♪ geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on the newshour tonight. kamala harris and donald trump continue their push in critical swing states as election day draws closer. geoff: boeing workers overwhelmingly reject the company's offer to end the strike, complicating the ceo's

plan to turn the aerospace giant around. amna: and aided by a new federal law, environmentalists work to detect dangerous methane leaks in energy producing states. >> there are health hazards to breathing this in. and you'll see tanks like this in people's backyards. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by. >> a partner creates a trust to keep the craft alive. a financial advisor gets to know you and your passions and the way you enrich your community. a life well planned. >> on an american cruise line journey, along the mississippi river, travelers explore civil war battlefields and historic

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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 newshour. with the presidential election just 12 days away, new polling shows the presidential race is neck and neck. geoff: it's adding urgency to the harris campaign, the vice president is now consistently painting her opponent as an existential threat to democracy. this, as donald trump is in the sun belt tonight focusing on a -- focusing again on immigration. lisa desjardins reports. lisa: former president donald trump campaigning today down in the desert in the pivotal state of arizona, where election workers in maricopa county are already tabulating ballots from early voters. like these in phoenix. >> i did vote for kamala. a lot of reasons personally. >> i like the way the country ran when he was in charge.

not liking his personality, absolutely but i like his policies. lisa: trump is at arizona state university to rally the college crowd and put the spotlight back on one of those policies, immigration. >> she has eradicated our sovereign borders, she has unleashed an army of migrant gangs. we are waging a campaign of violence and terror against our citizens. lisa: something his opponent, vice president harris was pressed on repeatedly at a cnn town hall last night. she was asked whether she supports a border wall. >> let's just fix the problem. >> to fix the problem, you're doing this compromise bill. it does call for $650 million that was earmarked under trump to actually still go to build the wall. >> i'm not afraid of good ideas where they occur, anderson. >> so, you don't think it's stupid anymore? >> i think what he did and how he did it did not make much sense because he actually didn't do much of anything.

lisa: this as a wall street journal poll shows trump with the edge nationally, up by 2 points over the vice president. and a new marist poll shows tight races with trump with the lead in north carolina and arizona, and georgia a tie. all of the polls are within the margin of error. harris also made headlines last night for other answers about faith. >> i do pray every day, sometimes twice a day. lisa: and for her thoughts after trump's former chief of staff said he fits the definition of fascist. >> do you think donald trump is fascist? >> yes, i do. yes, i do. lisa: harris, and her running mate, tim walz, doubling down today. >> we have the decision of a donald trump sitting in the oval office, sitting, plotting, revenge. >> you are somewhere on that list if you disagree with these people. that is who they are. lisa: trump had his own accusation against harris last night at a rally in georgia, that was one of his largest in recent weeks. >> our country is being

destroyed and crippled by kamala harris, a person that got no votes. therefore she is a threat to democracy. lisa: and, speaking to conservative podcaster hugh hewitt today, trump also talked about what he would do, if elected, to special counsel jack smith, who is overseeing the two federal cases against him. >> we've got immunity in the supreme court. it is so easy. i would fire him within two seconds. lisa: from trump running mate j.d. vance today, a written argument in an op-ed in the pittsburgh post-gazette accusing harris of predjudice against -- prejudice against catholics. the harris campaign did not comment, after our request for a response. but the column brought vance union criticism for crossing a virtual picket line. workers have been on strike at the paper for two years. fewer than two weeks to go and the campaigns are battling across media, and across the map

. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> prosecutors in los angeles are recommending that the menendez brothers be resentenced for the 1989 killing of their parents. it's the first step in what could lead to their eventual release. lyle and erik menendez admitted to fatally shooting their mother and father in the family's beverly hills mansion. after an initial mistrial, a second trial was held in which evidence of their father's sexual abuse was largely excluded. the brothers received life, without parole. they are now in their 50's, and family and friends have pleaded for their release. l.a. district attorney george gascon told reporters today that the matter should be put before a parole board.

