GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: President Biden's son Hunter reaches a deal to plead guilty on federal tax and firearm charges.

GEOFF BENNETT: An update on the search for a tourist submersible that went missing near the wreckage of the Titanic.

AMNA NAWAZ: And a rare pilot project seeks to make up for widespread learning loss from the pandemic by extending the school year.

ALEC MACGILLIS, ProPublica: We're seeing this epochal crisis in learning loss, in this widening achievement gap.

And there's just been this real reluctance to just look it in the eye and recognize how much we have to do.

(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: The president's son is admitting to tax and gun crimes, but is unlikely to spend time behind bars after reaching a deal with prosecutors.

GEOFF BENNETT: Hunter Biden is set to plead guilty to a pair of federal misdemeanor charges for failing to pay his taxes.

The agreement also calls for him to admit to felony gun possession.

He won't face prosecution, so long as he remains drug-free for two years and doesn't commit additional crimes.

The deal promises a potential end to Hunter Biden's ongoing legal saga.

But the political drama is far from over.

To tackle the legal and political implications, we welcome in NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and Adam Entous, an investigative correspondent for The New York Times.

Thank you both for being with us.

And, Carrie, this investigation was in the works for five years across two presidential administrations.

President Biden kept in place the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who oversaw this probe to avoid the appearance of interference.

Remind us what prompted this investigation and how we got to this point today?

CARRIE JOHNSON, NPR: Yes, there were a number of reports back in 2018 that prompted the Justice Department have launched an investigation into Hunter Biden.

And David Weiss, who was then the U.S. attorney in Delaware during the Trump administration, opened up that probe.

This covers a period in Hunter Biden's life when he was in the throes of drug addiction and making a lot of poor decisions in his life, including decisions about his finances, which came home to roost today with this plea agreement.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I want to talk more about that in a minute.

But, first, Donald Trump and other Republicans are suggesting that Hunter Biden got special treatment, that this amounts to a slap on the wrist.

Here's how Speaker Kevin McCarthy described it this morning while speaking to reporters.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): It continues to show the two-tier system in America.

If you are the president's leading political opponent, the DOJ tries to literally put you in jail and give you prison time.

If you are the president's son, you get a sweetheart deal.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, Carrie, how does this plea deal compare with what any other American accused of similar wrongdoing might get?

CARRIE JOHNSON: One of the one of the messages we hear constantly from this Justice Department is they want to treat like cases alike.

And in this case, it's fairly unusual for the Justice Department to bring these kinds of tax charges against somebody who's repaid their tax bill, as Hunter Biden has as of a couple of years ago.

And it's also fairly unusual to bring an unlawful possession of a weapons charged by someone addicted to drugs, absent some pattern of violence or other pattern of lawbreaking.

So if you look at the record, and you consider what the Supreme Court did last year in upending the system of gun regulation in this country, allies of Hunter Biden and former prosecutors suggest that this plea deal is actually somewhat harsher on Hunter Biden than it might be on someone else with his background and pattern of conduct.

Rather than being an unduly favorable plea deal, it actually could be somewhat harsher, in part because of who his and the political environment we currently face.

GEOFF BENNETT: The White House, Adam, released a statement today, as I'm sure you know.

And it reads this way: "The president and first lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life.

We will have no further comment."

Hunter Biden is 53 years old.

Addiction has haunted him for much of his life.

What was happening with him during this period that was subject to this DOJ investigation?

ADAM ENTOUS, The New York Times: So basically, what happens is, is Hunter has been struggling with alcoholism basically since the early 2000s.

But his brother Beau would always take him to rehab, make sure he goes to the AAA, Alcoholics Anonymous, meetings.

His brother dies in 2015.

And after that, basically, the safety net disappears.

Hunter doesn't have his brother Beau anymore.

And so Hunter really just goes into a deep depression.

And during this period, the alcoholism comes back, and he -- and he tries crack cocaine, and he's instantaneously addicted to it.

So that's really kind of the context here.

And I do think you need to understand what's going on with Joe Biden during this point.

He had just lost his son Beau.

And the way Hunter spoke to family members and friends was very scary.

I mean, he would say things like, "You all think the wrong son died," right?

So that the context here is, I think, fear within the family that Hunter himself -- they were really afraid for his future.

And so that's the context when he is trying to make money to basically pay for a lifestyle that his family had that really they couldn't afford at that stage.

And so he's getting into business deals, which certainly raised ethical questions.

And he was making decisions about -- personal decisions about himself and what he was doing that reflected his state of mind, which was, he was he was using drugs all the time.

And so the tax charges and the gun issue are all at the -- at this -- really this terrible moment, when he basically can't keep track of anything in his life.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's talk about the politics of this, because Republicans trying to win back the White House, have tried to link Hunter Biden's legal problems with his father and suggest that they were both in on these corrupt deals together in China and in Ukraine.

Does anything in your reporting or does anything resulting from this DOJ investigation support that?

