WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Good evening.

I'm William Brangham.

Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz are away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: President Biden works to sell the climate aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act to voters, a year after it became law.

Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips calls for a potential primary challenge against President Biden, as many Democrats remain skeptical about his reelection.

And we examine the current state in Egypt a decade after the massacre of hundreds of people protesting a military coup.

HOSSAM BAHGAT, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights: It was basically not just the end of the promise of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, but really the end of our country as we know it.

(BREAK) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Good evening, and welcome to the "NewsHour."

Survivors on Maui spent another day picking up the pieces more than a week after wildfires devastated parts of the island.

The confirmed death toll now stands at 111 people, even as rescue crews work to find more of the missing.

Donation centers have been set up to distribute food, clothing, and other essential supplies and to offer encouragement in the wake of such devastating loss.

UILANI KAPU, Director, Na 'Aikane o Maui Cultural Center: People are telling us, get out of here.

The air is not good.

The water is not good.

It's like, but people that lost their clothes, their cars, people that lost everything, and they're living in neighbors' houses or whatever, they need -- we need to be close to them, so they can come and get supplies.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Crews have searched roughly 40 percent of the disaster area so far.

Hawaii's governor estimates that over 1,000 people are still unaccounted for.

Wildfires have also burned a widespread area in Canada's Northwest Territories.

A mass evacuation is under way in Yellowknife, the region's capital city and home to some 20,000 people, as a blaze burns about 10 miles away.

Residents sped past burnt forests and heavy plumes of smoke as they fled from the fires path.

The city's mayor warned that the window to safely evacuate is shrinking.

REBECCA ALTY, Mayor of Yellowknife, Canada: There is a possibility that, without rain, the fire reaches the outskirts of Yellowknife by the weekend.

It is approaching, but there's time to complete the community evacuation.

It's being called now so that we can allow people the opportunity to drive while the highway is open.

Conditions will be smoky, and residents should drive with caution and care.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: More than 200 active wildfires are burning in the Northwest Territories, and over 1,000 across all of Canada.

Monsoon rains have pummeled northern India for days now, as residents scramble for safety from the resulting floods and landslides.

At least 72 people have died.

In Shimla, video captured the moment an entire section of cliff broke off and toppled down a mountainside, taking several homes with it.

Crews have rescued over 2,000 people by digging through the Himalayan terrain or airlifting people from the floodwaters.

In Pakistan, authorities have arrested more than 100 Muslims following a round of attacks on Christian churches and homes.

A mob stormed the town of Jaranwala overnight, angered by an alleged desecration of a Koran.

Most Christian residents were able to escape.

But they returned to find their property vandalized and destroyed.

Police patrolled the streets to try and prevent more violence.

AZEEM MASIH, Pakistan (through translator): Look at our houses, look at our churches, look at our street.

If someone did wrong, arrest them.

Why are our houses and churches being burned?

It was one person's mistake, and they burned all the churches in Jaranwala.

Why did they destroy these poor people's homes?

Where will they stay?

They lost everything.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: No casualties were reported.

Christians make up about 2 percent of Pakistan's population.

More than 60 people are feared dead after a ship carrying mostly Senegalese migrants capsized in the Atlantic Ocean.

Rescuers searched the waters near the island of Cape Verde off West Africa.

They have rescued dozens, but more than 50 others are still missing.

The boat left Senegal last week carrying about 100 people en route to Spain.

In economic news, U.S. mortgage rates have hit their highest levels in more than 20 years.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said that the average long-term rate climbed to more than 7 percent this week.

That's up from 5 percent a year ago.

And on Wall Street, stocks fell for a third straight day.

The Dow Jones industrial average shed 291 points to close at 34475.

The Nasdaq lost 158 points.

The S&P 500 slipped 34.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": diplomat Rahm Emanuel discusses a critical upcoming summit with the U.S., South Korea and Japan; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ann Patchett discusses her new book, "Tom Lake"; we highlight the often-overlooked career of the woman known as the first lady of physics; plus much more.

It's been one year since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act.

Despite its title, this law is the single biggest U.S. investment in addressing climate change and driving a transition to clean energy.

It steers billions in subsidies into everything from battery manufacturing to climate adaptation.

It contains tax incentives for people to buy electric cars and cleaner technologies in their homes, and it directs large investments to fight pollution in underserved communities.

So how is the law working, and what does it mean for the U.S.' climate commitments?

We're joined by one of the laws most ardent champions.

Leah Stokes is a political scientist at U.C.

Santa Barbara who studies and advocates for clean energy.

Leah Stokes, so good to have you back on the "NewsHour."

I wonder if you could just reflect on this anniversary at first.

I mean, after decades of disappointment and setbacks, the environmental and climate community got a piece of legislation like this pushed over the finish line with the president that nobody immediately thought was going to be an ally in that fight.

How is the community feeling this week, this anniversary?

LEAH STOKES, University of California, Santa Barbara: Well, getting any climate bill into law, onto President Biden's desk, it was brutal.

It took, in some count weeks, other counts, months, maybe years, and, as you said, decades.

It was really hard.

And this particular law stopped and started numerous times.

I will tell you there was a two-week period before it came out of nowhere being branded the Inflation Reduction Act where we all thought the bill was dead for real this time.

