signaling that they take no vote for granted. a big part of it is signaling that. as we have said, this is a close race and will continue to be. they cannot look like they are writing off a group of voters. sure, they could go nuclear on all of rfk junior's many liabilities and try to tie those to trump, and they will do that too. but this was the conciliatory thing you would expect. we are a big tent. look at the convention, they had all of these republicans for trump. today they announced another 200 republicans for trump. they are building a stable of people who they hope will create a structure, a permission structure. of people they hope will feel uncomfortable with trump to vote for harris. that is not the major thrust of the campaign but one of the many angles. they are trying to scoop up little bits of voters. amna: it is a reminder that the democratic coalition since biden has been one of bringing in

voters that say, i don't know that i can really vote for donald trump, to say, and in, we are now part of that anti-trump party. amna: you hardly set report earlier that there is another debate scheduled for later in september. mr. trump is casting doubt that he will actually take part. do you think it will happen? and does it make an impact? amy: yes. to tam's point, this is now a place where donald trump needs to change the direction of his campaign. in june it was biden that wanted that debate because he knew he was running behind. now trump wants to change the focus. since harris got into this race, the trump campaign has been very adamant that she hasn't been tested, pushed, hasn't set down for an interview. let's see how she is able to do once she gets under the hot

lights of having to answer a question that's not on a teleprompter, that's not scripted. >> she has been conducting a one-way conversation with the american people. it has not been a two-way conversation. she has not been pressed. a debate is an opportunity, the interview she has promised she would do by the end of august, and the end of august is soon, that will also be a two-way conversation. and the harris campaign clearly seems to want the debate to happen, but they are also i think enjoying i could say getting under trump's skin about it. amna: what do you mean by that? tamara: implying that his handlers don't want him to have the open mic. he wants to make shutdown. then trump gets asked about it and says, i would be perfectly happy with the mics being open, and that blows up the negotiations in the behind the scenes debate about the debate. amna: i feel like we will continue to have a debate about the debate until the debate happens.

tamera keith of npr and amy walter of the cook political report, always great to see you both. thank you so much. ♪ the punishing heat hitting much of the u.s. this week and the downpour that hawaii is endearing are just the latest in what has been a relentless summer of extreme weather. we spoke to people in different parts of the country about the impacts of these events and how they are thinking about the future. >> 6, 8 inches of rain in 24 hours. we are not used to that. >> we bought a generator, and i never thought i would need a generator after living here for 40 years. >> as a farm year -- as a farmer, this year has been a very difficult year. >> right now in the triple

digits that we're hitting, you know, it's a danger to be outside between 11:00 and 3:00 p.m. >> my name is liz leivas. i live in tempe, arizona. >> my name's katie swick, and i live in montpelier, vermont. >> my name is ben nguyen and i live in houston, texas. >> my name is beverley blackwell bowen from reidsville, north carolina. >> my name is juan declet-barreto. i'm a senior social scientist for climate vulnerability with the union of concerned scientists. danger season is a term that we use at the union of concerned scientists. starts in may, ends in october. the concerns around danger season are the increased frequency of extreme weather events that can occur back to back that can threaten the population on an almost regular basis. by may 7, almost 33% of the population have been under at least one extreme weather alert. this number jumped to 50% or nearly 170 million people, by may 20. by june 22, that number had reached 95%. that's very concerning. >> my family has been here for

generations, beyond when this place was a state or even a territory. and i grew up outside playing outside. but right now you don't see kids playing outside. i am eight months pregnant, and one of the things that i discussed with my doctor when my feet started swelling is how can i reduce it or what's causing it? and so my doctor shared with me, well, the heat will actually cause it to swell. so if you're starting to swell now -- and i was maybe 3 or 4 months in -- they are going to be swollen, my feet, for the rest of the pregnancy, and it was really hard to accept. and so i ended up buying little ice packs that i wrap around my feet, for the swelling. >> last july, my home received 32 inches of water on the first floor. we spent the next days and days emptying everything out of the home and piling it into the front yard. and then a few weeks later, watching it get all taken away

