geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on the “news hour” tonight, the fbi reveals the georgia school shooting suspect was on law enforcement's radar, raising questions about how he was still able to carry out the attack. geoff: kamala harris and donald trump prepare for next week's debate as legal cases against the former president make their

way through the courts. amna: and the first batch of mpox vaccines arrives in congo. why it's been so difficult to get the shots needed to curb the spread of the deadly virus. >> i can't even express how much distrust and anger there is in africa over this whole thing. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs news hour" has been provided by. >> a law partner rediscovers her grandmother's artistry and creates a trust to keep the craft alive. a raymondjames financial advisor gets to know you, your passions, and the way you enrich your community. life well planned. >> on an american cruise lines

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this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the “news hour.” georgia is mourning the lives of four people killed in a high school shooting yesterday. nine others were injured. geoff: today, reports of the 14-year-old suspect's past run-ins with law enforcement raised even more questions, about his motive, how he got access to a gun, and how potential warning signs went unaddressed. at apalachee high school, some students returned today to grieve at a makeshift memorial. a quiet morning, after yesterday's tragedy. >> bless us and walk with us each day as we go forward. geoff: the community gathered

for a vigil last night after a 14-year-old student opened fire outside his algebra classroom. four people, two students and two teachers, were killed. those who survived, still processing what they had witnessed hours earlier. >> you could hear gunshots just ringing out through the school and you're just wondering, which one of those is going to be somebody that you're, like, best friends with or somebody that you love. >> i still don't believe this is real. i knew a girl that got shot in her leg, and it really broke me because she was like a sister to me. and i don't know how to react to it. geoff: students recounted ducking for cover in their classrooms, as gunshots rang through the hallway. within minutes, officials say, the shooter surrendered to school resource officers. questions remain about how the teenage gunman obtained an assault-style rifle, as more information emerges about his past encounters with law enforcement. in may 2023, the fbi traced online posts from an individual threatening to shoot up a middle school, according to multiple news reports.

that led authorities to the youth who was then 13. he denied making those comments. his father insisted his son did not have access to hunting guns kept inside their house. authorities alerted nearby schools to monitor him, but he was not arrested or further detained. in a home search yesterday, according to the new york times, police found evidence the gunman was, quote, obsessed with the 2017 school shooting in parkland, florida. he is set to appear in court virtually, tomorrow. among his victims, two 14-year-old students, mason schermerhorn, whose family described him as a lighthearted teen, and a lover of disney world. christian angulo, whose friends called him a free spirit with a chill attitude. and two faculty members, 53-year-old christina irimie, a devoted math teacher described as patient and caring. and 39-year-old richard aspinwall. he also taught math, and coached football as the team's defensive coordinator.

>> coach was an amazing guy. he pushed us to be great at what we did and for our team. so, it was really hard to lose someone that pushed himself to really, like, make us better and make sure that we're better at what we do. geoff: apalachee joins a long list of american schools that now bear the scars of gun violence. and it's the 30th mass killing of 2024, in which four or more people are murdered in a 24-hour period, as defined by the fbi. such incidents have claimed at least 127 american lives this year alone. amna: turning now to the presidential campaign, voters have just two months to make their choice between vice president harris and former president trump, and in less than a week the two will meet on the debate stage. laura barron lopez has the latest. laura: the harris/walz campaign is pushing through the keystone

state this week. pennsylvania senator john fetterman welcomed vice president kamala harris on the tarmac in pittsburgh this afternoon, where she'll stay until next week's presidential debate in philadelphia. harris' running mate, minnesota governor tim walz, barnstormed through lancaster and pittsburgh wednesday before arriving in erie, pennsylvania this afternoon. meanwhile, former president donald trump was in his hometown to speak to the economic club of new york. >> we have to take care of our own nation and our industries first. laura: he boasted about his administration's economic policies, and without evidence, blamed undocumented migrants for taking jobs from black and hispanic americans. >> african americans and hispanic american jobs are under massive threat from the invasion taking place at our border.