And there was real sadness across the climate community, because folks knew this was really the last, best chance that we had to pass a climate law.

So, seeing President Biden sign it a year ago, I mean, it was just monumental.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And what is it about the law?

I touched on some of the things it does, but there is a myriad set of incentives and subsidies here.

What stands out most to you?

LEAH STOKES: Well, the law is massive.

Sometimes, people will say it's $370 billion.

But that's not really true, because huge parts of the law are uncapped tax credits, meaning the more people decide to build factories in the United States and take advantage of incentives, the more the federal government will step up and help cost-share.

And that isn't just for factories and companies.

It's also for everyday people.

So, if people decide to get an electric vehicle or put in a heat pump, put solar on their roof, the federal government is going to help share the costs.

And that's as big as people make it.

So, this is huge, and it also includes $50 billion of rebates, direct payments that are going to flow largely to disadvantaged communities to help folks from all across the income spectrum get advantage of those clean energy technologies.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And how do we know how the law is working so far?

LEAH STOKES: Well, there are parts of the law, like the tax credits, that are already going out the door.

And so we can see upwards of $275 billion of private investments in everything from manufacturing batteries in the United States, to recycling those batteries, to solar projects, to wind projects, and wind manufacturing.

I mean, we have seen something like 175,000 new announced jobs.

And that's just on the corporate side.

For everyday people, we're seeing electric vehicle adoption like we have never seen before.

One in four cars sold in California right now is an electric vehicle.

If you look year over year, we have had a 74 percent jump in electric vehicle sales.

Same thing with solar panels.

They're just flying off the shelf.

So we're really starting to see that happen.

Now, there are parts of the law where the money hasn't gotten out the door yet.

And that's largely that money that I talked about, the $50 billion for disadvantaged communities.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You're a political scientist.

And so I want to ask you a politics question here.

One view of the IRA is that its political genius was steering billions of dollars for green energy into red states.

I'm going to put this chart up.

This shows how investments are flowing heavily to Republican districts, compared to Democratic districts.

How is that playing out?

LEAH STOKES: Part of the reason for that is that there are provisions in this law that steer money towards former fossil fuel communities, coal communities that have lost a lot of jobs and investment.

Why don't we try to build manufacturing there?

Why don't we try to put solar projects and wind projects in those kinds of communities?

That's what the law is doing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And there have been some pockets of resistance to this.

We have seen some states push back and say, I don't want this federal money.

Others, we have seen local officials championing the projects that the money has delivered, while they actually had voted against the law.

Do you think this in the end will help convert the climate skeptics out there?

LEAH STOKES: Absolutely.

For too long, the fossil fuel industry has had a stranglehold over the Republican Party.

When you have so much campaign contributions flowing into one party, that really skews things, right?

So when we have clean energy technologies in Republican districts, that's going to shift things in the other direction.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One of the critiques of this law is that it is incredibly expensive and it is federal meddling in energy policy, and the argument being, if these technologies are going to live on their own, they should just live on their own in the marketplace.

And there was evidence before the IRA was passed that wind and solar prices were plummeting.

And so they argue, don't let the market be contaminated by sacks of federal dollars.

What do you make of that argument?

LEAH STOKES: I mean, fossil fuels have had federal subsidies for over a century.

Year after year, they take in more than $20 billion of federal subsidies.

And those continue to this day.

So it's not like the fossil fuel industry or the energy industry more broadly doesn't have subsidies.

And let's look at the cost of inaction on climate change.

Look at what's happening in Maui and Lahaina.

Entire communities are being devastated.

We have had 200 million Americans under extreme heat in the last few months.

We have had hundreds of millions of Americans experience these wildfires.

I mean, the cost of inaction is so much bigger than investing in clean energy technologies here in the United States.

And I think, over the long run, a lot of these Republican skeptics, they're going to start to see jobs in their district, investments.

And I think they're going to come along with the clean energy technologies of the 21st century.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Leah Stokes of U.C.

Santa Barbara, thank you so much for being here.

LEAH STOKES: Thanks so much for having me on.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The crowded, but static GOP presidential primary has dominated national attention this summer.

But, on the Democratic side, President Biden has largely avoided any serious primary challengers.

The president has served in federal government for more than 40 years.

And while the majority of his party is behind him, some are calling for a change.

White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez has more.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Dean Phillips is a third-term Democratic congressman from Minnesota, and he thinks President Biden should not seek reelection.

Phillips wants the president to pass the torch.

But, so far, none of the big names in his party want to pick it up.

Congressman Phillips joins me now.

Congressman, thank you so much for joining the "NewsHour."

President Biden is the oldest sitting president in history.

But you have said this isn't about age.

So what is this about?

REP. DEAN PHILLIPS (D-MN): Well, and let me start by complimenting him.

I think President Biden is a remarkable man, a man who saved our country, certainly the best man for the job in the last four years, a man I honor, a man of integrity and competency and decency.

And that's not the issue.

Laura, I come from the private sector.

I use data to drive decisions.

I use, listening to inform my decisions.

And then I use instinct to help make those decisions.

So, as I look at the data, as I listen, I believe I'm simply giving voice to what an overwhelming majority of the country feels right now.

It's not about the past, his policies, extraordinary, by the way.