by big cranes and dumpsters. in december, the basement flooded again three feet. and then this past july, the basement flooded again. having to figure out how to pay a mortgage and rent and get that money from fema. i just spent so much time and energy, trying to recover and not feel like -- instead of a disaster happening to me and not feeling like becoming the disaster. >> as a property manager in houston, taking care of single family residential homes, we were managing things like sinks and doors needing to be adjusted and small repairs. but over the last two years, we've shifted into this disaster recovery company where we're going out taking care of rooves -- roofs and power outages, electrical surges, floods, you name it. it's been very challenging. we're shifting from living and enjoying to preparing and bracing. all of that really just affects

quality of life at the end of the day, how much we spend enjoying looking out the window versus stressed about packing a to go bag. none of that is is exciting and fun. if i just look at the month of july alone, we had 20 or more days of 90 plus degree . on top of the heat, we also had a drought condition. with the hurricane that came through on august 8, we got probably a little over eight inches of rain. i have been out there now on the farm eight years. i've had to deal with a tornado, two storms. so it's a challenge. it's very difficult. >> one of the most sobering things that scientists have said is that we are not looking at the worst of climate change, but we are looking at the minimum impacts that we will see during our lifetime and the lifetime of our children. >> arizona is in my blood.

it is my roots. my family's been here for generations. although it is hot, i would never want to live where it is cold. i love the state, and i love where i live. but it's just -- it's getting harder to stay. >> i'm finding it very hard to make a decision of tearing down a 140-year-old house. or i elevate it and move back in and have to deal with fixing it up for the next two years. is it going to be high enough for the next time it happens? i think about these things too much. it wakes you up in the middle of the night wondering what to do. >> not once have i considered moving, until this year when the derecho and hurricane beryl came through. seeing the power outages, seeing the damage on the homes, seeing the excessive heat where ac's can't keep up anymore. it sparked me and my partner to look somewhere else to live and we just recently put an offer

down on a house in the seattle-tacoma area. we are looking to make a big shift and a big move because we want the stability back. >> i don't see an ending at all, because each year it continues to get progressively worse. you have to be proactive, you have to be resilient, and you pretty much have to think outside of the box now. how do we as farmers sustain long term? i don't have the answers to it and it's very stressful to even think about. ♪ amna: nasa's initial test launch with the boeing starliner capsule has not worked out well, to say the least. the space agency announced this weekend it has finally decided that the two astronauts stuck at

the international space station, suni williams and butch wilmore, will come back on a space x dragon capsule next year instead. the pair were initially sent on an eight-day mission in early june. nasa administrator bill nelson said the priority has to be safety of the astronauts. >> spaceflight is risky, even at its safest, and even at its most routine. and a test flight, by nature, is neither safe nor routine. and so the decision to keep butch and suni aboard the international space station and bring the boeing starliner home uncrewed is a result of a commitment to safety. amna: here to discuss the latest now is our science correspondent miles o'brien. so, miles, we know nasa's been weighing whether to try to bring

suni and butch home on the boeing craft or a space x craft. what do we know about why they ultimately decided to go with spacex? miles: they just could not be certain about the thrusters, which are key here. all of the people making these decisions, we should point out, lived through the searing tragedy of columbia back in 2003 when the orbiter disintegrated on reentry. it's really important that these thrusters work as advertised when they are supposed to, because it's a very unforgiving, risky portion of the flight, to say the least. if they come in too hot, that's a problem. and if they come in with not enough speed, they could skip off the atmosphere. so since they went through the testing, they tried to understand the problems with these thrusters, which manifest -- manifested as they approached for docking. and they just don't feel confident that they know enough about why they failed to understand if they might be reliable enough to get the crew home.

and so at that point, there was no logical or safety rationale to put two human beings at risk for this return of the boeing starliner. so it will go back uncrewed. amna: so if they can't be sure it's reliable, what does this mean for the future of the starliner and also for boeing's relationship with nasa? i mean, will they still work on missions together? miles: yeah, i mean, boeing and its predecessor companies goes back to the very beginning of nasa, the first spacecraft . they had been contractors on, you name it, just about every program, including the shuttle and the international space station, for example. there's no indication that there's going to be a separation of these two entities. boeing and nasa will probably continue to work together. highly likely. both leaders of both organizations are saying so. what's really interesting right now is what happens on the next flight for starliner. will that be an uncrewed mission to test out these thrusters,

