AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: Climate scientists declare this summer the hottest in the Northern Hemisphere in history, the impact being felt across the globe.

AMNA NAWAZ: After all 19 defendants in the Georgia election subversion case plead not guilty, the judge weighs questions of when and how a trial will proceed.

GEOFF BENNETT: And the head of the World Food Program in Afghanistan details the increasingly dire plight of the millions facing severe hunger.

HSIAO-WEI LEE, Afghanistan Country Director, World Food Program: We're having to choose between families that are hungry and those who are starving.

How do you tell a mother who's asking us for assistance and holding a hungry child that her child may not be hungry enough?

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

Extreme weather is hitting Europe, with catastrophic consequences.

At least eight people have died there after severe storms.

AMNA NAWAZ: In Brazil, at least 31 more people died from flooding.

And here in the U.S., more than 80 million Americans are living through blazing temperatures and yet another heat alert.

It all comes as the planet reached an alarming milestone this summer.

William Brangham has the story.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In Southeastern Europe, torrential rains brought havoc.

Flash flooding in Central Greece has destroyed entire streets, flooded homes, and destroyed cars.

In some Greek towns, over 20 inches of rain fell in just 10 hours.

VASILIS BATSIOS, Greece Resident (through translator): This has never happened before here.

There was a lot of water, and for many hours.

For 24 hours, it was nonstop.

The amount of water was unbelievable.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Greek authorities say this storm, dubbed Daniel, brought the most extreme rainfall on record, up to nearly 30 inches in one day in some places.

In Turkey, rescuers on boats had to save people stranded by the floods.

Officials say the city was pounded by one month's worth of rain in less than six hours.

Like toys in a bathtub, people's vehicles floated through the streets.

One man's furniture shop was destroyed after water swept cars into his store.

ERKAN GURER, Store Owner (through translator): We came here after our neighbors called us.

When we got here, there was water up to the ceiling of our store.

There was nothing we could do.

We were helpless.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In neighboring Bulgaria, an overflowing river wiped out a campsite, sweeping trailers into the Black Sea.

And in South America, where it's winter now, a storm in Southern Brazil brought deadly flooding that inundated entire towns.

JOSELINE GIRALDI, Shoe Factory Worker (through translator): I was able to climb to a neighbor's apartment.

It was frightening.

People on roofs were asking for help.

It was like a scene from a horror movie.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It's all part of a larger pattern of meteorological extremes, disasters that climate scientists say are becoming more frequent and more intense as the Earth continues to warm.

Just days ago, Greece saw the end of weeks of deadly wildfires, and Western Europe is in the midst of an unusual September heat wave.

The U.N.'s weather agency says this is the hottest summer ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere.

It reported that August was 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than pre-industrial averages.

So let's delve a little deeper into this extreme weather and its calamitous impacts.

For that, we are joined again by climate scientist Gavin Schmidt.

He's the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Gavin Schmidt, very nice to have you back on the "NewsHour."

In addition to these extreme weather events we're seeing, we're also getting a better understanding of how a warming world is harming human health.

There was a recent analysis by The Washington Post and CarbonPlan that indicated that, in just seven years, half-a-billion people globally will be exposed to extreme heat for at least one month a year, even if they can get out of the sun.

A study in "Lancet" found that the number of heat-related deaths of elderly people rose by 68 percent in recent years.

I mean, it seems that we are making life on Earth increasingly hazardous in ways that we are not at all prepared for.

Do you think that that's overstating it?

GAVIN SCHMIDT, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies: No, I think that's exactly right.

We have systems and infrastructure in place that help us deal with the climate that we had.

But climate is changing.

We are pushing our living space into areas, into temperatures that we have never experienced.

And we're seeing that this summer, particularly.

We're seeing this kind of in the long-term trends.

We are moving out of society's comfort zone.

And that means that places that were prepared for a certain spread of temperature and a certain number of extremes are now being hit with larger extremes.

They're being hit with higher temperatures, more intense rainfall.

And the structures that we have, the infrastructure that we have is just not being able to cope with that.

But what we're seeing now is that those things that were one-in-100-year events are now one-in-50-year, one-in-30-year, once-a-decade, and soon conceivably could be an every-year or an every-couple-of-year event.

And that's the difference.

It's not that these things have never happened before.

It's not that we have never had a heat wave.

It's not that we have never had strong rainfall or droughts.

But the frequency and intensity of these features is increasing.

And we can see that in the statistics around the globe.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I want to ask you about our understanding about the role that climate change plays in all of this, because, just as you're saying, we have had hot summers and forest fires and flooded areas well before climate change came along.

But we know warming world is increasingly complicit.

How do you counsel people to understand those connections?

GAVIN SCHMIDT: Well, we have noise, the weather noise that has always been there, a function of atmospheric dynamics, a function of El Nino events in the Tropical Pacific.

But we have a shifting baseline.

Every decade in the -- for the last 50 or 60 years, the planet has warmed.

And we have been talking about this, scientists have been talking about this for many, many decades.

And so we're talking increased intensity and frequency of heat waves.