ADAM ENTOUS: So there's sort of like this rule in the family that goes back before even Hunter.

It's involved actually Joe Biden's brother, Jimmy, where -- who was also in business, where they would not talk about business with Joe, who was a senator.

That was just sort of the family rule.

And so Hunter wouldn't tell his dad about what he was doing.

What happened is, when he joins the board of Burisma, the energy company in Ukraine, he doesn't tell his dad.

His dad finds out from reading the clips that were sent to him by aides at the White House.

And he calls his son sometime after this and says -- and says: "I hope you know what you're doing, son."

And Hunter responds by saying: "I do."

And that was it.

I mean, there was no more discussion about it.

GEOFF BENNETT: Meantime, Carrie, Republicans are promising to step up their investigations into the Biden family.

How will this case affect that effort moving forward?

CARRIE JOHNSON: We heard today, Geoff, from Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Republican from Ohio, and James Comer, head of the House Oversight Committee, Republican from Kentucky, who say they're full steam ahead on these Biden family investigations.

They have already been pressing very hard the FBI for documents in these Biden family investigations.

And one thing that really jumped out at me was the U.S. attorney in Delaware today, David Weiss, saying, this investigation is ongoing.

So we don't know where it's going to end.

Hunter Biden's lawyer, Chris Clark, says he hopes things have been resolved.

But we don't have that green light from prosecutors.

And it's not clear to me the scope of this investigation, how much longer it might go on.

It was also interesting to me today to see two federal prosecutors from Baltimore sign on to this -- these plea documents, lawyers who have prosecuted corrupt police officers in Baltimore in the past, which could be a clue as to the ongoing nature of this investigation and where things stand.

GEOFF BENNETT: Carrie Johnson of NPR and Adam Entous of The New York Times, thank you both.

CARRIE JOHNSON: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Now to the day's other headlines.

A federal judge in Florida set August 14 for former President Trump's documents case to go to trial.

He's pleaded not guilty to illegally keeping classified records and obstructing justice.

The trial is set to be held in Fort Pierce, Florida.

The date is widely expected to be pushed back.

Searing heat and soaring demand forced the Texas power grid operator to call for conservation today for the first time this year.

Days of heat index readings in the triple digits have forced people to cool off any way they can.

And dogs are taking dips too, as pet owners look for cooldown spots.

Meanwhile, power outages from weekend storms meant another day without air conditioning for more than 200,000 customers across the South.

In Greece, nine Egyptian men appeared in court and one of the Mediterranean's deadliest migrant shipwrecks.

They arrived at a courthouse in Kalamata and pleaded not guilty to human smuggling and other charges.

The tragedy also prompted new calls for change by Europe's top elected official.

URSULA VON DER LEYEN, President, European Commission: It is horrible what happened.

And the more urgent is that we act.

We need among us clear rules, for example, that everyone coming to the European border is treated everywhere in the same manner.

AMNA NAWAZ: So far, a search has recovered 81 bodies with 104 survivors, but new accounts say as many as 750 people were aboard the crowded fishing trawler that sank.

A federal judge today struck down an Arkansas a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

Judge Jay Moody wrote that -- quote -- "Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients."

The Arkansas statute was the first of its kind, but at least 19 other states now have similar laws.

A federal jury in New York has convicted one American and two Chinese men of trying to bully an expatriate in New Jersey into returning to China.

Federal prosecutors say today's verdict is a victory against a Chinese campaign to threaten and silence critics living abroad.

Beijing says the effort is actually aimed at corrupt officials who flee overseas.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he expressed -- quote -- "deep concern" about China's military ties to Cuba during his trip to Beijing this week.

He spoke today in London as new reports surfaced about Chinese activity on Cuba.

At the same time, Blinken said the U.S. and China are working to ease tensions.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. Secretary of State: China also sees the utility and importance of having greater stability.

But a lot of work remains to be done.

And, of course, there are very profound, very significant differences.

AMNA NAWAZ: Blinken is in London for a conference that's focused on rebuilding Ukraine.

Russia, meantime, launched a fresh barrage of missiles and exploding drones into Ukraine early today.

Ukrainian forces said they repelled most of the attacks around the capital of Kyiv.

Other strikes reach Lviv in the western part of the country.

The Ukrainians also released footage of their own attacks, purportedly hitting Russian tanks in the southeast, as part of an ongoing counteroffensive.

India is making huge new aircraft buys ahead of the prime minister's state visit to Washington this week.

Air India finalized an order today for 470 planes from Boeing and the European consortium Airbus.

Earlier, budget carrier IndiGo ordered a record 500 airliners from Airbus.

The U.S. also reportedly plans to sell jet engines to India.

On Wall Street, stocks took a break after a recent run-up in values.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 245 points to close below 34054.

The Nasdaq fell 22 points.

The S&P 500 slipped 21.

And it is the stuff of horror movies come to life in Northern Nevada.

Tens of thousands of blood red crickets are swarming the countryside, eating everything they can, including each other.

They're covering highways.

