geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett amna: and i'm amna nawaz on the news hour tonight, as kamala harris and donald trump prepare for this week's debate in pennsylvania, we speak with voters in that critical swing state about their views of the candidates. >> i generally just do not think

that mr. trump could, could lead the country at all. >> he gets the job done. and when he gets the job done, it was always for the betterment of the country. geoff: new details emerge about how the mother of the alleged georgia school shooter warned the school ahead of time. why it wasn't enough to stop the attack. and in a new report, house republicans blame the biden administration for the chaotic afghanistan withdrawal, but ignore the role played by the previous trump administration. >> 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 leonard enormous poor vine and the judy and peter flynn coker foundation. >> two former executives turned their focus to greyhounds, giving these former starts a chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the way you give back. life well planned. >> the william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 40 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to support a better world. at hewlett.org. and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the news hour. it's the eve of the pivotal presidential debate, when vice president kamala harris and former president donald trump are set to face off for the first time, and possibly the only time, between now and november. geoff: and with only eight weeks remaining until election day, new polling suggests this race is as close as ever. >> are you ready, madam vice president? >> ready. geoff: lashing a thumbs up to reporters, vice president kamala harris said she is ready to take on former president donald trump, just one day before their first debate in prime time. the vice president this morning sharing what she expects from her opponent tomorrow. >> he is not burdened by telling

the truth. and we should be prepared for the fact he is probably going to speak a lot of untruths. geoff: the stakes are high with polling suggesting the race is a dead heat. the national polls adjusted by the new york times and siena college shows trump leading harris by 1%, 48% to 47%, well within the margin of error. among voters who say they still need to learn more about by harris, 63% of them say they don't know enough about her policies and plans. the vice president has been preparing for the debate in pittsburgh, flying today to philadelphia where the debate will be held. >> those people have a warning for america. trump is not fit to be president again. geoff: a new ad officials -- a new ad features clips from officials including mike pence warning about donald trump. donald trump spent the weekend on the campaign trail, holding a

rally in battleground wisconsin. >> we are run by stupid, stupid people. we found that out at the debate with joe. how did that work out? we are going to find it out again on tuesday night. geoff: he promised to follow -- to promise january 6 people if he is reelected, and on social media made the baseless assertion that the election will be stolen from him and promised retribution. those people that cheated will be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which will include long-term prison sentences. >> a vote for vice president harris is the right vote. geoff: former congresswoman liz cheney and her father former vice president dick cheney say they will vote for kamala harris. some trump allies are urging him to stay on message. >> you don't need to talk about intelligence or books, just focus -- intelligence or looks, focus on the policies. when you call even a democratic

woman dam, republican women get their backs up too. we win on policies. stick to the policies, that's how we can win. geoff: we will have live coverage of the debate. tune in tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. eastern on your pbs station or our youtube page to watch a simulcast of the debate, followed by analysis from our panel of experts. amna: we start the day's other headlines in memphis, tennessee, where jury selection is beginning in the trial of 3 former officers charged in the fatal beating of tyre nichols. the 29-year-old died in january 2023 from blows to the head after he was pulled from his car and brutally beaten during a traffic stop. in body camera footage, he can be heard calling out for his mother, who lived nearby. today, the former officers -- tadarrius bean, demetrius haley

and justin smith -- arrived at a federal courthouse. they have pleaded not guilty to violating nichols' rights, as well as witness tampering. the trial is expected to last two four weeks. -- to last up to four weeks. wildfires in the western u.s. have prompted tens of thousands of people to evacuate amid scorching heat and high winds. in california, the line fire has burned at least 33 square miles in san bernadino county. county officials shut a number of schools, and the forest service says some 36,000 structures are under threat. in nevada, meanwhile, cruise has been dousing the davis fire by air, just south of reno. that blaze has prompted about 20,000 people to evacuate the area. in vietnam, state media says catastrophic rains and flooding from typhoon yagi have killed more than 60 people. swollen rivers sent water gushing into streets, while deadly landslides have pushed hillsides into homes. dashcam footage caught the moment a steel bridge carrying cars and trucks collapsed.