I voted for every one of them, and I help market them.

I believe in him.

But I also believe in what I read, what I see and what I'm feeling, and my job is to represent.

And I believe that Democrats should have a thoughtful conversation now, before the primaries really begin.

We already have a competitive primary, Robert F. Kennedy and Marianne Williamson in the race already.

We already have Cornel West running as a third-party candidate.

I simply want to see Cornel West enter the primary.

If Joe Manchin wants to run, enter the primary.

I believe Democrats do better when we have choices, freedom to choose.

And the data right now is making me very concerned.

And, Laura, I will just wrap with this.

I woke up the morning after the 2016 election.

I was living a wonderful life.

My daughters, 16 and 18 at that time, woke up the next morning and were in tears.

I saw fear in their eyes for the first time.

I promised them I would do something.

And I ran for Congress.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Congressman -- Congressman... REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: Five years later, I'm not going to sit still and be quiet while we have that risk of him coming back.

And I want to make sure that we are best prepared with the best candidates to take on Donald Trump.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Congressman, on that note, though, your fellow Democrats have argued that your efforts to seek out a primary challenger for -- against President Biden could actually weaken his reelection bid and could very well put the former President Trump back in the White House.

So what do you say to their concerns about that?

REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: I think that's just patently untrue.

And I -- first of all, my call is for the president to pass the torch.

I think that would be in the country's best interests, and certainly Democrats.

We have an extraordinary bench of Democrats ready to go, prepared, proximate, well-positioned, but we will never know that.

And I don't want to wait five years.

Many people are telling me that.

And the data is also.

And I understand.

We are people of different perspectives, sometimes different motives.

And mine is very pure in this.

This is not about me.

It's not about running for president.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And I know... REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: It is about me trying to elevate a conversation that right now is surprising that nobody wants to have.

And I do not want to repeat of 2016, when we essentially anointed someone, it was her turn.

And, lo and behold, look what happened.

I think we're sleepwalking into the very same mistake again.

And the time to have the conversation, Laura, is right now.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Congressman, some of your own Minnesota Democrats, like your own Governor Tim Walz, has said that you should stay in your own lane.

Ken Martin, the chair of your state's Democratic Party, has called this effort disappointing and that you're repeating baseless Republican talking points.

Have you talked to voters in your state, but also battleground states, about this push?

REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: Yes.

And I'm so glad you bring that up.

Let's talk about battleground states.

I don't care about the national data.

Joe Biden won by seven million votes nationally last time, and I -- he will probably -- he would do so again.

I'm worried about the five or six swing states, the battlegrounds that are the most consequential.

That's why I have called for some of the moderate governors, people representing those very states that have great organization, great influence and great capability, to consider entering as alternatives, because they can perform well.

Yes, voters, to answer your question very directly, people all around the country are reaching out to me.

And let me assure you, if they're reaching out to me, they're reaching out to every single one of my colleagues asking for the same thing.

They want choices.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Those... REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: The data is really clear.

And it's not very promising.

And I'm simply trying to do that now.

(CROSSTALK) LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Right.

Congressman, those moderate governors, though, that you have mentioned, whether it's Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, even Tim Walz of Minnesota have said that they aren't interested in running against the former president and they support him.

REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: Sure.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The president actually in 2020 outperformed you in your own district by roughly three points.

And you have said you're considering challenging him yourself if no one else steps up.

So what would your strategy be to beat him?

REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: It's not about me.

And I don't anticipate doing that, because I believe there are people, as you just referenced.

This is not this -- I'm not well-positioned for this.

I am well-positioned as the only voice calling attention to something that we should be talking about.

Think about Governor Whitmer and Senator Warnock from Michigan and Georgia, a pastor from the South, a man of color, a woman at the top of the ticket in a year in which reproductive rights will probably be front and center more than any other policy issue.

And they're next-generation, exciting candidates that could activate, energize the Democratic base and get us excited.

I'm looking at this as hopeful, optimistic, exciting.

And I'm afraid that we are sleepwalking into the very circumstance of 2016.

This is not about me.

I'm using this 15 minutes, I'm using this opportunity with you tonight to simply ask people to give it a little thought.

Look at the numbers.

Don't listen to me.

Look at the numbers.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Congressman... REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: Talk to friends.

Are other people feeling the same?

That's what I'm trying to do.

I wish it this would not be about me.

I'm trying to do a service to Democrats, but, most importantly, to a country that really, really needs it.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota, thank you so much for your time.

REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: Thank you so much.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Tomorrow, President Biden will host a summit at Camp David with the leaders of Japan and South Korea, two nations with a long, complicated history.

But they, along with the United States, share common goals, curbing China's influence in the region and addressing threats from North Korea.

Tomorrow's summit will deal with military cooperation, the sharing of intelligence and technology development.

Joining us for more on the goals of this summit is Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Ambassador, very good to have you on the "NewsHour."

This is the first Camp David summit of the Biden administration.

Can you give us a sense of what goals the administration would like to see coming out of tomorrow?

RAHM EMANUEL, U.S.

Ambassador to Japan: Sure.

First of all, it's the first Camp David kind of summit.