>> i believe that they have paid their debt to society, and the system provides a vehicle for their case to be reviewed by a parole board. and if the parole board concurs with my assessment, and it will be their decision, they will be released accordingly. amna: the menendez case has received increased public attention thanks in part to a recent documentary and a popular netflix drama series. the owner and operator of the cargo ship that caused the deadly baltimore bridge collapse has agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the department of justice. that comes a month after u.s. officials sued the company's in an effort to recover the money spent to clear the debris and reopen the port. the doj alleged the ship electrical systems were not properly maintained, causing it to lose power and slam into the francis scott key bridge in march.

six construction workers were killed and traffic in the port was held up for months. the biden administration is strengthening requirements on removing lead paint dust from older homes and child-care facilities. abortion is no legal at 22 weeks of pregnancy. the biden administration is strengthening requirements on removing lead paint dust from older homes and child-care facilities. paint that contains lead was banned in 1978, but an estimated 30 million american homes still have it. that includes nearly four million households with children under the age of six. the new rule is projected to reduce lead exposures for up to 1.2 million people per year, including hundreds of thousands of kids. it's set to take effect early next year, and comes two weeks after the epa imposed a nationwide deadline for the removal of lead pipes.

the white house laid out new rules today on the use of artificial intelligence by u.s. national security and spy agencies. the framework tells agencies to expand their use of certain a.i. systems. it also puts guardrails on other uses, like applications that would violate civil rights or automatically deploy nuclear weapons. national security adviser jake sullivan told students at the national defense university that the u.s. has an obligation to ensure the ethical use of ai technology. >> we have to carry out this effort with respect to information warfare as a democracy that doesn't do state-run propaganda and have got to do it consistent with our values in our ways. amna: sullivan also called the speed of change in a.i.

breathtaking, making regulation difficult. and many of the deadlines that come with this order will expire after president biden leaves office, meaning it would be up to the next president to decide whether to stick to the guidelines or change them. secretary of state antony blinken was in qatar today for the latest leg of his middle east trip. while there, he said he expects ceasefire talks between israel and hamas to resume in the coming days. blinken visited with qatari officials in doha today, who have been key mediators for hamas. he said that israel has succeeded in dismantling hamas' military wing, and now is the time to end the war. blinken also announced additional humanitarian funding for palestinians, while urging israel to allow more aid into gaza. >> today we're announcing an additional $135 million in humanitarian assistance. but we all know that it's not enough to provide funding. it's not even enough to get the assistance to the borders of gaza.

what's so critical is that the aid gets to the people who need it. amna: on the ground, palestinian officials say an israeli airstrike today on a school-turned-shelter in central gaza killed at least 17 people. the hospital that received the victims reported that women and children were among the dead, and that at least 42 others were wounded. israel says that hamas militants were hiding inside the school. in the philippines, at least 24 people have died amid massive flooding and landslides caused by tropical storm trami. it hit the northeastern province of isabela shortly after midnight local time. flash floods drenched towns and villages. soldiers passed out food and supplies and used boats to rescue stranded people. the government closed schools and offices for the entire island for a second day. stormy weather has continued, making relief work difficult. the death toll is expected to rise. on wall street today, stocks ended mixed after recent losses this week.

york has been showering this year's wnba champions with love, gratitude, and ticker-tape today. series mvp jonquel jones led the liberty's parade down manhattan's 'canyon of heroes' this morning. the team won their first-ever championship in thrilling style on sunday, defeating the minnesota lynx in overtime in a deciding game five. new york has hosted more than 200 ticker-tape parades over the years. but this was only the third time a women's sports team has been honored, following parades for the u.s. women's national soccer team in 2015, and again in 2019. still to come on the newshour, where the presidential candidates stand on the most pressing foreign policy issues facing the u.s. a new book on the complex legacy of senator mitch mcconnell. and donald trump'rambling speeches raise questions about his mental acuity. >> this is the pbs news hour, from the david m rubenstein

studio in washington and from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: boeing is no closer to ending its six-week-old strike after its latest contract offer was rejected by workers last night by a stunning margin. the results of that vote came just hours after the company announced a huge quarterly loss, and acknowledged it has a long way to go to earn back customers' trust. stephanie sy has our report. stephanie: the latest attempt to end a six week strike didn't end well for boeing. >> today, members voted to reject the company's latest offer by 64%. 64%! stephanie: an overwhelming result that keeps 33,000 factory workers on the picket lines in washington, oregon and california. after last night's vote, the president of the local union vowed to keep putting the

pressure on boeing. >> we will stand for the demands that our members need to get a contract they can respect, that shows the respect they deserve. there is much more work to do. stephanie: if the deal had passed, it would have given workers a 35% wage increase over four years as well as a $7,000 signing bonus. a compromise between the company offer of a 25% increase and the union initial demand for a 40% raise. boeing refused to budge on demands that it restore a traditional pension plan that was axed a decade ago. workers essay that is a major sticking point. >> even a lot of the new hires are looking at the pension as a way for the future. even though everyone says they are out of date doesn't mean they don't work.