reports say 12 vehicles fell into the rushing water below. before making landfall in vietnam on saturday, the storm caused 20 deaths in the philippines and killed four others in china. turning now to the middle east, the israeli military ordered a new evacuation for some parts of northwest gaza today. officials say palestinian militants fired rockets from the area on sunday, towards the nearby israeli town of ashkelon. separately, officials in syria say air strikes from israel last night killed at least 18 people and wounded dozens more. it's one of the deadliest attacks on syria since the war in gaza began. israel has not acknowledged the strike, but the country regularly targets places in syria it says have connections to iran or hezbollah. residents described their terror when the strikes began. our, -- >> we were in panic. the children were sleeping and

woke up terrified by an unusual situation. we did not know what happened, but we saw blazes of fire billowing from the forests. we were subjected to many violent strikes. amna: meanwhile in the occupied west bank, dozens of mourners attended a funeral procession for the american citizen who witnesses say was killed by the israeli military as she took part in a protest of illegal israeli settlements last week. aysenur ezgi eygi also has turkish citizenship, and the country's president says turkey will seek justice for her death. back here in the u.s., more than a dozen school districts across southeastern kentucky were closed today as authorities carried out a third day of searches for a suspected gunman. they believe 32-year-old joseph couch opened fire on 12 vehicles along interstate 75 on saturday. the shooting took place near the small city of london, kentucky, south of lexington. five people were injured. in their arrest warrant authorities say couch sent a text message 30 minutes before

the shooting, bowing to, quote. "kill a lot of people." authorities commited today to continue the manhunt, but said that the jungle-like terrain of the search area is complicating their efforts. on wall street today, stocks rebounded ahead of -- rebounded monday after last week's sell-off. the dow jones industrial average jumped nearly 500 points, or more than 1%. the nasdaq also gained ground, tacking on nearly 200 points. the s&p 500 also ended sharply higher on the day. and in royal news, britain's princess of wales, kate, says she has finished chemotherapy and will make a gradual return to work. the 42-year-old announced in march that she was being treated for an undisclosed type of cancer. in a video released today that also featured her husband prince william and their three children, the princess said her recovery is far from complete. >> doing what i can to stay cancer-frees now my focus. although i have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing

and full recovery is long. amna: the princess last appeared in public for the men's wimbledon final in july, where she appeared moot by the crowd's warm reception. and one of the world's most recognizable voices has gone silent. actor james earl jones has died. he got his start around the same time as sidney poitier and harry belafonte, when leading roles were not available for black actors. his early parts came on broadway, before jones moved on to films. he went on to win two tony awards, two emmy awards, an honorary academy award, and a grammy -- what's called an egot. but it was perhaps his voice that resonated the most for fans , from his famous this is cnn to mustafa in "the lion king," to of course darth vader in star wars.

our, if you only knew the power of the dark. obi wan never told you what happened to your father. >> he told you enough. he told me you killed him. >> no. i am your father. amna: the power of jones's voice was all the more astonishing given his early battle with a stutter. in 2014 jones sat down with jeffrey brown to look discuss that and how the characters he connected with the most also struggled with language. >> when i was a young boy on the farm, i used to wrassle hogs. ain't no hog get away from me yet. >> very simple people, people who don't articulate much, people like me who don't have language, who are inarticulate. i like writing ms. daisy. he has a language of his own. he doesn't know how to use

language like you and i do right now, but he has a way of talking that's quite poetic. amna: james earl jones was also seen as a pioneer, paving the way for the likes of denzel washington and many others over his seven-decade career. james earl jones was 93 years old. still to come on the news hour, tamara keith and amy walter weigh in on the presidential candidates' battle for swing state voters. an ohio town seeing a large number of migrants moves to enter the political spotlight. and a new book on how seeing the good in others is also good for you. >> 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: new details are emerging in the deadly shooting at a georgia high school last week that took the lives of four people and injured nine others. william brangham has the -- has more.

william: the mother of the 14-year-old suspect reportedly contacted apalachee high school 30 minutes before the shooting began to warn of a quote "extreme emergency" regarding her son. during a 10-minute phone call, marcee gray asked a counselor to find her son. but school officials were not able to locate him in time. this has raised even more questions about how yet another tragedy unfolded, despite some warnings being sounded ahead of time. for more on the latest developments, we're joined by chase mcgee of georgia public broadcasting. thank you so much for being here. the mother makes this phone call to school officials saying please find my son. do we know anything more about the content of that call or what might have prompted it? chase: while we don't know much about the content of the phone call, we have some reports from the mother and her family about what might have prompted it.