It's called the Camp David Principles, not only the first time these have foreign leaders up there, but it's also the first time actually just for the three leaders, not on some of the side of the G7 meeting or the side of a NATO meeting, but to meet as three leaders for the purpose.

So, this is inaugural.

One of the outgrowths of this is going to be there's going to be an annual meeting.

So it's not going to be driven by events.

It's not going to be driven when the schedule works.

But it's going to be driven for the purpose of the three countries coming together, meeting and making that a new norm, so to say.

Second is, you talked earlier in the introduction about security.

There will be pieces on, obviously, intelligence-sharing, on integrating on certain systems and more coordination and making them seamless.

There will be annual planning for military exercises, trilateral, and then the execution of those across multiple dimensions and skill sets.

All that is one level of deterrence.

There will also be greater coordination on cybersecurity, economic coordination, supply chain, energy, health care.

So there's a big, robust piece of this that will be on the political front, the security front and the economic front.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And the concerns over China's role in the Indo-Pacific region will obviously be a main topic.

What specifically are the concerns of the Japanese and the South Koreans with regards to China?

RAHM EMANUEL: Well, both countries, starting in 2010 for Japan and 2017 for Korea, both have been victims of China's very aggressive economic coercion.

That has happened to the Philippines.

That has happened also to Australia.

So, both have been victims and targeted and had economic coercion applied to them, in the Senkaku Islands for Japan, rarely intervention in the -- for Japan by Chinese ships.

When Nancy Pelosi's trip was done, China did a series of activities around Taiwan, and they threw five missiles into Japan's EEZ.

There's a series of things they have done as it relates to Korea.

So, both -- both on military levels, security level, cyberattacks, economic areas have been a target of China's aggression.

I mean, let me just say this.

When you look at India, on their border, you look at the Philippines recently on the Thomas Shoals, China's not going to win this year the good neighbor policy award, and everybody in that region has been in one way or another targeted militarily, targeted economically, targeted on economic coercion, targeted for - - in their own security areas or economic areas and their own geographic areas.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Is there any concern that you're hearing from your allies, from your colleagues that, while the Biden administration could enter into these agreements, the next administration, which could be a second Trump administration, can just undo them?

Isn't that a real concern?

RAHM EMANUEL: It's not about that.

It's to ensure that there's a new normal, there's a new standard, it's embedded into - - for lack of a better way of saying it, let it -- it's embedded into the DNA of all our institutions in all three countries.

You have to give kudos to Prime Minister Kishida, President Yoon for the courage they have shown in kind of leaning into this, against some political headwinds.

President Biden, to think about this, six weeks ago, he's in Vilnius, Lithuania, brings Sweden and Finland into the NATO family.

Six weeks later, at Camp David, he's bringing Japan and Korea into the kind of strategic formulation.

Both are major diplomatic efforts.

And the goal is to actually see that we have more in common.

I think everybody realizes future generations shouldn't have to spend political capital.

Let's get this to the higher level, lock it in, lock it down, and run up the score.

And that's what this is about.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But there isn't any concern that, however substantive tomorrow is, that a subsequent administration could undo them, if they wanted?

RAHM EMANUEL: That's true for all the countries.

So the goal here is to make sure that it's so wedded and so embedded, where you're spending time, you're spending money, you're spending resources, that it becomes the new norm.

And I think both -- I don't want to speak for them, for their heads of state.

That's a question you can ask them.

But I think everybody acknowledges they don't want future prime ministers, future presidents of either Korea or the United States to spend the political capital to get to this.

I can tell you, having worked for two other presidents, both Democrats and Republican presidents would want to be where President Biden is.

A lot of administrations have worked towards this.

This is an amazing accomplishment, because it reorders not only the three countries, but, most importantly, it is a new fact on the ground in the Indo-Pacific.

There's a risk for everything like that, for all three countries.

That's why all three leaders are determined to literally get this woven into the kind of grain of the wood of the institutions, whether that's on the military side, the intelligence side, the defense side, the training side, the economic security side, the supply chain side.

That is to make sure that it's on -- for all three countries a fact.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, U.S. ambassador to Japan, thank you so much for being here.

RAHM EMANUEL: Thank you, William.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It was the largest mass killing in Egypt's modern history.

Ten years ago this week, Egyptian soldiers overran a protest camp in Cairo's Rabaa Square, killing hundreds.

Six weeks earlier, the military had overthrown the elected government of Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of the ousted government had created a protest city in Rabaa.

Its destruction still reverberates in today's Egypt.

Nick Schifrin looks back.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Just after dawn, chaos.

Live fire flew threw one of Cairo's busiest squares.

For 12 hours, Egyptian forces besieged Rabaa.

They bulldozed homemade barricades.

Snipers fired from nearby rooftops, the aftermath, a scorched square, a camp turned into a carcass and mosques converted to morgues.

The government death toll was 624.

Human Rights Watch says the real count was likely at least 1,000.

Rabaa had become a tent city.

Tens of thousands built a self-sustaining protest with their own kitchens, water distribution, and administration that ran 24/7 for more than 45 days.

They demanded the reinstatement of Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who became Egypt's first democratically elected president after the 2011 revolution that deposed Hosni Mubarak.

And they protested then-General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who, in early July 2013, had seized power.

Sisi became president a year later in 2014 in elections that independent observers called unfair.