which are so balky? or will they allow astronauts to be a part of that next flight? that's an open question. amna: so an eight day mission has now turned into a several months long mission. if the decision has now been made about how suni and butch are going to get home, why will it take so long to actually bring them home? why until 2025? miles: yeah. why is it gilligan's island, people are asking for sure. basically, there are no seats for them to return home on the spacecraft which are attached to the international space station. they're not going home in the starliner. there's a spacex dragon there, but no seats for them. so what are the options? well, they could build a whole rocket for them to come pick them up, or much more efficiently, a crew which is set to arrive next month -- it is a four person crew. two of those crewmembers will stay home now, opening up two seats, and suni and butch, for

all intents and purposes, have been volunteered to be a part of this mission, which lasts six months into february. so it's the most efficient for the flow of the space station, but probably not the most convenient for butch or suni. amna: to say the least. what do we know about -- this is what's always top on my mind. do they have what they need so i -- what they need? they planned for an eight day mission. do they have what they need to get through these next several months? or is there going to be some kind of resupply mission to get them supplies? miles: yeah, it's worth pointing out they went up without suitcases. they had to make room for a piece of equipment to haul up to the space station to fix the water recycling system, so they didn't even have a change of clothes. well, there's been a cargo mission arrived just a week or so ago with 8600 pounds of stuff. and at any given time, nasa has enough clothing, food, consumables for a four person crew to last four months. so there's plenty of stores up there.

that's not really the problem. they'll be fine. they're not going to go hungry, they will have clothing, etc. but they do have a long mission ahead that they didn't anticipate. amna: and what about that mission to come home as well? i mean, the fact that they trained to go up and come back on a completely different craft than the one they'll actually be coming back on. what does that mean logistically? miles: yeah. well, the dragon spacecraft is highly automated, and obviously the two person crew, which will fly up, will be fully trained in spacex and dragon functionality and the checklist, so to speak. suni and butch are test pilots with a lot of experience. they flown on the shuttle. they flown in the soyuz. now the boeing starliner. and they'll be in the history books when they go back on the dragon, having flown in for all four vehicles. but given the fact that they have an experienced crew with them and they are well-versed as

test pilots and they have plenty of time right now i guess to read the manual, i guess it'll be okay. amna: our science correspondent, miles o'brien. always good to speak with you. thank you. miles: pleasure. amna: 50 years ago a 26 year-old rural maine school teacher wrote a horror novel titled "carrie." batman, stephen king, has -- that man, stephen king, has gone on to write more than 60 books since. they have sold between 400 million to 500 million copies worldwide and have been turned into films like "the shining". "shawshank redemption". "stand by me" and many more. king invited our senior arts correspondent jeffrey brown to his main home -- his maine home to talk about his latest book of

short stories called "you like it darker" and the long arc of his career. part of our arts and culture series, canvas. jeffrey: in his new collection, stephen king writes of the eerie, the unsettling, the otherworldly raising its head in this one. he calls it you like it darker, and he clearly does. stephen: darker means spooky, it it means scary, it means let's exercise our unpleasant emotions for a while. i think that people like the idea of opening the door and sang, i wanted darker. do you want it darker? okay. we're in agreement. and now let's go into the woods together. jeffrey: millions of walkers had taken that dark walk with king, but we had our own lighter one with the now 76-year-old. stephen: i feel a little bit like if i was a car, i would trade. jeffrey: near his woods in maine , the state where so many of his

tales have been set. stephen: i love maine. i love the country, i'm not much of a city kid. i know the people. and i think that they are stand-ins for people everywhere. i want to write about regular people, ordinary people in the best way that i know how. jeffrey: in the best way, even in their dark moments. stephen: i'm interested in what happens when regular people are suddenly confronted with something that's totally out of their wheelhouse, something that's entirely different. i think that literature, in quotation marks, is about extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances, and what i do are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. jeffrey: king himself grew up mostly in working class rural maine, his mother raising him and his brother after his parents divorced. he began writing columns for his

high school newspaper and then stories and more at the university of maine, where he met tabitha, another young writer, now his wife of 53 years. early on, the young couple took on a variety of jobs to make ends meet. stephen: i just wanted to support my family, to be able to say, i'm doing work. my wife also worked. she worked at dunkin donuts. she would come home smelling like a cruller. she looked so cute. jeffrey: "carrie," the 1974 horror novel and, two years later, brian de palma-directed film, changed everything, with sissy spacek as a shy, bullied high school girl with telekinetic powers. unforgettable revenge ensues. in his 2000 book "on writing," king tells of battling his own demons, early on with alcohol and drugs, later after a van hit him on one of his local walks,

