GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: Floodwaters inundate Vermont, in the latest example of extreme weather made worse by climate change.

GEOFF BENNETT: NATO leaders kick off a multination summit with Ukraine seeking a path to join the expanding alliance.

AMNA NAWAZ: And sales of nonalcoholic beverages are on the rise, as more Americans try to cut back on drinking.

KHALID WILLIAMS, Founder and President, The Barrel Age: Any bar now worth their salt is giving attention, menu real estate, and I'd say honor to cocktails that do not have alcoholic content.

(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

We begin tonight with two major stories here at home and abroad.

In Europe, leaders of the NATO alliance are gathered in Lithuania with Ukraine battling to become a full-fledged member.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, in New England, a storm for the ages has ravaged Vermont.

There have been no deaths or injuries, but property damage could reach the tens of millions of dollars, and parts of the state capital are underwater.

It was a storm that dumped nearly an entire summer's worth of rain in a matter of days, Vermont hit with the same slow-moving storm pattern that devastated parts of New York yesterday, as it headed north through New England.

By late last night, mountain towns across the state were inundated with up to nine inches of rainwater.

As rivers crested toward record-breaking heights, the violent streams swallowed cars and inched closer and closer to people's homes.

Eyewitness video from the town of Jamaica showed furniture and other household items being swept away by the floodwaters.

GOV.

PHIL SCOTT (R-VT): Good morning, everyone.

GEOFF BENNETT: Vermont Governor Phil Scott spoke today from the state's emergency response center shortly after President Biden declared a state of emergency.

GOV.

PHIL SCOTT: I know thousands of Vermonters have lost homes, businesses and more.

The devastation is far-reaching.

GEOFF BENNETT: Officials have likened this latest downpour to Tropical Storm Irene, which caused destructive flash floods in 2011 and killed eight people in Vermont.

So far, crews have rescued more than 100 people from knee-deep water.

And, in Montpelier, the state's capital, officials warned that the Wrightsville Dam just a few miles upstream is dangerously close to overflowing for the first time.

That would unleash even more water throughout the city, home to more than 8,000 residents already swamped.

WOMAN: Oh, I wouldn't trust that road.

Ooh.

GEOFF BENNETT: The floods have also shut down dozens of key routes throughout the state, from winding roads along the spine of the Green Mountains to the main drags of downtown areas.

Closures have made access to the damaged areas increasingly difficult.

This morning, Governor Scott said on Twitter that the roads around his House were completely impassable, forcing him to use nearby hiking trails for his work commute.

At the state's emergency response center, he warned of more flooding to come, despite signs that the rain has started to let up.

GOV.

PHIL SCOTT: Even though the sun may shine later today and tomorrow, we expect more rain later this week, which will have nowhere to go in the oversaturated ground.

So, I want to be clear, we are not out of the woods.

AMNA NAWAZ: Now to our other lead story.

The NATO leadership summit began today with President Biden and allies meeting to discuss Ukraine's security, new defense plans and a recommitment to unity against Russian aggression.

Laura Barron-Lopez begins our coverage from the summit site in Vilnius, Lithuania.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: A show of force to open the 74th NATO summit, with the alliance created to defend against Russian aggression agreeing to welcome its 32nd member, Sweden.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: President Putin thinks the way he succeeds is to break NATO.

He's not going to do that.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: But unity inside NATO's doors met a call for action outside, where President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered a passionate case for Ukraine's entry into the alliance and for stronger security commitments to support the war.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, Ukrainian President (through translator): NATO will give Ukraine security.

Ukraine will make the alliance stronger.

JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO Secretary-General: Allies have agreed a package of three elements to bring Ukraine closer to NATO.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: NATO's offering fell short of Zelenskyy's demands.

The new communique calls for multiyear military and security assistance for the country, a louder voice in NATO via a new NATO-Ukraine council, and an intention to invite Ukraine to join NATO when the country meets the alliance's conditions.

President Biden endorsed the package.

JOE BIDEN: And we agree on the language that we have proposed, that you have proposed, relative to the future of Ukraine being able to join NATO.

And we're looking for a continued united NATO.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: But earlier on Tuesday, Zelenskyy vented frustration Twitter, writing: "It's unprecedented and absurd when a time frame is not set neither for the invitation to NATO nor for Ukraine's membership, while at the same time vague wording about conditions is added.

For Russia, this means motivation to continue its terror."

JENS STOLTENBERG: There has never been a stronger message from NATO at any time, both when it comes to political message on the path forward for membership, and the concrete support from NATO allies, military support, but also the practical support.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: But, once in Vilnius, Zelenskyy balanced disappointment with trust in the alliance.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY (through translator): Today, I started my journey with faith in solutions, with faith in strong partners, with faith in NATO.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Those rifts, present throughout the war, flared up after an 11th-hour deal paved the way for Sweden to join NATO, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dropping his objections.

President Biden met with Erdogan today after announcing the U.S. would move ahead to transfer F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, a long-awaited victory for Taiwan that White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said was not offered in exchange for Swedish membership.

JAKE SULLIVAN, U.S. National Security Adviser: This is in our national interest, it's in the interest of NATO that Turkey get that capability.

He has placed no caveats or conditions on that.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: It takes congressional approval, something Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who co-led a bipartisan delegation to Vilnius, said is on the table.

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): We can see something move forward when we see the ratification.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: All the while, the war in Ukraine goes on.

Overnight, Russian forces attacks Kyiv and Odessa in drone strikes, where Ukrainian forces struck down 26 of the 28 drones.