they're taking the jobs of hispanic americans, african americans, and nobody talks about it. laura: in a fox news town hall last night, trump compared himself to hungarian prime minister viktor orban, who has been criticized for authoritarian and anti-democratic policies. >> that was a question they asked viktor orban, who's really a very considered a very strong -- they said he's a strong man. sometimes you need a strong man. laura: multiple former trump officials and some fellow republicans have warned trump will model a second presidency after other strongman leaders like orban, russian president vladimir putin, or china's xi jinping. >> he has said he will ignore the rulings of the courts, he won't leave office. he's a risk that we simply can't take. laura: at a duke university event last night, former congresswoman liz cheney said the threat of another trump administration means republican voters can't sit out or vote third party. >> because of the danger that

donald trump poses, not only am i not voting for donald trump, but i will be voting for kamala harris in this election. laura: cheney joins other republicans who have gone against their party's candidate, including her fellow january 6 house committee member, former representative adam kinzinger. harris will soon have a chance to face trump herself in the upcoming presidential debate. >> if you've got something to say, say it to my face. laura: both have agreed to the ground rules, including muted mics when it's not a candidate's turn to speak. for the "pbs news hour," i'm laura barron lopez. amna: key details at the center of former president donald trump's election interference criminal case were debated in a washington, d.c. courtroom this morning. judge tanya chutkan declined to slow down proceedings in the case, giving prosecutors a tentially politicallyial, and damaging evidence against mr. trump in the next three weeks.

the case had been on hold for several months while the former president's team argued for presidential immunity at the supreme court. npr's carrie johnson was in the courtroom for the hearing, and she joins me now. today was the first time both sets of lawyers were back in the courtroom since that big supreme court ruling on presidential immunity earlier this summer. what was each side there to do? carrie: lawyers for the special counsel jack smith want to suggest that their case survives even the supreme court decision, which required them to pare down significant parts of their case against former president donald trump. they want to file a brief by the end of this month explaining why trump should continue to face these charges and why he was acting in his personal capacity, or his capacity as a political candidate, and not in his capacity as president of the united states when he attempted to cling to the power in 2021,

right around the time of the january 6 insurrection. as for trump's lawyers, their strategy all along has been to delay this case. what they now want to do, to the extent they can, is control the idea of any further damaging details coming out about january 6 in advance of the november election. a former public defender is right in the middle of all of this and she will have to make those tough calls. amna: the political timeline really does seem to matter. this is a case about mr. trump's actions to overturn the 2020 election. we are now facing down the 2024 election. did that political timing come up today? carrie: it absolutely did. trump's lawyer basically told the judge this is a very sensitive time in our nation's history. we are talking about the presidency here. the judge shot back immediately. i am talking about a four count felony indictment against donald trump, i am not talking about

the presidency. the electoral calendar should play no role in this prosecution. and indeed see accepted by the end of the deity special counsel proposal and set up a briefing schedule about trump's immunity and lingering questions about that immunity to end shortly before the election. the open question now is whether any new detail will come out in public from those fbi witness interviews and grand jury testimonies in advance of the election or whether the judge will keep all of those new details under seal until after voters go to the ballot box. amna: on another legal front, the president's son hunter biden was in court today for what was supposed to be jury selection in his federal tax case. he surprised everybody by changing his plea to guilty. what we know about why that change and what happens now? carrie: a really wild day in court. my colleague was there. hunter biden's lawyers said he

did not want to put the family through further english. there was a possibility that hunter biden's daughter and others may be called to testify. hunter biden was already convicted in june. he has now pleaded guilty in california on nine additional tax charges. what happens next in that case is sentencing in mid-december. the current president joe biden maintains he will not pardon his son. we will have to see what happens after the sentencing in california and after the election. amna: i want to take you back to that trump case. you reported one of the biggest legal battles ahead will involve former vice president mike pence. why? carrie: this is a huge issue because the supreme court left open the idea that trump could be immune from prosecution for conversations with his vice president mike pence. prosecutors will have to show they have overcome that high burden. they want to say that trump was

pressuring pence in his role as president of the senate with respect to counting of the electoral votes, not in his role as president involving executive power. that will be a major fight moving forward in this donald trump january 6 case. amna: that is npr's carrie johnson joining us tonight. thank you. always good to see you. carrie: thank you. ♪ amna: we begin the day's other headlines with a rare visit to haiti by america's top diplomat. secretary of state antony blinken is the highest-ranking u.s. official to visit the caribbean nation since 2015. blinken met with top officials just a day after haiti's government extended a state of emergency to the entire country. he said that haiti has taken critical steps towards organizing elections next year. haiti last held elections in