>> i feel sorry for the young people. i've spent my life here and i'm getting ready to go. they deserve a pension and i deserve an increase. stephanie: boeing says it's machinists make about $75,000 per year on average. ving costs have skyrocketedreke over the last decade, far outpacing boeing's annual raises and cost-of-living adjustments. >> we would like to see better from them. we deserve better from them. stephanie: the labor standoff has contributed to a huge backlog of orders. ahead of the vote yesterday, the company announced its third-quarter revenue, a dismal $6 billion loss. boeing, a century-old icon of american aviation had been experiencing turbulence well before the strike began. not long after the 737 max hit the market in 2017, two of them crashed, killing 346 people. and in january of this year, a door panel blew off that same

model midair. >> there is no silver bullet. this isn't going to be fixed in one fell swoop. stephanie: yesterday before the union vote, boeing's ceo spoke on cnbc. >> we are reevaluating the values of the company and we really need to embark on a culture change, that is something more than just a poster on the wall. it is really going to guide how the company behaves. stephanie: they admitted to investors that trust has quote, eroded but he committed to restoring the company reputation. >> this is not a story about losing market support for our products. demand is tremendous. this is a story about us getting our act together and being able to deliver aircraft. stephanie: but first, the company needs to get all of its workers back on board. the union hopes the biden administration, including the acting labor secretary, who was in seattle 10 days ago, will

facilitate the parties' return to the negotiating table. the strike is estimated to be costing the company $1 billion per month. for the pbs news hour, i'm stephanie. amna: it is among the most consequential decisions presidents can make, when to go to war, and how to support america's partners in their wars. as part of our series promises and policies, we look at the candidates' policies on the wars in ukraine and the middle east, and the promises they've made on what they would do if elected president. for more on that, we turn to nick schifrin. let's start in the middle east. what are the policies? nick: both candidates expressed outrage over the october 7 terrorist attacks.

they support israel's right to defend itself and they promised military support for israel. both criticized the nature of the war in gaza but through different lenses and with different solutions. let's listen to harris talking about gaza in july after meeting with israel prime minister benjamin netanyahu. >> the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. and i will not be silent. nick: now let's listen to former president trump, first speaking to reporters from a conservative israeli outlet in march. >> shots. i mean, moving shots of bombs being dropped into buildings in gaza. and i said, oh, that's a terrible portrait. you know it's a very bad picture r the world. the world is seeing this.

>> yeah, but hamas terrorists are in those buildings, so how can we fight them? >> you have to go and do what you have to do, but you don't do that nick: trump has kept that implicit can -- criticism consistent on even wanting to see the war in gaza end soon and even after speaking to netanyahu in august. >> i did encourage him to get this over with. you want to get it over with. he has to get it over with fast. but have victory, get your victory, and get it over with. it has to stop. the killing has to stop. nick: so when you look at how to get the war to stop, that is where the candidates differ. trump said that israel has to have victory although as far as i can tell, he's never actually described destroying hamas which is how benjamin netanyahu describes victory.

harris has said the war should end with a cease fire that would release all the hostages and end the war. amna: mr. trump has used the biden-harrison administration call for a cease fire as an example that he is a stronger supporter of israel. nick: even though that framework that president biden announced is actually israel's framework for a cease fire. trump has used the cease-fire and the administration's paws on 2000 pound bombs to israel as them withholding support for israel. >> from the start, harris has worked to tie israel's hand behind its back, demanding an immediate ceasefire. i will give israel the support that it needs to win, but i do want them to win fast. nick: you see how trump actually leaves the prompter to add win fast. harris highlights the administration's unprecedented support for israel, including helping shoot down iranian missiles, and deploying an air defense system with 100 soldiers. harris describes her support for israel as lifelong. >> from when i was a young girl collecting funds to plant trees for israel to my time in the united states senate and now at the white house, i've had an