she says she received a message from her son that concerned her to the point where she decided it would be best to call a school official. while we don't know what was in the content, like i said, it obviously prompted them enough to take action. that is, a school administrator left to seek out the algebra class where the suspected shooter was in. however, we know by the time that the school administrator got to that classroom, the shooting started just minutes later. william: and apparently there was some confusion because i take it he was new to the school and there was another student with a very similar name that might have caused some confusion. chase: right, that's right. colt gray had only been in the school system for a couple of weeks and of those days had maybe only attended a couple days of school. and so the school administrator was seeking out colt, and there was a student with a similar name who came up in some earlier reports, and that confusion over which student that the school administrator was looking for

might have led to some delay in trying to figure out who exactly they were looking for in that classroom. william: are school officials facing scrutiny for receiving this morning, and while they did try to locate him, not perhaps taking more drastic action like locking the school down? chase: yeah, certainly. in the immediate aftermath we did hear from some students, some eyewitness testimonies, that suggest that the school didn't lock down quite as early as it could have, but we haven't really heard anything from school officials since they've started directing questions towards the local authorities. that's the barrow county sheriff's department and the georgia bureau of investigation, who are heading up the investigation. at this point with two criminal cases ongoing, they are both starting to refer questions to the piedmont superior court. william: on the flip side, there's also some indication that security technology within the school might have helped stop this being an even worse tragedy. what happened there? chase: yeah, absolutely. a couple days before the

shooting, barrow county schools seem to have started testing out this id card shaped and sized button that will alert law enforcement and the safety officer on campus as to a current crisis going on, and even give some specifics on location data. that way responding law enforcement have a better idea where on campus they need to get. the campus is sprawling with high school, middle school, and elementary school all in one place. so certainly that information might have sped up response times, saving lives in the process. william: let's talk about the legal situation. the 14-year-old alleged shooter is being charged as an adult. his father, who allegedly bought him the ar-15 style weapon that was used in the shooting, is also being charged here. including first second-degree murder. why is it in georgia prosecutors are choosing that route with the father? chase: that's right. it has less to do with any

existing gun laws in the state and more to do with georgia's definition of criminal negligence. the state is going to argue that because of a previous investigation into the suspected shooter for his access to guns and previous threats he might have made, the act of the father buying a gun that he would have access to was criminally negligent, and it led to injuries and death of a third party, in this case those affected at the school. at this point it seems like that's going to be the line of argument the state is going to follow up with. william: i understand that the community there is trying to do everything it can for people who have been traumatized by this event. what kinds of things are they doing and and how are people responding? chase: yeah, in the immediate aftermath we saw things like organized vigils, community members coming together to distribute water and other immediate care. now we are seeing more official organized response. the georgia emergency management

agency has responded today opening a community recovery center in town that'll be open for the next week, or as the gema director told me, however long is needed. that way people can access financial aid, legal aid, and they point out mental health care and spiritual health care with local faith leaders involved. william: all right, chase mcgee of georgia public broadcasting, thank you so much for your reporting. chase: thank you. amna: house republicans today blamed the biden administration for the chaotic and deadly u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan in 2021, accusing the white house of ignoring afghan, allied, and military advice, and conducting a subsequent coverup. the u.s. exit from its longest ever war ended with a complete taliban takeover, a terrorist attack that killed 13 service members and hundreds of afghans, including many who had worked with the u.s. goverment, left behind. the white house today called the

report partisan and dismissed the accusation of a coverup. nick schifrin is reporting on this story for us. he joins me now. let's start with this report. what does it say? : the report from republicans on the house foreign affairs committee makes four major conclusions. the administration was determined to withdraw from afghanistan no matter the cost. the administration failed to plan for all contingencies. as a result, 13 u.s. service members were murdered. u.s. national security was denigrated and american credibility on the world stage was damaged, and the administration conducted a coverup, misleading and in some cases lying to the american people. the house foreign affairs chairman -- >> this was a catastrophic failure of epic proportions.

some say saigon was the worst. i say this was. nick: the white house called the timing of the report election your politics, full of cherry picked facts, biases. strategically they reiterated their belief that ending the u.s. longest war -- amna: let's start with the decision to withdraw. what is the debate for that? nick: the core of the debate is whether the fault of the withdrawal goes to the bite in order trump administration. in february 2020, the trump administration signed the delhi agreement that committed the u.s. to leave afghanistan by may 1, 20 21, and the taliban to refrain from attacks on u.s. troops and to prevent al qaeda from using afghanistan to threaten the u.s. or allies. president trump accelerated the u.s. troop reduction down to 2500 and democrats say prevented a proper transition to the biden administration. that led to the first key finding of a democratic house

foreign affairs committee report released today, that the trump administration set a time bound withdrawal into motion without regard for facts on the ground and failed to plan for executing it. the republican report and the fact is that biden had a choice. you could have argued that the taliban was not living up to their side of the agreement and therefore the u.s. did not have to withdraw troops as scheduled. the president argued extending the war would have exposed the relatively small contingent of u.s. troops still in afghanistan tomorrow tax. and administration officials did not believe the military when they said they could conduct their mission with only 2500 troops and feared a future troop increase. whoever is right, the trump administrations doha agreement and the biden administration's withdrawal was catastrophic for afghan national security forces, which lost the will to fight. the special general for afghan reconstruction told me in 2022

