geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on the "news hour" tonight -- >> if this deal is not done by the people representing our nation, by the time i get to office, all hell is going to break out. amna: president-elect donald

trump issues a threat to hamas and advocates for making the panama canal, greenland, and even canada part of the u.s. geoff: facebook and instagram end their fact-checking programs, a move critics fear will pave the way for a spike in misinformation. amna: and two years after protests erupted in iran, women speak out about the threats and oppression they still face. >> we all share the same story, demanding our rights, demanding control of our bodies. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by -- >> a proud supporter of public television. on a voyage, the world awaits. a world of flavor, diverse destinations, and immersive

experiences. a wworlorld of leisure and brith style. all with white star service. ♪ >> the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions, and friends of the news hour, including kathy and paul anderson, and camilla and george smith. >> the john s and jane l knight foundation. more at kf.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." with donald trump set to enter the oval office in just two weeks, the president-elect expressed his desire for expanding the american territory he'd govern through the use of military and economic force, if necessary. geoff: it was part of a news conference at mar-a-lago where he also proposed renaming a body of water whose name has been around since the founding of the united states. >> we're going to be changing the name of the gulf of mexico to the gulf of america, which

has a beautiful ring, that covers a lot of territory. the gulf of america, what a beautiful name. geoff: mr. trump also attacked his perceived political enemies as he battles legal challenges before he takes office. our white house correspondent laura barron-lopez joins us now. what were the other takeaways from the press conference today? laura: this was one hour long rambling press conference and he talked about using force to gain control over countries and territories. he raised the possibility of using military force to secure greenland and the panama canal, and also talked about using economic control to acquire a canada. and renaming the gulf of mexico as the gulf of america. he also says all hell will break out of hamas does not release hostages by the time he takes office. he said he wants to use tariffs at a high level against denmark to try to pressure it, to cede

control of greenland to the u.s. on the idea of the annexation of canada, outgoing prime minister justin trudeau outright rejected it on x, saying there was not a snowballs chance in hell it would happen. geoff: as the president-elect was talking to reporters, judge aileen cannon temporarily blocked the release of special counsel jack smith's report. what did mr. trump had to say? laura: he called it great news, and use the press conference not just to rail against all the legal cases that were brought against him, but special counsel jack smith. >> it's called weaponization of justice, and it's happened at a level nobody's ever seen before. i defeated deranged jack smith. he's a deranged individual, i guess he's on his way back to the hague. and we won those cases, the biggest ones. laura: trump did not win those cases. jack smith dropped the cases

against him because of the fact donald trump won the election. the president-elect was also asked if he would pardon january 6 rioters who assaulted police officers and he did not answer the question. he said rioters came to the capitol with not one gun. that is not true because multiple rioters were charged with carrying firearms. we should note that today, an appeals court rejected the president-elect's effort to delay the sentencing in the new york hush money trial scheduled for friday. he injected a lot of grievances in this press conference against his perceived political enemies. geoff: we are set to begin seeing confirmation hearings begin for mr. trump's cabinet selections. laura: next week, we have a number of key confirmations on the docket, starting with defense secretary nominee pete had sex on january 14 -- p ete hegseth on january 14 and elise stefanik on january 16.

the attorney general nominee pam bondi, her hearing will likely happen after the inauguration. i hea talk to a gop senate aide who said they wanted to hold it as early as next week which the waiting on some financial documents and background checks for pam bondi, so it is likely it will have to go into, after president-elect takes office. an aide on the senate intel committee was telling me it looks like tulsi gabbard is going to have to wait a bit longer for her confirmation hearing. republicans wanted it to be next week, but it looks like tulsi gabbard to be the director of national intelligence is going to have to wait a bit longer. geoff: laura, thanks to you as always. laura: thank you. ♪ amna: we start the day's other headlines in southern

california, where residents are fleeing a fast-moving wildfire in the hills of los angeles. fire crews are trying to contain the palisades fire, which has exploded in size to more than 200 acres. smoke from the blaze can be seen for miles, with traffic jammed up as locals try to flee the area. the national weather service is warning of life-threatening, destructive gusts of wind that could whip up such wildfires even further. forecasters say the windstorms could be the worst in a decade. meantime, a so-called polar vortex is bringing below freezing temperatures as far south as the gulf coast. frigid air comes as millions in central and eastern parts of the country dig out from a winter storm that snarled roads and toppled trees. washington, d.c.'s snowstorm shut down the federal government for a second straight day and people are still without power across the midwest and tennessee valley.