But one month into the Ukrainian counteroffensive, efforts to regain territory from Russia move slower than expected, and artillery is running low.

Back in Vilnius, Ukraine welcomed a commitment by 11 allied countries to provide fighter jet training, and France announced it would send long-range missiles to the Ukrainian forces.

EMMANUEL MACRON, French President (through translator): We have decided to deliver new deep-strike missiles to Ukraine.

They will therefore be deployed in accordance with the commitments we have made with them.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Ukraine has an ally in the summit's host city, where thousands of blue and yellow flags line the streets, an unmistakable signal of support for President Zelenskyy, who will meet with President Biden and NATO leaders tomorrow once again to press his case.

Many at the summit are watching that meeting closely tomorrow between President Biden and President Zelenskyy, especially as President Biden has refused to back off his position that the conflict must be over before Ukraine can gain full membership to NATO.

AMNA NAWAZ: Laura, there's so much to talk about here, but let's start with that deal that Turkey is now allowing Sweden to potentially become the 32nd NATO member.

What do we know about how that deal came together?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Amna, today, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to us reporters ahead of the first day, saying there were extensive conversations in the days leading up to this summit between the United States, Turkey and Sweden, and that the White House repeatedly pressed Turkey to grant that accession for Sweden as quickly as possible.

Also, as a part of this, Amna, I was told by a number of senators today who were here on a bipartisan CODEL at the summit that they were pleased that they heard that Greece was involved in those conversations.

And they were happy about that because of the fact that Greece had some reservations about these F-16s being transferred over to Turkey and potentially being used in their maritime border dispute.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Laura, NATO issued its communique on the status of Ukraine's membership today.

Is that any different than what's been promised in the past by the alliance?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: So one former ambassador that I spoke to today, Amna, singled out a specific line where, in the communique, it said that Ukraine's future is in NATO.

And they said that that's stronger language that then they have seen in the past.

That being said, a number of other sources that I spoke to here at the summit said that they were disappointed with what that communique laid out in terms of Ukraine's membership, the fact that it stipulated unspecified conditions that will be applied to Ukraine, despite the fact that the Membership Action Plan requirement, which would require countries seeking membership to NATO to make military and democracy reforms, that requirement was waived for Ukraine.

But yet these unspecified conditions were applied.

They called it disappointing, puzzling and potentially a step backward.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Laura, when it comes to Ukraine's potential membership in NATO, what are some of the key outstanding issues?

What are you tracking?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Amna, at the end of the day, what did not happen for Ukraine was a clear pathway established for when and how they will become a NATO member.

Essentially, what is happening is that they're - - the core problem has not been addressed, Amna.

And that core problem applies to the fact that, what does at war mean?

And when is the exact moment that Ukraine can become a member?

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, was asked about this specifically today by reporters, what at war means and when the White House would consider that conflict to be at its end and then acceptable for Ukraine to join NATO.

And he said that he would not define that at all.

And so that was some frustration that I heard from sources as they saw what came out of the summit today.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Laura Barron-Lopez reporting for us from the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Laura, thank you.

Good to see you.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the day's other headlines: Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, seated a grand jury that could consider criminal charges against former President Trump.

It involves efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Meanwhile, in Miami, lawyers for Mr. Trump have asked to postpone a federal trial for allegedly hiding classified documents.

They're suggesting a delay until after next year's presidential election.

The general who could become chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned today against blocking promotions.

Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville is holding up hundreds of military promotions to protest paying for troops' travel to have abortions.

But Air Force General Charles Brown told his Senate confirmation hearing that it's hurting the Armed Services.

GEN. CHARLES Q.

BROWN JR., Air Force Chief of Staff: My concern there is future retention, because we have more junior officers who now will look up and say, if that's the challenge I may have to deal with in the future, I may not want to -- I'm going to balance between my family and serving in a senior position.

And we will lose talent.

AMNA NAWAZ: Senator Tuberville also faced new criticism for refusing again to condemn white nationalists.

But after defending his position for much of the day, he said later that -- quote -- "White nationalists are racists."

Medical giant HCA Healthcare reported today that hackers may have stolen personal information some 11 million patients.

The announcement came after samples of the data, including patient names and contact details, were posted online for sale.

The hack could rank as one of the largest ever.

In Israel, thousands of protesters staged a new day of disruption to oppose plans for overhauling the courts.

They filled streets and the main international airport after the far right majority in Parliament gave initial approval to the plan.

Police fired water cannons, but protesters insisted they won't back down.

DALIA MEGIDDO, Protester: We're here to defend our democracy.

We came out and we won't go back to our homes until we seem sure that our democracy is defended against this terrible government that is ruled by extremists and fanatics.

AMNA NAWAZ: Mass protests have flared since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to give the government more control over judges and court rulings.

It comes as he is on trial accused of fraud and taking bribes.

Back in this country, one of the Charles Manson cult, Leslie Van Houten, has been paroled in California.

She spent more than 50 years in prison for the murders of a grocer and his wife in August of 1969.

Other Manson followers killed actress Sharon Tate and four friends the day before.

A federal judge in San Francisco refused today to block Microsoft's takeover of video game giant Activision Blizzard.

The Federal Trade Commission wanted a temporary halt to the deal valued at $69 billion.

But the judge said -- quote -- "The FTC has not raised serious questions regarding whether the proposed merger is likely to substantially lessen competition."

The FTC can still appeal the ruling.