He would later change the Constitution to remain president potentially past 2030.

Today, Rabaa is quiet.

The anniversary was not marked.

Nobody was ever held accountable.

In Sisi's Egypt, there is no room for memorializing massacre.

Since 2013, the government has imprisoned more than 60,000 Egyptians, from liberal activists to anyone connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ten years ago, it was a turning point, proving the military was willing to use force to cement its hold on power.

And that hold on power remains as strong now as it was 10 years ago.

For more, we turn to our own Jane Ferguson, who was in Cairo that day and covered the Rabaa massacre, and Hossam Bahgat, an Egyptian human rights activist and founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights based in Cairo.

Thanks very much, both of you.

Jane, take us back to that day.

What did you see?

JANE FERGUSON: It began early in the morning, Nick.

You had massive units of the Egyptian security forces go in and simply start opening fire.

Now, myself and my team were at one of the exit and entrance points of the Rabaa Square soon afterwards, as soon as we rushed there.

And we saw people being pulled out, those with massive gunshot wounds and just utter scenes of chaos, as people were trying to flee.

And, eventually, we made our way by simply following the crowds to various places where the bodies were being taken.

And what we found when he entered a mosque was that it was filled with an increasing number of bodies of those who had been shot by their own government.

One of the main challenges for those simply trying to organize this amount of bodies and process them is trying to keep the bodies from decomposing.

Here, now, they have started bringing in bags of ice as an emergency scenario, placing them on top of the bodies to try to keep them from decaying.

Those were really shocking scenes at the time.

It's important to remember that this is believed to have been one of the biggest ever single events of demonstrators or protesters being shot dead in the street in modern history, and in the following days and weeks, because what happened was an increasing crackdown on protesters, Morsi supporters and journalists.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And that crackdown, as you said, Jane, continued to journalists.

How did the government make clear they were willing to prosecute journalists?

And how does that willingness continue to this day?

JANE FERGUSON: Well, shortly afterwards, it was as resistance kept continuing and small protests were popping up.

The Egyptian authorities actually arrested largely the entire bureau of the Al-Jazeera English team at the time, which included an Australian journalist, Peter Greste.

Him and his team and his bureau chief, Mohamed Fahmy, they were -- they were arrested and sent to jail and effectively spent over a year in an Egyptian jail.

That was a message to news organizations, to international news organizations, Americans, Europeans, that sending journalists to Egypt to investigate and report on human rights would be extremely dangerous.

And what we have seen over the last decade is that that has worked.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Hossam Bahgat, how was Rabaa a turning point for Egypt?

HOSSAM BAHGAT, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights: It was a turning point in many different ways.

It was basically not just the end of the promise of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, but really the end of our country as we know it.

Egypt was never really a liberal democracy.

It was always a country with a problematic human rights record and serious areas of concerns.

But what we saw following Rabaa is just rule by one military leader who established a dictatorship that not just imprisoned all government critics, but, for the first time in Egyptian modern history, eviscerated civic space altogether.

So we have been ruled for the last 10 years without opposition parties, without critical media, without independent courts or really parliamentary oversight, without any space for civil society, and with zero room for dissent and zero public demonstrations.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Was there ever any justice for what happened in Rabaa?

HOSSAM BAHGAT: The only way to describe it is the opposite of justice.

It's been 10 years with, according to government figures, at least 680, maybe, killed, thousands injured.

And the only people that have been arrested and prosecuted since then are the survivors of those massacres.

There was one official -- official inquiry conducted that the government allowed and was sort of forced into 10 years ago.

That inquiry produced a report that was submitted to the president, yet the report of that fact-finding commission was never published, until really this week, when we made excerpts of it public for the very first time.

And, surprisingly, of course, the conclusions of that inquiry that were never made public almost, to a large extent, match the conclusions of independent journalists, of independent civil society investigations, which is that the government knew at the very high level that there is going to be a high human toll of casualties, that the shooting was indiscriminate, it was disproportionate with the threat that the security forces faced for only a handful of armed elements, and, most importantly, that the vast majority of those killed, that they were peaceful protesters, as opposed to the government's false narrative for the last 10 years that they had to open fire at armed elements among the protesters.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And, finally, Jane Ferguson, in the time we have left, you have reported so much from across the region.

Put this in perspective for us.

What is the legacy of Rabaa and all the changes in Egypt that we have just been discussing on North Africa and the Middle East?

JANE FERGUSON: We have really got to look, Nick, back at 2013 as a year of something of a crisis in American foreign policy in the Middle East and in the Arab world.

Of course, at the time, you had the Obama government -- or the Obama administration, which had -- whenever you had the coup happen, they would not use the word coup.

They condemned any of the violence that happened as a result of this -- of this massacre.

Of course, in the same year, we also had the famous red line in Syria, where the Obama administration had said, if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons on their own people, they would be willing to act militarily.

And that red line was crossed, and there wasn't really any military response from the United States.

It was in that moment that I think a lot of people in the region look back and will say, this is when United States' policy was in something of a crisis, whereby U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East, was happening at a time when people were being massacred by their own governments.

And the last 10 years has seen an extraordinary amount of violence against civilians, of human rights abuses across the Middle East, and a real backlash against those heady, hopeful Arab Spring days.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Our Jane Ferguson, Hossam Bahgat, thank you very much to you both.