forecasters say they may not see relief for days. >> missouri, tennessee, kentucky, west virginia, those places aren't going to get above freezing until this coming weekend. so, you have about five days or so or more of below freezing temperatures. and that means the ice and snow will not melt. amna: and, there's another major winter storm brewing that could bring more snow and ice to the central and eastern u.s., and as far south as texas. in western china, a devastating earthquake has killed at least 126 people. the 7.1-magnitude quake struck shortly after 9:00 a.m. local time in tibet near the border with nepal. emergency responders rushed to isolated villages to search for survivors. the closest city to the epicenter is shigatse, where streets are now littered with debris from crumbled buildings. city officials say they activated the highest level of emergency response. >> moving forward, we will fully implement the important instructions given by general secretary xi jinping.

we will spare no efforts to conduct thorough searches for trapped people, provide medical care, offer essential relief, and ensure the basic needs of affected residents. amna: chinese state tv says that more than 1000 homes were damaged in the remote region. and nearly 200 people were injured on the chinese side of the border, in addition to those killed. in florida, authorities say two bodies were found dead in the landing gear compartment of a jetblue aircraft. the airline says they were discovered last night during routine post-flight maintenance at fort lauderdale airport following a flight from new york. police say both individuals are believed to be men, but provided no further details. jetblue says it's working with authorities to understand what happened. it comes just weeks after another body was discovered in the wheel-well of a plane, that time on a united airlines flight from maui to chicago. the man accused of burning a woman to death last month in a new york city subway car pleaded

not guilty to murder and arson charges today. sebastian zapeta appeared for his arraignment in a brooklyn court this morning. a police transcript shows zapeta told officers he has no recollection of the attack, and said he was "very sorry" when he saw himself in the footage. zapeta said he had been drinking heavily throughout the night. prosecutors are seeking the maximum sentence of life in prison without parole. the biden administration announced today that unpaid medical bills will no longer appear on credit reports. the consumer financial protection bureau says the change will remove $49 billion from the reports of some 15 million americans. that's estimated to raise credit scores by an average of 20 points, which could help thousands of people secure loans and mortgages each year. in a statement, vice president kamala harris said, "no one should be denied economic opportunity because they got sick or experienced a medical emergency." on wall street today, stocks slipped amid new worries about

the pace of fed rate cuts this year. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 180 points on the day. the nasdaq sank 375 points or nearly 2%. the s&p 500 also ended firmly in negative territory. the late president jimmy carter is lying in state tonight at the u.s. capitol following a journey from his beloved home state of georgia. ♪ to the tune of "amazing grace," carter's casket left his presidential center in atlanta for the journey back to washington. once there, his motorcade stopped at the u.s. navy memorial where it was transferred to a horse-drawn carriage. carter was the nation's only naval academy graduate to rise to commander-in-chief. then, it was on to the u.s. capitol, where members of congress and vice president kamala harris paid their respects this afternoon. the public can visit starting tonight.

carter will remain there until his state funeral at washington's national cathedral on thursday. singer-songwriter peter yarrow of the folk music group peter, paul and mary has died. ♪ yarrow co-wrote the group's best-known song, "puff the magic dragon." in the early 1960's, he joined forces and harmonies with noel paul stookey and mary travers. together, they created hit versions of bob dylan's "blowi'' in the wind" and pete seeger's "if i had a hammer," among others. a social activist on and off the stage, yarrow was involved in the civil rights movement, and campaigned against the war in vietnam. peter yarrow suffered from bladder cancer in his later years. he was 86 years old. still to come on the "news hour," the u.s. says sudan's rebel forces have committed genocide. minneapolis agrees to more

oversight of its police department, four years after george floyd's murder. and we examine how u.s. foreign aid does and does not make an impact around the world. >> this is the pbs news hour from the david m. rubenstein studios at weta in washington and from the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism from arizona state university. geoff: facebook and instagram's parent company meta announced today it was ending third-party fact-checking on its platforms, calling the decision a return to a "fundamental commitment to free expression." meta's fact-checking program was rolled out in the wake of the 2016 election. ceo mark zuckerberg said today, the rules had become too restrictive and prone to over-enforcement. >> we've built a lot of complex systems to moderate content. but, the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts, that's