The PGA pro golf tour face congressional scrutiny today over its partnership with the Saudi-owned LIV, or LIV, golf league.

The deal has brought criticism that the Saudis are using sports to whitewash their human rights record.

But at a Senate hearing, PGA officials argued that the Saudi investment of more than a billion dollars will ensure the tour's survival.

RON PRICE, COO, PGA Tour: We did not seek the Saudis.

We were in a situation of where we faced a real threat of... SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): But you could go elsewhere for $1 billion, $3 billion, maybe $50 billion, correct?

RON PRICE: We could, but if we went down that path, we would end up giving up total control.

AMNA NAWAZ: The merger has also sparked a federal antitrust investigation.

Bank of America will pay more than $250 million in fines and compensation for junk fees and deceptive practices.

Today's announcement says the violations included opening accounts without customer consent and double charging on overdraft fees.

Hundreds of thousands of consumers were affected.

And on Wall Street, stocks nudged higher on the eve of new inflation data.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 317 points, or nearly 1 percent, to close at 34261.

The Nasdaq rose 75 points.

The S&P 500 added 29.

And a milestone in the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris today.

A crane hoisted giant oak trusses from a barge in the Seine River and placed them atop the medieval landmark.

They will form the framework for the roof that was destroyed by fire back in 2019.

The cathedral is expected to reopen in December of 2024.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": students struggle to make up for lost learning during the pandemic; Northwestern University fires its football coach amid allegations of racism and hazing; and our own correspondent Jane Ferguson discusses her new memoir about war reporting.

GEOFF BENNETT: We saw the flooding in New England at the start of tonight's program.

Tens of millions of people living in the Southwest, of course, are dealing with extreme weather of a different kind.

That part of the country is coping with day after day of triple-digit heat.

And the National Weather Service says it's one of the longest heat waves in modern history.

That heat is even more dangerous than you might realize.

We're going to focus on that with climate journalist and author Jeff Goodell, who's out with a new book on this very subject called "The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet."

Thank you for being with us.

JEFF GOODELL, Author, "The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet": Happy to be here.

GEOFF BENNETT: Some 54 million Americans are expected to see triple-digit heat this week.

And in your book, you liken extreme heat to having the barrel of a gun pointed at you.

Explain that.

JEFF GOODELL: You know, we talk a lot about heat, about global warming in our world now.

And there's this idea that heat is just as sort of gentle thing that we have to dress differently for or turn the air conditioning on a little bit.

I think what we're seeing now is the -- that heat is a very dangerous force, that heat is something that can kill you very quickly.

I mean, this book, for me, came out of that kind of experience when I was walking down the street in Phoenix, and it was a 115-degree day, and I was not sure I was going to make it to my destination.

And heat is a -- heat is a lethal force.

GEOFF BENNETT: You write about the tragic death in 2021 of a young California family on a hiking trail, two healthy parents, their baby, a dog found on a trail minutes from their home.

Tell us about that story and what takeaways there are from that.

JEFF GOODELL: That was an incredibly tragic story.

A family moved from Silicon Valley into the foothills of the Sierras to get away from the hustle-bustle, live more in the woods.

They hiked a lot.

They went out for a hike early one morning.

They had been warned that it was going to be a hot day.

They hiked down to a river canyon, and then around noon started hiking back up and had to hike up this two-mile switchback, where it was really very sunny and there was no shade because of wildfires the year before.

And the next day, they were found.

The entire family and found dead on the trail.

And what's tragic and sad about this is that it really underscores, even for people who are in good shape, even people who are outdoorsy, people who think that they understand heat don't understand how dangerous it is and how quickly you can get in trouble.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do we solve for the fact that three of the country's most populous states, California, Texas, and Florida, are right now experiencing a punishing heat wave, lots of people in places that are really hot?

And then, beyond that, you have got some 15 million people who spend part of their job outside, the so-called sweat economy.

JEFF GOODELL: These states have seen a big population growth in recent decades.

People like -- first of all, people like warmer weather in general.

They would rather live in a warmer place than a cooler place.

There's the myth of air conditioning, that it'll all be OK because we can just turn the air conditioning on and everything will be fine.

And I moved from the sort of relatively cool of the Northeast to Austin, and I moved there because I fell in love with a woman who lived there.

And so people move for different kinds of reasons, right?

But I think that, as climate change accelerates, as these heat waves become more and more brutal, it's going to change that equation.

And because there are -- it's fine if you are living in your air conditioned bubble, but millions of people do not live in the air conditioning bubble.

And our -- we can't air condition the wheat fields and the cornfields and all the other living creatures that are not going to be able to be sort of nestled into some cool spaces.

It becomes this sort of weird life in a bubble feeling when you're in a place like Texas.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, based on your research, how hot can it get?

What should we expect in the years to come?

JEFF GOODELL: That is a really good and important and difficult-to-answer question.

We know we can talk about general warming of the planet averages.

But what we are seeing now and what we saw, for example, in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, when there was that extreme heat wave that killed 1,000 people, it got to be 121 degrees in British Columbia.

I mean, no climate models predicted that.

It was like snow in the Sahara or something like that.

So what we're seeing is, as we mess with the atmospheric dynamics of the planet with -- by putting -- by burning fossil fuels, putting more CO2 into the atmosphere, we're changing the dynamics in ways that we have not -- we can't really say what the next heat wave is going to hit, how brutal it will be, how long it will last.

And it's a little bit frightening.

In fact, it's more than a little bit frightening.

It's very frightening, because could it get to 125 degrees in Texas?

No one knows.