We're talking about increased intensity of rainfall events.

When we have a drought, we're talking about ever-drier soils, because the air is taking out more moisture from the soils.

We're talking about increases in sea level, both because the water itself is expanding as it gets warmer, but it's also because we're melting ice around the world.

And that's adding to the total mass of the ocean.

And so slowly, but surely, and acceleratingly, we're seeing sea levels rise.

And we're seeing the consequence of that in nuisance flooding and storm surge damage.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Given all of that, I mean, it does seem that cutting our use of oil and coal and gas is increasingly critical.

And, as we have reported and others have, that there is a genuine revolution under way in renewable energy globally that is going on.

Do you think that, even if we hit our most optimistic projections for controlling emissions and controlling warming, how much of this damage is still baked in?

GAVIN SCHMIDT: So, good news/bad news, right?

If we stopped emitting carbon into the atmosphere tomorrow, which obviously is not going to happen, then temperatures would not rise any further, right?

So, that means that any further increases from where we are now are really under our control.

We have agency.

What we choose to do as a society makes a difference to how much warmer it's going to get.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to go back, right?

So it's very hard to now suddenly cool the climate back to where it was in the 1980s or in the 20th century.

And so what we're seeing now, in some sense, may be baked in.

But we're not baked into further increases and further acceleration in that system.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Gavin Schmidt of the Goddard Institute, thank you so much for being here.

GAVIN SCHMIDT: Thank you very much for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines: A growing challenge to keep former President Trump off Republican primary ballots next year took a step forward.

Six Republican and unaffiliated voters in Colorado filed suit to bar him from that states primary ballot, citing the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment.

The post-Civil War provision says -- quote - - "No person shall hold any office, civil or military, under the United States who shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion."

The suit cites Mr. Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and his support for January 6 rioters.

A federal judge in New York ruled today that Mr. Trump defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll a second time.

Carroll already won $5 million after a jury found the former president sexually abused her and falsely claimed that she lied about it.

Now the judge says other Trump remarks were also defamatory.

So, a second trial will focus on additional damages.

A federal judge in Texas has ordered the state to move a migrant barrier in the Rio Grande back to the riverbank.

In July, the state placed large buoys along the stretch of the river where migrants frequently crossed.

The Biden administration challenged the move.

The state says it will appeal today's order.

Russia has carried out one of the deadliest attacks in months in Eastern Ukraine.

A missile strike today killed at least 17 people.

It happened in the Donetsk region and came as Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv.

Ali Rogin has our report.

ALI ROGIN: In broad daylight, this quiet shopping street became the latest scene of Russian carnage.

The blast left a trail of horror, damaging about 30 market stalls, including shops and a pharmacy.

Diana Khodak is an employee who survived.

DIANA KHODAK (Survivor): I only saw a flash and then shouted to my colleagues, "Lie on the floor."

Then everything was covered in smoke and the fire started.

ALI ROGIN: The fire's victims, ordinary civilians carried from the market in body bags.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack terrorism.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, Ukrainian President (through translator): Those who know the city and its layout can clearly say that it was civilian infrastructure.

ALI ROGIN: Far from the front lines, Russia also targets port cities along the Danube River, Ukraine's main route for exporting grain since Russia pulled out of a deal allowing use of the Black Sea.

The most recent drone attack appeared to detonate on NATO territory in the Romanian town of Piaru (ph) across the Danube.

KLAUS IOHANNIS, President of Romania: Such a situation would be the serious violation of the territorial integrity of Romania and NATO.

ALI ROGIN: Back in Kyiv today, a surprise visit from Secretary of State Antony Blinken on a two-day trip to meet with top Ukrainian officials.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. Secretary of State: We need President Putin to understand that he cannot outlast Ukraine, he cannot outlast Ukraine's supporters, that Ukraine is actually going to grow stronger.

ALI ROGIN: Blinken announced more than $1 billion in additional military and economic aid.

And for the first time, the U.S. will also send depleted uranium munitions.

The U.S. says they present no radiological threat and are effective armor piercers against Russian tanks, as Ukrainian troops continue their grinding counteroffensive.

Since June, Ukraine has liberated more than a dozen villages on the march to the strategic city of Melitopol, close to Russian-occupied Crimea.

But, in the meantime, back in Kyiv, a different type of victory.

ANTONY BLINKEN: Our friends at McDonald's were very eager to be back in Ukraine.

ALI ROGIN: A celebration of a uniquely Western icon.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Ali Rogin.

GEOFF BENNETT: The U.S. aid announced today is part of a package already approved by Congress.

The United Nations now estimates that months of fighting in Sudan have uprooted more than five million people.

Clashes between the army and a rival paramilitary force in Khartoum erupted in April and show no signs of abating.

The U.N. says most of those displaced remain inside Sudan.

In Nigeria, an appeals court today rejected three challenges to President Bola Tinubu's election win last February.

Opposition parties argued he was ineligible to run because, among other things, he's actually a citizen of Guinea.

Tinubu denied the allegations.

Nigerians anxiously awaited their results at a time when high prices and hunger have left many people desperate for stability and relief.