2016, and officials blame ongoing gang violence and political upheaval for the delay in a new vote. gangs currently control about 80% of the capital, port-au-prince. ukraine has a new top diplomat amid a broader shake-up of president volodymyr zelenskyy's government. andrii sybiha is taking over as foreign minister. the former ambassador to turkey will be tasked with pushing ukraine's western allies for continued support in its fight against russia. his appointment follows the resignation of five top officials, as zelenskyy seeks to bring quote, new energy to the war effort. for his part, russian president vladimir putin told an economic forum today that ukraine's recent incursion into russia's kursk region has been a misguided effort. >> our armed forces have stabilized the situation and have begun to gradually push it out of the border areas. by transferring their fairly large and well-trained units to our border areas, the enemy has

weakened itself in key areas, and our troops have accelerated offensive operations. amna: separately, the justice department has charged a former adviser to donald trump's 2016 campaign for work he did for a sanctioned russian tv network. authorities say dimitri simes sighmz and his wife accepted more than $1 million from russia's channel one since 2022, and then laundered the proceeds. simes also made frequent tv appearances in the u.s. over the years, including on this program. if convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison. an olympic marathon runner has died after a domestic violence attack in which her partner doused her with gasoline and set her on fire. a police official in kenya, where rebecca cheptegei trains, says the attack happened during a disagreement over land on sunday. friends of cheptegei note that this isn't the first tragedy to affect female athletes in africa.

>> i can say we are still in shock, and we are in pain, especially as athletes. and this thing happening in kenya, this is the second time an athlete has been attacked now, it has come to rebecca, so we are not happy. amna: cheptegei competed in the paris olympics less than a month before she was killed, finishing in 44th place. rebecca cheptegei was 33 years old. here in the u.s., fbi agents have reportedly searched the homes this week of at least three top deputies to new york city mayor, eric adams. they are said to include the deputy mayor for public safety, phillip banks. timothy pearson, who advises the mayor on public safety. and sheena wright, the first deputy mayor, seen here with the mayor last year. the searches are the latest legal trouble for mayor adams. last year, federal agents seized his phones and ipad in relation to a corruption investigation into campaign financing.

adams has denied any wrongdoing. sky-high temperatures are suffocating the west coast, triggering heat warnings from washington state to southern california. and things are only heating up. tomorrow, los angeles is expected to see its hottest day in four years, with some areas reaching 118 degrees. the heat has also sparked wildfire warnings. one blaze has already burned through more than 3000 acres just north of lake tahoe. hundreds of residents were ordered to evacuate the area. ticketmaster is under investigation in the united kingdom for prices it set for a reunion tour of the 1990's band oasis. the uk's competition watchdog is looking into what it calls dynamic pricing, which causes ticket costs to fluctuate based on demand. fans say that caused them to pay more than double the face-value of their tickets last week when they went up for sale. the watchdog says ticketmaster may have breached the uk's

consumer protection laws, and engaged in unfair commercial practices. on wall street today, stocks struggled as investors remain anxious ahead of tomorrow's august jobs report. the dow jones industrial average dropped more than 200 points, or about 0.5%. the nasdaq managed a small gain, adding around 40 points. and the s&p 500 ended about 16 points lower on the day. and u.s. soccer superstar alex morgan has announced she is retiring. the 35-year-old, two-time world cup champion and olympic gold medalist was one of the national team's most dominant scorers. she was also a driving force in the fight for equal pay. morgan was one of five players who sued u.s. soccer in 2019, in a case that led to both the women's and men's national teams getting equal pay. in a farewell video posted on social media, she reflected on her career. >> soccer has been a part of me for 30 years, and it was one of

the first things that i ever loved. and i gave everything to this sport. and what i got in return was more than i could have ever dreamed of. success for me is defined by never giving up and giving your all. amna: morgan is also expecting her second child. she'll play one final game with her team, the san diego wave, on sunday. still to come on the “news hour,” displaced israeli students start a new school year in the shadow of war. the battle between disney and directv that's leaving customers in the dark. and team usa's olympic success gives some lesser-known sports a big boost. >> 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. geoff: the democratic republic

of congo finally received its first delivery of vaccines for mpox today. but this comes nearly a month after the world health organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. william brangham has more on the outbreak and the response. william: the w.h.o. has finally changed its approach so that those mpox vaccines can be delivered and administered in congo and across africa. but those countries say the who has been too slow. the drc first asked for vaccines two years ago amid a different outbreak. mpox has infected an estimated 18,000 people and killed more than 600 in the drc alone. joining me to discuss the challenges of getting care there is lawrence gostin, professor of global health law at georgetown university. great to have you back on the show. help us understand why this has taken so long. lawrence: let's just begin by