JANE FERGUSON: Thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the midst of the pandemic, a woman tells her three grown daughters a story of her youth about a love affair, a path that she might have taken, but didn't.

They in turn tell her of their hopes or fears for the future.

"Tom Lake" is the latest novel by renowned writer Ann Patchett, who also owns an independent bookstore in Nashville, Tennessee.

Jeffrey Brown joined her in New Hampshire recently for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

ANN PATCHETT, Author, "Tom Lake": Wow.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ann Patchett "Tom Lake" begins in a high school in a small New Hampshire town, when a young girl named Lara makes a sudden life-changing decision to audition for a role in a play.

ANN PATCHETT: She is not there to try out for the role of Emily.

She's there to register the people who have come to try out for the play.

And they're so bad that she decides after four hours of listening to auditions that she's just going to get up and read the lines in a straightforward way, because she loves the play.

PAUL NEWMAN, Actor: Yes, we all know in our bones there is something eternal about every human being.

JEFFREY BROWN: The play is Thornton Wilder's 1938 classic "Our Town," seen here in a 2003 production starring Paul Newman.

It's a deceptively simple portrait of the everyday, what we see and what we miss, and the quick passing of a life.

ACTRESS: Goodbye, world.

Goodbye, Grover's Corners.

JEFFREY BROWN: And it's a play that Patchett, like her fictional character, has always loved.

ANN PATCHETT: It's about paying attention to all of the small moments of your life, realizing that your life really is just the compilation of small moments.

And either you are awake to them and pay attention to them, or you're always looking ahead and you miss your life.

JEFFREY BROWN: So that becomes, of course, the theme, or one of the themes of "Tom Lake."

ANN PATCHETT: Yes, Yes.

"Tom Lake" definitely started with "Our Town."

Somebody said to me recently: "So how did you decide which play Lara is going to be in, in high school?"

And I was like: "Oh, no, no, no, I started with 'Our Town' and then figured out who the characters were."

JEFFREY BROWN: Wilder based his fictional town of Grover's Corners on the real-life New Hampshire town of Peterborough, where he also produced it with the Peterborough Players, a professional summer stock theater.

He'd conceived and written part of it in a small cabin at MacDowell, the famed artists residency program in Peterborough.

And that's where we met Patchett, who had herself once had a residency here, to talk about a novel in which Lara, now an adult, tells her three grown daughters the story of her long-ago summer romance with a young man who would become a world-famous actor.

ANN PATCHETT: She's not going to tell her daughters the whole story, but nobody ever tells anybody the whole story.

I mean, we all edit our stories based on our audience.

I'm going to tell a story to my husband one way, to my best friend one way, to you one way.

It's not that you're lying.

It's just that you shape your story to fit your audience.

JEFFREY BROWN: But, I mean, that suggests we all have many stories.

ANN PATCHETT: Of course, everyone.

What are we except a bunch of stories, a compilation of the stories that we have lived and that we have told ourselves and other people over the course of our lives?

JEFFREY BROWN: Now 59, Patchett has been telling stories for a long time, with nine novels, 15 books in all, one of our bestselling and best-loved writers.

But there's always something new to learn.

ANN PATCHETT: It was actually really a joy to write this book.

And you want to know why?

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

ANN PATCHETT: I wrote the entire book on a treadmill.

JEFFREY BROWN: What do you mean, like, literally, while you were... ANN PATCHETT: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes?

ANN PATCHETT: I got a treadmill desk.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

ANN PATCHETT: I wrote the whole book on the treadmill desk, so I walked the whole book.

And for whatever reason, it just thrilled me.

I would get up in the morning and think, I'm ready to go to work, I'm going to get on the treadmill desk, I'm going to go write my book.

And I have never felt that way before.

It was a joy.

JEFFREY BROWN: There is much joy in this novel, set mostly on a cherry farm in Michigan, where Lara has made her life far from any one-time dream of the glamour of Hollywood and is herself coming to see what a life is made of, as in this passage.

ANN PATCHETT: "There is no explaining this simple truth about life.

You will forget much of it.

The painful things you would be certain you would never be able to let go of, now you're not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else.

Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows.

And, unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well."

JEFFREY BROWN: But this is also set amid the pandemic, and Lara's daughters bring their own fears for their lives into the story.

ANN PATCHETT: One of the things that this book is about that I am so struck by is, when I was in my 20s, I worried if I had enough money to go out to dinner.

We would go to the matinee because we don't have enough money to go at night.

We will go to the restaurant, but we will just get a piece of pie.

I really want to get this story written.

Maybe I will send the story to a magazine.

That's what I was worried about.

At the bookstore -- I own a bookstore in Nashville, Parnassus.

We have all these employees, a lot of them in their 20s and 30s.

And that's not what they're worried about.

I mean, they're worried about the pandemic.

They're worried about climate change.

They're worried about gerrymandering.

They're worried about the right to love who you love.

I mean, it's -- the weight of things that young people have to worry about today is so different from the things that I worried about when I was young.

JEFFREY BROWN: Here, you say it: "The beauty and the suffering are equally true."

ANN PATCHETT: Right.