GEOFF BENNETT: Your book is in many ways an urgent warning.

What do people fail to grasp about the threats posed by excessive heat?

And what do solutions look like?

JEFF GOODELL: I think two things people don't grasp about it, one is that it can kill you, and it will kill you.

And it's predatory.

It goes after -- heat will kill first people who are vulnerable, who have any kind of heart conditions.

Heat puts a lot of strain on your heart.

So, if you have hyperthermia, or any kind of heart problems, taking certain kinds of medication that affect your circulation, you're increasingly vulnerable to heat.

And the other thing that people don't get about heat is that it is the primary driver of all these changes that we're seeing on our planet.

The wildfires, sea level rise, drought, all that stuff is happening because it's getting hotter and hotter.

And so heat is this sort of fundamental force that is shaping our world in ways that we don't really understand.

And what we can do about it, very first thing we need to do is cut fossil fuel emissions quickly, because our planet is warming up because we're putting more fossil fuel into the atmosphere.

Second, we need to get smart about the risks of heat.

We have to -- whether it's by reading my book, Googling, reading somebody else's book, whatever your method is, understanding the risks of heat.

And, third, we need to change how we build cities and where we -- and how we live in cities, because cities are much hotter than the rural areas around them.

So, everything from opening cooling centers, to planting more street trees, to thinking differently about how buildings are built, so they're not so dependent upon air conditioning, we really have to rethink how we live.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jeff Goodell.

The book is "The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet."

Thank you for being with us.

JEFF GOODELL: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Billions of dollars were funneled to school districts across the United States to help them make up for learning loss from the pandemic.

But new research shows that, even with that extra money, school districts are still struggling to close the gaps in reading, writing and math that grew during the pandemic.

Stephanie Sy has more on these findings and where we go from here.

STEPHANIE SY: Amna, this research analyzed data for more than 6.5 million public school students in third through eighth grades, comparing their academic gains from 2022 to 2023 with pre-pandemic years.

The study authors estimate that most students would need, on average, an additional 4.5 months of math instruction and four months of reading instruction to catch up.

I'm joined now by Karyn Lewis, director of the Center for School and Student Progress and a lead researcher at NWEA, the organization that came out with this new study.

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

We know from previous, even recent research that public schools are having a tough time closing that learning gap that occurred during the pandemic.

How does your study add to what we already know?

KARYN LEWIS, Director and Lead Researcher, NWEA: I think what's new about what we have learned in this most recent release of data is that, up until this point, we had seen some positive signs that we were starting to have some progress towards recovery, albeit modest progress.

So it's disheartening and disappointing that, at the end of the '22-'23 school year, we actually have backslid slightly and the gaps between current achievement levels relative to pre-pandemic trends actually widened.

And that's because students were making gains this year at below-average rates.

STEPHANIE SY: One of the startling statistics in your analysis is you say the average eighth grader needs more than nine months to catch up in math.

That's a whole academic year.

So what should schools be doing that they haven't been to make this happen?

KARYN LEWIS: I don't think it's necessarily that schools need to be doing things they haven't been.

They just need to be doing more of what they are doing.

What we're seeing here are levels of unfinished learning that will take many years to recoup.

This isn't a strategy where we have one single silver bullet that's going to get us out of this mess.

And it's going to be a matter of layering interventions that are evidence-based and being able to provide those on a longer time frame.

STEPHANIE SY: What kind of interventions are we talking about?

And have those interventions been affected by the staffing shortages at schools that we have been reporting on since the pandemic?

KARYN LEWIS: The interventions all share in common that they're trying to add back in some of that instruction that was lost during the initial phase of the pandemic, when schools shut down.

So these are strategies like summer school, or double-dosing core instruction in reading and math.

We also know that high-dosage tutoring is a popular intervention that's happening right now.

And all of those strategies rely on humans to deliver them.

So you're right that staffing shortages really impede our ability to deliver these at scale.

We also know that any one single intervention is not going to be enough to get kids where we want them to be.

And it's a matter of layering these and coming up with a suite of resources to support kids.

STEPHANIE SY: You know, reading through your policy recommendations, you do use this phrase high-dosage tutoring.

How do you scale that?

I mean, are there any innovations or ideas for how to do that, given that so many students need this extra help?

KARYN LEWIS: I think it's time to get really creative about how we're finding access to tutors.

And it's not just putting out a help wanted ad, but really getting creative and going and seeking out members of the community that may be underlooked in their ability to help support these efforts, so using high school students to connect with elementary school students, using college students to connect with high school students and so forth.

I think we need to think more broadly and more creatively about how to source those positions.

STEPHANIE SY: You know, some are saying that the federal government, they're pointing out that the federal government put billions of dollars to help schools recover from the pandemic and that part of that focus was to get students back up to speed to pre-pandemic achievement.

Does some accountability lie with how school districts spent that money, in your view?

KARYN LEWIS: In my view, it's too soon to really see those efforts pay off.

We know schools had a really challenging year in '21- 22, and '22-'23 was still complete with challenges, in terms of staffing and chronic absentee levels.

It's not as if schools are doing the wrong things.

They're just not doing enough of the right things.

And I think we know need to have some empathy for what it's like on the ground.

Districts are not set up to be nimble and on the turn of a dime be able to implement a high-dosage tutoring program to thousands of students.

It just isn't the way schooling works.

I think what our data suggest is that schools are doing the right things, but just not enough of them.

And it's going to need to extend for a longer time frame.

And so it certainly is not the time to withdraw federal supports.

