GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.
I'm Geoff Bennett.
AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.
On the "News Hour" tonight: The FBI reveals the Georgia school shooting suspect was on law enforcement's radar, raising questions about how he was still able to carry out the attack.
GEOFF BENNETT: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare for next week's debate, as legal cases against the former president make their way through the courts.
AMNA NAWAZ: And the first batch of mpox vaccines arrives in Congo.
Why it's been so difficult to get the shots needed to curb the spread of the deadly virus.
LAWRENCE GOSTIN, Georgetown University: I can't even express how much distrust and anger there is in Africa over this whole thing.
(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "News Hour."
Georgia is mourning the lives of four people killed in a high school shooting yesterday.
Nine others were injured.
GEOFF BENNETT: Today, reports of the 14-year-old suspect's past run-ins with law enforcement raised even more questions about his motive, how he got access to a gun and how potential warning signs went unaddressed.
At Apalachee High School, some students returned today to grieve at a makeshift memorial, a quiet morning after yesterday's tragedy.
MAN: Bless us and walk with us each day as we go forward.
GEOFF BENNETT: The community gathered for a vigil last night after a 14-year-old student opened fire outside his algebra classroom.
Four people, two students and two teachers, were killed.
Those who survived still processing what they'd witnessed hours earlier.
LANDON CULVER, Student: You could hear gunshots just ringing out through the school.
And, like, you're just wondering which one of those is going to be somebody that you're like best friends with or somebody that you love.
GURAY CHAPMAN, Student: I still don't believe this is real.
Like, I knew a girl that got shot in her leg, and it really broke me, because she was like a sister to me.
And I don't know how to react to it.
GEOFF BENNETT: Students recounted ducking for cover in their classrooms as gunshots rang through the hallway.
Within minutes, officials say, the shooter surrendered to school resource officers.
Questions remain about how the teenage gunman obtained an assault-style rifle, as more information emerges about his past encounters with law enforcement.
In May 2023, the FBI traced online posts from an individual threatening to shoot up a middle school, according to multiple news reports.
That led authorities to the youth, who was then 13.
He denied making those comments.
His father insisted his son did not have access to hunting guns kept inside their house.
Authorities alerted nearby schools to monitor him, but he was not arrested or further detained.
In a home search yesterday, according to The New York Times, police found evidence that the gunman was -- quote -- "obsessed" with the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
He's set to appear in court virtually tomorrow.
Among his victims, two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn, whose family described him as a lighthearted teen and a lover of Disney World, Christian Angulo, whose friends called him a free spirit with a chill attitude, and two faculty members, 53-year-old Christina Irimie, a devoted math teacher described as patient and caring, and 39-year-old Richard Aspinwall.
He also taught math and coached football as the team's defensive coordinator.
ISAIAH HOOKS, Student: Coach was an amazing guy.
He pushed us to be great at what we did for our team.
So it was really hard to lose someone that pushed himself to really make us better and to make sure that we're better at what we do.
GEOFF BENNETT: Apalachee joins a long list of American schools that now bear the scars of gun violence.
And it's the 30th mass killing of 2024, in which four or more people are murdered in a 24-hour period, as defined by the FBI.
Such incidents have claimed at least 127 American lives this year alone.
AMNA NAWAZ: Turning now to the presidential campaign, voters have just two months to make their choice between Vice President Harris and former President Trump.
And in less than a week, the two will meet on the debate stage.
Laura Barron-Lopez has the latest.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The Harris/Walz campaign is pushing through the Keystone State this week.
Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris on the tarmac in Pittsburgh this afternoon, where she will stay until next week's presidential debate in Philadelphia.
Harris' running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, barnstormed through Lancaster and Pittsburgh Wednesday, before arriving in Erie, Pennsylvania this afternoon.
TIM WALZ, (D) Vice Presidential Nominee: Look, it's not hyperbole.
This election will go right through Erie, Pennsylvania.
That is what is going to happen.
We know this is a bellwether country.
We know the work you're doing here will make a difference.
And we know this will be a tight race.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump was in his hometown to speak to the Economic Club of New York.
DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: We have to take care of our own nation and our industries first.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: He boasted about his administration's economic policies and, without evidence, blamed undocumented migrants for taking jobs from Black and Hispanic Americans.