unwavering commitment to the existence of the state of israel, to its security, and to the people of israel. nick: harris describes u.s. support through the lens of the decades-old partnership. former president trump describes u.s. support for the state of israel needing him personally. amna: let's switch to russia's war in ukraine. tell us where the candidates stand. nick: vice president harris and much of the foreign policy establishment in washington has stood by ukraine. former president trump promises to end the war even before beginning a second term, and he has questioned the level of u.s. support to ukraine. let's listen to him during last month's abc debate. >> do you want ukraine to win this war? >> i want the war to stop. want to save lives. it's in the u.s. best interest to get this war finished and just get it done. all right. negotiate a deal. because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.

nick: trump has not described how he would accomplish ending the war, but some advisors from the other trump and administration, the previous administration wrote a research paper that lays out a few points. one is that ukraine should negotiate based on current frontlines. delay ukraine's nato membership for at least a decade. offer russia sanctions relief in exchange for giving ukraine some kind of long-term security infrastructure. here's what vice president harris said about those ideas before meeting with the linsky in september. -- meeting with zelinski in september. >> there are some in my country who would instead force ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that ukraine accept neutrality, and would require ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations. these proposals are the same of those of putin. and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. instead, they are proposals for surrender. nick: neither harris nor the

biden administration had described exactly how they will help ukraine achieve victory. ukraine's description of victory requires nato membership and ewing -- and using u.s. weapons to strike deep into russia, two ideas the biden administration has rejected. amna: taking a broader lens, how do harris and trump differ when it comes to nato and europe? nick: very dramatically. one of the most notorious foreign policy moments of the campaign, trump seemed to dismiss article five that commits the u.s. to defending european allies regardless of whether they spend 2% of gdp on defense. >> most politicians have said to that, yes, we will protect you

under any circumstances. well, then they're never paying up. i said, no, no. you have to understand you don't pay your bills, you get no protection. it's very simple. nick: trump's allies say don't taken literally. he is continuing a pressure campaign on europe at they see as successful to get europe to spend more of their money on defense. we saw harris about that trump statement, say this in september. >> understand why the european allies and our nato allies are so thankful that you are no nger president and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is nato. and what we have done to preserve the ability of zelenskyy and the ukrainians to fight for their independence. otherwise, putin would be tting in kyiv with his eyes on the rest of europe. nick: senior european officials i've spoken to our enormously

worried about what a second trump administration would mean for their part. israeli officials tell me they are worried about whether harris will contain the level of support for israel. the bottom line is the entire world is watching this election, knowing what is at stake. amna: thank you so much. geoff: senate republican leader mitch mcconnell, the longest serving senate leader in history, is set to step down from that position next month. over nearly two decades in the role, he has become one of the most consequential and powerful senators in u.s. history, reshaping the federal judiciary, now navigating a party transformed by donald trump. the associated press' michael tackett has written the first definitive biography of mitch mcconnell, due out tuesday. it's called the price of power, how mitch mcconnell mastered the senate, changed america and lost his party. michael tackett joins us now. so this book has already garnered a lot of attention, in large part because you quote mitch mcconnell as he is sharing his private views about donald

trump. he called him a sleaze ball, a narcissist, he says he is stupid as well as ill tempered, not very smart, nasty, just about every quality you would not want someone to have. and yet mitch mcconnell has endorsed donald trump. why? michael: a real contradiction and it is hard for people to sort that out. what it starts with is he wants to be in control of the senate. he wants to stay senate leader. doesn'endorse the'in -- if republican nominee. geoff: he also says the maga movement is completely wrong and that ronald reagan would not recognize the party today. how does he explain donald trump's hold on the republican party? michael: he thinks there is a group of people in the country who feel like life isn't fair and that they have not been able to partake in the greatness of the country and have not had the opportunity they wanted to have and therefore donald trump was able to capture them and keep them and traditional republicans find it really hard to navigate.