millions of people, and we've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. the recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech, so we're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms. geoff: to discuss the implications of this shift, we're joined now by renee diresta, associate research professor at the mccourt school of public policy at georgetown university. thank you for being with us. renee: thanks for having me. geoff: why did meta initially put this fact checking program into place and was it effective? renee: so, it was launched in december 2016 in response to widespread criticism of fake news that had gone viral quite a bit during the presidential campaign. and the platform faced a lot of backlash in response. the fact checking initiative was launched as part of facebook's efforts to restore its brand, trust. it partnered with the

third-party fact checking organizations that were certified by the international back-checking network. it went to existing organizations that were quite reputable. it worked to incorporate adding context. it came up with a moderation framework. remove, reduce and reform. reduce is when it is reduced in distribution. and the fact checking piece was a big part of informed, which try to add more information to the stories that were going viral or articles people were seeing. geoff: meta says it is moving to a community notes practice, similar to what we see on elon musk's x, formerly twitter. what has the impact on that platform been? can community notes be effective like back-checking? renee: it is hard to know what community notes is like on x, because a lot of data access and transparency has been reduced. i think community notes is a great way to restore legitimacy

to content moderation, but it does not necessarily actually do the job that fact checking did quite the same way. better to have it as a complement. that is because it is often slow. it addresses a small fraction of the content. it really relies on people wanting to sit there and feeling like they should go and perform that, almost like platform community service. on x, often times, that means you will see it happen on highly contentious political content where people feel like some sort of emotional response, that want to correct the record about their guy, that kind of thing. you see efforts to get community notes on that type of political content. on the flipside, it is platforms asking users to do work for them and it is not necessarily going to patch all the kind of topical coverage that a professional journalism fact checker might have more access to. the ability to call some buddy up and ask them if something -- somebody up and asked them if something is real.

it should be a complementary process but because this has become so politicized, we are seeing it broached as a replacement rather than a complement. geoff: zuckerberg in his video statement framed this policy shift as a reaction to republicans' november victory. he called it a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech. he has visited mar-a-lago, he has donated to the trump inaugural fund. he just named dana white, the ceo of ufc and longtime trump ally, to meta's board. here's what the president-elect said today when he was asked about this shift. >> honestly, i think they have come a long way, meta. >> do you think he's directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past? >> probably, yeah, probably. geoff: what are the downstream implications of the political motivation behind all this? renee: it is probably in response to the threats -- and

we call that jawboning. we should see that as bad when the left does it and bad when the right does it. we should not want to see platforms who are supposed to be providing a service to their users, supposed to be facilitating a speech environment that protects the user and creates a good experience. that is what the platform should be doing, working with referees. trying to make the people deciding the calls advantage your team, that is what's happening here. it is capitulation. if meta had come out and said we are launching this fantastic new community notes initiative, that would have been great and that would've been a routine feature from a large social media platform that does that constantly. it was the tone of the communication, the specific language used that was very transparently saying we are doing this in response to a shift in the political lens. i don't think we should want to see our social media platforms

quite so buffeted by political lens. geoff: renee, thank you for your insights. we appreciate it. renee: thank you. amna: the biden administration has determined that the rapid support forces rebel group in sudan is committing genocide, and the treasury has announced new sanctions for the group's leader and affiliated companies. it's the latest escalation for sudan, which aid groups say is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now. >> she can no longer hold her son, so zaytona yacoub clings to the clothes he left behind. >> i found his body stiffened. i asked my neighbor to have a look at him. she told me your son is gone. >> 7.5-year-old zaki died of starvation. his family, like millions, displaced by years of fighting

in sudan. zaytona is now among the masses mourning a loved one in this war. today, secretary of state antony blinken declared that a genocide took place in sudan, singling out the paramilitary rapid support forces, or rsf, as fueling some of the worst violence. in a statement, blinken said "the rsf and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys, even infants, on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence." blinken accused those same militias of targeting and murdering "innocent people escaping conflict" and preventing civilians "from accessing lifesaving supplies." ahmed mohammed helped to dig the graves and bury the dead near khartoum. >> most of those people died because of disease and starvation. rsf fighters deprived us of everything. >> the u.s. treasury department

levied sanctions on rsf leader mohammad hamdan, also known as hemedti, plus seven rsf-owned companies based in the united arab emirates. the rsf stems from the government-backed janjaweed militias, a largely-arab force that brutally crushed an uprising of non-arabs in the 2000's, killing hundreds of thousands of people. in 2004, the u.s. declared that war in darfur a genocide. years later, a 2020 peace agreement was quickly undone by a coup and subsequent fighting the following year. and by 2023, a full-blown civil war as the rsf fight the sudanese military for control of the country. the war has accelerated an already-dire humanitarian crisis. millions of sudanese are short on food, water, and electricity, and the medical system is on the verge of collapse. the u.s. envoy for sudan tom perriello says some estimates suggest close to 150,000 people have been killed as a result of the conflict.