GBEMISOLA OGUNBIYI, Nigerian Food Seller (through translator): We cannot say the government is not trying, but things are tight.

We beg them to attend to the needs of the country, so that everything will be fine for us, because, since they assumed office, everything has been difficult.

They should please have mercy on the poor ones.

Have mercy on the country by fixing it.

GEOFF BENNETT: The court's decisions can still be appealed to Nigeria's Supreme Court.

Abortion will no longer be a criminal offense anywhere in Mexico.

The country's Supreme Court imposed that standard today in a sweeping decision.

Twelve of Mexico's 32 states had already decriminalized abortion.

It's part of a broader trend across Latin America.

Spanish soccer player Jenni Hermoso is accusing the now-suspended president of the Spanish Soccer Federation of sexual assault.

Luis Rubiales kissed her on the lips after last month's Women's World Cup final.

Rubiales maintains the kiss was consensual, a claim that Hermoso has denied.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he has no plans to step aside.

McConnell froze up in public twice in recent weeks.

But, on Tuesday, the Capitol physician said he does not have a seizure disorder and has not suffered a stroke.

Today, the Kentucky Republican dismissed any talk of calling it quits.

QUESTION: Do you have any plans to retire anytime soon?

(LAUGHTER) SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I have no announcements to make on that subject.

QUESTION: What do you say to those who... (CROSSTALK) SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: I'm going to finish my term as leader, and I'm going to finish my Senate term.

GEOFF BENNETT: McConnell is 81 years old.

Aides say he's had bout of lightheadedness since a fall in March left him with a concussion.

And, on Wall Street, big tech stocks led the broader market lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 198 points to close at 34443.

The Nasdaq fell 148 points.

The S&P 500 slipped 31 points.

And there's a new hole in the Great Wall of China, thanks to two construction workers who wanted a shortcut.

Police say the pair used an excavator to carve a dirt road through a broken-down section of the wall.

They say the damage is beyond repair.

It happened hundreds of miles from restored sections of the Great Wall near Beijing.

The two workers have been arrested.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": Alabama's Republican-backed congressional map is rejected for a second time; historical records reveal more instances where indigenous children were separated from their families to attend boarding schools; a major rise in near-collisions of airplanes prompts investigations; plus, an elite school of music works to increase access for students with disabilities.

For the first time, we are seeing inside the courtroom for a hearing about one of the indictments of Donald Trump.

The former president was not in the Georgia courthouse today.

He and his 18 co-defendants pleaded not guilty to racketeering charges last week.

Prosecutors laid out a timeline for a potential trial, one they say could last four months and rely on more than 150 witnesses.

And the judge ruled at least two defendants, Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, will be tried together, likely in October.

Stephen Fowler is a reporter for Georgia Public Broadcasting.

He was following today's hearing.

He joins us now from Atlanta.

Stephen, good to see.

So, attorneys for Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro wanted to separate their cases from each other and also from the 17 other defendants.

Why did they want that?

And how did that request go over with Judge McAfee in court today?

STEPHEN FOWLER, Georgia Public Broadcasting: Well, first and foremost, the two of them wanted to request speedy trials.

Under Georgia state law, they're allowed to request to have a trial start within a certain amount of time after they were indicted.

And so their request was granted, and they will head to trial October 23.

Now, each one of them made the arguments that they should be tried separately, arguing that the things that they were charged with under the sweeping 98-page indictment were part of separate buckets of alleged crimes that didn't overlap with each other.

The judge was not convinced, and he did rule today at the end of the hearing that the two of them will stand trial together.

We still don't have an answer if that also means the other 17 will join them next month as well.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, when you take a look at the timeline, as you mentioned, the judge did seem to stick to that October 23 trial start date for Kenneth Chesebro and likely for Sidney Powell as well.

We know the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, would like to try all 19 defendants together.

But the calendar ahead is getting very, very crowded when it comes to cases Mr. Trump and his associates are facing.

I just want to take a look at the calendar, as we have mapped out some of those cases.

There's a trial, a civil fraud trial before that Georgia trial for Mr. Chesebro.

And then moving into the new year, of course, there's a civil trial in the E. Jean Carroll case, and then, two months later, a federal trial related to January 6, the hush money trial in New York, and, of course, the trial Mr. Trump's facing in his handling of classified documents.

Stephen, I guess the real question here is, how likely is it that this Georgia trial for all 19 defendants actually goes through and starts in 47 days?

STEPHEN FOWLER: Well, it is potentially likely for the two that requested a speedy trial.

Many of the rest of the defendants have argued that they should be separate because they don't want a speedy trial.

And there are several different things playing out across two different courtrooms that could delay this even further.

You have several of the defendants, including Trump's former Chief Of staff Mark Meadows, arguing that their case should be moved to federal court and heard at the federal level and ultimately dismissed.

At the same time, you have the Fulton County DA's office arguing that it would take at least four months, not counting jury selection.

And, Amna, it's important to note that just a couple of floors down in the Fulton County courthouse is another racketeering case going on, where jury selection in the Young Thug-YSL case has been going on for eight months without a single juror being selected.