geoff: he also says he was proudest of shaping the supreme court. he considers his denial of merrick garland his proudest achievement based on your reporting. democrats see that as the height of partisan obstructionism that damaged the legitimacy of the court. michael: that's the debate. the thing is that what it was was a blunt force use of his power. there really was not a clear precedent for that and somewhat argue there was no precedent, but he could do it some plea because he could because in the senate, he only needed to have a majority of the votes to do it. he did it and he rammed it through and he was criticized for that and that is a big part

of his legacy. he looks at it as the greatest thing he ever did. others think he undermined the institution of the court and undermined the faith of the court in the process. geoff: you spoke with justice alito as you were reporting out this book. what did he say? michael: he agrees that mcconnell steered the court in the right direction and it was interesting to me that he actually refers to it as the mcconnell court, not the trump court. geoff: let's talk about january 6, because after the rioters had been cleared from the capital and lawmakers returned from their secure location, mcconnell addressed his staff and as you write, he started to sob softly and told his staff, you are my family and i hate that you had to go through this. he eventually voted to acquit donald trump in the second impeachment, that was focused on his involvement in january 6, but he didn't necessarily get to that decision easily based on your reporting. michael: there is no question. initially, -- first of all he thought there was no question that he committed an impeachable offense and he still thinks that. the issue for him was could you

convict someone if they were no longer in office and that was the rationale he chose to use. no one had ever been impeached when they were out of office. it's a really important part of understanding mcconnell. like him or not, he is a rational actor. he looks at the cost-benefit analysis and if he doesn't see it, he doesn't do it. in this case his calculation was donald trump was going to fade from the scene. he will be gone and i need the energy of the trump ace in the midterm elections. as i said in the book, it was the worst political calculation of his career. geoff: does he view it that way? michael: i think he looks at it in hindsight and realizes i'll trump is still on the scene. he still thinks there is no way he could have gotten 67 votes to convict, and he thought there was no point in going through the exercise if it wasn't going to be successful. geoff: where does he think the republican party goes next? is trumpism cemented in the gop? michael: i think we will know the answer to that after

election day. if it turns out to be favorable to the republican party, than they are completely in the hold of donald trump. if republicans don't have a good day, than there is a reckoning of a different kind. geoff: the title of the book is the price of power. what price has mitch mcconnell paid in the pursuit of power? michael: more than once he said i know the democrats hate me because of garland. i know half the republicans hate me because of trump. he is one of the least popular members of the u.s. senate if you look at the polling. even in his home state of kentucky, his numbers are terrible, and yet every time he runs for reelection, his margins grow. i think he is at peace with the fact that he did what he wanted to do but on the other hand, he knows he paid a heavy price in terms of the isolation of being that unpopular. geoff: the book is the price of anks again for speaking with us. amna: if he is reelected, former president donald trump would be the oldest president ever elected.

after a number of appearances where his remarks were rambling or incoherent, and one event in which he swayed silently to music on stage for close to 40 minutes, questions are being raised about possible cognitive decline. here are a couple of recent events that sparked concern. the first one in which he began talking about electric vehicles, then switched to a story about an electrically powered boat. >> let's say your boat goes down and i'm sitting on top of this big powerful battery and the boat's going down. do i get electrocuted? and he said, you know what, honestly, nobody's ever asked me that question. but if i'm sitting down and that boat's going down and i'm on top of a battery. and the water starts flooding

in. i'm getting concerned, but then i looked 10 yards to my left and there's a shark over there. so i have a choice of electrocution or shark. you know what i'm going to take? electrocution. i will take electrocution every single time. let's listen to pavarotti. sing ave marina. can you hear that? [ave maria plays] [ymca plays] amna: mr. trump has dismissed any speculation about mental decline, describing his rambling rhetoric as him weaving together different topics and saying his supporters get it. let's take a look at some of these questions with an author and clinical psychologist who's raised some of them, that's

doctor ben michaellis. doctor, welcome to the newshour. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. amna: so doctor, both his political opponents but also some academics look at his speech patterns. they look at his stories and some odd behavior, and they say it's all evidence of mental decline. do you see it that way? are those concerns valid? dr. michaellis: so, obviously i can't diagnose someone in absentia, but certainly there is ample evidence, and look, he's 78-years-old, just to be fair, all of us tend to decline over time. some of what we're seeing is pretty extreme elements of his decline that are certainly suggestive of more serious impairment. amna: tell us a bit more about what you see that says that to you, especially in terms of who he is today versus a year ago or even to trump of 2016. dr. michaellis: so i did an analysis for stat news about seven years ago, looking at the complexity of his speech from when he was in his to when he 40's was running for president back in 2016 and at that time there was definitely a difference both in his sentence structure and in the complexity of his vocabulary between from

