AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Naw GEOFF BENNET On the "News We speak to the head of UNICEF about the urgent humanitarian needs of the war's youngest victims and the risks should fighting resume.

AMNA NAWAZ: The latest United Nation and skepticism that the world will move away from fossil fuels.

GEOFF BENNETT: And a masterful diplomat or an instigator of vast human suffering?

The controversial former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger dies at age 100.

WINSTON LORD, Former U.S.

Ambassador to China: I think Henry will stand out as one of the most important international figures in the last 100 years.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

Hamas has released more Israeli hostages after an 11-hour deal extended the temporary Gaza cease-fire through tonight.

And mediators are working now to exten AMNA NAWAZ: Two women were the first hostages to be handed over today.

They were reunited later with their families in Israel.

And, this evening, six more were released into Egypt, in exchange for 30 held by Israel.

In the meantime, Sec He pressed Israel to protect civilians if fighting resumes.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. Secretary of State: Israel has the most sophisticat sophisticated militaries in the world.

It is capable of neutralizing the threat posed by Hamas men, women, and children.

And it has an obligation to do so GEOFF BENNETT: Amid the Israel.

Two Palestin before being killed.

Hamas said it was reta Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it shows Israel is justified in trying to root out Hamas.

BENJAMIN NET to eliminate Hamas.

Nothing will stop us.

We will continue this to eliminate Hamas completely, and to ensure that Gaza will never again face such a threat.

AMNA NAWAZ: The war in Gaza has had a devastating impact on children in particular.

UNICEF says more than 5,300 kids in Gaza have been reportedly killed.

That means more than 115 children have died every single day of the war.

And during the October 7 Hamas attacks, 35 Israeli children were killed and more than 30 were abducted.

To discuss the brutal to of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, who's back in New York after visiting Gaza in recent weeks.

Catherine, I want to begin with this pause we're in right now.

Fighting has been on a temporary cease-fire since last Friday.

In that time, how many aid trucks, which we know are so desperately needed, be en able to make it into Gaza?

What kind of difference can they make?

CATHERINE RUSSEL and a -- sort of a ray of hope for the people who live there, because we've been able get -- it really varies, the numbers of trucks that go in.

But a couple of hundred trucks have gone in.

You mentioned I was there.

I started at the R And the crossing there, it's an am A lot of them are Egyptian government and the Egyptian Red Crescent, U.N. trucks.

Bilateral partners are sending in trucks.

So there is a huge effort to try and get resources An d for a while, that was very challenging.

Before this whole thing started, they would routin Gaza.

And those we way.

But it gives And now, even though we are cl ose, close to the resources that we need to get in there.

AMNA NAWAZ: We are now nearing ei We mentioned officials saying over 5,300 children killed in Gaza.

It's leading us to see countless videos like this one.

I'm sure you have seen so many.

This is a man named Khal He's mourning the death of his grandson Tarek He calls her in this video the soul of my soul.

He says they shared the same birthday.

He wears her earring as UNICEF has called Gaza a graveyard for children.

Can you help us understand, what's the context for this loss of life in t CATHERINE RUSSELL: Well, let me say this first.

It is always the case that war and conflict are that I have ever seen.

What we have And also the pace of the bombings and the attacks early on were really quite dramatic.

And so it was very hard to see these numbers of children who ARE dying every day.

And, of course, that comes on top of the children from Israel who were killed as well, children who were abducted, right?

And so in ev are the ones who are really suffering.

And I think it's incumbent upon the these children.

AMNA NAWAZ: CATHERINE RUSSELL: You know, it's -- those are actually legal determ made.

I mean, what of these conflicts on children.

I mean, ideally, there would b That's why there are rules of law that say you have to minimize the impact on not just children, but civilians more generally.

And I think everyone has a Ev eryone has a side to their to their argument.

But at the end of the day, every one can to protect the people who are most innocent here, who have nothing right now, right, no responsibility for this conflict and no ability to stop it.

But they are the ones who are suffering.

And the videos that you showed demo And I think, for all people, we know how -- we have children in our lives we love so much, and we can hardly imagine what people are going through, either having children abducted for months or children who are killed or buried in the rubble.