So it's possible that this case could be heard some point next year and could overlap with the time that people have to go to the ballot box and decide who the next president will be.

AMNA NAWAZ: There is also the fact that, unlike Mr. Trump's federal trials, this trial in Georgia is being livestreamed.

The Fulton County major cases always are.

So it is truly historic in that way.

But are people in Georgia, are they actually tuning in?

Are they paying attention to this?

STEPHEN FOWLER: Well, it's still very early on in the process.

Of course, there was the spectacle of the indictments being handed down and also the spectacle of Trump and his giant motorcade turning himself into the Fulton County Jail.

But all of these legal wranglings happening right now guarantee that, when the trial actually does come that could be some time in 2024, could come in the summer or even the fall, that you could have the televised trial of a former president and the Republican nominee for president, if he wins the primary, coming at the same time that voters in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and the rest of the country are deciding whether or not they should send him back to the White House.

So this historic, unprecedented access is certainly going to dominate the 2024 discussion, no matter who is sent the trial when.

AMNA NAWAZ: We mentioned also that, of course, some of the defendants are trying to move the trial to a federal court.

There's also additional severance motions to be considered by this court filed not only by former President Trump, also by John Eastman, Ray Smith, and David Shafer.

Does today's hearing and the judge's decision on these two cases, does that have any bearing on those other motions to sever?

STEPHEN FOWLER: Well, certainly.

The judge did mention today that he's very sensitive to the fact that there are 19 different defendants, 19 different defense strategies, and all of these different motions coming into play.

It's going to be on an expedited timeline.

So, next week, there should be another hearing going through, another batch of motions.

Most of the motions to sever were for defendants saying, we don't want a speedy trial.

Don't lump us into October 23.

But the Fulton County district attorney argues that all 19 need to be tried together because this is a massive conspiracy, and instead of having a jury hear the same defendants and the same witnesses and the same presentation multiple times over multiple months, to knock it out all at once.

And so it's a very tight timeline, a very complicated case, and one that we should have more answers by the end of next week at what pace this will go for all 19 defendants, including former President Trump.

AMNA NAWAZ: Stephen Fowler of Georgia Public Broadcasting joining us tonight from Atlanta.

Stephen, great to see.

Thank you.

STEPHEN FOWLER: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: In a growing pattern across the South, key states have come under legal fire for drawing congressional maps that discriminate against Black voters.

Laura Barron-Lopez has more.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Delivering a harsh rebuke of Alabama's lawmakers, federal judges again struck down the state's new congressional map.

After being ordered to create a second majority-Black district, Republicans in the state instead chose to defy the U.S. Supreme Court, violating the law under the Voting Rights Act.

Alabama is just one of a handful of Southern states that are litigating congressional districts.

Maps in Florida, Louisiana and Georgia have all been challenged for diluting the power of Black voters.

Following this all closely is NPR's Hansi Lo Wang.

Hansi, thanks so much for joining us today.

The three-judge panel in Alabama came down hard on the state's new map yesterday, saying that: "The law fires the creation of an additional district that affords Black Alabamians, like everyone else, a fair and reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

The 2023 plan plainly fails to do so."

You have followed this closely.

What happens next now that this has been struck down?

HANSI LO WANG, NPR: Well, now that map has been struck down, the court has appointed experts to come up with three proposals, three potential new maps, congressional maps for the state of Alabama.

And those proposals are due later this month.

And the judges will eventually review those maps.

And the -- all the sides in the case will be able to bring up any objections.

And there might be a hearing in early October.

And, ultimately, the court is going to decide which map ends up being used for next year, the 2024 elections.

But there might be a potential complication here, because the state of Alabama has also said that it's planning to appeal this ruling by the three-judge court to the U.S. Supreme Court.

And so there could be a request here that we're expecting soon from the state of Alabama asking the Supreme Court to pause the lower court's ruling.

That could potentially pause this mapmaking process by these court-appointed experts and potentially a review by the Supreme Court.

But something to keep in mind is that this Alabama case has already been reviewed, has already been weighed in by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court weighed in, in June and issued a ruling upholding this lower court's ruling, calling for this additional district that would give Black Alabamians realistic opportunity to elect their preferred candidates for the U.S. House.

So, it's really an open question whether the Supreme Court would be willing to revisit this case again, and we will have to see what happens.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Do Republicans, do Alabama Republicans think that somehow the outcome is going to be different when they take this back to the Supreme Court?

HANSI LO WANG: That's what it looks like, based on their court filings, based on their multiple citations of this concurring opinion by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the two conservatives who joined the three liberal justices in upholding this lower court's ruling earlier.

And they are thinking, potentially, it looks like, that they could potentially flip the vote of Justice Kavanaugh and maybe get a different kind of ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court about what this Alabama state legislature can do in this congressional map.

Right now, the Supreme Court has ruled it needs to have an additional district.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Now, under the state's proposed map, Alabama would keep its one current Black-majority district, which is represented by a Democratic member.

How has this impacted Black voters' ability to be represented equally in that?