looking at a map. see on one map in central africa , there are all of the deaths, the suffering. another map is where the vaccines are. that is in japan, europe, and the united states. a lot of it is pure greed. a lot of it is pure complacency. the other is even when the united states wanted to donate vaccines, they would not take them because even though the u.s. fda had approved them they were not approved at w.h.o. or the drc. william: so, greed. is there also bureaucracy at work here? lawrence: greed, complacency, and bureaucracy would sum it up. a lot of bureaucracy. the main stumbling block is that the world health organization did not give the vaccine

emergency listing which would allow unicef to actually deliver it and deliver it at speed. but you still need the donations because africa cannot make their own vaccine. bavarian nordic, a danish company, you know, has been charging a lot of money for it, making it unaffordable. the united states, even to this day after the global emergency has only delivered 10,000 doses to nigeria. it's promised 50,000 tothe congo which should be delivered on saturday, but that pales in comparison to the 110,000 that

the africa cdc say they need and they need it urgently. william: how confident are you that that continued enormous flow will actually happen? lawrence: you know, if, if history is any gauge, it'll be too little and too late because whenever we wait for vaccines what africa knows is that it never arrives on time and that it's insufficient quantity, so i think eventually it will maybe by the end of the year, we'll figure this out, but we'll have so many preventable deaths. with these vaccines, you can actually prevent the deaths, prevent the outbreak, and you can prevent it from coming to the united states, to europe, and to other high income countries. it's a win-win for everybody. why don't we get our act together? william: if somebody didn't know when they had just switched on this conversation -- and they might think we were talking about covid. lawrence: it's exactly what happens and it happens with almost every global health emergency. we had the opportunity to deliver the vaccines a long time ago. we wait, we pre-medicate, we have bureaucracy, and then you have enormousvaccine inequities .

working with w.h.o. and africa cdc and the u.s. government at the white house, you know, i can't even express how much distrust and anger there is in africa over this whole thing since covid and now with mpox. william: the drc and other countries are starting to get some of these vaccines. what we know about their health infrastructure and their ability to deliver them and get people this protection? lawrence: it's a great question. i mean, it's weak. what we need to do is not just deliver the doses of vaccines, we need trained health workers, we need testing, because the number of cases and deaths that you mentioned, william, are really just the tip of the iceberg because we're not testing, we're not doing surveillance. we don't have labs. we don't have health workers. we don't have vaccinators. and so, it's really top to bottom. we need to have kind of a health infrastructure that can deliver these vaccines and the vaccines need to get there on time and into people's arms.

william: so what can we, meaning the global north, the wealthier nations of the world, do to make this move faster? lawrence: i think there are several things very, very clear. first, let's get the vaccines to where they're needed now. let's invest in a real surge investment in the health infrastructure, the health system, the health workers to actually get those vaccines delivered and protecting people. and ultimately, we're gonna need to have africa be self-reliant. they don't want to wait for charity. they want to be able to manufacture and deliver the vaccines themselves with strong health systems. we can do this if we only had the political will. william: lawrence gostin georgetown university, always great to talk to you. thank you. lawrence: thank you, william. ♪

amna: children around the world are starting a new school year, some of them, in the shadow of war. more than 60,000 israelis have been displaced from the country's northern border because of the risk of rockets from lebanese hezbollah. and residents of kiryat shmona now live in hundreds of towns across israel. that includes tel aviv, where young students this week went back to school, even if they can't go back home. nick schifrin has the story with producer karl bostic. nick: it is a rite of passage with an armed escort. students arriving on the first day of school after summer vacation. reuniting with old friends. and making new ones, with new teachers. and nine-year-old twins adele and emma azulay, and their mother leanna. but this is not their school, and this city is not their home. they're the displaced, driven from their houses by war.