-- >> they felt the taliban had cut a deal with our government, and to some extent their own government, and they were left in the lurch. nick: the afghan security forces collapsed in weeks or months. amna: that's the decision to withdrawal. what about the actual withdrawal and the chaos in august 2021? nick: the report accuses the administration of failing to plan for and delaying the order for emergency evacuation of americans, creating an unsafe environment at the airport, and that is what led to those catastrophic scenes from august 2020 that we remember so well. afghans trying to rush onto the plane, trying to get out of the airport. and of course the suicide bomber who killed hundreds of afghans trying to get inside the airport . and 13 u.s. service members.

today the white house says the withdrawal planning began before biden made the decision to withdraw and state department officials made the argument any earlier evacuation would have collapsed the afghan government earlier. they did warn americans to get out, and it was the trump administration that you wrote it the system that evacuated afghans and that did not have any contingency plans. at the end of the day, the evacuation they led was 120 thousand, largest in u.s. history. one more point the white house made, the intelligence community said at the time the worst-case scenario was the afghan government would fall in six months. that meant the administration, the military diplomats thought they had more time. amna: we covered afghanistan for years. it's fair to say the context is important. none of this is just about the u.s. or the decisions made in the months prior to the withdrawal. nick: just two things you and i have talked about for years. ashraf ghani, the president, fled on the morning of august 15

despite promises to everyone he would be there until the end. that sparked the government collapse and chaos at the airport. two, every single afghan expert that you and i have spoken to, document decades of mistakes. iraq and early pentagon decisions meant a lack of early u.s. investment in afghanistan. counterterrorism rates have killed the very people the u.s. was trying to protect. obama's search with an end date, pakistani safe haven for the taliban, corruption. amna: thank you for laying that all out so clearly. ♪ geoff: tomorrow night's presidential debate between donald trump and kamala harris will take place in philadelphia in a state that could prove to be the deciding factor in the race for the white house. lisa desjardins takes us inside one pennsylvania county with a track record of picking the

winner, a place both parties think could signal how the state and possibly the country could vote. lisa: drive down a gravel road just past a cornfield and you will find how vice president harris plans to win the election. >> if someone says they are concerned about reproductive health care, you want to talk about, you know, kamala harris's opinions on that. lisa: in swing northampton county, pennsylvania, democratic volunteers meet weekly to strategize, before hitting the streets and pushing every way they can for harris. >> hello, my name is vanessa and i'm a volunteer for the harris campaign. there's a lot of enthusiasm for since kamala harris got into the race, for, you know, getting out and voting for her. but i think people are very, you know, concerned. it's such a close race. >> help people get involved, lord, and help people work to save america. lisa: several miles away in the -- in northampton county, republicans too are gathering for voter outreach.

in one room, we see the span of the mag eight coalition, some focused on trump as a strong leader, at least two others on conspiracies. among the things this woman told us is that joe biden is dead, replaced by a fake. for rodney nace, it is about trump's track record. he voted for barack obama once but is now all in on donald trump. >> he's very, very outspoken. i could be, too, if i get wound up. but he gets the job done. and when he gets the job done, it was always for the betterment of the country. lisa: of the 3000 counties in the country, just 25 of them voted for the winner in the last four elections. of the tiny handful in swing states, northampton county was the closest in 2020. they voted for joe biden by less than one point. lifelong resident carlos diaz grew up with the lights of the bethlehem steel plant. >> every night you would hear the clanging and banging and it was always like shshsh that

never stopped. lisa: that was your childhood all the time. >> the soundtrack to my childhood. lisa: that was in the 1980's, but within years, the plant shut down, snuffing out thousands of jobs. did those jobs ever come back? >> no. they shifted a portion to maryland but the majority were lost and gone for good. lisa: carlos is a truck driver and a lifelong democrat voting for harris. he opposes abortion bands and is the father of a child with autism. he was appalled at attacks on vp nominee tim walz's son, who is also on the spectrum. perhaps most of all, carlos sees the working class at stake. >> these people who are not part of the 1%, who are not corporations, why they would think it's in their economic self-interest to vote republican is beyond me. i cannot comprehend that. joe biden went to a union picket line. how amazing was that? a sitting president on a union