If anything, it's time to double down and make sure that we are supporting schools, so that they can sustain and ramp up these efforts in the coming years.

STEPHANIE SY: You know, I was looking at a report about how globally students around the world have fallen behind, and the U.S. is actually not as bad as other countries.

And one question I have is whether the goalposts have moved for everyone or need to move.

Is it realistic at this point for educators and parents to expect that their children will catch up to the achievement that we were seeing pre-pandemic?

KARYN LEWIS: That's a question that I get a lot.

Why do we continue to compare current achievement levels to pre-pandemic trends?

Should we just accept that this is our new normal?

I don't accept that this is our new normal.

I hope others don't, because, if we do that, if we just shrug our shoulders and accept that kids are this much farther behind than they used to be, that's problematic for the average kid, but it's catastrophic for the kids that have been hardest hit, which are students in high-poverty areas, Black and Hispanic students, who are fully months and months behind where we would want them to be.

And that would only catch them up to pre-COVID levels of inequality.

And I don't think we can just shrug our shoulders and accept that this is how things are.

STEPHANIE SY: Can't give up on this.

Karyn Lewis, thank you so much for sharing these insights with us.

KARYN LEWIS: Thank you for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: U.S. beer sales traditionally peak in the summer months between Memorial Day and Labor Day, but what's in those beers is changing.

While nonalcoholic beer, wine and cocktails make up a small fraction of the overall alcohol market, sales are rapidly rising.

We sent Paul Solman out for a taste test.

PAUL SOLMAN: In New Haven, Connecticut, paying homage to the Hemingway daiquiri.

KHALID WILLIAMS, Founder and President, The Barrel Age: With grapefruit and maraschino liqueur.

PAUL SOLMAN: A Caribbean style gin buck.

KHALID WILLIAMS: Usually gin, lime juice and ginger beer.

PAUL SOLMAN: A tiki punch.

KHALID WILLIAMS: I base it off of this honeybush and banana tea.

PAUL SOLMAN: Oh, that's delicious.

These are all concoctions of award winning bartender, restaurant consultant and writer Khalid Williams, cocktails with barely a trace of alcohol.

KHALID WILLIAMS: My goal is to give you a drink that has, like a wine, a beginning, a kind of mid-palate and a finish.

PAUL SOLMAN: Any drink like these spirits Williams uses can be labeled nonalcoholic if they have no more than half-a-percent of alcohol.

And these so-called sober cocktails, he says, are all the rage.

KHALID WILLIAMS: Any bar now worth their salt is giving attention, menu real estate, and I'd say honor to cocktails that do not have alcoholic content.

PAUL SOLMAN: Of course, old-timers, like Kevin Nesbitt, who asked if the bar in which he drank martinis 30-some years ago was open at 10:00 a.m. KEVIN NESBITT, New Haven Resident: Never thought about ordering a non nonalcoholic martini, to be honest.

PAUL SOLMAN: But more and more of us and particularly younger people are opting to cut back on booze.

Sales of so-called nonalcoholic spirits, beer and wine at grocery, convenience, liquor stores and the like are up more than 40 percent in just the last two years.

There are even bars like Hekate in Manhattan's East Village which displays, says "New Yorker" writer John Seabrook: JOHN SEABROOK, "The New Yorker": All these bottles of liquor that look like rum and whiskey and tequila, and they're all nonalcoholic.

PAUL SOLMAN: Indeed, it's not just the one in four Americans who don't drink at all, says analyst Kaleigh Theriault.

KALEIGH THERIAULT, NIQ: What we see in our data is that four and five consumers of nonalcohol beer, wine and spirits are also purchasing alcohol-containing beer, wine and spirits.

PAUL SOLMAN: No surprise that the main adult nonalcoholic beverage again, 0.5 percent of alcohol or less, is beer.

One brewer of it, Athletic in Milford, Connecticut, growing like crazy.

JOHN WALKER, Co-Founder, Athletic Brewing Company: In 2018, we had brewed 800 barrels of beer, and last year we produced over 170,000 barrels of beer.

The nonalcoholic beer category itself is growing 30 percent year over year.

We're growing at about 90 percent year over year to date.

PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, last year, Athletic had to move to this 150,000-square-foot facility after reinforcing part of the floor to support new tanks that hold up to 25,000 gallons for brewing and the boilers, pasteurizing to counter microbes that alcohol would otherwise slay, and packaging at a breakneck pace.

JOHN WALKER: This new canning line right here can do 450 cans a minute.

PAUL SOLMAN: Brewer John Walker migrated from the alcohol-dependent craft beer industry because of a void.

JOHN WALKER: Nobody had really innovated in nonalcoholic beer for decades.

PAUL SOLMAN: The innovation, killing the alcohol without killing the taste, found a fast-growing and loyal fan base.

JOHN SEABROOK: Well, here's a nonalcoholic IPA.

PAUL SOLMAN: John Seabrook wrote about his discovery after swearing off alcohol seven years ago.

Were you a problem drinker?

Is that it?

JOHN SEABROOK: Yes.

Yes, I was -- let's say I got a credible ultimatum from my wife.

And when you stop drinking alcohol, you really do need to find something to hold in your hand.

PAUL SOLMAN: Which led him to super-low-alcohol beers, but: JOHN SEABROOK: They were like made-in-America versions of European peers like Clausthaler.

PAUL SOLMAN: Until he tried Athletic, which I figured I should try as well.

JOHN SEABROOK: OK, well, that's the yellow one.

That's OK, too.