HANSI LO WANG: This case -- when we're talking about redistricting, we're talking about the power of each voter's vote.

And when there are -- when there are Section 2 violations under the Voting Rights Act, there are voters of color, they can cast their ballots, but it may not mean much, because the districts that they're drawn into by mapmakers, oftentimes state legislatures, really takes away their power.

The results, the outcomes of the elections are essentially kind of predetermined.

And so the question here is, what is the power of Black voters in Alabama?

And there's a finding here that the power of Black Alabamians is diminished, the voting power, that there should be at least two districts where Black voters make up a majority or something close to it, Black Alabamians, and so that they have a real shot at picking their preferred candidates to represent them in Congress.

Right now, they don't have that.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And Alabama is not the only state that may need to add a majority-Black district to their map.

There's Louisiana and Georgia are also being confronted with voting rights violations.

What implications could that have for 2024?

HANSI LO WANG: Right.

There's a trial going on right now in Georgia this week.

There's also a hearing coming up in Louisiana for that case, all congressional maps up in the air.

And if the way things are playing out continue the way they're playing out, and the Supreme Court doesn't change its mind about what it believes, how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act should be interpreted, likely, there are going to be more majority-Black districts in these Southern states in time for the 2024 elections.

And that means those majority Black districts are likely to elect Democrats.

And so more Democratic pickups could change who controls the U.S. House after next year's elections.

The Republicans have a very thin majority right now.

And so the Democrats could take back the House after 2024.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Hansi Lo Wang of NPR, thank you so much for your time.

HANSI LO WANG: You're very welcome.

AMNA NAWAZ: The United Nations World Food Program has announced a lack of funding is forcing it to stop feeding some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

Some 15 million Afghans, more than a third of the country, struggle to find their next meal.

As Nick Schifrin reports, the largest humanitarian organization in Afghanistan is scaling back just as hunger is rising to record levels.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In Eastern Afghanistan, a mother has nothing to offer her 11 children, except one meal a day of tea and bread.

And her husband Abdul Haq, struggles to repair a life he calls frayed since the World Food Program cut them off.

ABDUL HAQ (Afghanistan): When we received assistance, we lived a better life.

Now we don't get anything, and now we only eat once a day.

The World Food Program needs to not only continue its assistance, but increase it.

HSIAO-WEI LEE, Afghanistan Country Director, World Food Program: For the 15 million people who do not know where their next meal comes from in Afghanistan, we're only able to provide three million people with emergency food assistance.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Hsiao-Wei Lee is the WFP's Afghanistan country director.

HSIAO-WEI LEE: We're having to choose between families that are hungry and those who are starving.

How do you tell a mother who's asking us for assistance and holding a hungry child that her child may not be hungry enough?

And it comes to just very difficult conversations, conversations that we shouldn't have to make and choices that we shouldn't have to make.

NICK SCHIFRIN: There's no shortage of humanitarian crises.

The war in Ukraine has produced more European refugees than any moment since World War II.

Just today, U.S.

Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is visiting Sudan's border, calling for more funding.

That donor fatigue has pushed WFP's Afghanistan funding shortfall to a billion dollars.

That's particularly challenging when WFP had been reducing the numbers of acutely hungry and now needs to preposition food before the winter.

HSIAO-WEI LEE: What we need to avert is people who find themselves without any food in the winter.

And then, by then, it's too late for us to be able to help.

We need to avert children from being malnourished and having to seek malnutrition treatment that they can't even access in the winter.

That is the catastrophe we need to avert.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Years of drought and economic crisis mean Afghanistan's catastrophe is not only a lack of food; 29 million, nearly three-quarters of the country, need assistance, and those who are most powerless are the most hungry.

More than a million mothers and children are malnourished, including those treated at this WFP-supported clinic.

DR. BALQISA STANIKZAI (Afghanistan): The women who come here say that their husbands don't have jobs.

They're poor and vulnerable, and say that they can't afford to eat more than once a day.

They even say that they have to send their children into the streets to beg.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And the Taliban continue to erase women from society.

Afghan women are barred from secondary education, visiting national parks and amusement parks, and most jobs.

The only reason WFP has Afghan female workers is a temporary exemption.

What's your message to the Taliban leaders, who are supposed to be deciding whether these exceptions can become permanent?

HSIAO-WEI LEE: Half of the people that we serve are women and girls.

And it is absolutely critical that we have female staff who are able to engage, who are able to understand what is needed.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Going back to how we started this conversation, what's your message to the international community, as you have to make these difficult decisions about cuts?

HSIAO-WEI LEE: The people that we serve, the women that we serve, that I meet, they are teachers, shopkeepers who have lost their jobs.

They are girls who have dreams to be pilots, to be doctors or even journalists.

And they have lost their dreams.

The emptiness that they feel should not be exacerbated by the pain of a hungry stomach.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And, without more help, that pain and hunger will extend to the next generation.

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

GEOFF BENNETT: For more than a century, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were forced to attend boarding schools, many of them supported by the federal government in the name of assimilation and tied to land possession.

Those schools stripped children of their language and culture, and they suffered abuse, neglect, beatings, and forced child labor.