picket line. that just made my heart swell. lisa: northampton has an industrial draw. it is a key corridor between major east coast cities. but it is also a compact version of the whole state, with urban areas like bethlehem, lush, rural farms, and middle-class suburbs. mike in easton, where jackie crowell today is watching her grandson. in retired schoolteacher, she is centered on family and her faith. >> i am voting for donald trump. it's policy over personality for me. i'm a conservative christian. and he aligns, the party aligns much more with my ideals as a christian, as the democratic party. lisa: she is republican and antiabortion and applauds trump for his role in overturning roe v. the matriarch of a family of wrestlers, she opposes transgender women playing women's sports. >> there's my great-grandparents. lisa: these are wonderful. jackie's politics are also rooted in family.

immigrant grandparents from germany and italy, once democrats. >> my grandmother used to say when i was a little girl, democrats are for the poor. republicans are for the rich. if she were alive today, she would be republican, no question about it, because the democrat party of her day is not the democrat party today. lisa: (bethlehem pics) jackie blames democrats and harris for high prices, from food to homes, and what she sees as a lower work ethic. >> i'm very "work hard, don't expect the government to take care of you." do what you have to do for your family. doesn't mean you're going to be millionaires, but you will have a comfortable living if you, you know, work hard. lisa: that idea unifies this swing county, hard work. but the divide is everywhere, like at the popular fegley's brew pub. at the bar, a veteran for trump is struggling in this economy. >> i haven't been able to finance a house because the rates are too high. lisa: a few feet away, a group

of hard no's on trump see a threat to rights and democracy. >> i generally just do not think that mr. trump could, could lead the country at all. lisa: one thing we noticed -- we did not find any democrats for trump. but we did meet republicans against him. what don't you like about trump? >> where do i start? lisa: like dolores cole. we met her at that republican event. she's been in the party 62 years and does not mince words about trump, noting he is a convicted felon, or about trump voters. >> they just worship their god, who is trump. and that's it. he can do no wrong even though he does. so they don't think for themselves. i am thinking for myself and my country. lisa: love for country is evident here, along with strong divide over what that means. like so much else in northampton county, who wins here likely will come down to

one thing, who works the hardest. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins in northampton county, pennsylvania. geoff: for more on the latest in the presidential race, including a look ahead to tomorrow night's debate, we are joined by our politics monday do well. that's amy walter of the cook political report with amy walter and tamara keith of npr. great to see you both. tomorrow is the first and so far only debate between kamala harris and donald trump. this is a potential campaign reset moment as many voters tune in for the first time with 56 days to go until election day -- but who is counting? how are both sides preparing? >> one thing that has stood out to me hearing from both campaigns is they are both talking up donald trump's ability to debate, both campaigns say he is hard to debate, that he has a lot of

experience debating. they have different reasons for doing this, but essentially the harris campaign is -- not talking down her ability, but tempering expectations, because she is a former prosecutor, had standout debate moments. she in senate hearings prosecuted the case, asking tough questions. her campaign is trying to say, temper those expectations. trump is a unique person who is difficult to debate, who is unencumbered by facts, as she says, so watch out. it's a little bit of working the refs from both campaigns. the other thing i will say is we know harris is new in the spotlight. she has not been running for president long. a lot of people didn't get to know her when she was vice president, so this is a very high-stakes debate for her to

introduce herself to voters. trump is well introduced, people know who he is. her campaign would like to remind people of some of his flaws, but those flaws may not be on display as much as some of her supporters would like. geoff: for that reason you could argue that kamala harris and donald trump are speaking to different audiences, trying to reach different parts of the electorate. what constitutes a win for trump or harris? >> i think tam said it quite well, this is all about defining harris, this entire debate. it's very hard to see that people are going to walk away from the debate saying, i feel somewhat differently about donald trump than i did a day ago. those are pretty locked in. harris really does have to speak to those swing voters who may be they voted for biden in 2020 but have not completely come back into the harris camp or into voting against donald trump

again. they want to understand who she is, what she is going to do for them to the point that tam made about lowering expectations, what a of partisan democrats would like to see is the kamala harris that showed up in the supreme court hearings, going after, as one democrat said to me, having a takedown of donald trump. that is not what kamala harris needs to do. she needs to be speaking to an audience that is not interested in her taking down trump but they want to know what she is going to do for them. for trump talking to republicans today, his top priority is stick to the issues, stay away from the personality. we have known that's not always easy for him to do, but they feel like he has a pretty easy job if he sticks to substance, that he can make a good case for why harris should not get four