And, when they're crushed, residents say they smell like burning flesh.

Locals are even using vacuums to get rid of them.

The invasion could last until mid-August at least.

And our thoughts are with the people in Northern Nevada.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": tensions rise as violence erupts again between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank; President Biden meets with tech leaders to discuss the future of artificial intelligence; the director of the National Institute on Aging weighs in on the fight against Alzheimer's disease; a drag performer explains what the art form means to her; plus much more.

The international effort to find and rescue a missing submersible is continuing tonight.

The U.S. Navy is also sending crews and special lifting equipment to help if the missing craft can be found.

The challenges are enormous and the situation is becoming more desperate by the hour.

Rescuers are racing against the clock and a dwindling oxygen supply to find the submersible lost at sea.

ROBERT SIMPSON, U.S. Coast Guard First District: This operation is our top priority.

AMNA NAWAZ: This afternoon, U.S. Coast Guard officials in Boston updated the public on what they called an incredibly complex operation.

CAPT.

JAMIE FREDERICK, U.S. Coast Guard: Since Sunday, the Coast Guard has coordinated search efforts with the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard, Air National Guard aircraft and the Polar Prince, which has searched a combined 7,600 square miles, an area larger than the state of Connecticut.

To date, those search efforts have not yielded any results.

AMNA NAWAZ: For the five passengers on board time is of the essence.

CAPT.

JAMIE FREDERICK: We know there's about -- there's about 40 hours of breathable air left, based on that initial report.

AMNA NAWAZ: Owned by Washington state-based OceanGate Expeditions, the vessel, known as the Titan, takes passengers deep into the sea to view wreckage of the Titanic, all for about $250,000 a person.

The submersible began its descent Sunday morning near where the Titanic went down about 400 nautical miles south of St. John's, Newfoundland.

All contact was lost about an hour and 45 minutes after it began its dive.

No one at the surface knows why.

The day before, one of the passengers, British billionaire Hamish Harding, said this year brought -- quote -- "the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years," but -- quote -- "a weather window" had just opened up to attempt a dive.

Rescuers report the water in the area is fairly calm, but their search covers a vast expanse of ocean both on the surface and below.

The Titanic's wreckage rests about 12,500 feet or more than two miles underwater.

That's equivalent to 10 Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other, more than twice the depth of the Grand Canyon.

Those on board the vessel include Harding, chairman of the company Action Aviation.

Also aboard the vessel is OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood, a British Pakistani executive at one of Pakistan's largest conglomerates, and his son Suleman, and French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet, director of the company that owns the rights to the Titanic's wreckage.

Rescuers today say their focus is on locating the vessel, though, if found, it's unclear how or if they could retrieve it.

CAPT.

JAMIE FREDERICK: We have a group of our nation's best experts in the unified command.

And if we get to that point, those experts will be looking at what the next course of action is.

AMNA NAWAZ: On the search and how a possible rescue could be carried out, I'm joined by retired U.S. Navy submarine Captain David Marquet.

Captain Marquet, welcome.

You heard what the rescuers are up against there.

If that vessel hasn't surfaced somehow and is still underwater, how are they carrying out a search like this?

What are they looking for?

And what are they doing?

CAPT.

DAVID MARQUET (RET.

), U.S. Navy: There's two components of the search.

First, there's the search on the surface of the water.

This can happen.

You can cover wide areas with airplanes that fly relatively quickly, and they have radars.

And it's -- now it's getting dark, but, during the daytime, you also use your eyeballs.

And so they can cover a wide area.

I'm pretty confident, if that ship were at the surface it would have been found by now.

Underwater, at the depths where the Titanic is, two-and-a-half miles down, it's a totally different story.

First of all, you hope that, if they were in there and they were capable, they would be making noises, they would be using pingers, or the underwater telephone, or just simply banging on the hull of the submarine.

And those sounds would be picked up by the sonar buoys which are being dropped and the other ships that are listening.

We're not hearing that either.

So now I'm fearful that something catastrophic has happened, because, when there's an abrupt termination of communications like that, that would signal multiple systems going down at the same time, or one catastrophic failure which affected the entire vessel.

AMNA NAWAZ: Captain Marquet, if they even located the vessel, what then?

What can they do?

Is there a way to tow it to the surface, to rescue people underwater?

CAPT.

DAVID MARQUET: Yes, there's no way to rescue people underwater on this type of a ship.

What you need to do that is, you need two ships with the same type of mating surface that would then come together.

And this ship, the hatch is bolted on from the outside.

It doesn't have that kind of a mating surface.

And the rescue ships that had that those kinds of mating surfaces have been retired and don't go that deep anyway.

So that's not the way to do it.

We need to get that ship up to the surface.

You either need to use lifting equipment, which somehow comes under, like a sled that would come under it, and then inflate and go up.

But that's got to be placed there by something.

Or we drop a two-mile cable with a hook on it, and then we have ROV down low, which finds the submarine, gets it hooked, and then we can reel it up to the surface.