when he was in his 40's to when he was in his earlier, later 60's, early 70's. what's happened between 2016, 2017, and now is not so much a difference in the vocabulary. the vocabulary is not significantly less complex than it was, but it's in the thought patterns, so he's not staying linear. so right now we're having a conversation, we're staying on topic, you're asking questions. i'm responding, and what we're saying kind of has a sort of hand in glove quality to it. but what we're seeing with trump is basically he's moving further and further away from linearity to tangentiality, so he's sort of weaving together ideas and then it's moving further afield towards circumstantiality, and that's really where you sort of start talking about a topic and then you just really sort of lose the thread entirely and there's a lot of that that we're seeing in his speech patterns.

amna: now, as you know, there are others who see this differently and they think that his speech patterns, his remarks, his behavior, don't necessarily suggest anything, especially cognitive decline . among them are dr. jamie riley, director of a cognition lab at temple university. here's part of what he had to say. >> there are people who, who count syllables, and they count the speech rate and they count the number of things like how much he curses and things like that and have noted changes. they've noted changes in his syntax like the grammatical complexity of his language. the question of whether that is a marker of cognitive -- of a disease process is really, really tricky. so when you read that literature, you'll see that people note that there are changes, but they don't take that next step of saying this is a marker or something, right? we just know that it's, there u know, sometimes people run, th that and they say this is a evidence for something, but i'm

t sure you can make that leap at all. amna: what do you make of that? is that a leap too far to make? dr. michaellis: so again not , making a formal diagnosis of dementia, you need to actually assess him formally and face to face in order to do that. you can't diagnose anyone in absentia, but what we're seeing is real and it's, you know, part of the challenge is, so look, again, he is 78 years old. if this was your grandfather, you probably wouldn't think twice about it. again, we all decline with age. what i'm seeing is more challenges with the thought processes. again, i'm not saying that he has dementia, but they are suggestive of if you sort of took this all in totality, right? so problems with memory loss, communication difficulties, changes in mood, you know, poor judgment, personality changes, those in total are what, you know, really the symptoms of dementia, and there's certainly

evidence to suggest, and i think it is a reasonable thing to think about this. i mean, this is a person that is running for the most powerful office in the world. and we should be very thoughtful about who we are putting in that office because these are real concerns. his decisions were he to be reelected will affect all of us. amna: you mentioned dementia specifically. there's a family history i want to ask you about because his father fred trump was diagnosed with dementia. does that mean anything for a former president trump's likelihood of also potentially developing dementia? dr. michaellis: yeah, it just increases the odds. we know these things run in families. there's certainly evidence of that, and they're sort of genetic markers that you can certainly take tests for to see, but all that does is increase the odds. so you take that information which as well as all the different things that you are seeing, and it paints a picture and what i'm hoping to do is just put a little bit of a spotlight on this so that people make an informed decision about who they are putting in the oval office. that's all. amna: apart from any formal

diagnosis, there are those who say, look, this is just who president trump is and has always been. that he occasionally speaks this way and tells incoherent stories and uses more brash and aggressive language. it's just trump being trump and has nothing to do with cognitive decline. could that be it? could it just be personality? dr. michaellis: i mean, i suppose, but look, the fact of the matter is he is an entertainer fundamentally, and people he's entertaining to , watch for people. so if you're not trained in this, you may be focused only on and he has a lot of vigor. let's be very clear for a 78-year-old man, he has a lot of vigor and so you're focusing on those things, but not the sort of total picture of what we're seeing, and this is from my perspective this is not just , sort of trump being trump. like if you look at footage for him over the last few years, he he seems to be more and more circumstantial. i mean this idea about sort of starting talking about electric cars and then moving to sharks and then this sort of digression with music the other day where he was swaying to music for 30 minutes and then using, you know, more and more sort of

derogatory language, again, it just paints a concerning picture. amna: what would it take to definitively answer or quiet these concerns? dr. michaellis: i think that anyone that is running for office and certainly the highest office in the land should be evaluated by an independent evaluator, not someone that is appointed by his team or by the opposition. someone that is truly independent and maybe it's maybe it's 3 independent evaluators, but that seems appropriate to me, right? we license people to drive, you know, when you're behind the wheel of a 2 ton death machine, you could harm people and think about the power that is invested in the presidency.