I mean, it's all horrendous.

AMNA NAWAZ: Those do prioritized for release as part of the exchange of people held during this paus We all know the story of this one little girl in particular, Abigail Mor Edan.

She marked her fourth birthday as a hostage in Gaza.

She is now an orphan.

Her parents were killed in t What can you tell us about those children?

Have you had any access to them?

What have they endured?

CATHERINE RUSSEL It is so traumatizing.

And I think it is obviously, we have the immediate impact on children, but the long-term impact, the stress, the strain of living through situations like this, either children have been abducted and obviously living in situations that we don't really have full visibility into yet or children who have parents who they have lost or other people that they have lost.

I -- when I was in Gaza, one of the staff people that was there was proudly telling me about this water sanitation project that she'd worked on.

And then she says, kind of as an aside: "Well, I have lost 17 members of my extended fam I mean, I couldn't believe it.

You know, it was just the sc are still trying so hard to go on and make a life for themselves and that community was really striking to me.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Catherine, thank you so much.

Always good to s CATHERINE RUSSELL: Thanks.

Great to see you too.

Thanks so much.

GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines: Former Pre again in his civil fraud trial in New York.

A state appeals court today reinstated the ban on his criticizing It had been on hold pending the ruling.

Trial Judge Arthur Engoron imposed the order after Mr. Trum about his clerk.

Court officials said the comments s Senator Tommy Tuberville is signaling he's ready to end his blockade of hundreds of high-lev military nominations.

The Alabama Republican has been ho He's trying to force an end to paying for U.S. troops to travel for abortions.

Today, though, at the U.S. Capitol, he said he'd like to get some of the promotions moving in the next week or so.

SEN. TOMMY TUBERV way to do this, because we do want to stand up for life and the taxp pay for anything having to do with abortion, and get these people that need to be promoted, promoted.

GEOFF BENNET He spoke as Democrats and a number of Republicans are working on a way to get fr eeze.

Social media giant to increase political divisions in the U.S.

In all, close to 4,800 accounts were reposting polarizi Meta says the accounts appeared to come from Americans, but they actually originated in China.

In Russia, t movement in a long-running crackdown on gay, lesbian, and transgender rights.

A judge in Moscow read the ruling after a four-hour closed hearing.

Human rights advocates said it effectively bans LGBTQ activism in Russia.

MAX OLENICHEV, Russian Human Rights Attorney (through translator): The Justice Ministry demanded that the court label a nonexistent organization, the international LGBT as extremist.

But it could hap work within Russia, considering them a part of this international movement.

GEOFF BENNETT: The Russian Justice Ministry argued that gay, lesbian, and trans activists are extremists who incite -- quote -- "social and religious discord."

The Russian Orthodox Church praised the court's action.

Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing states made new attempts today to reduce outpu shore up lagging prices.

The OPEC Plus members announced they w two million barrels a day, through the first quarter of 2024.

They also announced that Brazil will join the alliance in January.

It's one of the world's fastest-growing producers.

Back in this country, new data shed more light on the state of the ec The Commerce Department reported consumer prices were unchanged from September to October.

Year over year, prices were up 3 percent, the slowest pace in 2.5 years.

And the Labor Department said the number of people collecting jobless benefits hit a two-year high in mid-November, at nearly two million.

And on Wall Street, stocks had a lackluster day to finish their best month since last year.

The Dow Jone The Nasdaq fell 32 points.

The S&P 500 added 17.

For the month, the Dow and the S&P rose 9 percent, the Nasdaq sh And still to come on the "PBS NewsHour": Elon Musk lashes out at advertisers leaving his social media platform over a rise in hate speech; and artist Simone Leigh gives space to underrepresented people with her towering work.

The United Nations climate conference COP 28 began today in the United Arab Emirates.

Negotiators from nearly 200 countries are hoping to hammer out agreements to limit the pollution that's warming the planet and to agree on aid for the nation's most impacted by climate change.

William Brangham joins us for a Good to see you, William.

WILLIAM BRAN AMNA NAWAZ: What are negotiators specifically hoping to work out in this one in Dubai?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The backdrop for all of this is that we are living through the ho year ever in recorded human history.