Again, this takes time, because we need to get that equipment also, first of all, to Newfoundland and then on a ship and out to the wreck of the Titanic, which is 400 miles away.

AMNA NAWAZ: You may have seen there's some new reporting today that leaders in the submersibles industry back in 2018 sent a letter to the CEO, who was the pilot of this vessel, expressing concerns that he wasn't sticking to their standards and guidelines of the industry and warning of a catastrophic potential ahead.

Does that surprise you?

CAPT.

DAVID MARQUET: Yes, that's a report in The New York Times.

That's a remarkable letter.

And we see this tug with innovation, where innovation might get ahead of regulation and the ability -- the governing laws, in terms of how those particular vessels or that particular area should operate.

And then it goes back and forth.

And I admire the spirit of innovation and pushing the boundaries and not wanting to be fettered by rules that are written into the industrial age.

But, at the same time, we have people's lives here.

And in the United States Navy, we take great care of our submarines.

They're designed brilliantly with multiple redundancies.

If we have -- need one pump, we put in two.

If we need two pumps, we put in three.

We do operate through operational procedures.

For example, if we haven't used a submarine in a while, we go to sea -- even before we go to sea, we're going to test everything at the dock.

Then we go to sea in shallow water, submerge just a little bit, run around with flashlights, check everything.

It's a very deliberate, slow, methodical process.

And it's hard for me to see how a commercial company is going to have as many resources as we would apply to keeping our submarines safe at sea.

It's a very, very harsh environment.

The pressure is 380 times atmospheric pressure when you're down at that depth.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is retired U.S. Navy submarine Captain David Marquet joining us tonight.

Captain, thank you for your time.

GEOFF BENNETT: There was more violence today in the occupied West Bank, as Israeli settlers were shot and killed by Palestinian gunmen.

It followed a bloody raid by Israeli forces yesterday in the Northern West Bank and is raising fears of escalation.

Here's Stephanie Sy.

STEPHANIE SY: Near the Israeli settlement of Eli in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian attackers gunned down four Israeli settlers at a gas station.

According to an Israeli newspaper, three of the victims were young men 21 and under.

The fourth victim was 63.

Four others were injured.

Both gunmen were also killed, one by an armed civilian, the second by Israeli forces.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the assailants murderers.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Prime Minister (through translator): I want to say to all those who seek our souls, all options are open.

STEPHANIE SY: Hamas said the gunmen were embers who carried out the attack in retaliation for a deadly Israeli raid in the Jenin refugee camp yesterday.

Palestinians are mourning five people killed in that raid, including 15-year-old Ahmed Saqr, whose family griefs.

What was a routine Israeli raid against suspected Palestinian militants became even more serious as the Israeli troops left.

A roadside bomb exploded under two Israeli military vehicles, an unusual weapon in the West Bank.

Israel deployed a helicopter gunship, the first time in two decades it used an armed helicopter over the area.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, University of Maryland: The use of Israeli helicopters firing missiles into the area, and so that is really a huge escalation.

STEPHANIE SY: Shibley Telhami is a senior fellow at the center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

He fears that, with today's attack on Israeli settlers, violence could intensify.

Telhami says the recent burst of violence is linked to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: We have calls by the Israeli national security minister, who has been from the far right, Ben-Gvir, who has been calling now for very major measures in the West Bank against the Palestinians, including the return of targeted assassinations and -- quote -- "destruction of buildings.

STEPHANIE SY: Telhami says the recent burst of violence is linked to the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Palestinians don't see any possibility of ending occupation anytime soon.

So there's a lot of despair.

STEPHANIE SY: Over the weekend, Israel announced a new round of settlement expansion, 4,000 units, just as a top American State Department official was arriving.

From Washington, the State Department issued a four-sentence statement, saying the U.S. was -- quote -- "deeply troubled."

DAVID MAKOVSKY, Senior Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: It's a perfect storm, whereby you have got you have got a vacuum in the West Bank filled by militant groups, and you have a government in Israel that has elements to it that would like to not just have no two states, but preclude it ever happening in the future.

STEPHANIE SY: David Makovsky is the director of the Koret Project at Arab-Israel relations at the Washington Institute.

He says that far right policies in Israel have further weakened the Palestinian Authority.

Earlier this year, Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich seized taxes earmarked for the PA. And just this week, Smotrich was given authority for settlement planning in the West Bank.

DAVID MAKOVSKY: The finance minister in Israel, Mr. Smotrich, who represents more of the hard-line factions, he has not been providing the support that the security establishment wants to bolster the PA. Clearly, the more they're vacuums in governance, the more it gives space for these groups, these terror groups, to operate.

STEPHANIE SY: Meanwhile, settlers are taking matters into their own hands, with reports of revenge attacks against Palestinians mounting tonight.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy.

GEOFF BENNETT: In San Francisco today, President Biden convened a meeting of artificial intelligence experts to weigh its risks and opportunities and consider the role of the federal government in regulating the technology.