That's exactly right.

There's a lot to feel terrible about, but there is also so much joy, and there's so much to feel good about.

And you can hold those two opposite things.

We all do every single day.

We hold those opposite truths.

JEFFREY BROWN: That's true for the world of books as well.

Patchett is a champion of writers and literature generally, but is also near the front lines of today's battles over book bans.

ANN PATCHETT: Things aren't great in Tennessee.

The people who are banning books don't care about books.

You don't ever ban something you care about.

You want to keep kids safe?

Ban guns.

You want to keep kids safe?

Maybe don't let them bring their phones into school.

But nobody is going to keep a child safe by keeping a book from them.

And yet by making the conversation about the book, then no one on either side has the energy to talk about the things that really matter.

Schools really matter.

Teachers, librarians really matter.

JEFFREY BROWN: For all her characters' uncertainties and those of our times, Ann Patchett has always had her own clarity.

And nothing brings it out like being back in high school.

Did you know what you wanted to be when you were in high school?

ANN PATCHETT: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: You did?

ANN PATCHETT: I did.

I knew I wanted to be a writer.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

ANN PATCHETT: I wanted to be a writer.

I never wanted to be anything else in my life.

JEFFREY BROWN: How did you have that certainty?

ANN PATCHETT: I have no idea.

But if you were interviewing 6-year-old Ann Patchett on this stage right now and said, "Ann, what do you want to do with your life?"

I would have said, "Geoff, I want to be a writer."

JEFFREY BROWN: For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in Our Town, Peterborough, New Hampshire.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And we will be back shortly with a profile of one of the great women scientists of the 20th century.

But, first, take a moment to hear from your local PBS station.

It's a chance to offer your support, which helps keep programs like ours on the air.

For those of you staying with us, Leanne Morgan is finding comedy in the chaos of marriage and motherhood.

She's a storyteller who draws on her experiences growing up in rural Tennessee, being married for over 30 years, raising three kids, and becoming a grandmother.

Morgan sat down with Geoff Bennett in this reprise from our arts and culture series, Canvas.

LEANNE MORGAN, Comedian: When my boy and his wife found out about this precious baby, they would say "their baby."

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: And we would say "our baby."

And then they started using words like boundaries.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Now at 57 years old, Leanne Morgan's stand-up career is taking off, and she's just released her first Netflix stand-up special.

LEANNE MORGAN: They are going to have this precious baby, and they're going to be up all night, and that's going to go into weeks and months.

And then my little daughter-in-law is going to start hallucinating.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: And then she's going to wake up in the night and she will be breast-feeding a lamp.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: And we will see who's got boundaries.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: I sat down with her in New York City to talk about her unconventional comedy career.

Most comedians get their starts in comedy clubs or in writers rooms.

You found your way to professional stand-up by selling jewelry; is that right?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, my darling.

OK, so, my husband and I met at the University of Tennessee, and when we graduated, he bought a used mobile home business, where he refurbished mobile homes and sold them.

And he moved me to Bean Station, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

And I started selling jewelry.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you're going house to house doing this?

LEANNE MORGAN: I'm going house to house at night.

My husband took care of the baby.

And then I was supposed to be talking about jewelry, and I would schlep this big jewelry case around.

And I didn't talk about jewelry.

I talked about breast-feeding and hemorrhoids, and I developed a shtick, really, an act.

And women thought I was funny and started booking me about a year in advance.

GEOFF BENNETT: Wow.

LEANNE MORGAN: And that gave me the confidence.

People would say, you need to be a stand-up.

GEOFF BENNETT: Is that what you wanted for yourself?

Did you want to be a stand-up comedian?

LEANNE MORGAN: I wanted to be in show business and I thought I was funny.

And I always loved comedy, but I didn't know what that -- what it would end up.

But, stand-up, I knew I could tell a story.

MAN: Ladies and gentlemen, Leanne Morgan!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) GEOFF BENNETT: After two decades on stage, Leanne's first special on YouTube has more than 50 million views.

Her new Netflix special reached the top 10.

LEANNE MORGAN: My husband and I met, and I was so cute.

And I was little.

I had on little britches.

Any my thyroid was functioning.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: Now I truly believe he would not pull me out of a burning vehicle.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Your family provides fodder for so much of your act.

How do they feel about that?

LEANNE MORGAN: They feel fine about it now.

When they were in middle school, my children said: "Do not speak my name."

And they also said: "Don't come up to the school with yoga pants on."

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: So that was a dry time for me.

And my husband only one time has said to me: "Don't say that again."

I said something about, I wanted something, but it was a bad a mobile home year.

And he said: "I have always provided for you.

Do not say that again."

And it hurt me for him.

And I have never said anything like that again.

But he doesn't care about anything else.

And, in my twisted mind, I think, oh, I can lose 40 pounds in four weeks.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Leanne's act is relatable, and a reflection of her life, comedy with a common touch.

LEANNE MORGAN: I have done every diet in the world.

My momma and my sister and I took Dexatrim.

Do you all remember Dexatrim?

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: Yes.

It was speed.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: We took speed as a family.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: They sold it on the shelves everywhere, and we were all taking dope.