And that warmer world creates havoc all over the planet in extreme events, fl oods.

That costs b And so the whole goal of this summit, in essence, is Now, there's a new focus that's been happening this year and in recent years, which is, what is the responsibility that the developed world that is principally responsible for climate change, what does the developed world owe to the developing world that is suffering the impacts of climate change, who did nothing to cause this?

And there was some news today.

There was a fund for the fir So that's a start.

AMNA NAWAZ: So w fuel use, without moving towards renewable energy.

Pledges and plans have been made at previous summits too.

How are the nations doing on those?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Not great, in I mean, U.N. Secretary Antonio Guterr talk a good game and fail to deliver.

The fact is, is that that progress is not happening nearly quick The hard part is that we live in a fossil fuel world, I mean, every single thing around us, the lights, this table, the concrete on this floor, how we got to work, all powered by fossil fuels.

And transitioning aw do.

Now, that tr Renewable energy is (LAUGHTER) WILLIAM BRAN And critics contend that this cost of inaction is an unacceptab AMNA NAWAZ: This one summit was also beset by controversy before it even began.

What happened there?

WILLIAM BRAN known, in a nation known for exporting oil and gas?

The president of the current COP, Sultan Al Jaber, is an oil executi And so people argue this is a classic example of the fox guarding the henhouse.

The BBC and the Center for Climate Reporting reported that he was found trying to make oil and gas deals in the lead-up to this event.

So people are dubious of what might come out of this.

And, recently, earlier this week, I tried to get some context for all of this.

And I spoke to Christiana Figueres, who is a veteran of these prior U.N. climate talks.

And we began talking about this controversy about the COP president.

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES, Former Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Ch ange: Caught red-handed, the COP presid step up its transparency, its responsibility, and its accountability with which they are leading this process.

Now, from a planetary perspective, f That's where we are.

WILLIAM BRAN away from fossil fuels, that we have to cut emissions drastically, 50 percent in the next few years, that he seems to argue that he is uniquely positioned to help lead this COP and help lead the world in those emissions reductions.

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: And we all need him to do tha That is exactly right.

We all need him to do that.

And we have -- none -- no one can afford f So, yes, I would totally agree that that is his job.

That is his responsibility.

And if he really s He is a very, very intelligent person.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You and many others have argued that if we path, that we are condemning current and future generations to an increasingly un of famine and disease and conflict.

Do you worry that the sense of urgency on that front is diminishing?

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: We humans have a very interesting contrasting reaction to acute and to chronic situations.

We react pretty well when there is a c acute threat.

That hits us What -- a pandemic being a pretty good case in point.

We are absolutely terrible about dealing with chronic threats, despite the fact that they may be life-threatening.

But if they're chronic and sustained over time and gradually hitting us, we're terrible at that.

We can't deal with that.

And so the new muscle that we have to exercise th at decision, that commitment that we bring to acute threats, to get through acute threats, how do we deploy it for chronic threats?

That is the lesson that we have to learn.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The war in Ukraine certainly sent an incredible shockwave through the industry.

There's conc could also spread wider.

Do you share the concern that the tumult in the energy market pushes the renewables and the green energy transition to the side or to the back burner?

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: No, to the contrary, I was -- I was -- William, I thought you were going to end that sentence completely in the opposite direction.

The worry about energy dependence pushes countries toward domestic energy produc and large, is actually renewable energy direction.

And that, we have seen.

Since the war in Ukraine, we have see Two years ago, we had $1 trillion invested in fossil fuels, still, oh, my God.

This year, we still have $1 trillion invested into oil and gas and $1.7 trillion into renewables.

Why?

Because that actually That strengthens security, strategic national security.

And so, though the invasion of Ukraine is a tragedy and completely cannot be justified under any account, absolutely, and it has had a very interesting accelerating effect on the energy system of the world.

It has accelerated the decarbonization of the energy system.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On that revolution in renewable and green energy that is under way, as you say, what is it that most gives you hope when you look at that industry?

I mean, wind and solar, prices are dropping and production is going up.

What gives you the most hope when you look at that field?

CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: That is exactly what gives me hope, t linear, the fact that we now see very, very clearly the S-curves, the exponential curves, of all of those solution technologies.

Wind is definitely on an on exponential curve, solar definitely, batteries definitely getting there very, very quickly, already showing that initial indication of being on that -- on that curve.

So what gives me hope is the fact gas emissions are on exponential curve of improvement, development, and deployment.

That, of course, means that we are, frankly, on a race here between two exponential curves, the exponential curve of solutions, which I have just described, but also the exponential curve of the negative effects that we're seeing.

So, we are seeing two exponential curves that, in my book, ar When they're going to intersect, we don't know.

But we do know which of those exponential curves has to win the race.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Christiana Figueres, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.

CHRISTIANA F Good to see GEOFF BENNETT: Henry Kissinger, America's most consequential and controversial secretary of state, died last night at the age of 100.

He reached the peak of his power in the 1970s.

And, as Nick Schifrin reports, he remained highly influential NICK SCHIFRIN: He was a titan of American foreign policy, an American immigrant who became an American original.

HENRY KISSINGER, Forme unless it meant something beyond itself.

NICK SCHIFRIN: From China... HENRY KISSINGER: The closest NICK SCHIFRIN: ... to Chile, from Vietnam to the Middle East.

HENRY KISSINGER: The United States is committed to bring about a just and lasting peace.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Kissinger's impact on American policy is measured in decades, to his supporters, a hero.

WINSTON LORD most important interna NICK SCHIFRIN: To his detractors, a villain.

GREG GRANDIN, Auth Statesman": I think it would b in terms of the damage that they have done.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Heinz Alfred Kissinger was When he was 15, they fled Nazi Germany for New York.

He was drafted into the American military, and deployed to his home country to help wi denazification.

He taught at Harvard, giving Ri chard Nixon named him national security adviser and later, simultaneously, secretary of state.

HENRY KISSIN my origins could be standing here next to the president of the United States.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The moment that would make him famous led to what Nixon called the week that changed the world, a secret 1971 trip to Beijing, ending more than two decades of mutual hostility.

The next year, In that room that day, Kissinger aide and later Ambassador to China Winston Lord.

WINSTON LORD: Maybe it would have happened at some point, but it was still a very courageous and controversial move in the early 1970s.

This meeting set the stage for the subsequent discussions and the opening up wh ich had a major impact immediately by improving relations with the Soviets.

It helped us end the Vietnam War.

It restored morale in the United States that we were all our problems.

It restored NICK SCHIFRIN: But before he could end the Vietnam War, Kissinger had expanded it.

Beginning in 1969, the U.S. secretly bombed Cambodia to try and disrupt North Vietnamese supply routes.

The campaign is es GREG GRANDIN: He had a remarkable indifference to human suffering.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Greg Grandin is a professor of history at Yale and author "Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman."

He argues Kissinger and Nixon unnecessarily extended the Vietnam War by four years.

GREG GRANDIN: How many thousands of U.S. soldiers died as a result of that?

How many thousands of Vietnamese soldiers died of that?

His secret and illegal bombing of Cambodia resulted in 100,000 But, more than that, it radicalized what had been a small nucleus of extremely militant communists.

That brought Pol Pot t And that led to the killing fields and the I think he does have an inordinate amount of blood on his hand NICK SCHIFRIN: By 1973, Kissinger and his team negotiated an end to the Vietnam War in Paris, where Winston Lord was again at his side.

WINSTON LORD: Henry and I went out in the garden and we shook hands, and in the eye and said: "We've done it."

And this had particular poignancy, because I'd almost quit over our po licy to Vietnam a couple of years earlier on that very subject.

And so, after all we have been through, this was a major moment.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The moment allowed Kissinger to share the Nobel Pea Vietnamese counterpart.

But, two years later, the U.S. fled Sai U.S.-ally South Vietnam.

HENRY KISSINGER: The wit NICK SCHIFRIN: Kissinger never expressed regret over Vietnam or any decision.

In 2003, he told Jim Lehrer the priority was to put Vietnam aside so he could focus elsewhere.

HENRY KISSINGER: All you could do is try to preserve a minimum of dignity and save as many lives as you could.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Kissinger's In October 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur.