Following all of this closely is Ryan Calo.

He's a professor of law and information science at the University of Washington.

Welcome back to the program.

And, look, given all of the warnings about A.I.

's present and potential future, concerns about discrimination, misinformation, privacy, how should the federal government approach the notion of regulating A.I.

without stifling innovation?

RYAN CALO, University of Washington: Well, it's a hard question.

I mean, I think, on the one hand, the Biden administration recognizes the transformative power of artificial intelligence and is worried about rivalrous nations like China getting better at A.I.

than we are.

At the same time, it's hard to deny the fact that there's some real consequences to the deployment of this technology, especially in the state that it's in, where it's not totally ready for prime time.

And those things are things like you just mentioned, privacy, misinformation, bias.

And that's what the experts are talking about today.

GEOFF BENNETT: The European Union, as you well know, is taking steps toward passing what would be the first major law regulating artificial intelligence that would ban real-time facial recognition.

It would require more disclosure for programs that use artificial intelligence.

How is the E.U.

moving so quickly?

And could be -- could what they're developing be a model for other countries?

RYAN CALO: Absolutely.

Just recently, the European Parliament passed a draft of the A.I.

Act that does those things that you mentioned.

It heavily regulates some risky A.I., bans other stuff that they're really not interested in seeing, and then has a real light touch with a lot of other stuff.

And what the E.U.

experience shows is that it is possible and, indeed, probably wise to have some regulation around artificial intelligence.

Why are they way out ahead of us?

Because there's just a different culture, a different thought process about technology in the E.U.

I think, in the United States, we're much more concerned about making sure that we capture those -- the productivity and the efficiencies and the innovation and even also the military edge that something like A.I.

could confer, and very concerned about killing the goose that lays the golden egg, whereas I think that, in Europe, they're much more precautionary.

And so what they're doing could be a role model for us.

GEOFF BENNETT: How long might that process take in this country?

As I sit here and talk to you, it strikes me it took, what, 50 years to regulate cigarettes.

Regulating social media is still an open question.

Might this come down to the companies themselves having to establish their own guardrails?

Right now in Silicon Valley, A.I.

is anything anybody can talk about.

RYAN CALO: I hope not.

I mean, so all we have right now really is this blueprint for an A.I.

bill of rights, which is awfully similar to a similar blueprint that the Obama administration worked on many years ago.

In fact, I worked with that administration that bill of rights.

We haven't moved a lot.

So what would have to happen, of course, it is that Congress would have to get involved or individual states would have to pass laws.

And, again, Congress and individual states are going to be very worried about regulating too heavily.

But it shouldn't really be left to the companies to make these kinds of decisions, because, left to their own devices, as we can see with past technologies like the Internet, they're not going to fully address or mitigate the big range of harms, whether to the environment or job displacement, bias, privacy, misinformation.

They're not going to internalize those costs unless the government, I think, makes them do it.

So I'm hopeful that we will we will make a move like Europe, but I'm not holding my breath.

GEOFF BENNETT: In the minute or so that we have left, can we talk about the promise of A.I., setting aside the risk assessment for a second?

Because what generative artificial intelligence can do is really extraordinary, writes original essays, and can compose music, can generate code.

What do you see on the horizon?

RYAN CALO: Well, I mean, the fact that we have moved from artificial intelligence spotting patterns to actually coming up with output that is as good as a human in some contexts is really powerful.

And so my hope is that it will unleash a lot of productivity and creativity within the arts, within music.

I also hope it will help people with differences, people who are differently abled maybe accomplish some of their goals.

I know that my own son made a birthday card using artificial intelligence who struggles with reducing things to writing.

So there is a lot of potential there, and we shouldn't -- we shouldn't deny that.

But there are also some real harms.

And if this is truly a transformative technology of our age, one of the things that needs to transform is our law and our legal institutions.

GEOFF BENNETT: Ryan Calo is professor of law and information science at the University of Washington.

Thanks again for being with us.

RYAN CALO: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: After years of work, there's been some progress in the fight against Alzheimer's disease, the incurable brain condition that affects more than six million Americans.

Several new drugs have shown small, but positive results in reducing the cognitive decline associated with the disease.

William Brangham has our look at the breakthroughs and what they could mean.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Earlier this month, an FDA advisory panel unanimously agreed that the drug known as Leqembi modestly slowed the progression of Alzheimer's.

The FDA is expected to give final approval next month.

A similar drug known as donanemab has also shown promise in clinical trials.

It too could see FDA approval as soon as this year.

The results from these drugs are modest, and there are concerns about certain side effects, like brain swelling and bleeding.

So, for more on these advances and what obstacles lie ahead, we're joined by Dr. Richard Hodes.

He's the longtime director of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Hodes, so good to have you on the program.

As you well know, researchers have been trying for decades to find some crack in Alzheimer's armor.

And now we have some hope with these new drugs.

When you look at the clinical results so far, how promising disease seem to you?