amna: for more, we turn to beth van schaack, u.s. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice. welcome to the news hour. secretary blinken noted back in december of 2023, he concluded both the rsf paramilitary forces and sudanese armed forces had committed war crimes. he also said it was based on new information, this designation of a genocide, that the rsf militias committed genocide. what new information came your way today that you didn't have back in december of 2023? amb. van schaack: this war has been catastrophic on civilians across the entire country. what we are seeing in darfur in particular at the hands of the rsf are targeted killings based on ethnicity. statements in perpetrator's own words saying they want to eradicate particular ethnic groups from the region and entirely. you can see sexual violence rampant. men and boys being killed, including infants.

these are the types of things that prosecutors around the world will rely upon in order to infer that perpetrators are acting with genocidal intent. amna: use all statements of intent, the targeting of specific ethnic groups. that is over the duration of the war or particular time period? amb. van schaack: we are able to collect more information about these statements of intent and see the aggregate. genocide is different from war crimes. you have to show the special intent to destroy the group and that can be quite difficult when you don't have access. amna: there's sanctions from the treasury department against the rsf leader. tell us about what the intended impact is there. is this someone who has business investments or any kind of business deals with u.s. financial institutions? amb. van schaack: he has a huge network is able to rely upon, including a number of uae-based corporations that are not only financing his activities but procuring weapons for the rsf.

these entities and wealthy individuals are participating in international markets, including the golden oil markets. to be able to sanction these individuals, makes it much more difficult to tap into those financial networks. individuals who would want to transact business with those individuals or entities themselves may be subject to sanctions. it helps to contain outside forces that might be fueling the violence in sudan. amna: i understand reaching a declaration like this takes months of work. genocide is a very specific definition under the u.n. convention. the bar here seems to be expressed intent to kill, the targeting of a specific group, mass targeting of civilians. if that was the bar and met in sudan, why has that bar not been met by your standards by israel in gaza? amb. van schaack: every atrocity determination that the secretary does is based on consideration of the facts as we know them, the law that exists, and the

policy of the united states towards that particular conflict, and what we are trying to accomplish in terms of the role we are playing. whether it is bringing a cease-fire, providing humanitarian assistance. each determination stands on its own. amna: are you saying some of the same things that were met in sudan, the expressed intent that south africa says of israel, has been there by israeli officials. the targeting of a specific ethnic group, palestinians who have been killed en masse the last 14 months of war. we know aid has been withheld. all of the same thing seem to be have met. again, why has that determination not been made? amb. van schaack: we have disagreed with south africa at present but the working very hard with the israeli authorities and others to encourage them to make sure their response to the horrific attacks of october 7 are directly in line with her humanitarian law obligations, and working very hard to bring another cease fire, and to

ensure adequate and maximalist humanitarian assistance into gaza. amna: when you say you disagree with the south africans, is that specifically the intent? amb. van schaack: yes. it is on the basis for their claims under the genocide convention. amna: there are a number of experts who said you need to look at what israel has done. 2% of the palestinian population in gaza has now been killed. amb. van schaack: that will go before the international court of justice which has jurisdiction. this will be the subject of litigation. i am sure there will be multiple briefs put forward with various factual and legal predicates. it will be for the judges to decide. amna: back to sudan, is there any concern by you or your colleagues that the incoming administration could have a different view and possibly reverse this designation? amb. van schaack: it is difficult to reverse a designation because it is based on strong basis of fact. we have an enormous quantity of information we rely upon,

sources we develop internally but also open sources that other ngos, the press, and others have accumulated. the secretary does not stand up and say something constitutes a genocide lightly. i'm sure the incoming administration can review the packages of material that went into this determination and will be convinced this meets the standard of genocide. amna: that is u.s. ambassador at-large for global criminal justice, beth van schaack. thank you for your time. amb. van schaack: thank you for covering this issue. geoff: today, france's foreign minister said three french detainees being held by iran face conditions that fall within the definition of torture. human rights groups have long decried how iran treats its prisoners. an opposition group recently

