william brangham is back with the author of a new book about the failed u.s. how it can do better next time. >> brangham: as we near two years since this coronavirus first emerged, plenty of questions still remain as to why the u.s. suffered so badly compared to other nations. why did this virus, not only kill so many americans and cause so much emotional and financial ruin, but why did it divide us so badly? a new book is out that tries to address some of these questions. it's called "uncontrolled spread: why covid-19 crushed us, and how we can defeat the next pandemic," and it's by dr. scott gottlieb. he ran the food and drug administration from 2017 to 2019. and he joins me now. thank you very much for being here. there are so many elements that you recap in this book-- china secrecy, our fixation on focusing on the flu rather than a coronavirus, failures of our stockpile, multiple myriad mistakes made by different agencies. but, one of the failures that you keep hammering over and over again was our recurrent inability to do widespread testing. can you rem

william brangham has our report. rep. loney: for far too long, big oil has escaped accountability for its central role in bringing our planet to the brink of a climate catastrophe. that ends today. william: executives from exxon, chevron, shell, and bp america, some of the biggest players in the oil and gas industry, faced a grilling on capitol hill today. rep. khanna: i don't believe you purposely wanted to be out there spreading climate disinformation, but you're funding these groups. william: the companies are accused of funding and waging a decades-long disinformation campaign to mislead the public on the connections between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. the executives all denied the charge, and acknowledged some of the reality of climate change. here's chevron ceo michael wirth: michael wirth, ceo, chevron: we accept the scientific consensus. climate change is real and the use of fossil fuels contributes to it. while our views on climate change have developed over time, any suggestion that chevron ha

william brangham has our report. >> i'm here today because i believe facebook's products harm childrenoke division and weaken our democracy. >> armed with a trove of internal company documents, former facebook employee frances haugen implored senators to rein in the social media giant. >> the company's leadership knows how to make facebook and instagram safer but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. congressional action is needed, they won't solve this crisis without your help. >> haugen appeared before the senate commerce subcommittee on consumer protection. the hearing centered on how facebook -- and especially its photo-sharing app “instagram” -- targets and impacts children, particularly teenagers. >> kids who are bullied on instagram, the bullying follows them home. it follows them into their bedrooms, the last thing they see before they go to bed at night is someone being cruel to them. or the first thing they see in the morning is someone being cruel to them. >> haugen said facebook's own internal research proved that i

as william brangham reports, alaska is among the most impacted right now. lliam: alaska is experiencing the nation's worst outbreak right now. e surge there is made worse because of the state's huge size, and that its limited health care system largely relies on major hospitals in anchorage, which is the state's largest city. so far, 20 hospitals and health facilities in the state have triggered so-called crisis standards of care, because they're so short on beds and staff. alaska has flown in nearly 500 medical workers to assist over the next few months. just 58% of the population there is fully vaccinated. jeannie monk is the senior vice president of alaska's state hospital and nursing home association. and she joins me from juneau. jeannie monk, thank you so much for being here. i wonder if you could give just us a quick snapshot of how things are going there right now. jeannie: right. thanks. glad to have a chance to chat today. well, while things seem to be improving in the rest of the country, alaska is facing our worst surge of the pandemic. and we're

as william brangham reports, many are still wondering about when or whether to get their children vaccinatedwhite house is hoping for this authorization from the fda and the cdc for pfizer's vaccine within a few weeks. that's after federal regulators examined the safety and efficacy of a lotos a low-dose of vaccine for kids. once approved, shots could begin as soon as november. if some parents question if the vaccine is necessary for their kids and if there are other options available. here to answer some of those questions is dr. jennifer, lead epidemiologist for the johns hopkins covid-19 testing insights initiative. great to have you back on the newshour. the biden administration seems very optimistic that they are going to get this authorization. between here and there, there's a lot of scrutiny over these vaccines for kids. what kind of things are the fda and cdc looking at. >> it's important to stress that there is still a regulatory process that has to happen and ther will be independent panels of experts from the cdc and fda to review the data. they will be looking at how children fa

could affect the pocketbooks, working conditions, and social safety net for millions of tonight, william brangham looks at what it could mean for coping with climate change. >> brangham: president biden originally proposed a fairly bold climate change agenda. the goal was to cut america's carbon emissions-- the emissions that contribute to climate change-- cut them by half, by the end of this decade. one of the central parts of that plan was known as the clean electricity payment program, or cepp-- it was meant to spur electrical utilities to move more quickly to renewables. but now, the cepp seems dead in the water. lisa desjardins has been reporting on this initiative's demise and she joins me now >> desjardins: hi. >> yang: so what happened? >> joe marchian happened. without him, nothing moves forward in the senate, and he said he would not support anything that looked like this pricing plan. essentially, this plan which was focused on utilities was another way of imposing a renewable standard across the country, almost a cap-and-trade-style plan. no secret coal country in west virginia didn't