Well, but, when you get there tomorrow, definitely get the blue one.

PAUL SOLMAN: Which, in the interests of investigative journalism, I did the next day at Athletic.

JOHN WALKER: So we have got some tropical notes, citrus notes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Nuances mostly lost on my peasant palate.

Well, it's nice and cool.

It's refreshing.

But the key to Athletic and sober beer's success in general was hard to miss.

They're better for you.

MAN: Beautiful day, huh?

PAUL SOLMAN: So healthy that the German Olympic ski team trains on nonalcoholic beer, maybe because it's also low cal.

JOHN WALKER: This is our 25 calorie, five grams of carbs and zero sugar lite beer.

PAUL SOLMAN: Because there's next to no alcohol.

That's why it's Athletic.

JOHN WALKER: A lot of what we did early on was break nonalcoholic beer out of the penalty box.

PAUL SOLMAN: Bartender Khalid Williams says he too is trying to remove the sometimes negative aura around the sober drink.

KHALID WILLIAMS: It just was not respected, whether it was somebody with child or somebody on a diet.

The table would laugh.

PAUL SOLMAN: Really?

I mean, you saw that?

KHALID WILLIAMS: For sure.

Many times.

PAUL SOLMAN: So he's reframing booze-free.

KHALID WILLIAMS: I'm kind of a one-man movement to stop using the word virgin to describe beverages.

PAUL SOLMAN: So how about mocktail?

KHALID WILLIAMS: I have been kind of thinking past mocktail.

How do we get to the point where we're not deleting something, where we're not taking something away.

We're making something complete.

PAUL SOLMAN: Right, so that has its own standing and no stigma.

KHALID WILLIAMS: Bingo, no stigma.

PAUL SOLMAN: No stigma for the one-third of Americans aiming to drink less alcohol, either to cut calories and/or intoxication.

And for John Seabrook, Athletic, with so little alcohol, helped him off anything stronger.

JOHN SEABROOK: I needed a sort of substitute beverage that wasn't alcohol, but tasted enough like alcohol that I felt part of the ritual.

PAUL SOLMAN: But, for some, drinking anything like or even just a little alcohol can be a problem, says Yale psychologist and neuroscientist Rajita Sinha.

RAJITA SINHA, Yale School of Medicine: Recovery is different for different people.

Drinking drinks that look like an alcoholic drink can be a trigger.

It can be what we call cue-inducing.

PAUL SOLMAN: And, notes the World Health Organization - - quote -- "There is no safe amount that does not affect health."

RAJITA SINHA: The short-term effects are sleep, attention and focus, emotional reactivity.

PAUL SOLMAN: But I'm not alone in drinking alcohol to chill out, right?

RAJITA SINHA: Yes, it does seem to decrease anxiety in the moment as you're drinking.

For some people, it makes them more social.

But very quickly, you get tolerant to the anxiety effects.

And the more you drink, the more anxiety-provoking alcohol can be, so the more distressing it can be.

PAUL SOLMAN: So I'm 78.

Should I not be drinking any alcohol at all?

RAJITA SINHA: At your age, not a good idea to continue?

PAUL SOLMAN: Do you drink at all?

RAJITA SINHA: I do, anywhere between two or three drinks a week.

But I have been actually thinking maybe I need to even cut that back.

PAUL SOLMAN: And after hearing all that, plus a day of cocktails and beer with no after-effects at all, I'm on the wagon, for now.

And for the "PBS NewsHour" in Milford, Connecticut, Paul Solman.

AMNA NAWAZ: Northwestern University yesterday fired longtime head football coach Pat Fitzgerald after an investigation found hazing was widespread on the team, including instances of forced sexual acts.

The university received an anonymous complaint from a former player last November and launched an independent investigation run by the former Illinois inspector general.

It found most players participated in or were aware of hazing in the football program.

The student newspaper The Daily Northwestern also reported that several former players alleged there were racist comments and attacks by the coaching staff as well.

Fitzgerald has said he was not aware of any hazing.

The school has said it was not aware of any allegations of racism previously.

Joining me now is Jon Greenberg, founding editor and senior columnist at The Athletic.

Jon, thanks for joining us.

After that investigation last week, the university president first suspended the coach, coach Fitzgerald, two weeks of unpaid suspension, and, within days, they decided to fire him.

Why is that?

What changed?

JON GREENBERG, Founding Editor and Senior Columnist, The Athletic: I think part of it was the public outcry about it.

And then quickly, the next day, The Daily Northwestern, the school paper there, they had a story with a lot of details from the whistle-blower, from a person, an unnamed source, an anonymous player with the university on the football team, who really detailed what the hazing was, because hazing is a pretty general, vague term, right?

It could mean anything.

It could mean, like, eating something.

It could it could be carrying bags for someone.

This was like pretty detailed and really damning things that were going on there.

And they had it verified by another player, who verified the initial player's -- what he said happened.

So that really blew it up.

And then you saw more and more stories start to come out from The Daily Northwestern, from ESPN, from The Athletic, just different, more details coming out.

And I think it really made for something they couldn't ignore anymore.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jon, the details from the student reporting are really stunning.

I just want to share with you a couple of quotes from that former player who came forward.

One of them reads -- quote -- "I have seen it with my own eyes, and it's just absolutely egregious and vile and inhumane behavior."

There's another quote that reads: "It's done under this smoke and mirror of, oh, this is team bonding.

But, no, this is sexual abuse."

Jon, I have to ask you, what did you think when you read these details?