Deaths are estimated to be in the thousands.

Stephanie Sy focuses on new findings about the role of churches and religious groups.

STEPHANIE SY: A federal probe into Native American boarding schools has been under way since 2022, but, recently, a nonprofit group identified even more schools.

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition has found 523 boarding schools operated across 38 states, including 115 previously unidentified schools that were largely run by Christian churches.

The largest concentration of schools were in Oklahoma and the Four Corners region of the Southwest, home of the Navajo Nation.

The nonprofit's deputy chief executive officer is Samuel Torres, and he joins me now to discuss this new research.

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

So, I understand your latest research found dozens more boarding schools that were operated in Hawaii, as well as Oklahoma.

Talk about that and the other significant findings you have uncovered.

SAMUEL TORRES, The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition: Well, we're grateful for the opportunity to continue to work on this type of project.

And building on top of that 408 federally funded or supported schools identified in collaboration between the Department of the Interior and ourselves at the Healing Coalition, we felt it was really important to build off of that and really make sure that we're including the scope of those 115 institutions where evidence has not been shown to connect the federal government to those boarding schools.

It's really important for those institutions that we have identified in Oklahoma, in Alaska and Hawaii, among many other states, where there are an increased number of those institutions, where really we're starting to scratch the surface on how to identify the role of those Christian denominations, of the federal government, of the administrators and the operators of those schools.

STEPHANIE SY: The Christian denominations involved, which include the Roman Catholic Church, have begun their own investigations into the boarding schools they ran.

What do you expect to come of that?

And do we have a full picture of any abuse that occurred at the schools?

SAMUEL TORRES: Well, I think it's important to state initially that, while there's much more known about what happened at those federal Indian boarding schools than the privately controlled ones, I think it's -- this is where those archival records are really profoundly important to be accessed, to be able to understand what the depth of those details looks like.

What we do know, though, is that the treatment and methods for operating Indian boarding schools largely utilized a lot of the same strategies toward a central goal of assimilating Native children by what we have heard so often in our own work,individuals being deprived of the influences and connections of their families, their communities, of their tribal nations often being punished for speaking their own language, practicing their traditions and at times even experiencing severe punishment, sexual abuse, spiritual abuse and even death.

So, we really just are continuing to still asking the same kinds of questions on what has happened at these institutions.

We are told and hear the stories of our relatives, our friends, those that we're connected with at the Healing Coalition about how they were treated in these institutions, whether they be in federally operated institutions or in privately controlled ones.

And, quite honestly, the time is now for us to be able to look into what that treatment was like from those records' source, because we have those stories.

And it's not that these stories haven't been told.

It's that they haven't been listened to.

And if they can be coupled by the access of these documents, we can start looking at, in a more comprehensive effort, a fuller scope of what happened at these Indian boarding schools, whether they be federally controlled or privately run.

STEPHANIE SY: It was back in 1969, from what I understand, that the U.S. Senate issued several hundred pages of a report on the Native American boarding school system, and that did lead to some reforms.

I just wonder, Samuel, what you would like to see happen now, as more and more of this comes to light.

SAMUEL TORRES: Really, what we have never seen to this point is a comprehensive investigation that actually, in a culturally responsive way, bring in boarding school drivers and ask them to share their testimonies.

The Healing Coalition is calling for a truth and Healing Commission on U.S. Indian Boarding School Policies Act, currently passed out of committee and waiting for a Senate floor vote, Senate Bill 1723.

We are hoping for the bill to be introduced and passed out of committee in the House of Representatives as well.

We're looking for a multiyear commission process that does more than just brings these questions to the table.

It asks communities, Native leaders, tribal leaders to come in to help support this process and ultimately will publish a series of calls to action that will provide a blueprint for how do we restore that which was disrupted.

STEPHANIE SY: Samuel Torres with The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, thank you so much.

SAMUEL TORRES: Yes, thank you for your time.

GEOFF BENNETT: There has been an alarming number of near-miss collisions between airplanes, a problem that's more common than previously understood, according to a recent investigation by The New York Times.

In a review of FAA reports and a NASA database, The Times found there were at least 46 close calls involving commercial air flights in July.

And runway incursions that could lead to accidents are up 25 percent higher than a decade ago.

To help break down what's behind this and what can be done, we're joined by our aviation correspondent, Miles O'Brien.

Miles, it's always great to see you.

So, let's lay out some definitions.

What does the FAA mean by near miss or close calls?

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, there's a bubble around every aircraft, Geoff, and it depends.

The bubble's size varies depending on where that aircraft happens to be.

It can be a number of miles at altitude, but as you get closer and closer to the airport, it shrinks.

And so it can be anywhere between 3,000 and 6,000 feet distance between two aircraft that are arriving and departing at an airport.

And any time you get inside that bubble, that's technically considered an incursion and something that should be reported.

Now, there are degrees of severity within that.

You can imagine something within 6,000 feet, which is more than a mile.

If it's just inside that bubble, might not be that big a deal, but if it gets a lot more close than that, the attention level goes up, as it should.