more years. geoff: we will see if that happens tomorrow night. can we talk about the new york times poll that has political obsessives spun up? it shows the race is tied nationally, unchanged since president biden was in the race. the battleground polls show the same thing. the biggest lead harris has is wisconsin, by three points. the take away is this is an agonizingly tight race. >> absolutely, and has been all along. harris is performing better than president biden was in july. however, this is just a really close race. the presidential election was decided by a small number of votes in a small number of states in 2016 and again 2020. both campaigns are set up to face that again. i think that's partially why you see trump now talking about election fairness and possible election to nihilism, laying --

election denialism, laying the groundwork. and it's why you hear harris talking about herself as a ground -- as an underdog, in part because she needs voters to be so motivated that even if they have to pick up the kids and get groceries, they are still going to vote. >> this is a national poll. part of the reason you're hearing this consternation, especially from democrats, is they look at the results of the last two elections. hillary clinton ultimately won the national popular vote by two points. she lost narrowly in the key swing states. biden won the popular vote by four points, narrowly won. if you are kamala harris trailing by one, that is lower than where hillary clinton was. and certainly much lower than where biden was. the other question a lot of folks are having is, if the polls were off in 2016 and 2020

by undercounting trump supporters, are these polls finally getting it right and showing a race we should know all along is tight? or should we see it's actually going to undercount him again and he is ahead by four? geoff: there are democrats who say this pullover sampled republicans, which could mean it is a more accurate sample. >> or we just accept this, as we have for a long time, that this is going to be very, very close. this is why this debate is so critical. what you saw from the moment biden dropped out and through the convention, harris got all that support among democrats and democrat leaning independents and the race has stalled out. trump has not lost anything but he has not really gained anything. >> all this essentially tells us all that euphoria that democrats

felt with harris coming on, that didn't actually change the fundamentals of the race. her support is consolidated in a way trump's has been all along. geoff: thank you, appreciate it. amna: today the small city of springfield, ohio found itself at the center of a fraught election-year issue, immigration. republican vice presidential candidate jd vance claims haitian migrants in springfield are, quote, "draining social services" and "causing chaos." he's also repeated a baseless rumor, already debunked by city officials, about pets being abducted and eaten, a story amplified by right-wing media and elon musk online. geoff: over the last four years, springfield has seen its small population grow by over 20%, driven almost entirely by immigrants. william brangham recently went to springfield to understand how

the city is coping. william: the sounds of haitian creole, carrying across soccer fields, in grocery stores, in restaurants dishing up the popular haitian street food pate kòde. it's striking, hearing all this in the heartland of the united states -- springfield, ohio. springfield is a small, blue-collar city with a familiar story. much of the factory work left decades ago, and the residents followed. a community of more than 80,000, emptied out to less than 60,000. that is, until the last few years. >> our churches, we see new people. william: in the pews. >> yes, absolutely. william: wes babian was the pastor at first baptist church for almost 20 years. >> for years we have lost people. but you hope somebody else will come and take their place.

that hasn't happened here. william: until now. >> because there are folks from haiti who are coming to church. william: luckens merzius, who among his many other jobs mans the sound board for sunday services, is one of those new haitian members. >> why springfield? william: of all places. merzius with his wife and daughter were among the first haitian families to arrive here, in 2018. >> i got a decent job when i was in haiti. and then to make a difficult decision to leave wasn't easy. william: the reason they left is their home country is disintegrating. protests and increasing violence in the caribbean nation culminated in the assassination of president jovenel moïse in 2021. since then, the country spiraled. armed gangs currently control 80% of the capital, port-au-prince. merzius is one of the estimated 731,000 haitian immigrants now living in the united states.

>> i got my brothers and sisters , my mother still living there. i'm always thinking about my family in haiti. william: because of that violence, the u.s. granted temporary protected status to haitians in the u.s., giving them limited-time permission to live and work here. tps was then expanded by the biden administration. merzius says he came to springfield for the same reason most haitians did -- he heard that housing was cheap and jobs were plentiful. >> it started slowly. we had an application pool that was a little bit different. william: people coming to work here. >> people looking for jobs what he is welding are welded axle components. william: jamie mcgregor is the ceo of mcgregor metal, which makes welded parts for the auto and farm industries. right now, about 10% of his workforce is haitian, over 30 employees. >> i wish i had 30 more. our haitian associates come to work every day they don't have a drug problem. they'll stay at their machine.