so it just seems appropriate to do a formal evaluation of him. amna: and it's clinical psychologist dr. ben michael is -- michaelis joining us tonight. dr. michael, thank you for your time. we appreciate it. dr. michaellis: thank you. geoff: two major laws passed by congress and signed into law by president biden provide new money and new requirements for reducing potent methane emissions, including those coming from abandoned oil and gas wells.

now, the federal government has started awarding some contracts for capping those wells. but the election could impact whether this work will continue since former president trump wants to reverse many rules and recently referred to climate concerns as a scam. science correspondent miles o'brien reports from the battleground state of pennsylvania on the larger scope of the problem. miles: deep in the allegheny national forest of northwestern pennsylvania. >> i see something through their. miles: alyssa is blazing trails down narrow roads through thick brush, hoping to see the methane for the trees. aging cameras able to recordk. plumes of hydrocarbons. she is hunting for methane or natural gas, often found along with oil and often found leaking

out of oil wells, active or not. >> you can hear and see the bubbling that comes from the methane underground and with this camera, i am able to also see this methane is going into the air. miles: the forests of pennsylvania are filled with thousands of orphaned and abandoned oil wells. many of them more than a century old. history's first oil rush began not far from here in 1859 when edwin drake drilled the first commercially viable well. pennsylvania estimates there are more than 350,000 orphaned and abandoned wells in the state. >> there is no responsible party we can hold accountable now, to clean up the mess that we have here. it is just leaking into the air one of these at a time. miles: methane traps about 80 times more heat during a 20 year lifetime than carbon dioxide. it is responsible for about 30% of human caused global warming and about 8% of methane emissions in pennsylvania are linked to orphaned and abandoned wells. >> through this camera, it looks

like smoke. i can see it puffing away. it is not totally sealed. miles: the pennsylvania department of environmental protection estimates the average cost to plug a conventional well like this is about $100,000. this can vary depending on the depth, the condition of the well and its accessibility. the cost creates a perverse incentive to keep wells active well past their prime. >> they know the cost of plugging is high, so they will try to keep it in that gray area as long as possible where it is just producing a trickle. miles: the loopholes, the shades of gray and the dearth of accurate records compound the problem. >> there are these documented wells that the state knows about, they have records on it and then they have all of these undocumented wells. miles: mary is an associate professor of civil engineering at mcgill university.

she and her team were the first to publish germans of ethane emissions from abandoned oil and gas wells -- first to publish -- >> there were so many times we would get there and we are looking for one well and we will find 5, 6 or a dozen. then you start to ask how many are missing? miles: other experts estimate there may be one million orphaned oil and gas wells in the u.s.. but right now, only 140,000 of them are documented. the bipartisan infrastructure bill set aside 4.7 billion dollars to begin tackling the problem. the commonwealth of pennsylvania has used the money to greatly accelerate a well capping campaign, celebrating its 200th finished project in march.

governor shapiro. >> today, pennsylvania is facing the consequences of a legacy left by an industry that made a buck off of our natural resources and then got away with abandoning these gas wells, without properly plucking them. miles: the american petroleum institute which represents oil and gas producers says it has established strong industry standards to advance the permanent closure and mediation of historic wells, and it supports a sound policy framework for bonding and financial assurance to ensure operators can meet their decommissioning obligations. >> typically, i will go straight to the apartment of environmental protection to file a complaint. miles: methane is odorless, and yet the forest is pungent with the foul smell of rotten eggs. it is hydrogen sulfide, a toxic chemical that often accompanies methane. other hitchhikers include volatile organic compounds. among them, a carcinogen. >> there are health hazards to breathing this in.

you will see tanks like this in people's backyards, and it is just venting out. miles: nearby in brantford, pennsylvania, wherever you go or drive, you will see reminders that this is a city and a region built by, of and amid oil wells. many are still in operation. at the end of 2023, the environmental protection agency finalized rules designed to detect and control methane emissions from active oil and gas production facilities, but requirements are relaxed for the small wells so common here. >> they are all over the place here. right next to schools. miles: the tank beside this shed is nestled in a neighborhood. the smell offered us a telltale of trouble.