Kissinger held so many regional meetings, he helped create the term shuttle diplomacy.

It helped lead to Israeli-Egypt negotiations and edged the Soviet Union out of the Middle East.

Kissinger's concern over communism and his realpoli In 1973, the U.S. helped the military overthrow the democratically elected socialist government and install General Augusto Pinochet.

Pinochet's military dictatorship caused the death, disappearan than 40,000 Chileans.

But Kissinger's priority was preventing Elizabeth Farnsworth in 2001.

HENRY KISSINGER: F the way they have become since.

We believed that the establishment of a events in all of at least the southern cone of Latin America that would be extremely inimical to the national interests of the United States, at a time when the Cold War was at its height.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Kissinger's Cold War strategy called for detente with the Soviet Union.

In 1972, President Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev signed SALT, the first limits on Soviet and U.S. ballistic missiles and ballistic missile defense.

It opened decades of arms control agreements.

HENRY KISSINGER: The benefits that accrue to will accrue to all participants in the international system from an improvement in of peace.

NICK SCHIFRI He was charming, funny, craved proximity to power, and was, in his supporters' eyes, a steady steward of American interests.

After Nixon's resignation, he remained President Ford's s WINSTON LORD: I think his most significant achievement was holding together America and its foreign policy in the wake of Watergate and the ending of the Vietnam War.

Kissinger remained untainted by the scandals, pursued remarkable diplomacy under the circumstances, and maintained America's position in the world, as well as restoring some morale in the United States itself.

It was a rem NICK SCHIFRIN: But, to h and the kind of preemptive action that paved the way for continuous war.

GREG GRANDIN: I think he was absolutely indispensable in creating a sense of keeping the United States on a permanent war footing, this war without end, in which everything is self-defense, every drone attack can be justified.

NICK SCHIFRIN: His influence consultations or advice to 12 presidents.

Perhaps no single individual before or since has exercised so much control Henry Kissinger was 100 years old.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Nick Schifrin.

GEOFF BENNETT: Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, is dialing up the pressure on his own company even more after cursing advertisers who paused ads on the social media platform.

The advertising freeze from ma an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X earlier this month.

In an interview at The New York Times DealBook Summit yesterday, he denied the of antisemitism and told companies not to advertise.

He even called out the CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, who was at the event.

QUESTION: You don't want them to advertise?

ELON MUSK (Owner, X): No.

QUESTION: What do you ELON MUSK: If somebody go (EXPLETIVE DELETED) yourself.

QUESTION: But... ELON MUSK: Go (EXPLETIVE (LAUGHTER) ELON MUSK: I I hope it is Hey, Bob, if GEOFF BENNETT: NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn joins us now.

So, Bobby, there is no possible business benefit, at least not one I can think of, to Elon Musk sitting on stage, cursing out the advertisers whom he needs to buy ads on X to keep that company afloat.

It raises the Is he intentionally trying to tank this company?

BOBBY ALLYN, Business and Technology Reporter, I mean, this was an act of pure self-sabotage.

Remember, 90 percent of X's revenue co Since Elon Musk made waves by endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, there has been an exodus of major corporations away from X. Linda Yaccarino, who was brought in as X's new CEO, has been trying to court some of those fleeing advertisers back to the platform.

But now we have the world's richest man, who runs X, literally telling the ef f themselves, cursing them out.

I can't imagine this does anything but make the pr And Musk even said himself from that very stage that advertisers are going to kill the company.

He seems eve is, it sure does seem like bankruptcy is a fait accompli, that it's just a matter of not -- it's not a matter of if, but when X files for bankruptcy.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, The New York Times reported that X could lose as much as ad vertising revenue by the end of this year, as all of these advertisers walk away from the company.

You mentione Musk took it over in 2022.

What does this mean for her an Elon Musk is not making her job any easier.

BOBBY ALLYN: Not at all.

Linda Yaccarino today tried to Sh e's in crisis control mode, because, remember, her main job has of these skittish advertisers back to the platform.

And she issued a statement today saying that X is at the sort of unique and of Main Street and free speech, right?