they'll achieve their numbers. they are here to work. and so in general, that's a stark difference from what we're used to in our community. william: mcgregor acknowledges the sudden arrival of so many new immigrants is a challenge on multiple fronts, but he believes this is partly how the industrial midwest can re-grow >> we want more jobs in our community. and in order to fill those jobs, some jobs need to be people who are not originally from here. >> there's things in the last five years that have really changed and has been a forward improvement for springfield. but this is taxing the resources of the city. william: springfield's mayor rob rue says he was cautiously optimistic when the first haitians settled in town. but then their numbers quickly rose. the city estimates 12,000 to 15,000 haitians are here now. >> the infrastructure of the city, our safety forces, our hospitals, our schools. springfield is a close community and has a big heart. but at the same point, we've had this influx that has taxed all

these services. william: the number of students needing english language help has quadrupled in five years. translators at the local health center cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. and last year was the busiest year on record for the fire department. but it seemed that, for the community at large, the increase in immigration and its stresses largely flew under the radar. a lot of that changed last august. it was the very first day of school, and a school bus full of kids was coming down this road. a driver coming in the other direction came around that bend, said he was blinded by the sun. he clipped the bus and the bus ended up in this ditch. >> we begin with breaking news. multiple law enforcement agencies are on the scene of a deadly school bus crash. william: dozens of children were injured and 11-year-old aiden clark died. when the driver was revealed to be a haitian immigrant without a u.s. license, things erupted.

>> the majority of the haitians here are low skilled and illiterate. >> i want to know who is busing them in. who is responsible for that and who can stop them from coming? >> our concerns don't have anything to do with racism. they have to do with lack of affordable housing. william: for the past few months, springfield resident and former journalist william monaghan has been a fixture at city commission meetings. he helps run a facebook group that's become a clearinghouse for locals' concerns about the haitians, where people complain about everything from reckless driving to higher rents. >> do you shop in springfield? no. do you drive the streets of springfield? no. do you consider springfield your home? no. are your kids safe in school? no. >> they're talking about, i got kicked out of my house because the rent went way up. my insurance has gone way up. i don't feel safe in the stores anymore. with maybe a couple exceptions, you know, it's never a race issue. they want to make it sound like a racial issue so they can demonize us and ignore our concerns. but these are valid concerns.

>> i have the same concerns that you as moms and dads, grandparents, aunt and uncles, have. i won't say this is a haitian crisis, this is an immigrant crisis. it's the fact that we have so many people here and we have a culture clash. william: mayor rue says reckless driving is an issue, but there's been no uptick in crime related to the immigrant population. but with so many new arrivals, he says the city needs help bolstering basic infrastructure. >> we say we need help, basically for translation services and safety forces. that's what we're looking at. our hospitals need reinforcement. william: in the meantime, local non-profits like st. vincent de paul have stepped in. here, people learn how to apply for jobs, and how to navigate the city's computer system. >> it's really important that when you file applications with immigration -- william: a translator, and a local lawyer, help this woman with her visa application. in a building across town, viles dorsainvil runs a support center

that helps haitians integrate into american life. he understands why so many new arrivals into an established community can create conflict. >> they have the right to express themselves, because we are living in a free-speech world. from the haitian side, they are trying to find jobs and opportunities. the locals are complaining because too many people are coming here. it is human being. we are expressing ourselves, the way we feel, but at the end of the day, we have to find a way to live together. william: but he says many haitians would also return home if the violence subsided. do you hope one day to go back to haiti? >> yeah, hopefully. i can't wait hopefully to go back to haiti. i am dreaming haiti. william: dreaming haiti, meaning at night while you're dreaming, you are there? >> yeah.

still working, still trying to integrate, you know, and then facing challenges all the time in the u.s. but i'm also dreaming of my country. william: for now, the residents of springfield -- old and new -- will continue writing the latest, complicated chapter in the story of immigration in america. for the pbs news hour, i'm william brangham in springfield, ohio. ♪ amna: at stanford's social neuroscience laboratory, scientists have spent years studying kindness, connection, and empathy. but those can all seem in short supply at a time of deep divisions and uncertainty. the head of that lab, jamil zaki, offers a different view: a data-driven reason to be hopeful about each other and the future. i spoke with zaki recently about his latest book called "hope for