GEOFF BENNETT: What accounts for the apparent uptick in these events?

What's the FAA saying about that?

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, it -- statistically, the FAA says it doesn't bear itself out.

According to FAA statistics, if you level out these statistics, based on the number of arrivals and departures, over a million arrivals and departures, there have been 31 incursions this particular year.

Now, that actually is on a little bit of a decline from the peak.

Right after COVID, it was 34 per million.

Having said that, there's been a flurry of activity which has a lot of people in the aviation world a little worried.

The light is flashing yellow, maybe red.

And when you look at some of the issues here, at the heart of it is, the flying public is back with a vengeance.

And the airline industry, after the pandemic, lost a lot of people both in control towers and in cockpits, and has not been able to respond quickly enough to this surge in air travel.

GEOFF BENNETT: You mentioned the shortage of air traffic controllers.

I remember reporting on that almost 10 years ago.

Why is this problem so persistent?

And why is it so acute right now?

MILES O'BRIEN: It's -- it got worse during the pandemic, for sure, and it's been a consistent problem staffing these control towers and air traffic control facilities.

During the pandemic, a lot of controller training was -- well, it was pretty much eliminated because of distance, spacing requirements due to the pandemic.

And, at any given time, 20 percent of controllers are training for either to get started or get a new position.

So, that caused a huge training backlog once the pandemic was over.

Then you had several controllers who have been taking early retirement because of the reduced staffing inside these facilities.

They're working long hours.

They're working overtime hours.

They're working strange shifts.

And to say this is a stressful job is a bit of an understatement.

And so the FAA is trying to hire.

But, again, they're ahead of the -- or behind the power curve here.

Hiring 1,500 or 1600 of controllers, it'll be four or five years before they're up to speed.

GEOFF BENNETT: And adding to the shortage of air traffic controllers, Miles, there's also a pilot shortage too, right?

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.

There's a lot of reasons for this.

They -- after the last fatal airline crash in the U.S., which was in 2009 -- that's a remarkable 14-year safety record, by the way, Geoff.

It's worth pointing that out at some point in this.

But Congress increased the number of hours required for pilots to fly commercially to 1,500, and that has made it -- raised the bar for young pilots to get in the game.

The military is producing fewer pilots for the airlines.

The airlines kind of got free training over the years.

The airlines are trying to respond by training more young people themselves.

But also, during the pandemic, a lot of pilots took early retirement.

So there's a big gap right now.

And it takes a long time to fill those cockpits with fully qualified pilots.

GEOFF BENNETT: What about technology, Miles?

The FAA is often accused of being slow to adopt and incorporate new technology.

Is that part of this as well?

MILES O'BRIEN: It is.

I mean, to their credit, there are technologies out there that are really important in all this, including collision-avoidance systems on board aircraft, which help save the day as a last resort.

But at the end of the day, this is a system that is built around spinning radars, kind of 1950s technology.

And that is actually what dictates that separation bubble, those separation bubbles I was telling you about.

You could reduce them if you had a more instantaneous satellite-driven system that didn't rely on those radars.

And one other thing.

As a pilot, one of my biggest concerns and complaints is, we rely too much on talking on the radio, VHF radios.

And there's all kinds of opportunities for misunderstanding, miscommunication, which can lead to problems.

GEOFF BENNETT: Aviation correspondent Miles O'Brien.

Miles, thanks so much.

MILES O'BRIEN: You're welcome, Geoff.

AMNA NAWAZ: In a series of reports, Jeffrey Brown has looked at the intersection of arts and health.

Recently, he traveled to Boston to see a program bringing music into the lives of people with disabilities.

It's for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: Eleven-year-old Ashton Kiprotich on the cello and the ukulele.

Ashton, I saw you play the ukulele and I saw you play the cello.

Which is your favorite?

ASHTON KIPROTICH, Student: Both of them.

JEFFREY BROWN: Both of them?

ASHTON KIPROTICH: I would never say that I dislike them.

JEFFREY BROWN: Twenty-four-year-old Shania Ward on the keytar, her mother, Donna Gibbons-Ward, watching.

Every time I see you performing, you're smiling.

SHANIA WARD, Student: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: You have a beautiful smile.

SHANIA WARD: Thank you.

JEFFREY BROWN: Why are you smiling so much?

Are you happy with the music?

SHANIA WARD: Yes, I'm happy with the music.

DONNA GIBBONS-WARD, Mother of Shania Ward: Yes, music is her thing.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes?

DONNA GIBBONS-WARD: She listens to it all the time, yes?

JEFFREY BROWN: Why do you think music became her thing?

DONNA GIBBONS-WARD: I think it helped her to... SHANIA WARD: Helped me to learn.

JEFFREY BROWN: Music for learning, for connecting, for sheer joy.

Shania and Ashton are students at the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education, part of the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Founded in 2007, it started small with a focus on autism, but has expanded to serve more than 300 people of all ages with disabilities of all kinds.

DR. RHODA BERNARD, Founding Manager Director, Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education: Every person can learn in the arts, can grow in the arts, can create, can, in this case, make music.

So I think you have to start with that belief.