as william brangham explains, a new book paints a more troubling picture of how this famous discoverywho else deserves some credit. >> we are at the national academy of sciences, which is where the most celebrated scientists in america are members. for a long time, it was an all boys club. >> and also an old white boys club. >> with very grayair. that was the way science was socially construct. >> howard is a doctor and medical historian. in his newook, he tells the famous story of james watson and francis crick who won the 1962 nobel prize in medicine for their discovery of the double helix shape of dna, which revolutionized the study of genetics. >> that catapulted them into the pantheon of great scientists like albert einstein. i will betf you are asked to name some nobel prize winners, i think everyone can say eyes dine but next would come watson and crick. >> in the book, he comes -- he tells how the discovery was based in part on the work of a researcher named rosalind franklin and how her contribution was denied for years. it is what he calls one of the most egregious ripoffs i

william brangham has our report. >> brangham: back in 2017, the trump administration reduced the size of the bears ears national monument by 85%, and cut grand staircase-escalante's size in half. both are in utah. those moves were supported by ranchers and republicans who have long pushed to open the monuments for mining, development and drilling. the biden administration has been working for months to undo those moves, and just announced them on friday. joining me now is nick martin. he covers indigenous affairs at high country news. he is also a member of the sappony tribe in north carolina. >> brangham: nick martin, great to have you on the "news hour." as i mentioned, the biden administration has been working on this for quite a while, but they announced it right up on the edge of indigenous people's day. is that timing significant or not? >> i think it is more of a happy accident, let's call it. i think it is something that is very clearly going into the biden administration, tribal leaders had expressed, in terms of our national goals of the indian countries, and how the needs n

william brangham has our coverage, beginning with this report. warning -- this story contains sensitive subject matter including discussion of suicide. >> i don't think parents are going to stand by while our kids and our democracy become collateral damage to a profit game. william on capitol hill, : executives from youtube, snapchat and tiktok were grilled by lawmakers on what these wildly popular platforms are doing to protect children online and exactly what kinds of material kids are able to access. >> kids as young as 9 have died doing viral challenges on tiktok. william today marks the first : time representatives from tiktok and snapchat have appeared before congress. among the many issues lawmakers asked about -- how to prevent dealers selling counterfeit pills and illegal substances to young people. >> if a kid had just walked in to, say, a pharmacy, they wouldn't be able to buy that or get that. >> this is not just happening on our platform. it is happening on others, so we need to work collectively. >> i think there's other ways to do

william brangham has the story as part of our ongoing coverage of race matters.is underway for the three white men on trial for the murder of ahmaud arbery. he was jogging near his home in southeastern georgia in february of 2020 when two of the men stopped him, claiming they thought he was involved in a stringf burglaries. a fight took place, one of the men had a shotgun and arbery was shot and killed. e two men were not initially arrested until 10 weeks later when video of the incident was revealed. e third man on trial is the one who took the video. to talk about this highly anticipated trial, i'm joined by gerald briggs, vice president of the naacp atlanta chapter. thank you very much for being here. can you give us a sense -- i know this is a very fraught time as the trial starts. what is the mood like in the community there? >> the mood down in glynn county is cautiously optimistic. as you said before, it took 74 days from the incident occurring until the videotape was released for them to make an arrest in this case. they are cautiously optimistic and they

tonight, william brangham explains what's at stake for the president's efforts to address climate changegh legislation. >> president biden originally proposed a fairly bold climate chge agenda. the goal was to cut america's carbon emissions, the emissions that contribute to climate change, cut them by half, by the end of this decade. one of the central parts of that plan was known as the clean electricity payment program, or cepp, it was meant to spur electrical utilities to move more quickly to renewables. but now, the cepp seems dead in the water. lisa desjardins has been reporting on this initiatives demise, and she joins me now. so what happened? lisa: joe biden happen. he said he would not support anything that looked like the plan, which was focused on utilities, it was another way of imposing a meet -- renewable standardcross the country. almost a cap and trade style plan. joe manchin said no and it was taken out of the plan all together. a reminder of why all this is so important. our climate is at stake here, but so are many jobs. and, as you said, democrats have a goal of cutti