JON GREENBERG: I mean, it was pretty shocking stuff.

But also, like, if you have gone to college in America, you know what I mean, anywhere around here, where there's hazing and fraternities and sororities and teams, like, you have seen this stuff before.

Some people have experienced this stuff.

To me, the story read like they were profiling an out-of-control fraternity on campus, like an old-school fraternity that had been doing things the same way for 75 years, 50 years.

That's what it felt like.

It didn't feel like the stuff you would hear from a football team.

It just seemed like a lot of really out-of-control behavior.

And even if Pat Fitzgerald said, oh, this stuff is happening in the locker room away from me, I didn't know about it, well, that's almost just as bad, because, like, you're the person in charge.

Pat Fitzgerald has been there as a head coach for 17 years, an assistant coach before that, a team captain before that.

For him to say he didn't know it, that's pretty egregious lack of leadership.

AMNA NAWAZ: There's also more reporting from the student paper about these allegations of racism and a racist culture on the football program.

Do we know any more about that?

JON GREENBERG: No.

And you have seen some players, some people, especially guys in the NFL, have kind of come out against that, saying, I never experienced that, not -- somebody even said like, that's not to mean it wasn't true.

Some people have said no, but, I -- of course, I believe it.

And nothing would surprise me.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jon, it's worth noting too the Northwestern baseball team has been in the headlines because of allegations by players and staffers of abusive behavior by their coach, Jim Foster.

Is there any sense of growing pressure in terms of accountability higher up?

They fired the football coach, but is anyone calling for the president to step down?

JON GREENBERG: Yes, well, the interesting part about this is, the president was just inaugurated last month.

So he took over from a longtime president that was very pro-the Athletic Department.

So he was a booster almost in some ways.

So he just took over.

So this is a pretty interesting start to his tenure there.

The athletic director is also new.

And he took over from an athletic director that was pushed out because of issues that had happened in the Athletic Department when he was a deputy athletic director, assistant athletic director, a guy named Mike Polisky.

He's pushed out.

They had to hire a guy named Derrick Gragg to replace him.

So there's a lot of turnover at the Athletic Department.

There's also a lot of problems.

I mean, previously, we had heard problems on the cheerleading team.

A cheerleader sued Northwestern for some stuff, and we'd heard of other issues.

There's been just -- some -- listen, some of the teams there are great.

And some of the teams, there's been no issues.

We have heard nothing about it.

But these problems, yes, I mean, this baseball coach is the first hire of the new athletic director, their first big hire.

That is not a really good look for him right now that he hired this person.

And we have heard -- like, there's been kind of a trickling out of things of worries about the baseball coach.

And the latest reports seem pretty bad.

AMNA NAWAZ: Specific to the hazing that the investigation confirmed happened on the football team, what happens now?

I mean, this is a huge moneymaker for the university.

Could it impact support from the school community, from alumni, from sponsors?

JON GREENBERG: Yes, absolutely, 100 percent.

It was just reported that the athletic director told the assistant coaches and the staff that no one else is going to be fired, which is interesting, because you don't know what the other coaches know.

I mean, but the way it happened, it being this late, with the season starting soon, they have got to find either an interim coach, which I would assume is going to happen for this year, probably from someone on the staff already is going to get promoted.

Yes, there's going to be -- there's a lot of problems with the alumni, because there's some alumni that are really angry that this happened.

And then there's some alumni that are angry that they fired Pat Fitzgerald, who has been there for a long time.

For a lot of the former players, especially guys in the NFL, they look at him as a father figure.

They're angry about that.

So you're going to have a kind of war almost between the alumni.

So it's going to be a big deal.

They're trying to get a new $800 million stadium to replace their old stadium now.

They build a -- hundreds and hundreds of millions on new facilities there already.

So it's a really interesting, I guess, is a good word to say, time at Northwestern athletics.

AMNA NAWAZ: Certainly a story to keep an eye on.

Jon Greenberg, founding editor and senior columnist at The Athletic.

Jon, thank you for joining us.

JON GREENBERG: Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: You often see are Jane Ferguson and war zones around the world for the "NewsHour," but she's taken some time between assignments to pen a memoir called "No Ordinary Assignment."

And she recently came into the studio to sit down and discuss her far-from-ordinary journey.

Jane Ferguson, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

JANE FERGUSON, Author, "No Ordinary Assignment": Thank you so much.

Happy to be here.

AMNA NAWAZ: So you have spent years telling other people's stories on the front lines of some of the world's worst modern conflicts.

This is your story, though.

How hard was it to turn the lens back on yourself and tell your own story?

JANE FERGUSON: It was surprisingly difficult, especially -- at the "NewsHour," we don't want to be the story.

As the storytellers, we absolutely are not used to really talking about ourselves in that regard.

Even giving interviews like this, talking about -- usually, I'm asked about politics, I'm asked about current affairs.

Talking about deeply personal stories, the story of the storyteller, is new to me.

And it really took me a long time to sort of get into the flow of it.

AMNA NAWAZ: What made you want to do it?

JANE FERGUSON: I am asked a lot, why do I do the work that I do?

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

JANE FERGUSON: It's a question that I'm sure you're asked as well.

We're all asked this question, especially conflict reporters and war reporters.

And I really wanted to dig deep into an honest answer.

And the more I tried to answer that question honestly, we can talk about what foreign affairs mean to us, how important communication is to us.

But those of us who find ourselves on the road and living a life on the road as foreign correspondents, we're much more complex than that, much more multifaceted.