leading to years of pain and physical difficulties felt to this day. can one write darker without having a kind of darkness himself? stephen: basically, i'm a perfectly nice fellow. good family man, good husband, good father, and all of this stuff that's on the dark side, it comes out in the stories and so it doesn'come out in life. i used to think to myself, i could have been a very bad person, except for the stories that i tell takes off a lot of the pressure. jeffrey: maybe that's how his stories work for all of us. whatever it is, stephen king is as much a cultural icon as any american writer today. so we got all these movie posters. especially when you consider the number of films and series made from his stories, around a hundred. stephen: my first editor, bill thompson, used to say steve has a movie camera in his head.

jeffrey: oh really? like you see this story? stephen: yeah, the stories are very visual. i grew up, the first generation with movies and tv, and they made a big impression on me. so i have a tendency to see things. and that's part of the pleasure, is the seeing. ♪ jeffrey: more pleasure has come at times from rock 'n' roll. the "rock bottom remainders," a band king formed in the '90s with other writers including dave barry and amy tan. for all his success, king admits he wasn't always happy with the critical reception he got. stephen: there was a time when i felt like nobody will ever take me seriously as a writer's writer, just as somebody who makes money. and it did make me angry because it seemed to me that there was an underlying assumption about popular fiction that if everybody reads it, it can't be very good.

i've never felt that way. i've felt that people can read and enjoy on many different levels. jeffrey: you got over worrying about that at some point, clearly. stephen: i got old. and i think that probably a lot of the critics who didn't like my stuff are now dead. so [beep] them. jeffrey: bleep them. stephen: yeah, bleep them. jeffrey: you also wrote in your book "on writing," you wrote about not only being the story's creator, but its first reader. you want to feel the suspense of the story yourself? stephen: not only do i want to feel the suspense of the story, i want to relish the good parts. jeffrey: you want to enjoy the good parts? stephen: every now and then you say to yourself, i wrote a really good line there. oh, boy, that's really cool.

jeffrey: but how does he do it? and how does he generate so many ideas? stephen: i can't explain it. but see, that's the beautiful thing about what i do. it's just like being belted by an idea. jeffrey: he cites the example of the story "danny couglin's bad dream" in the new collection. stephen: i was getting out of bed one day, and i thought to myself, what if an ordinary guy had a psychic vision in a dream about where a body was buried and actually went out there and found that body? would anybody believe that he had that vision? or would they think that he did it? and -- jeffrey: wait a minute, you just woke up thinking that? stephen: yeah. no, i didn't wake up thinking that. i was putting on my pants when i had this idea, you know. and i put them on one leg at a time, and i had one leg my pants, and i had this idea.

and by the time i got the other leg in, i had almost the whole story. see -- and who wouldn't want to do something like that! i mean, that's so trippy. but it is just the way that my mind works. jeffrey: trippy, dark, and clearly having a hell of a writing life. stephen: i am very fortunate to be able to do what i do. i love to tell stories. and in a way, i get paid for something that, in the words of the late john d. mcdonald, i would do for free. jeffrey: coming soon in the stephen king universe, several new film and tv adaptations of his work. from the darker side in western maine, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs news hour. amna: online we have more from stephen king, including what he watches and reads when he's not writing. that's on our youtube channel. our student reporting labs'

podcast called "on our minds" has a new season focused on the election and the youth vote. two new student hosts, nico fischer and poojasai kona, along with student reporters from around the country talk with conservatives and liberals, experts and candidates, about the political issues that matter most to young people. >> this election year is wild. >> and its drawing us apart. >> the election is affecting all of us, even those of us who are too young to vote. >> on this special season of on our minds -- >> student reporters are asking -- >> what does it mean to be an american? >> does my vote matter? >> what is real or fake? >> we are having conversations with everyone. >> conservatives. >> liberals. >> experts. >> candidates. >> as americans, we need to come together, and the way to do that is by -- >> listening. >> this is on our minds, election 2024. >> a podcast by teens, for

teens. listen wherever you get your podcasts. amna: that is the news hour for tonight. on behalf of the entire news hour team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by -- supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. more information at mac found.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contribution to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

this is pbs news hour west from weta studios in washington and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

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