DR. RICHARD HODES, Director, National Institute on Aging: I think you have you have put it very well in context.

For the first time, this is a set of results which, in the analysis of experts who review the findings, is a clear, significant impact on slowing the course of disease.

Where there is discussion is the magnitude of this change.

But where I think we would all agree is that this is an important first step that holds promise of improving by working upon this foundational initial finding to do even better and get a better ratio, if you will, of positive effect, of prevention treatment, and to side effects, which are also a significant point of data in these findings and in the recommendations that are forthcoming from them.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You mentioned this here, that these drugs seem to slow the progress of the disease.

Explain why that is significant.

DR. RICHARD HODES: Yes, well, Alzheimer's disease is -- we recognize now is a slowly progressive disease, so that the findings of abnormalities in the brain actually begin years, even decades before the appearance of symptoms.

And then there's slow progression.

It varies from individual to individual.

So, in effect, if these treatments were capable of not totally reversing or curing the disease, but slowing it to a point where people retain their function, their ability to be independent, interact with families, to have meaningful life of high quality, this would indeed be an important outcome of the treatment.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You mentioned this issue of the side effects.

And I know there's this ongoing debate about whether Medicare should cover these treatments, given the comparison of benefits to the side effects.

How do you weigh those side effects, in comparison to the benefits?

DR. RICHARD HODES: What I think we need to do in research going forward is to understand which individuals are most likely to profit from the treatment, which individuals are at higher risk.

And this information provides a basis then for patients, families and their care providers to make an individualized judgment about the cost/risk benefit for any individual case.

In the meantime, it's going to be important for us to conduct research to better identify, who are the best candidates?

Who are least likely to have the adverse effects?

And this kind of research is already ongoing.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: There are still so many questions and mysteries about this disease and who gets it and why we get it.

But we are learning more about risk factors and possible prevention.

What is the best knowledge on that front?

DR. RICHARD HODES: Very important.

So, in addition to looking for cures, treatments, the ability to intervene, to decrease risk, to prevent is enormously important.

A few years ago, NIH commissioned from the National Academies an analysis of what we knew about risk factors and what we knew about how we could reduce the risk of disease.

And the risk factors for which there was the best evidence that intervention could help were three identified at that point, one, control of blood pressure, the other, maintaining cognitive activity, and, third, physical activity.

Now, since the time of that report, one of them, blood pressure control, has been shown in a randomized clinical trial, this is the gold standard of a test for causal impact, that by more intensively controlling blood pressure in people in mid-age and older age, there was significant decrease in the appearance of lesions in the brain, which were seen in Alzheimer's disease, and a decrease in mild cognitive impairment.

That's a stage that often precedes dementia.

So this is as good as it gets, if you will, in terms of direct evidence that controlling blood pressure makes a different difference.

In the meantime, there are going -- ongoing trials to see whether controlling diet or physical activity or cognitive training will have a similar effect.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And you have also spoken about the need to increase the racial diversity amongst the people who we do research with.

Can you explain?

That may seem self-evident to you, but why is that so important?

DR. RICHARD HODES: Well, it's important that a couple of levels.

We can start with sort of the moral, ethical imperative, that we need to conduct research that has the opportunity to benefit all the people in our country and, for that, matter globally.

And to do so, we have to have inclusion of people with that kind of diversity in our clinical studies and trials.

And beyond that moral imperative, this is not just hypothetical.

We have very compelling findings to demonstrate that the risk that's imposed by a genetic variant in white, Caucasian, European descent does not have the same risk in an African American population.

There are differences, genetic, as well as in experience and life exposures, that mean that individuals of different parts of our population are likely to have different pathways to Alzheimer's disease, and so likely to benefit differentially from treatment.

We're only going to know that if we include a diverse population in our research studies.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, thank you so much for your time.

DR. RICHARD HODES: Thanks so much for the opportunity to speak with you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, the school year has either ended or is just wrapping up in most of the country.

As another year finishes, there are still real concerns about learning loss dating back to the pandemic and the ongoing struggles for students to catch up.

Laura Barron-Lopez has our latest conversation on that subject.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Amna, the federal government gave schools $190 billion to help them reopen, recover and respond to the impacts of the pandemic.

That aid can be used for tutoring, adding teachers, summer learning and other ways of helping.

Some of that money has been spent for those purposes.

But fears remain about the long-term impact of learning loss from remote schooling.

Alec MacGillis has been reporting on efforts to deal with this, including in Richmond, Virginia, as part of a joint story for "The New Yorker" and ProPublica.

He joins me now.

You have reported extensively on the magnitude of learning loss, and including in Richmond, Virginia, as well as other places across the country.

How big is that gap?

And is it among all students?

ALEC MACGILLIS, ProPublica: The gap is just enormous.

I mean, it's really kind of hard to -- for us to comprehend just how enormous this gap is.

I have talked to a lot of experts in this field.

And they're just completely alarmed by how enormous the achievement gap has gotten, the disparities have gotten in these last couple of years.