said iran executed 1000 people last year, the highest number in the country's modern history. nick schifrin spoke to protesters inside iran especially female demonstrators who paid a heavy price in and out of jail, but remain undaunted. nick: it was a moment when hope was contagious and tehran students sing a song for freedom. a woman we are calling miriam to protect her identity. >> our women have gained more courage and boldness to demand for the rights and right to control their bodies against the system of the islamic republic that is patriarchal and anti-women. nick: she's an unlikely protester. her father is a retired officer in the regime's islamic revolutionary guard corps. her fight begin at home. >> i come from a home that is more traditional and religious. until last year, i was still wearing in front of my parents which is a more heavy-duty form

of hijab and coverage. now, i go to many places without even a headscarf. it becomes very hard to live in this home, but i was stubborn enough. i could survive it until this age. nick: she considers her work a continuation of a protest that begin in 2022 that begin known as woman, life, freedom. sparked when police beat to death a woman who improperly used headscarf, a headscarf that mariam chose not to wear. >> i am still learning from the bravery of women all over iran. the small towns and villages who stood up. the women who demanded rights, and with bravery screamed, woman, life, freedom. nick: she fell in love with a fellow protester. they were both sent to prison. when they got out and got married, the authorities came for their marriage. >> they put pressure on my

partner. they told him his charges could be reduced by divorcing me and pressured him. at the end, he chose to leave me. i felt the pain of how deep the patriarchy goes in the skin and bones of iranian men, but i am not sad about this. in my opinion, the women of iran every day, every second, every moment are doing a big job and should not be hidden from the eyes of the world. nick: but that's exactly what she says authorities were trying to accomplish when we last spoke to her. >> i have been receiving phone calls and death threats from the iranian paramilitary and groups who support the government. the last anonymous phone call my father received, they told my father i was a prostitute and if they cannot discipline meet they will take matters into their own hans. nick: three weeks later, she was arrested and accused of spurting propaganda against the state and insulting officials and agents, which means she once again faces conditions that are wretched.

iran's prisons with tales of torture. >> the first five days, i was in prison, i was only getting beaten. beaten and shocked to the points that six month after i was released, i am still finding blood in my urine. nick: this man with bruises like these was arrested on charges similar to mariam's. he served in solitary confinement for nearly two months. >> on the fifth day, i had a noose around my neck and kept on the tip of my toes. twice, i let myself go hoping to end it all but there was someone standing behind me that would return me to my stool. the situation was such that he wished for your death. nick: a number of detainees facing the same fate rose dramatically after 2022. we are calling this man -- >> they filled at least 10 times the capacity of the prison. the filled places like factories where they had no beds.

they were all made to sleep next to each other on the ground just to fit them all in. nick: he helped lead the 2020 to protests and was arrested briefly - 2022 protest and was arrested briefly in 2023. he says many young protesters were tortured into forced confessions. >> they would give them sleeping pills and when they were sedated, they would bring them into interrogations when they were not even aware of what they were saying or being accused of. the people of iran want things that people everywhere in the world want. there are certain human standards that are the same everywhere, and the people of iran want the same. we don't have any other way but to fight and i know that there is a price to pay then we are willing to pay it. me and many others. >> we all share the same story. demanding our rights, demanding control of our bodies, demanding control of her womanhood. that we build our future ourselves. that others don't decipher us.

others don't have the right to decide our destiny. nick: a destiny she's trying to control despite the regime's crackdown. she's leading hunger strikes inside prison and continuing a fight for freedom. for the "pbs news hour," i'm nick schifrin. ♪ amna: the city of minneapolis approved a police reform agreement yesterday with the federal government 4.5 years after the murder of george floyd. stephanie sy has more on the context around that deal and others like it. stephanie: the agreement, known as a consent decree, allows a court-appointed monitor to oversee changes to the minneapolis police department. among other directives, it requires officers to intervene when they see a colleague break department rules.

if approved by a judge, it would become the 16th such settlement that the department of justice is now enforcing with police agencies. but, the future of federal oversight over local police is murky as president-elect trump gets set to return to the white house. for more on all this, we're joined by alex del carmen. he's a criminologist at tarleton state university in texas and has served as a consent decree monitor himself. thank you for joining the news hour. as you know, this consent decree in minneapolis is the result of a doj report that found routine racial discrimination and unjustified use of deadly force in the city's police department. how do consent decrees work to address these problems? alex: typically, doj would not be involved in a situation like that unless there was reason. in this particular case, we also obviously with horror what happened to george floyd. as a result of that, the doj