the camera confirmed it was an open hatch designed to vent methane emissions. >> otherwise, it would explode. it is unfortunately just part of the scenery here. miles: while our cameras were out, we provoke some curiosity and concern. a mother of four moved here in 2020. we showed her the smoking hatch footage. >> that is just allowing it to billow out like that. >> is there a way to fix this? so it is not leaking like that? miles: she said summer nights are the worst. >> the smell is so bad it would wake me out of my sleep. it would give me stomachaches, headaches, an overall feeling of sickness. i don't want to plan anyone's livelihood, but i also don't want my health and my children's health to be in jeopardy. watching that video of the

chemicals pouring out of those, it puts evidence of what i've been feeling the last three years. miles: the evidence is everywhere, if you have th ability to look. it is hard to imagine getting to net zero carbon emissions without stopping the steady stream of leaking methane. millions of old holes must be plugged, even as tens of thousands of new ones are drilled every year. geoff: colleges and universities are disclosing the racial makeup of the first class of students admitted after the supreme court overturned affirmative action. the numbers give a more detailed look at the potential impact of the court's ruling. while there's quite a bit of variation, several analyses show black enrollment is down at a number of colleges.

as part of our series on rethinking college, we're going to look at this with david leonhardt of the new york times. thanks for being here. this first class, when you look at the data, what stands out? david: the first thing is that colleges are different. there is a lot of variation. at some schools, you see a big decline in the share of black students in columbia, m.i.t., and in other schools, it is relatively flat or even slightly up. places where it is flat or georgetown, dartmouth, northwestern. after the decision, people thought we might see similar trends at all schools but there is a lot of variation. geoff: the admissions at bc use have been increasing as well. david: which makes sense. geoff: let's talk about asian american enrollment because that paints a picture as well and i raise it because the people who supported the supreme court case said that race-based admissions were a barrier for asian

american students. david: and i think some of the evidence suggested they were a barrier. what we have seen is the changes at a typical college are not huge. what we see is the share of black students is indeed down. analysis suggests from 12% to 10.3%. the asian share is up. maybe by a percentage point or so. the officials number -- the official numbers may understate however because the number of students not reporting race has also risen and people think that is disproportionately an asian thing. there was so much discussion about how this process might be biased against asian american students that people think even with the supreme court decision, more asian students may have chosen to leave their ethnicity off of the application. geoff: you recently wrote about using a different lens to look at all of this, the lens of economic diversity.

david: i think it is important because there are enormous racial inequities in our society. there are also in norma's economic inequities and while they overlap, they are not the same. what has happened over the last 30 years or so is that colleges actually have made more progress diversifying racially than they have economically. a lot of these very selective colleges had a diverse group of students by race, but those students were overwhelmingly upper-middle-class or affluent. there's been more pressure on colleges to diversify and now that the supreme court has banned race-based affirmative action, some colleges are trying to continue to recruit a diverse class by leaning on economic affirmative action which is still legal. we don't know how much more economically diverse these colleges are going to get, if at all. the early evidence suggests some of them like uva or duke, schools that have been traditionally very affluent, may

be getting more diverse economically. geoff: what are you watching for as you try to piece together a fuller picture of where students are going? david: i think what is important to remember is that this isn't just a single change. it is not like the supreme court spoke and everything changed. california got rid of race-based affirmative action 30 years ago and one of the things we saw was that at some schools initially there was a huge incline in the black student population, over time they figured out ways to build up more diversity. ucla is an example of that. other schools like berkeley, the initial decline has persisted more. what i'm looking for is what happens not just this year but in the years ahead. will schools like columbia or new york figure out ways to overcome disparities or will that end up being the new normal at those schools? the schools that did have big declines, you don't want it to be the new normal.

geoff: thank you so much for speaking with me. amna: there is a lot more online including a look at the unique challenges asian americans face when caring for their elderly family members. that's at pbs.org/newshour. geoff: and join us again here tomorrow night, when we'll report from the battleground of north carolina, where young voters could be the deciding factor in the presidential race. and that's the newshour 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. ♪

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