We have actually been very successful in this country in closing some of the racial and economic disparities in our schools in the last couple of decades.

And they have just blown completely wide open over these last couple of years, largely because of the school closures and the shift to remote learning.

There's just a lot of evidence now that, the longer that a district stayed closed, the worst the learning loss was.

And it just so happens that a lot of the districts that stay close the longest were in -- were in our cities and urban centers, where you have a lot of Black students, a lot of Hispanic students who have now suffered by far the most from the shift to remote learning.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: You report that, in some districts, schools are grading students more generously or giving them more opportunities to improve their grades.

Does that mask the problem?

ALEC MACGILLIS: It does.

There's what one of the experts I spoke to call the emergency gap, where a lot of families, a lot of parents are not aware of just how dire the situation has become, because they're seeing their kids still getting decent grades, because there's been -- there's been a general recognition among teachers that kids have, of course, been through a lot, and that we should kind of take it somewhat easier on them as a result.

And -- but, meanwhile, you're seeing these standardized test scores that have just fallen off a cliff for a lot of -- lots of students in this country, really to a degree that the researchers and economists have never seen before.

One economist describes this as having just a massive economic effect, on par with the Great Recession.

Basically, because skills and learning in this country are so directly tied to income, you're going to see a lifelong effect for the students and the communities in which they live, really a lifelong loss to their economic well-being and livelihood.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And you took a particular look at Richmond, Virginia, where the student body is nearly entirely Black.

And there was a push for year-round schooling, essentially a 20-day -- or -- sorry -- a 200-day calendar.

What was behind that push?

ALEC MACGILLIS: What was behind that push is the recognition that there's just been so much time lost, and that the key, the real challenge now is finding additional time to make up some of that lost ground.

Richmond schools stayed closed the longest of any district in Virginia, and the test scores reflected that.

One estimate is that students there lost two years in math, math learning.

And so there's a big push to basically add time to the calendar, to somehow extend the school year, add more days to the school year for some students, and shrink the summer vacation, so there's less of that summer slide, somehow just build more time into the calendar for either all the students or at least some of the students.

And so I went there to tell that story of how this one city was trying to make up for the lost time.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That extended calendar came from a few places, some school board members, some parents.

White people in particular appeared to be more opposed, some teachers.

Why did they oppose it?

ALEC MACGILLIS: There were various arguments against the extended calendar and the shorter summer break, including very practical things, like, well, we already scheduled our summer vacation.

We have already got a summer job.

We don't -- we don't want to have to change those plans.

Then -- but then there was a more general sense of, why are we change -- disrupting the way things have always been done at a time when there's already been so much disruption?

We just need to get everyone back to normal, back to the normal routine.

The argument on the other side, of course, was that this is exactly the moment when we need to do something different, because we have lost so much.

That's exactly the time when we need to really just completely change the way that things have always been done, because what was done before simply is not going to be enough to make up all of that lost ground.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And, in the end, roughly 1,000 of the district's 22,000 students will be in school this summer for those extra 20 days that are on the calendar.

What's your takeaway from the struggle to approve this one pilot project for such a small number of students?

ALEC MACGILLIS: Yes, in the end, only two schools ended up getting this one -- this one pilot, such a very, very small kind of step forward for this one city.

And, to me, it just was a sign of how -- really how strong the complacency and the inertia have become on this issue.

There's been -- we're almost not really even really talking about it anymore.

And it's been it's been really striking how much the national educational debate has shifted culture war issues, how much that's been driving the media coverage of schools.

Meanwhile, we're seeing this epochal crisis in learning loss and this widening achievement gap.

And there's just been this real reluctance to just look it in the eye and recognize how much we have to do.

So -- but, meanwhile, I did see some of these educators in Richmond who did recognize this and were fighting as hard as they could to move forward.

And it's going to be very interesting to see how these couple schools in this one city now fare with these extra 20 days that they're getting.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That's Alec MacGillis with new reporting in "The New Yorker" and ProPublica.

Thank you so much.

ALEC MACGILLIS: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: By many measures, drag is more popular than ever.

At the same time, there's a growing number of states passing or debating laws to restrict or ban it entirely.

But what does drag represent to those who create it?

Jeffrey Brown has this look for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: A show at NightGowns, a monthly review at the New York City club Le Poisson Rouge.

SASHA VELOUR, Author, "The Big Reveal": Welcome to NightGowns.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) JEFFREY BROWN: It's been running in different forms and venues since 2015, and been adapted into a streaming docuseries showcasing many of today's leading drag performers.

Its founder and host, 36-year-old Sasha Velour.

SASHA VELOUR: Drag is heightened performances of gender.

So we take all the ideas that make characters in this world, which are always gendered ideas, and we twist them around, exaggerate them, invert expectations, and create something new in the mixing of seeming opposites.

JEFFREY BROWN: Sasha who is gender fluid and uses she/her pronouns in drag, gained national attention in 2017.