She's trying to spin her boss' comments in the most positive way poss But think about it.

If you are s place ads on this platform, and the person who leads it is basically cursing you out and saying he has absolutely no respect for your concerns, that's going to be a really hard business case.

It's going to be r Musk does seem to be trying to drive his company directly into the ground.

I can't imagine any other outcome but that.

I mean, like I said, he said in no uncertain terms that this advertiser boycott decline the company into bankruptcy.

GEOFF BENNETT: Big picture, Bobb if it wanted to.

The Pentagon n NASA needs his rockets.

The Biden White House needs his th ey're trying to promote.

How is the government contending w into the fabric of American culture and are so sort of inextricably linked to national security interests?

BOBBY ALLYN: That's "The New Yorker" has called So me say Elon Musk is like an unelected official, right?

He has a tremendous amount of power, whether it's with his Starlink satellites in Ukraine, which are on the front lines of the war with Russia, whether it's the E.V.

charging stations across the country.

Remember, Elon Musk's company, right, Tesla, charging stations around the country.

So the Biden administration, working with Elon Musk.

We can't send astronauts from American we work with SpaceX.

So the government has no choice but to pla erratic business leader who is becoming increasingly unhinged by the day.

And some U.S. government officials say it's just too late.

We wish we could have done something sooner, but this entrepreneur just has so m inroads into the federal government at this point.

GEOFF BENNETT: NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn.

Bobby, thanks again.

Good to see you.

BOBBY ALLYN: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Last year, artist Simone Leigh represented the U.S. at what is widely considered the world's most important exhibition of contemporary art, the Venice Biennale.

She was the first Black woman to have that honor.

Now there's a chance to see her work in a retrospective tour Jeffrey Brown meets the artist for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: Outside the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., a monumental bronze sc a 24-foot female form titled Satellite, inside, smaller but no less striking works in which artist Simone Leigh explores the representation of Black women by pulling together different materials and forms and pulling from different traditions.

SIMONE LEIGH, Artist: It makes something new.

Sometimes, it collapses time.

Sometimes, it makes similarities t It's just one of the joys of sculpture.

JEFFREY BROWN: Leigh went Br ick House, towering over New York's High Line Park.

The exhibition now in Washington, some 29 works spanning 20 years, mostly sculptures, but also several videos, was organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

It includes major works that were part of her acclaimed Venice Biennale project and a few new ones, heady stuff, perhaps, but, at 56, Leigh is hardly an overnight success.

SIMONE LEIGH: I was told that I wasn't going to make it 1,000 times.

So, I think that... JEFFREY BROWN: So, you smile SIMONE LEIGH: Yes, because there's an told, but it can't be that.

JEFFREY BROWN: That is ce by hand and fired in sometimes enormous kilns.

It wasn't seen as high art by many when she was starting out, she says, but she loved the labor that went into it, the control, and lack of it.

SIMONE LEIGH: And the inexhaustibility of ceramics, even next week, I don't know e what's going to come out of the kiln.

There's a lot of unpredictabi I enjoy that.

I enjoy that there's still questi do with the material and how far I can push it.

JEFFREY BROWN: Leigh was born and raised in Chicago's South Side.

Her father immigrated from Jamaica and served as an evangelical preacher.

Caribbean motifs run through her sculptures, sometimes in the form of plantains.

She also looks to Africa, including Nigerian pottery she studied long ago as an intern at the National Museum of African Art.

Now such forms become part of a human figure, as In Cupboard, she combines a cowrie shell, another favorite motif, with raffia, the fiber from a type of palm tree.

SIMONE LEIGH: It also refers It also... JEFFREY BROW SIMONE LEIGH: And the hut also becomes a skirt.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

SIMONE LEIGH I like all the different itself and also the forms referenced.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, each different kind of material here is a SIMONE LEIGH: Carries histories with it, yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Histories.

Many of Leigh' She says they're both figurative and abstrac And her work always begins with ideas of how we val of all, how Black women have been represented, misrepresented, or simply ignored, including in popular culture.

Some of her early work referenc SIMONE LEIGH: And I remember playing "Star Trek" with my friends when we were younger, and we had the complication of there was only one Black girl character.