>> most of my students, their house was ruined. nick: ofer zafrni is the superintendent of a school system whose teachers and students have been displaced across the country for 11 months. he says the instructors he briefed ahead of their first classes provide students an antidote to war. >> i think the teachers in israel in general are holding the torch of the hope. they are giving them schedule, something to wake up in the morning, something to do, a goal. all other things are in chaos. nick: their home is kiryat shmona, hit by lebanese hezbollah rockets just yesterday, and on 200 separate occasions, since hezbollah opened fire on northern israel the day after october 7. it's the largest town in northern israel, right on the lebanon border, mostly empty, since the israeli government forced residents to leave.

last weekend, israel's military pre-empted a barrage of hezbollah rockets and missiles. but some got through and hit homes nearby. a mother and two kids living here escaped at 5:00 a.m. thanks to an early warning with seconds to spare. israeli defense forces spokesperson anna ukolov. >> you can just imagine, you can see the damage here outside, and you can just imagine what could happen if this rocket was, like, a few centimeters and hit the house inside. ok? so, the family alive and everything is ok with them. just, you know, they don't have a place to live now. they need to look for something else, but they save their life. nick: the northern communities are patrolled by soldiers whose own families are displaced, including lt. col. dotan razilli. >> hopefully soon as the war ends, either with an agreement or either by us maneuvering into lebanon, the civilians will feel

safe. even my family will feel safe and come back and build this community again. but 10 months is a long, long time for a community like this to be empty. nick: which has meant the azulay twins have lived since last october in this rented apartment. distracted by card games, longing for home. >> if the war ends, i want to go back. nick: that longing is shared by the students' teachers, who must provide sympathy, despite their own suffering. david bubb teaches english. >> extremely, extremely challenging for all of us because we don't really have time to think about ourselves. you know, here at school, we're not only teachers, we're psychologists, psychiatrists, mothers, fathers, brothers, anything you can think of. i'm worried about the students. they went through a really tough year last year. a lot of the kids dropped out of school. a lot of the kids have gotten lost.

nick: and so on the first day of school, they focus on recreating their lost community. >> school is not so important to learn, but to be together socially, especially this year, that we are separated in all of israel. this is the most important thing. nick: israelis still suffer, and live with national trauma from the violence and horror of october 7. but schools are trying to teach its lessons, especially to older students who will soon join a military that failed to protect the country or its own soldiers. >> we thought that we have the strongest army in the world. and then october 7 happened. next year, they are going to go to the army, the same army that was unprepared to the october 7. and we must give them the lesson for what they need to learn from it. not to be arrogant. and not repeat the history. nick: that lesson plan is being written in realtime. and some answers cannot be found in a classroom.

>> now can i ask a question? when can we go back to kiryat shmona? nick: it's a question not only children ask. it's also a plea, for this rite of passage to end for everyone. for the “pbs news hour,” i'm nick schifrin. amna: tomorrow, nick and our team in gaza will look at life for the thousands of school-age children there with no schools to attend. ♪ geoff: more than 11 million directtv customers were left in the dark after disney entertainment pulled espn, abc, and other channels from the satellite provider on a busy sports night. viewers were cut off in the middle of a us open tennis match and before the kickoff of a college football game. the dispute centers around what channels directtv must carry and whether that makes sense in a changing landscape of cord-cutting. it comes as the nfl season starts tonight.

for more on this and what it says about the business in the age of streaming, i'm joined by meg james who covers the entertainment industry for the los angeles times. thanks for being with us. this all started as a routine dispute over the rates directv would pay disney entertainment for its television networks. how did both sides hit this impasse? meg: well, this debate has been simmering behind the surface because the pay tv providers like directv are increasingly aggravated that disney and other programmers have started their own streaming services, basically to go into competition with their longtime partners. and this dispute has been sort of going on for a few weeks, but it really roared into public focus on sunday when the deadline for the last deal expired and directv no longer had authorization to carry disney's channels, including espn.

there are a lot of, like, very, what would seem like arcane rules that the programmers have instituted, which used to work out fine for the pay tv providers and the programmers, but in an age of skinnier bundles, these rules are just not working for the likes of directv. geoff: so what's disney's position in this? why are they so opposed to what directv wants? meg: well, it comes down to money, really. what happens is these programmers like disney, they require directv to carry their channels in about 80%, 85% of all of directv homes. and what directv wants to do is say, wait, you know, only about 40% to 50% of our subscribers are watching espn. espn is the most expensive cable channel out there. so, what directv is trying to do