And I wanted to write a book, not about a journalist, and not about a career, but about a person, so people can understand who it is that's actually bringing them the news in the evenings.

AMNA NAWAZ: And you go all the way back to the beginning of your story.

You talk about what it was like growing up in Northern Ireland in the '80s and '90s.

How did those early years impact your desire to want to go into this kind of journalism in particular?

JANE FERGUSON: When I was growing up, I was in a very rural area.

I was trying to make sense of the world, as everybody does.

I was this very awkward little girl with a terrible acne and thick glasses.

And I was shy and extremely curious.

And I was growing up in the midst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, so a lot of violence, a lot of political violence, but it was really something that was somehow shrouded in a certain degree of secrecy.

I was trying to understand the wider world.

And that involved just asking a lot of questions.

And I was this very precocious little girl.

I was growing up in a relatively patriarchal place, where I didn't have a huge amount of professional female role models.

But when you turn the TV on in the evening, I saw these women who were telling stories and traveling the world.

And, lo and behold, men were listening to them, and they commanded people's attention.

And so that was fascinating to me.

It's also something that I have looked back on in retrospect and seen the uncanny sort of synchronicities of having grown up very, very close to rural IRA strongholds.

And I spend so much of my career covering insurgencies.

And a lot of there has been a certain degree of fascination and needing to know what causes people to commit acts of violence, otherwise civilians, bakers, taxi drivers, farmers.

What causes them to rise up?

And I, of course, look back now, I realize I have spent a lot of my adult life embedding with, talking to, studying, spending time with insurgencies all over the world.

AMNA NAWAZ: One of the first on-the-ground wars you cover is the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

And there's a story in there that struck me, because it spoke to I think what we all sort of count on in the field oftentimes, which is just luck, that someone runs into you at the right time, you miss the bombing by a matter of seconds.

There's a bombing near your hotel.

You're rushing to go cover it.

Someone stops you and says, wait.

You have to wait because there could be a secondary bombing.

You're still learning on the job.

When you look back at your career, how many of those kinds of close calls were there?

JANE FERGUSON: There's probably more than I even know.

I often think about, that there are the close calls that we know about.

There have been a number of incredibly near-misses.

I write about this in the book.

When I was in Syria, and I was in the very early days of the conflict, when we were really still calling it a revolution, but it was turning into an armed uprising, and a very small amount of journalists were getting smuggled into Homs city.

And I was supposed to go in for around a week.

That was the original plan.

But I left because I was very well aware that the situation was so unstable, that the -- this rebel enclave that I was in, in Syria was so vulnerable to attack.

I left early.

And the next journalist to be brought in was Marie Colvin, who was a much, much more experienced, more senior journalist writing for The Sunday Times of London."

And she was killed there.

So there have been times again and again where that's happened, again, in Afghanistan.

I left Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul.

Myself and my colleague Eric stayed as long as we could.

We stayed for 10 days.

And then, eventually, the one place that we were able to stay was with the British military.

They said: "Listen, we're clearing this out and handing it over to the Taliban tomorrow.

You must get on a flight out of here."

And we got on a flight out.

And every single day, we had been standing at the Abbey Gate reporting for the "NewsHour," interviewing Afghans as they were desperately trying to get on evacuation flights.

Just a matter of hours after we get on that plane, the bombing goes off at the Abbey Gate.

So I still don't know if it's luck or grace or an act of God, but I have been spared many times in my life.

I'm very grateful.

AMNA NAWAZ: In this line of work, you also see up close some of the worst of humanity, people in their absolute worst moments, when they have lost everything.

And you write about a story in Somalia, where you're literally watching a child die before your eyes.

And what you wrote there struck me.

You said: "In those moments where I'm witnessing the profound vulnerability of someone else, I also feel laid bare.

People recognize real empathy.

It's the only decent behavior in war reporting."

How do you hang on to that empathy?

JANE FERGUSON: You, first of all, are more aware than you could ever imagine of how blessed your life is.

You can never -- people ask me, how can you not be jaded, or bitter, or more pessimistic?

How are you such an optimistic person?

I actually view it in the opposite direction.

How could I not be?

I witness people having the worst day of their lives.

And, first of all, I struggle a little bit with, what's my place here?

Am I helping?

Do I have a right to be here?

There are all sorts of very difficult issues that we contend with as journalists.

And so the only thing you can do is be as humble as you can in those moments.

And I am so often in hospital wards with starving children or at funerals.

And I'm a stranger there.

And all I can do is be as kind and empathetic and respectful as humanly possible.

AMNA NAWAZ: Do you ever get to a point where you think, OK, that's enough, I can't do this anymore?

JANE FERGUSON: I have never thought to myself, I don't ever want to do this again.

I don't want to travel anymore.

I don't want to do any more reporting, whether it's a crisis, or a natural disaster or a war.

For me, the thing that keeps me going is covering undercovered stories.

And those are only increasing in number.

I can see myself pivoting into covering other things more, more international politics, or climate change, and these sorts of issues, but I don't think I will ever completely hang up my spurs of what I do.

AMNA NAWAZ: The book is "No Ordinary Assignment."

The author is Jane Ferguson.

Jane, thank you so much.

We're so lucky to have you as part of our "NewsHour" family.

JANE FERGUSON: I'm lucky to be here.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jane's book is out now.

And you can read an excerpt on our Web site.

That's at PBS.org/NewsHour.

GEOFF BENNETT: And join us again here tomorrow night, when we will have an interview with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "NewsHour" team, thank you for joining us.