RUPAUL, Host: The winner of "RuPaul's Drag Race" is Sasha Velour.

JEFFREY BROWN: As winner of season nine of the hidden reality competition show "RuPaul's Drag Race," where she rocked the crowd with her so-called big reveal.

And that's the title of her new book, one that explores the history and art of drag and her own life in it.

SASHA VELOUR: I wanted to present drag as an art form that is also tied to a community and that is a site for people to advocate for change.

JEFFREY BROWN: What's the art in drag?

How do you define that part of it?

SASHA VELOUR: From beginning to end, drag is an art.

We think about the colors and the textures.

We tell a story on stage.

Some people dance.

Other people sing live.

Some people tell stories or jokes.

I lip-synch, which is a tradition in drag as well.

There's also just artistry in the appearance.

We paint our faces like a painting, design costumes that go even wilder than contemporary fashion, bigger and more colorful.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

SASHA VELOUR: And it's a place to have fun, to try things, to experiment.

JEFFREY BROWN: It's a place to have fun and experiment, but also a place for saying something.

SASHA VELOUR: Yes.

The thing I want to say is, first of all, that queer people, that nonbinary and trans people are normal, that we can have beautiful lives in the world, and that it's good to be truthful about who you are, to exaggerate if you want or simply not to hide from it.

JEFFREY BROWN: I think the disconnect for many people would be that you're appearing in a way that does not appear normal.

SASHA VELOUR: Why is that, I would ask.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, why is that?

SASHA VELOUR: That's so funny to me, because any time when you watch the morning TV, they have as much makeup on as I do.

It's just they don't have any fun with it.

(LAUGHTER) SASHA VELOUR: So, it's -- this is very normal.

It's just I make strong and personal choices that are bolder than the things most people are willing to do.

So I guess, in that sense, I'm not afraid to look abnormal, because I know that this is just as normal as everyone else.

JEFFREY BROWN: The book explores the history of drag, including New York's ballroom scene in the 1920s and '30s, participants in the 1969 Stonewall uprising, and key figures who've pushed boundaries along the way.

It also presents more personal stories and photos.

Sasha grew up in a loving and accepting family in Central Illinois, child of a Russian history professor and academic editor, and always loved dressing up.

SASHA VELOUR: Learning about drag showed me a different way that made just as much sense, maybe even more sense.

It showed me a path for people, regardless of what gender they are, to create characters and tell stories that they connect with.

And one of the reasons I wanted to share this history of drag, this history of queer and trans people and the art and communities that they make is because I needed that context personally to understand how I fit into the world.

JEFFREY BROWN: Should drag be understood as a performance, as an identity, as both?

SASHA VELOUR: Drag is definitely a performance.

Even when it's not on stage, it's purposefully exaggerated and over the top.

Sometimes, it's connected to the real queer identities that we have outside of drag too.

Of course, when I feel most natural, I don't dress like this.

But, in a weird way, I think something truthful about me is best understood through the makeup and the styling.

JEFFREY BROWN: So there is a connection to identity?

SASHA VELOUR: There is a connection to identity.

But we don't think that drag is real.

Drag is a very needed escape from reality into a world that has more freedom.

JEFFREY BROWN: Is it a political action, to be understood that way?

SASHA VELOUR: Not always.

I think, sometimes, drag is just for fun, just to -- or sometimes for a job, a chance to entertain people, to make money, to have a party, to put on a great show.

But there is something political about this space that has always been welcoming to people of all gender expression.

JEFFREY BROWN: According to the ACLU, 20 states have introduced drag ban bills.

Three, Arkansas, Florida and North Dakota, have laws against adult performance that could be applied to drag, while two, Missouri and Tennessee, explicitly ban drag performances in public spaces or in front of minors.

Recently, the Tennessee law was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

SASHA VELOUR: They are trying to convince people not to be gay.

And we believe everyone should have freedom of choice over their own body and their own life.

And so we just create a space.

Our goal is to create space where that is possible.

JEFFREY BROWN: And how worried are you about this moment we're in?

SASHA VELOUR: I'm not worried for myself.

I have been at this for a while.

And I have seen the tide shift even in the 10 years that I have been doing drag.

But I do worry for people in more rural areas, like the place where I grew up, in Central Illinois, people, young people without access to a strong community.

I think that's who's going to be affected the most.

JEFFREY BROWN: The new laws come as, arguably, drag is more popular than ever in the culture, with national shows like "RuPaul's Drag Race," drag brunches, and so-called storytime events in many cities.

SASHA VELOUR: People are going to drag shows.

They're introducing drag to young people.

That feels new.

For us, it feels exciting, because we remember being kids and not having the same access to that knowledge.

The hopeful thing is that so many minds have been changed already.

And it's not a question for us.

This is not a debate.

We know that our identities are real, and our community helps people and saves lives, allows us to live our lives.

And it's going to be impossible to go backwards.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, the book is "The Big Reveal."

Sasha Velour, thank you very much.

SASHA VELOUR: Thank you so much.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

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