is tailor some more smaller packages like, you know, children's entertainment, family entertainment, sports programming, and they say that disney's refusal to relax these minimum penetration rates is making that goal of directv to offer packages that they feel their customers want, virtually impossible. geoff: so at the heart of this, as you mentioned, is the domination of streaming. how does the streaming business really threaten both companies' business models? well, disney has made billions of dollars over the years by the cable tv programming fees that they get from directv, charter, and other providers. they do not want to see that money go away. at the same time, they recognize that users, television users, younger viewers are increasingly turning tostreaming services, and so they want to be in both places, but that's where the

pole is. directv is not in the streaming, they have a direct tv stream, but they're not, you know, programming their own shows a la netflix or peacock, and they really want to hold on to the customers that they have, but that's increasingly difficult when their packages cost $100 and you can get a streaming service for far less than that. geoff: there was some thought that the start of the nfl season would force these companies' hands. is that still the case? meg: yes. i mean, a lot of people are sort of watching for next monday. it's the first monday night football game on espn, to see if that's really going to be where, you know, the flashpoint, or the breakthrough comes, the logjam breaks. last year we covered a similar deal when disney channels were off of a competing pay tv provider, and it was the monday night football deal that led to the breakthrough. geoff: so what might this mean for the industry overall? meg: well, i think what this really shows is the strain in these traditional big, huge, fat, you know, cable tv bundles. people typically don't watch hundreds of channels.

they watch 17 to 30 channels, and that's what directv is trying to do. they're trying to make it so that they can provide their customers and new customers with these smaller packages that people want to watch. at the same time, it's really, i think, in a weird way, while directv is trying to maintain their customer base, they are also sort of forcing some of their subscribers to look at streaming packages that they might say, hey, they might never have looked at before. so it's a really tightrope that these two companies are walking, and it shows just the strain of these legacy businesses. geoff: meg james of the los angeles times, thanks for being with us. meg: thank you. ♪ amna: there are still a couple more days before the close of

the paralympics, but team usa's success in the olympic games earlier this summer is already having an impact on sports fields and gyms across the country, especially on what have historically been less popular sports. it's the first practice of the season for the d.c. furies, one of the oldest women's rugby clubs in the country. players lace up, run drills, and dodge tackles. a typical training for the division one club, but this year is different, says furies president liz linstrom. >> i'm actually a little concerned that incoming prospective players are going to outnumber current club members right now. amna: in fact, she says, about half the women who showed up tonight are brand new to the club. >> some had played before and taken a long break. some folks had never played a sport before, let alone rugby.

amna: it's a change that linstrom traces directly back to this moment, when the u.s. women's team beat rugby powerhouse australia to win bronze at the summer olympics. >> rugby in america is so much further behind rugby in the rest of the world. so we were definitely underdogs in that. to be playing for a medal was impressive in itself. but then to actually walk away with a bronze medal and the first ever, i think was really, really special. amna: it is the us's first rugby medal in a century since the men's team won gold back in 1924. the appeal of women's rugby is unique says kat aversano, vice president of women's elite rugby. >> we take big hits, we give big hits, and don't have any padding. so you can see the joy on everyone's faces and you can see the impact directly on the athletes. and that's the kind of human at we really enjoy out ofnt and athletes and sport. amna: team usa's success on the field this summer was magnified online when center ilona maher went viral on social media. >> rugby is the best sport in

the world. i am sore all the time. constantly. amna: with funny takes on life as an olympian, interspersed with body positive messages. >> from the smallest gymnast to the tallest volleyball player, from a rugby player to a shot putter to a sprinter. truly see yourself in these athletes and know you can do it too. amna: since the olympics, aversano, who used to play and coach rugby, has seen a spike in interest at all levels of the sport. >> every college team i've talked to, they're looking at two or three times their normal interest for the first couple of practices. youth and high school has a massive influx of questions. where do i find my local club? how do i get involved? what ages can my kids play at? amna: but it's not just women's rugby that has inspired new audiences. greg patterson's gym in woodbridge, virginia has seen a recent influx of inquiries for its boys gymnastics teams. >> normally on average we'd be getting maybe two to three phone