And so we would fight over who got to be Uhura.

So, it's always been something that, even subconscio JEFFREY BROWN: Cupboard itself plays off the racist imagery of Mammy's Cupboard in Natchez, Mississippi, captured in a 1941 photo by Edward Weston.

SIMONE LEIGH: I hope that my work shows a more nuanced, more subtle, more bold, more complicated, and more varied representations of Black women.

JEFFREY BROWN: And Leigh reframes colonial imagery.

She covered the U.S. Pavilion at Venice with a raffia hut-like facade, international colonial exhibition in Paris.

In the run-up to the Venice exhibition, much attent woman to represent the U.S. She says that was important to her, but as part of a larger community and deeper history.

SIMONE LEIGH: There were many, many artis Biennale, Black women artists, had we had a different history.

I have been thinking recently of the metaphor of a relay race.

It's just I was the one that's had the baton more recently.

JEFFREY BROWN: Simone Leigh's exhibition is here until March and then travels to Los Angeles, where it will show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the California African American Museum.

For the "PBS New GEOFF BENNETT: And we will be back shortly with a story from our Student Reporting Labs about how young people in Hawaii are working to address inequities in girls' health.

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

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

GEOFF BENNETT: For those of you staying with us, we take a second look now at so-called ghost gear.

That's fishing g As science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports, there's a growing effort to remo including off the coast of the U.S.

MILES O'BRIEN: Hart Island is a tiny, rugged spit o Maine.

It is uninhabi But humans are spoiling the landscape with an unending tidal wave of lost, abandoned, and dumped fishing gear.

LINDA WELCH, U.S is, it just keeps coming.

Oh, it still has use It probably hasn't been trapped there very long.

MILES O'BRIEN: Linda Welch is a wildlife It manages the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge, 73 islands that are home to thousands of nesting seabirds, some of them endangered or threatened.

LINDA WELCH: I don't think there's another industry that would be allowed that type of behavior, where trash from your industry accumulates on public lands and you have no responsibility to clean it up.

MILES O'BRIE lobster traps, confining them inside.

LINDA WELCH: It looks like it has a piece of the rope line i its foot, and it died because it wasn't able to get free from that marine debris.

MILES O'BRIEN: The tangled, mangled traps weigh at least 50 pounds a piece, and the refuge islands have no harbors, docks, or boat ramps.

LINDA WELCH: And so we have to come ashore in small skiffs, hand-carry the traps into those boats.

Those boats shuttle th to the mainland.

It's incredibly time-c MILES O'BRIE LAURA LUDWIG, Center for Coastal Studies: Man, you get an appreciation for how these frigging things are made.

MILES O'BRIEN: Laura Ludwig the Center for Coastal Studies.

We caught up with her on a foggy LAURA LUDWIG: My gosh, it's like a spider web.

MILES O'BRIE and the barg LAURA LUDWIG That could be anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 traps lost annually, ann MILES O'BRIEN: That's a pretty stunning number.

LAURA LUDWIG: It is.

It is.

MILES O'BRIE than 40 years.

STEVE TRAIN, Lobst that was like a record for me.

MILES O'BRIEN: The c only reason STEVE TRAIN: Ships cut th But it's not It's not stu MILES O'BRIE and traps in STEVE TRAIN: Probably, bu No.

That's not w MILES O'BRIE steel traps They replaced wood and sisal, This gear does not.

It lasts forever.

For Buzz Scott, the bigger problem is BUZZ SCOTT, OceansWide: You clear?

MILES O'BRIEN: Traps that pile up on the seafloor, BUZZ SCOTT: They're ghost gear because we have lost them.

They're gone.

They're ghos But they als If they catch one animal a year that is eaten by another animal that's i wasting a lot of resources.

MILES O'BRIEN: Scott is foun about the Gulf of Maine.

His dismay o Over the pas bottom of Bo BUZZ SCOTT: constantly.

It's taken 4 these traps.

MILES O'BRIE All over the planet, the seas are littered with abandoned nets, lines, buoys, and traps, death traps for all kinds of marine life, like these desperate crabs.