That -- and that's funny how things resonate with people, because I have had more comments of people saying, oh, my gosh, my mom and I took Dexatrim together.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

LEANNE MORGAN: My momma gave it to us, and I was this big around.

And I was raised by farming people and out in the middle -- we knew where our beef was coming from.

I was tiny, and then taking diet pills on top of that.

I would now, but I think my heart would flutter.

GEOFF BENNETT: Right.

Right.

LEANNE MORGAN: I'm out here on the porch, and I'm looking rough.

GEOFF BENNETT: When COVID hit, Leanne was about to start a 100-city tour, and, like many others, leaned into social media and cooking.

LEANNE MORGAN: You just mix that all together and you chill it, and its really good.

I started talking about my recipes and taking care of my little mom and daddy.

They needed me.

And what I was feeding them and my family.

And it grew more than I ever thought it would.

So -- and that was a helpful thing.

As horrible as all that was, I think it helped grow my audience, because people were at home and... GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

And it gave them a point of connection.

LEANNE MORGAN: And people start making all this Jell-O all over the United States.

And I know Jell-O is very divisive.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: It's controversial.

That's right.

LEANNE MORGAN: It's very controversial.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: But where I'm from, in the - - you know, in the Middle Tennessee, we love a good gelatin salad with a little pineapple, pecan, little cottage cheese or cream cheese, a little Cool Whip.

GEOFF BENNETT: Wow.

OK. LEANNE MORGAN: Yes.

I know, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes, that's way beyond -- that's beyond... (CROSSTALK) LEANNE MORGAN: I know.

You look -- I know.

I don't want to worry you, but, yes, to us, that's a big -- it's nice to take to a church supper.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

The thing I really loved about your act is that there's no underlying political or social message.

It really is just about the laughs.

It's about finding the funny moments in family and growing older.

LEANNE MORGAN: And I understand how people want to do that and do comedy that way.

But I have just never written that way or ever thought that way.

Plus, I thought, nobody cares what I think.

And I don't -- I want it to be fun.

I don't want anybody to feel uncomfortable.

And -- but, yes, that's how -- I don't write that way.

You know, I probably don't read enough, Geoff, to know what's going on.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Leanne says this run of success couldn't have happened at a better time.

She just signed on to star in a Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon comedy.

And she is back on the road on a national stand-up tour this summer.

The tour is called Just Getting Started.

Is that how it feels?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, Geoff.

OK, when you're from the country, like I am, were meemaws.

We like to start cooking pinto beans and wearing house dresses.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Right.

LEANNE MORGAN: And I thought, I'm just going to bow out of this thing.

And then this happened.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

LEANNE MORGAN: When I look back on it, because I have had television deals for sitcoms.

I have had four deals.

And they would not make it.

My children were little, and I would be devastated.

And I look back on it now and I think, oh, my gosh, that was not the right time.

I got to raise these children in Knoxville, Tennessee, and then now they don't need me like they used to.

They still need me.

And then this happened to me at this time in my life.

And I'm having a ball.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

Yes.

LEANNE MORGAN: I'm having a ball.

And it's bigger and more wonderful and more special than anything I ever dreamed of.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Chien-Shiung Wu is not likely a household name, but she is among the great scientists of the 20th Century.

For "PBS News Weekend," John Yang explored her remarkable career, whose contributions to the field of physics have often been overlooked.

JOHN YANG: Over the course of her trailblazing career, Chien-Shiung Wu was known by a number of monikers, the first lady of physics, the queen of nuclear research, the Chinese Marie Curie.

She was one of the most influential physicist of the 20th century.

Her work helped hasten the end of the Second World War and changed our understanding of subatomic particles.

At a time when it was rare to educate girls in China, she studied physics at National Central University in what is now Nanjing, graduating at the top of her class.

With a financial support of an uncle, Wu came to the United States and, in 1940, earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley.

She couldn't find a research position at a university, so became a teacher.

She was the first woman in Princeton University's Physics Department.

In 1944, she was asked to join the faculty of Columbia University to become a senior scientist on the top secret Manhattan Project, the government's World War II efforts to develop an atomic weapon.

Her work primarily involved uranium enrichment and radiation detection.

Columbia, where she worked until retiring in 1980, was the site of her most significant work.

In 1956, theoretical physicist Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang asked her to come up with a way to test their theory on the behavior of subatomic particles.

The results of her ingenious method, known as the Wu Experiment, shattered a fundamental concept of nuclear physics that had been universally accepted for 30 years.

Lee and Yang were awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics, but Wu, like many women's scientist of her day, was left out.

In a speech at MIT in 1964, she asked whether the tiny atoms and nuclei or the mathematical symbols or the DNA molecules have any preference for either masculine or feminine treatment.

Her 1965 book, "Beta Decay," is still concerned standard reading for nuclear physicist.

While her work wasn't recognized for the Nobel Prize she earned many other honors, including the National Medal of Science in 1975 and the first Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978.

And in 2021, 24 years after her death in 1997, Wu was honored with a U.S. postage stamp.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm John Yang.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You can find more of our Hidden Histories series on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.

And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.

Remember, there's a lot more online, including a look at who the top candidates are in the Republican field ahead of the first GOP primary debate next week.

That's all on our YouTube page.

I'm William Brangham.

Thanks for spending part of your evening with us.

Good night.