felt compelled to go into this police department and begin the investigation, what they call a pattern investigation. which means is this problem pervasive? and if so, to what degree and what areas should be looked at? stephanie: the goal of a consent degree is to make sure it police department abides by the constitution. that there is lawful police behavior. how effective are consent decrees at doing that? alex: it depends on who you ask. those individuals who are opponents of the consent decree say it costs too much money, that cities have to essentially pay for it, and that there is not necessarily a limit on the amount of time in which a decree expires, even though there's a goal that it should finish within a certain amount of time. seldom do we ever see they finish within the timeline. others have argued that crime goes up. the morale of police go way down

when these take place. those that actually support the consent decrees conversely say that consent decrees are important because there are times that the federal government has to intervene in order for a police department to be reformed. we have seen that throughout the history of our nation, where at times, the government has had to send federal agents in order for civil rights to be protected. those that proposed consent decrees argue that resources for police officers actually increase because now you have a court order that mandates some of these resources be given to officers. that best practices are put into play. and police departments gain credibility with the community. it is a mixed bag. stephanie: is there a sense that having a consent decree can prevent the type of incident we saw with george floyd and others, that a consent decree can be effective at addressing, for example, systemic racial

discrimination? alex: the rationale is that yes, they can do that. what typically happens in these consent decrees is one tce the investigation takes place, they enter into an agreement with the city, the doj does, and then he goes towards a federal judge. once the federal judge approves that, they have to select a monitor and a team of individuals that are experts that show up at the scene and then begin to regulate and monitor the behavior of police officers, policies, procedures, academy training and whatnot. in concept, what this does is changes the culture and the level of expectation of policing that would have been in place up until that point. the idea is you will inform the police department from within. you will affect the culture. and that the outcome will be radically different years to come. justice and the first trump

administration did not support consent decrees at all. assuming that continues in trump's second term, what does t are the options for communities that feel like they are dealing with a problematic police force? what are the other tools or options that they have? alex: what's happened since the last trump administration is that many states throughout the u.s., legislatures, have empowered the attorney general of those states to sue the police department and put them under some form of consent decree. what that means is now you have roughly over 20 states in the u.s. that have attorney general that have legislative given power for them to sue local police agencies and enter into an agreement if the agreement is substantiated in a court of law. this happened in illinois. we saw during the first trump administration, the attorney

general of illinois actually sued the chicago police department and the u.s. doj did not want to enter into that particular case. in fact, they actually filed a motion against it. yet, the federal judge ruled in favor of the attorney general and a consent decree is in place now even though the doj is not the plaintiff in this case. i think we will see a little more of that in the next four years, as it is clear to me the next administration is going to simply not engage in the practice of consent decrees across the u.s. stephanie: alex del carmen, thank you so much for joining us with your insights. alex: thanks for having me. geoff: the u.s. has long been one of the world's largest donors of foreign aid. but in recent years, its effectiveness has been called

into question by a chorus of critics who say the impact of assistance programs falls well short of their intended goals. they blame what some have called the aid industrial complex. fred de sam lazaro begins the first of three reports. it's part of his series, "agents for change." fred: it is the softer side of american foreign policy and power, seen in the world's most-distressed places. its message, "from the american people," on every bag of grain, every can of cooking oil, on posters in remote health centers. and at barely 1% of the federal budget, it's a good bargain for the american taxpayer, says the head the u.s. agency for international development, usaid, the primary conduit for foreign aid. >> americans have so much to be proud of. fred: at this senate hearing, administrator samantha power cited a program that has provided anti-retroviral drugs to hiv patients for two decades.

>> pepfar, george w. bush's tremendous creation, 17 million people alive today, lives saved because of the generosity of the taxpayer. fred: but, overseas assistance programs have long come under fire from some conservatives, like kentucky republican senator rand paul, who see them as wasteful and misplaced. >> we should be conserving our resources and conserving them for our country. there is not a great deal of evidence that the money that we launder throughout the world has been of benefit to us. a great deal of evidence that has been stolen, we mentioned corruption. fred: the criticism no longer comes just from some republicans, but increasingly from those who strongly favor foreign aid. they say it helps buy goodwill, helps america's standing vis-a-vis russia or china, keeps infectious diseases at bay, and helps turn dependent countries

into trading partners. at least, it's supposed to do that. but, these critics say only a small portion of aid dollars are actually spent in the countries targeted for help. >> it's actually less than 10% of our foreign assistance dollars flowing through usaid is actually reaching those communities. fred: walter kerr is with a group called unlock aid, formed in 2021 to draw attention to a system in which a relative handful of private companies called implementing partners are awarded most contracts by usaid. >> one of the best things that government can do is to move away from measuring success in terms of outputs. how much money do we spend on a particular problem and moving toward an orientation of results. fred: a lot of people will be shocked to hear that that's not the case. >> well, it's true, about 98% of usaid grants pay for activities and not results. fred: and the results are not flattering.