INGRID GISKES, Ocean Conservancy: Fishing gear is the most harmful form of plastic marine debris in the ocean.

MILES O'BRIEN: Ingrid Gi It is seeking solutions to this burgeoning problem, part of the plastic onslaught on the oceans.

So, pound for pound, is this INGRID GISKES: Marine animals can get entangled in ghost gear.

They can ingest it.

It can break dow And the reas the water column, where often the marine animals live and play.

MILES O'BRIEN: The nonprofit leads the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, foster projects that lead to consumer products.

They have partnered with a company called Bure out of fishi But recyclin an even greater challenge.

Most fishing CAITLIN TOWNSEND, Net Your Problem: So, all of the gear that I have here comes from different fishermen in Massachusetts.

MILES O'BRIEN: Caitlin Townsend tr ying to make it easier for fishermen to recycle She works mostly alone, with her dog, in a warehouse near the most lucrative fishing port in the U.S., New Bedford, Massachusetts.

CAITLIN TOWNSEND: I take these nets and I will lay i And, essentially, I will go through and separate it out into all the different types MILES O'BRIEN: Net Your Problem has recycling sites in Alaska, Washington state, California and Maine, as well as this one.

What's the big solution, in your view?

CAITLIN TOWNSEND: In my view, it would be to have fishing port in the United States.

MILES O'BRIEN: But she has to send t facilities here that will accept it.

Back down east, Buzz Scott employs a hydraulic crusher to make it traps.

To get them melted d About a month after our visit to Hart Island, Linda Welch led a cleanup effort.

Volunteers gathered and crushed more than 200 traps.

A chartered barge is set to haul it all away.

But the derelict fishing gear just keeps coming.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Miles O'Brien along the Gulf of Maine.

AMNA NAWAZ: It took years of effort by students and advocates, but Hawaii is now one of nine states requiring public and charter schools to provide free menstrual products for students.

Kate Nakamura from our Student Reporting Labs has the story.

SARAH KERN, Representative, Ma'i Movement Hawaii: All the public p access to as citizens, if there's toilet paper and soap stocked there, to also be period products stocked.

KATE NAKAMURA: Not being able It's an issue of inequity that is familiar to teachers like Sarah Kern, who witnessed the issue while teaching at Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School.

SARAH KERN: I saw a lot of period poverty at our school.

It was mostly indirect.

There's a lot of students who woul that resulted in missing class time.

I personally and a lot of teachers would provide products some in my desk.

KATE NAKAMUR poverty since her former days of teaching.

STATE REP. AMY PERRUSO of our menstruators live in fairly high-poverty communities and conditions.

KATE NAKAMURA: It took several years of lobbying, but students and advocates celebrated a victory in June 2022, when legislation requiring the Hawaii Department of Education to provide free menstrual products in public and charter schools was signed by the governor.

Hawaii is now among nine states in the u.s to do so, according to the Alliance for Period Supplies.

It's already makin High School.

BREANNE BATT my gosh.

Wait.

I don't have I literally just have a pad right there that I can just grab from the wall.

KATE NAKAMURA: Kern, who serves as the Kauai representative for the Ma'i or ganization working to eliminate period poverty in Hawaii, in addition to teaching, says expansion of access to free menstrual products in other spaces in the community, such as university campuses, will benefit local menstruators.

SARAH KERN: One of the next steps to getting th e state is definitely getting them free and accessible in the U.H.

system, so the community colleges U.H.

West Oahu, U.H.

Manoa, U.H.

Hilo, all of those KATE NAKAMURA: Representative that there are many challenges that come along with creating change.

STATE REP. AMY PERRUSO: sometimes, not always, but sometimes, legislators live in their own bubbles, right?

So -- and that can affect the quality of their policymaking.

So, if they are not actively seeking out young people and trying to identify the concerns of young people, and then working to address them, then they're never going to be engaging with young people.

KATE NAKAMUR (ph), Hawaii.

GEOFF BENNETT: And there is more coverage online, including a look at a controversial execution that took place in Oklahoma today, as advocates there are calling for all death row cases to be reviewed.

You can learn more at PBS.org/NewsHour AMNA NAWAZ: And that's the I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNET Thanks for spendin with us.