cynics: the surprising science of human goodness." welcome to the news hour. thanks for being here. you happen studying human goodness and kindness for 20 years, which seems like a great job. you wrote in this book that over the last 10 or 15 years, you yourself started to lose hope. you said i could recite evidence about kindness from my lab and a dozen others. but as the world seemed to grow greedier and more hostile, my instincts refused to follow the science. this is probably something a lot of people can relate to. so describe for us what was it you were feeling? jamil: well, it is a cool job, first of all. it's the study of human goodness. and i think because of that, i have become a little bit of an unofficial ambassador for humanity's better angels. people ask me to speak or write when they want to feel good about our species. but i can tell you studying something isn't always the same as feeling it. and for me, especially during the early pandemic in lockdown, when i was experiencing humanity mostly through screens, i started to really feel as though no matter how much i looked at

the science, i felt as though people were selfish and dishonest. i felt a split between my job and myself. amna: you talk about that cynicism, right, as a lack of faith in our fellow humans. you also talk about it as a tool of the status quo. what does that mean? who benefits from cynicism? jamil: so cynicism, again, is the theory that people are selfish, greedy and dishonest. it's on the rise. and a lot of people say, well, maybe that's good because cynics might be radicals who hold power to account. it turns out the opposite is true. cynics see social problems, but they don't see any solutions. and if you think that our problems represent who we really are, why do anything about it? so cynics end up voting less often than non cynics, protesting less often. and in fact, the people who benefit from a population that doesn't trust itself are often autocrats and authoritarians. that's why i call it a tool of the status quo. amna: you also document, and

there's a lot of data to back this up in your book, real-world physical and social benefits to living in low cynicism, high trust societies. when are those benefits? what have you found? jamil: they really occur at every level. so trust is our willingness to be vulnerable to other people. and it's crucial to building important relationships in our lives, to having nourishing communities that help us feel happier and less stressed, but also to have in communities that -- to having communities that function, for instance, civically and economically. so it turns out that from individuals to families to organizations to culture writ large, trust helps us operate, helps us succeed, and cynicism disintegrates that. amna: i think here in the u.s., especially around now, we're talking about that cynicism and those divides we see along political lines of just how people have sorted. you write about that in your book and you say, during the same era in which americans lost trust in one another, they grew contempt for people with whom we disagree.

in 1980, u.s. republicans and democrats felt lots of warmth towards their own party. neutral about the other. by 2020, each party disliked the other side more than they liked their own. so you and your colleagues at the lab in 2022 brought together 100 americans, basically, who disagreed and had them engage in random zoom calls with each other to talk about really difficult things. why did you find? jamil: well, first of all, we are divided, and i don't want to diminish that. there is so much disagreement and a lot of really dangerous division in our nation as well. but the divisions in our mind are much larger than they are in reality. amna: what does that mean? jamil: well, it turns out if you ask democrats and republicans, what does the average person you disagree with think? what do they want? what do they like? we are wrong on nearly every measure. we think that the average person we disagree with is far more extreme than they really are. we think that they are twice as

anti-democratic, twice as hateful, and four times as violent as they really are. in many ways, we are fighting phantoms because we don't interact with people we disagree with as much as we used to. so in our lab, we tried to change that. we brought people together for these conversations, things like climate change and gun rights. and we asked them to predict how do you think these conversations will go? and they said somewhere between neutral to poorly. we then had them have these conversations and asked, how did that go, on a scale of 0 to 100, in terms of pleasantness and the most common response we got was 100. people loved connecting. they were shocked by how open minded, warm, and interested in them the person on the other side was. amna: you advocate for this, this idea of taking leaps of faith, over and over again in the book. what does that mean? how can people do that? jamil: the data are really clear. people are overall more trustworthy, kinder, more open minded, and friendlier than we

realize they are. of course there are people who do harm out there, but the average person underestimates the average person. and what that means is that when we give people a chance to show us who they are by putting those little leaps of faith, of small acts of trust into them, oftentimes we are pleasantly surprised by what they give back. amna: you start the book with your own crisis of hope, as it were. where are you now? jamil: i would consider myself a recovering cynic, not recovered. this practicing hope takes time. the same way that practicing running or yoga takes time. it takes effort, but most things that are worth it do. amna: the book is "hope for cynics: the surprising science of human goodness." the author is jamil zaki. thank you so much for being here. jamil: thank you. geoff: join us again here

tomorrow night, when we will have live coverage of the abc news presidential debate between kamala harris and donald trump. our simulcast of the debate plus analysis starts at 9:00 p.m. eastern. and that's the news hour for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by -- >> on an american cruise lines journey, travelers experience the maritime heritage and culture of the maine coast and new england islands. our fleet of small cruise ships explore american landscapes, seaside villages, and historic harbors, where you can experience local customs and cuisine. american cruise lines, proud sponsor of pbs news hour.

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