according to the agency's own inspector general's office, which studied usaid awards for three years, 2017 to 2019. >> 43% of them failed to achieve about half of the intended results. but in spite of that, they still got paid in full almost every time and sometimes more. fred: he says one reason for these poor results is that the companies rarely work with the communities targeted for help or with local aid groups. >> one study found that when working with a local partner, as opposed to an international aid contractor, you could find savings upwards of 32% alone. and that's a conservative estimate. fred: and one reason that doesn't happen is compliance with strict guidelines written by congress. here's idaho republican senator jim risch. >> corruption with u.s. dollars will not be tolerated, and i'm glad to see detailed information that gives me confidence that our money is being used appropriately. >> they went to the groups that can absolutely deliver on a contract every time, so that no

one in this mix is accused of fraud, waste or abuse. fred: but, it's compliance. it's not delivering results that improve people's lives. >> and that's the quiet part that no one wants to say out loud. fred: justin richmond is an army veteran who later worked with usaid in afghanistan. in 2015, he founded a non-profit that collects and analyzes data on conditions in conflict-torn areas, working with local community leaders to learn what they see as the most pressing needs, and to learn the root causes of the conflict or suffering. he says he's found few takers among aid companies >> the for-profits aren't properly subcontracting down to the experts. they're keeping everything in-house. because again, no one's checking on them. no one's trying to have impact. fred: richmond told me he once shared findings gathered in the conflict-ridden sahel region of west africa with the largest aid implementing company, chemonics. data that he said would be useful to improve the outcome of development projects.

>> she looked at it and answered, this is phenomenal work. you should really be proud, especially where you collected it, incredible. but you got to tell me, why would we ever do this? i was speechless. and she said to me, if usaid isn't paying us to do that, we're not going to do that. the client didn't even ask for it. fred: we invited chemonics to comment. they declined, as did the main trade group of aid implementing companies. >> moving forward, we are going to provide at least a quarter of all our funds directly to local partners over the course of the next four years. fred: at the time administrator power made that pledge in 2021, local partners got just about 7% of award dollars. the agency has moved to simplify the grant process, also requiring some new contracts to phase in locally-led control. that percentage has since hovered near 10%, still well short of the target. power declined our request for an interview, as did mark green,

her predecessor from the first trump administration. >> it's not easy. it takes time. four years isn't enough time. fred: brian atwood was usaid administrator during the clinton administration. he traces some of the agency's current problems back to his tenure at the end of the cold war. >> people said they wanted a peace dividend. the peace dividend didn't come out of the defense department, it came out of usaid. and so, i lost 10% of our employees. fred: at the same time, the agency added all of europe's former eastern bloc nations to its workload, which continued to grow, he says. >> when i was aid administrator, the overall budget was around $12 billion. it's now more like $38 billion. and we haven't seen an equal increase in the amount of staffing, what they call operations expenses. and so, the consequence was they had to push everything out the door to larger organizations.

fred: that outsourcing has become the norm today, atwood says, and it's easier to manage fewer, and therefore, larger grants with companies familiar with the process. all this has had the effect of shutting out a lot of innovation that could improve people's lives, says unlock aids walter kerr. >> you can look at some of the amazing organizations, entrepreneurs that are already active in africa, asia, latin america and deliberately identify them and begin to scale up their impact. they're out there. >> we are able to trace every single drug in this warehouse right to the patient's home. fred: one example he cites is mpharma, a chain of pharmacy-based clinics across africa. founder gregory rockson says the big usaid contractors are not focused on delivering results, but rather on writing grants and glossy reports. >> the goal was never to eradicate the problem, it was to create the appearance of eradicating that problem. fred: that keeps the spigot of

foreign assistance open, he says, but the dollars flowing mostly between the u.s. government and companies, most based in washington, d.c. in following reports, we'll look at some africa-based startups that have won praise for delivering aid. for the "pbs news hour," i'm fred de sam lazaro in washington. geoff: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under-told stories project at the university of st. thomas in minnesota. amna: a globally-renowned artist who uses elements of the natural world to make us see that world in new ways. senior arts correspondent jeffrey brown spoke with artist olafur eliasson for our arts and culture series, "canvas." jeffrey: for nearly six months in 2003, the sun set inside a