calls a week looking for boys programs. and now we're averaging almost 15 a week. amna: this year, the u.s. men's gymnastics team, usually overshadowed by their women counterparts, rose to fame largely because of one athlete, stephen nedoroscik, known as pommel horse guy. he became famous for his pre-competition routine and rubik's cube skills. nedoroscik won bronze in his event and helped the u.s. men win their first team medal in almost two decades. >> people can look and say, yeah, if he does stuff like i do, like he does rubik's cube, and he's a gamer just like me, so they can sort of relate to him as opposed to somebody up there who they see with big muscles that works out 10 times a week. amna: 12-year-old gabe hall and his younger brother, hayden, got a kick out of seeing their sport in the headlines. >> it felt good because our sport was getting recognized. >> it was really cool because gymnastics is like, not many

people know about it. well, at least men's gymnastics. amna: their gymnastics journey began during the pandemic on their backyard trampoline. >> i like it because you can get strong, you can get flexible. there is so much you get to work on and so much you get to do. amna: the brothers now train four times a week and aim to one day make the olympic team. coach patterson, a former collegiate gymnast, says he hopes this moment will lead to more funding for the sport at the college level. since 1981, in fact, ncaa division one men's gymnastic programs have dwindled from 59 to just 12 today. >> there's so few colleges that have options for boys to continue their gymnastics career, it's very hard for them to get in. i'd like all the boys to continue to grow with what they've started with the grassroots here. amna: women's rugby too is hoping to capitalize on this moment. the country's first women's professional rugby league launches next year.

>> arm in arm with our fellow sisters in sports, the other women's leagues, nwsl, pwhl, wnba. women's sport is, it's not having a moment, it's a movement. amna: a movement, she hopes, will bring home even more medals in future olympic games. ♪ geoff: we'll be back shortly with a story about the national cathedral's first female stonemason. amna: but first, take a moment to hear from your local pbs station. it's a chance to offer your support, which helps keep programs like this one on the air. ♪ for those staying with us, we return to the topic of artificial intelligence and the

massive amount of energy required to power it. as economics correspondent paul solman explains in this encore report, the ai arms race has experts worried about its climate consequences. paul: by now you've probably seen chatgpt. which was prompted to substitute for me in a recent story. >> i'm reporting on a compelling new analysis stirring debate. paul: now meet mary, a chatbot avatar companion created recently for us. she is connected to chatgpt, but can also flirt on her own. >> are you always this irresistible? paul: and finally here is 3d amica. in the book the myth of sisyphus, he writes -- [speaking another language] >> translates to one can be

virtuous out of caprice. suggests virtue need not stem from deeper philosophies or moral systems. paul: amica too is hookedup to chatgpt? how quickly can amica respond? 15 milliseconds. >> which is extraordinary. the next question should be how much energy does it take to make that whole process work. paul: a whole lot, says research professor kate crawford. and that poses a threat. >> what i am most worried about is we are building in enormous for artificial intelligence that is extremely energy and water intensive without looking at the very real downsides in terms of the climate impacts. paul: data centers have already been burgeoning with the internet and so-called cloud in exchange. >> then we suddenly had cryptocurrency mining adding a lot on top of that. paul: this amsterdam-based data

scientist. and as the value of cryptocurrency has multiplied, so have data centers. like those mining bitcoin in cheap energy havens like plattsburgh, new york. >> this will use as much power as my house. >> ai might be going in the exact same direction. paul: and ai is not just going to stress the electricity grid. >> these large-scale data centers use gpu's that are enormously heat producing. and the water to cool these gpu chips is freshwater. it is often coming from exactly the same reserves used for drinking water. >> these are basically customer deployments where they are running critical infrastructure and applications. paul: he runs the data centers in silicon valley for a company which operates 260 of the nearly 11,000 centers worldwide. the company leases space to

firms like at&t and google cloud to run servers that power their cloud and ai operations. and they are expanding. this is where ai-like processors would gulp? >> correct. this is a high density employment liquid cool. we are taking the building chilled water, it comes into here, each one of these goes to an actual chip on a customer server. paul: these are nozzles? >> correct. there is an ancillary tube that connects to the server, it cools the chip, the hot air comes back, get schooled, and that is how we are able to provide liquid cooling for these higher density ai tech deployments. paul: this silicon valley complex alone features 345,000 square feet of servers. thousands of them, operating 24/7. the company's global energy budget as of last year, same as three quarters of a million u.s. homes.