JEFFREY BROWN: Rhoda Bernard heads the institute, which she says is the only such program offered at a college or university.

The goal, to develop and share new ways to reach and teach this community, while expanding the field of arts education.

DR. RHODA BERNARD: Arts educators are generally trained to teach the way they were taught.

There are longstanding traditions in how the arts have been taught, and those... JEFFREY BROWN: Meaning what?

I mean... DR. RHODA BERNARD: Like the conservatory tradition of what a private lesson looks like.

Often, the arts can be more of a teacher-centered kind of approach, where the teacher is showing what they want, and the students are responding.

And to make it more accessible means providing more entry points, providing students with more ways to engage with material and more ways to show what they know and are able to do than just the conventional.

JEFFREY BROWN: That means meeting the individuals where they are, incorporating aspects of special education into teaching music and the arts, in private lessons and also in group settings.

The institute holds a wide variety of classes every Saturday, including many ways to play together, rock band, chorus, an iPad ensemble, and more.

There's also a two-week summer camp.

DR. RHODA BERNARD: We're creating a place where they're accepted for who they are, where they belong, a place of yes.

These are folks who hear a lot of no.

This is a place where it's, yes, you can.

So there's a constant asset-based belief in all of the students, who hear so much deficit language.

So, that's the first, but then... JEFFREY BROWN: That goes to who they are and how they're accepted in the world.

DR. RHODA BERNARD: Absolutely, and creating that environment and then providing them with what they need and watching them flourish.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ashton Kiprotich, diagnosed with autism when he was nearly 2 years old, didn't speak until he was 7.

He still has difficulty processing thoughts into speech.

But, here, his mother, Kelly Phillips says, teachers like Miles Wilcox really get it, offering love and patience, as well as training in how to hold a bow.

And music somehow brings out something different in her son.

KELLY PHILLIPS, Mother of Ashton Kiprotich: Still, he struggles with processing, auditory processing disorder.

And so it's really -- there's a lot of delay in getting answers from him.

So we still see that.

With music, I don't see that happen at all.

It's just there.

He is very spontaneous.

He plays in different keys.

He will sit down and play something he's heard that he's never seen the music for.

JEFFREY BROWN: Did that surprise you?

KELLY PHILLIPS: Very much.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

KELLY PHILLIPS: I have to say school has not really been easy.

Language acquisition has been exceptionally difficult.

But then you see, in music, he will sit down and be part of an ensemble, knows where to come in, knows -- timing-wise, knows it all.

And it's a little baffling to me when you compare those two things.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ashton, does music -- is music easy for you, easier than other things?

ASHTON KIPROTICH: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: Why do you think?

Why can you play music so well?

ASHTON KIPROTICH: Because I can.

JEFFREY BROWN: Shania Ward, diagnosed with mild intellectual delay, also takes full advantage here, singing in the rock band, taking lessons with her teacher, Nadia Castagna Morin.

Shania's mother, Donna Gibbons-Ward, says the institute has given her daughter greater confidence and autonomy.

DONNA GIBBONS-WARD: I wanted her to be among her peers and for her to be free, and for her to also gain -- she loves music.

So, being here, you're free.

JEFFREY BROWN: You mean free in a way that she's not as free in the rest of the world?

DONNA GIBBONS-WARD: So, you know how society always judges us and looks down on people, and other kids point fingers and laugh at you when you're different.

Here, you can be free.

That's what I mean by free.

You can be yourself and just express yourself however you want.

And that makes her happy with the music, so she's happy.

SHANIA WARD: Music always makes me feel happy.

Sometimes, like, when I feel like I'm upset or, like, getting mad or frustrated, I usually listen to music.

I always, like, take a break and listen to music and calm myself down, put my headphones on.

And then I listen to it.

And then, in here, I definitely like to learn music.

I definitely -- I listen to my music teachers.

JEFFREY BROWN: In fact, Shania, who's about to enter a specialized college program, wants to be a music teacher herself.

Why is that important for you?

SHANIA WARD: Because I want to be a teacher to help younger kids and older kids learn how to be smart and be like me.

JEFFREY BROWN: A big part of the mission here, says Rhoda Bernard, is training a new generation of arts educators in accessibility practices.

In addition to offering a master's program, she and her team run professional development training programs around the world.

But it remains a work in progress.

If this is so obvious, as it is to you, why isn't it everywhere?

DR. RHODA BERNARD: I think it's taken the education profession, and particularly the arts education field, a long time to understand the wide range of difference in how people learn, in what people bring into the classroom.

And then, because there are established frameworks that don't allow for that, there's a struggle.

And we're in that struggle now.

And it's moving.

Even in the 20 years or so that I have been doing this work, I have seen a lot of movement.

And I'm really excited for what the next generation is going to bring.

JEFFREY BROWN: For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown at the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education in Boston.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, as always, there's a lot more online, including how new medical guidance aims to help doctors better identify the links between long COVID and mental health.

That's at PBS.org/NewsHour.

AMNA NAWAZ: And join us again here tomorrow night, when we will speak with Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson.

And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

Thanks for spending part of your evening with us.