giant hall in london's tate modern museum. an artificial effect creating a strange otherworld, made from hundreds of lamps, a mirrored ceiling and a mist machine. called "the weather project," this art installation was a sensation, attracting some two million visitors. its creator, artist olafur eliasson. olafur: my art is, there's sort of -- what does it mean to see? what does it mean to experience? can i see my own seeing? you know, maybe it's not what i am looking at, but maybe it's the looking itself. wow! jeffrey: can i see my own seeing? olafur: yes. what is imagination? are we good at imagining things? jeffrey: years later, eliasson is still concocting forms and environments and still asking himself and us such questions. we met this fall in los angeles, where a survey of his work at the museum of contemporary art-geffen is part of the

southern california-wide art event "pst art: art and science art: art and science collide." he's titled this exhibition, "open." olafur: i thought as a title, that's not bad if you see a banner somewhere that says "la moca: open." jeffrey: you like that because it means "come in?" olafur: there's something about democratizing the accessibility to culture and to art. you know, to say you are open, come and see the exhibition. we are open. there'also the openness, of course, of the visitor. you know, are you open? jeffrey: now 57, eliasson grew s long been based in berlin,nd where he works with a large team including craftspeople, architects, archivists, and researchers. his often large-scale art works are regularly shown in museums throughout the world, as well as in open landscapes, as seen here in qatar in 2023 in a piece titled "the curious desert." and in public spaces, including in 2008, a series of waterfalls in new york city.

these are works that capture the eye, for sure. but also, he hopes, our minds and emotions, especially when it comes to thinking about the most important phenomenon in his life as an artist, climate change. olafur: i'm interested in climate change, in the environment, in nature. i'm very interested in how do humans experience nature. in iceland, i saw arctic nature, which was very fragile, i saw that firsthand. and with a little bit of change in temperature, it completely changes. so when i heard about like what is that, 30 years ago now, when i first started to hear about climate change and global warming, i said, i know that, you know. i know what they're talking about. and it so happened that my work deals with the perception of nature and that evidently nowadays is the perception of climate change. jeffrey: sometimes, head on. he worked with geologist minik rosing to bring free-floating, centuries-old pieces of icebergs from a greenland fjord to public squares in europe.

an intervention in urban life full of wonder and beauty, but also a warning, as the ice melted over time. in los angeles, he's exhibiting a different version of ice work. a series created by melting ice mixed with different-colored paints. olafur: it's glacial ice, 20,000 years old, glacial ice put there and then some ink or some paint. and then, it lays there for about a day. so, what each painting is is a day of melting ice. 20,000 years gone in 10 hours. jeffrey: a serious message mixed with some humor for the artist himself. olafur: i love asking ice blocks to paint for me. it's like, do you want to paint together? yeah, ok, you paint and i go and eat. jeffrey: the funhouse aspect of eliasson's work is on display here in large kaleidoscopes, playing with optics and light. but also in this work with trash that floats above us. the seas? space?

maybe our daily lives? olafur: maybe i want people to come in and embrace this notion of wondering, right? this is a wonder. imagine to make a wonder with trash. i like that idea. jeffrey: also crucial for him, our participation as what he calls co-producers of his work, making them come alive, bringing our own meanings and perceptions. it goes back to his idea of being open to art and different ways of seeing the world. olafur: if we can expand a little bit the idea of how much can we actually see? what's the limits of my perceiving of the word? then, maybe what seems to be very abstract is a little bit less abstract. because i kind of understand, if i open up my mind, if i challenge my way of seeing things, i can see more. jeffery: olafur eliasson's exhibition "open" remains on view until next july. for the "pbs news hour," i'm

jeffrey brown at moca geffen in los angeles. amna: this thursday, president jimmy carter's funeral here in washington, d.c. geoff: and we will be here with live coverage. >> president jimmy carter is being remembered for what he achieved following his presidency. >> he was a statesman and humanitarian. >> many looked up to him. >> jimmy carter has always been a hero of mine. >> always a good man. >> a great humanitarian who set the example for all of us. >> a pbs news, remembering jimmy carter. geoff: we hope you will join us. and that's the "news hour" for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire "news hour" team, thank you for joining us.

>> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by -- carnegie corporation of new york. working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy and peace. more information at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible for the corporation by public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪

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hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour & co." here is what is coming up. what i think will distinguish this administration , in its first year, at least, is that there will be a degree of a tug of