and what fraction of general did -- global energy use? >> we have had estimates from 2% to 8%. 2% is around the same energy budget as the netherlands. >> we are in the very early days of artificial intelligence. paul: but as ai taketh away, it may also giveth. >> what we don't know yet, for example, is what will be the benefits to society from an energy perspective? paul: such as? >> air canada is a customer and we are able to optimize their flight pathways and save fuel for them as a company. a lot of focus is on how much energy ai is going to use. but the energy that is consumed, for instance, in training these large language models is not lost. >> researchers are now

investigating different sorts of technical architectures, in particular small language models. these are models that use much less data, and therefore less energy. we are also starting to see regulators pay attention. we have seen the first bill be brought to congress which is looking specifically at ai's environmental impacts. paul: the solar panels are -- >> when the solar panels are active, we are not pulling from a you local utility source. paul: they fuel 3% of the facility so far. with solar capacity doubling every three years, maybe the sky is the limi. -- limit. >> ultimately i think it will be net positive. paul: he puts his faith in ai itself. >> an earlier version 10 years ago figured out how to save power by 15%. in the ongoing week by week operation of the data center. so if we're generating ai that

can help us with this kind of thing, sure, it takes a bunch of energy to train, but it helps us figure out how to operate our illogical grades much better. paul: but near-term. >> it is inevitable we are going to see price increases if we continue to see these sorts of pressures on the electrical grid. paul: and so the age-old horse race between the cost of new technology and its benefits. in the case of ai perhaps, to solve the problems it creates, or not so much. for the "pbs newshour," paul solman in silicon valley. ♪ geoff: now to another story from the news hour's student reporting labs summer academy, where teens from around the country come together to hone their journalism and storytelling skills. the washington national cathedral hired its first female

stonemason this year. and she joins a team overseeing the installation of stone tablets that symbolize the cathedral's mission to be a sacred gathering place where all americans see themselves reflected. bella major reports. >> they are all my boys. sean, andy, and joe. i would not be here without them. they all teach me something different. and i appreciate them so much. bella: rihanna is the newest addition to the crew of stonemasons at the national cathedral in washington, d.c. at 24 years old, she is the same age as the head stonemason when he began working at the cathedral in 1985. the team is preparing damage from the 2011 earthquake. >> you cut out the damaged stone and you find a new piece of stone. >> i am very glad she will be a part of that once we are gone. here you go. then here you go.

now, here you go. that's how it works, passing on your trade, your knowledge to someone else, to the next generation. >> to make yourself obsolete as a teacher, that is the goal. bella: she discovered stone masonry while working in a coffee shop. >> this guy came in covered in dust and i was so taken by him, i don't know why. something clicked in my brain and i was like, i've got to do this. bella: she inscribes stone she cars with her mason's mark, which they used to identify the work. >> i love the physicality of that. it is like me putting my small slice in of their masterpiece. bella: new generations also leave an impact on the cathedral by how they change the story it tells its almost half a million annual visitors and worshipers. >> cathedrals are so permanent.

it reflects different eras and different styles in history. it's a gothic, ancient-looking cathedral but it is also, in my opinion, distinctly american. bella: last year the national cathedral installed new stained-glass windows representing the ongoing struggle for racial justice. these now and forever windows replaced stained-glass windows commemorating the confederate germinal -- confederate generals robert e. lee and stonewall jackson. >> taking down some of these monuments is important because you are really trying to tell the truth. because a lot of these monuments glossed over the history. we saw what happened in charlottesville and right after that happens when the cathedral made the decision that that needed to change. bella: at poet wrote a song to commemorate the and forever windows. >> how did we get here and where

did we go? bella: stone carvers and rhone island -- the team will be permanently installing the tablets below the windows. the cathedral calls itself a house of prayer for all people and they hope this installation tells a more inclusive and honest history of america. >> it is a beautiful limestone building. but it is not necessarily avoiding the past, but just getting better from it did -- from it. bella: they still have room for future installations. >> i don't know what the big thing will be 100 years from now but there is space in this cathedral to reflect whatever is going on at that time. that is what cathedrals are supposed to do. they tell stories in stone and glass and metal and all of that. bella: for the "pbs news hour"

student labs, i am bella major. geoff: you can watch more stories from our summer academy online at studentreportinglabs.org. and that's the “news hour” for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. behalf of the entire “ws hour” team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the "pbs news hour" has been provided by. ♪ >> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf. the engine that connects us. the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions,

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♪ hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. more civilian deaths, more destruction, as ukraine reels from a blitz of russian attacks. with the toll on the country and its people continuing to grow, u.n. resident coordinator mat use