william brangham has the story racist, anti-gay and misogynistic language.y as 2010, when gruden was an analyst for espn. he re-joined the raiders as head coach in 2018. as reported, gruden was communicating with, among others, bruce allen, who is the one-time president of the washington football team. in one exchange, gruden used a racist stereotype to describe demaurice smith, head of the n.f.l. players association-- who is black. using an anti-gay slur, gruden complained when, in 2014, an n.f.l. team drafted michael sam, the first openly gay player. carl nassib, who's the first active n.f.l. playero come out as gay, plays for the raiders, gruden's former team. william c. rhoden is a columnist for the sports media site, the undefeated. bill rhoden, great to have you back on the "newshour". what was your reaction when you first heard about this whole saga. >> i was surprised not because i was surprised by what gruden said and that he said it but more that i know that he is very popular, people like him, he's kind of known in the business as a guy's guy, and

william brangham helps us break down what people need to know. >> brangham: that's right, judy.dition to their j&j recommendation, this panel also looked at whether mixing doses from different manufacturers can improve protection against the virus. their recommendations still have to be approved by the f.d.a. and the c.d.c. we explore this with two people. dr. celine gounder is an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at new york university's grossman school of medicine, and cares for patients at bellevue hospital center. and, dr. ashish jha. he is the dean of brown university's school of public health. good evening to you both. thank you both for being here. dr. goundre, the second dose to have the j&j vaccine is recommended for all adults 18 and older. johnson & johnson is a funder to have the "newshour", we should say. but the company got roughed up today during the testimony. there was questions about their data. one panelist seem to suggest that this should have been a two-dose vaccine all along. all that said, do you think the evidence for this booster is merite

william brangham is here with the latest. >> brangham: this trial focuses on four pharmacy chains-- cvss, walmart and giant eagle-- and the millions of pain medications that were prescribed through their facilities. two ohio counties, lake and trumbull, both near cleveland, allege that between 2006 and 2014, these companies recklessly dispensed opioid prescriptions, and ignored clear warning signs as people became increasingly addicted. brian mann covers addiction for npr, and he's been in cleveland covering this trial. brian, thank you so much for being here. could you just tell us a little bit more? what is the main argument that these counties are making? >> basically, the idea is that under the controlled substances act, federal law requires pharmacies like other businesses that handle these really risky opioids to do so super -cautiously, to make sure that the pills go to the right people, to look at prescriptions thatome in from doctors and think about whether these are proper prescriptions. and what the counties say is that, rather than doing that kind of diligence, these compani

william brangham explains. >> reporter: according to data out from u.s.ms and border protection, more than 1.7 million migrants were detained at the border in the 202 is fiscal year. 60% of those were expelled under the public health policy known as title 42. about a quarter of cases were repeat crossings. those those numbers come as human rights watch released internal d.h.s. files of more than 160 reports of alleged misconduct and abuse of asylum seekers by d.h.s. officers. these included claims of molestation, and physical and verbal abuse. for more on all this, i'm joined by gil kerlikowske. he served as commissioner of u.s. customs and border protection under president obama, and before at, he was director of the office of national drug control policy. gill kerlikowske, great to have you back on the "newshour". let's start with the human rights watch report. i should indicate this is not human rights watch reporting, these are internal documents they got of complaints that were made of this awful behavior by d.h.s. agents against them. what do you ma

william brangham looks at the latest, all of it coming on the eve of another difficult congressional for the social media giant. >> brangham: judy, facebook's app, along with instagram and whatsapp, went dark for several hours today, and at this moment, appears to be slowly coming back up. the cause of the outages still has not been explained. but for the hundreds of millions of people in the united states and a number of other countries who use these apps, the outages are a disruption to communications, connections and business. sheera frenkel of the "new york times" reports on facebook extensively and has been following this all day. she's the co-author of "an ugly truth: inside facebook's battle for domination." great to you have back on the newshour. can you help us understand what is it that happened today? >> the starting at about 9:00 a.m. pa sifng out here in california facebook and its family of apps went down, including instagram, whatsapp, these have 3.5 billion people and for several hours no one including the security engineers at facebook knew what was going on. this wa

now, as william brangham reports, a new antiviral drug from merck offers hope for keeping patients infectedcovi19 out of the hospital, and alive. >> that's right, judy, the only information we have about this drug comes from merck itself. federal regulators and regulators abroad haven't seen any of theirata. but an independent board reviewing the drug's initial trial said it should be stopped early because results were so promising. the company is now seeking approval for widespread use. to understand how this might help fight the pandemic, i'm joined again by dr. nahid bhadelia, an infectious disease specialist ant boston university school of medicine where she runs the center for emerging infectious diseases, policy and research. dr. bhadelia, greato have you back on the "newshour". what do you make of this drug? is this a possible new tool for us? >> if the data pans out and the oral antiviral has been the missing speos in the way we respond to this pandemic, and the reason it's important is because currently the data presented this press release which of course it needs to validate show