DONALD TRUMP: African Americans and Hispanic American jobs are under massive threat from the invasion taking place at our border.
They're taking the jobs of Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and nobody talks about it.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: In a FOX News town hall last night, Trump compared himself to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been criticized for authoritarian and antidemocratic policies.
DONALD TRUMP: That was the question they asked Viktor Orban, really a very -- considered a very strong -- they said he's a strongman.
Sometimes, you need a strongman.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Multiple former Trump officials and some fellow Republicans have warned Trump will model a second presidency after other strongman leaders like Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin, or China's Xi Jinping.
FMR.
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): ... has said he will ignore the rulings of the courts.
He won't leave office.
He's a risk that we simply can't take.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: At a Duke University event last night, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney said the threat of another Trump administration means Republican voters can't sit out or vote third party.
FMR.
REP. LIZ CHENEY: Because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris in this election.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Cheney joins other Republicans who have gone against their party's candidate, including her fellow January 6 House committee member former Representative Adam Kinzinger.
Harris will soon have a chance to face Trump herself in the upcoming presidential debate.
KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: If you have got something to say... KAMALA HARRIS: ... say it to my face.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Both have agreed to the ground rules, including muted mics when it's not a candidate's turn to speak.
For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Laura Barron-Lopez.
AMNA NAWAZ: Trump Key details at the center of former President Donald Trump's election interference criminal case were debated in a Washington, D.C., courtroom this morning.
Judge Tanya Chutkan declined to slow down proceedings in the case, giving prosecutors a chance to unseal crucial and potentially politically damaging evidence against Mr. Trump in the next three weeks.
The case had been on hold for several months while the former president's team argued for presidential immunity at the Supreme Court.
NPR's Carrie Johnson was in the courtroom for the hearing.
She joins me now.
So, Carrie, today was the first time that both sets of lawyers were back in the courtroom since that big Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity earlier this summer.
What was each side there to do?
CARRIE JOHNSON, NPR: It was a big day in court.
Lawyers for the special counsel, Jack Smith, wanted to suggest that their case survives even the Supreme Court decision, which required them to pare down significant parts of their case against the former President Donald Trump.
And they want to file a brief by the end of this month explaining why Trump should continue to face these charges and why he was acting in his personal capacity or his capacity as a political candidate and not in his capacity as president of the United States, when he attempted to cling to power in late '20 and early 2021, right around the time of the January 6 insurrection.
As for Trump's lawyers, their key strategy all along has been to delay, to delay this case.
And what they now want to do, to the extent they can, is control the idea of any further damaging details coming out about January 6 in advance of the November election.
And Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former public defender, is right in the middle of all of this.
She's going to have to make those tough calls.
AMNA NAWAZ: Carrie, as you note here, the political timeline really does seem to matter.
I mean, this is a case about Mr. Trump's actions to overturn the 2020 election.
We are now facing down the 2024 election in just a matter of weeks.
Did that political timing come up at all today?
CARRIE JOHNSON: It absolutely did.
Trump's lawyer, John Lauro, basically told the judge, this is a very sensitive time in our nation's history.
We're talking about the presidency here.
And Judge Chutkan shot back immediately, I'm talking about a four-count felony indictment against Donald Trump.
I am not talking about the presidency.
The electoral calendar should play no role in this prosecution.
And, indeed, she accepted by the end of the day the special counsel proposal and set up a briefing schedule about Trump's immunity and lingering questions about that immunity to end shortly before the election.
The open question now, Amna, is whether any new detail is going to come out in public from those FBI witness interviews and grand jury testimonies in advance of the election, or whether the judge is going to keep all of those new details under seal until after voters go to the ballot box.
AMNA NAWAZ: Carrie, meanwhile, on another legal front, the president's son Hunter Biden was in court today for what was supposed to be jury selection in his federal tax case.
He surprised everybody by changing his plea to guilty.
What do we know about why that change and what happens now?
CARRIE JOHNSON: A really wild day in court.
My colleague Ryan Lucas from NPR was there.
We know that Hunter Biden's lawyers said he did not want to put the family through further anguish.
There was a possibility that Hunter Biden's daughter and other family members may be called to testify.
Hunter Biden, of course, had already been convicted in June in Delaware on gun charges.
He's now pleaded guilty in California on nine additional tax charges.
And what happens next in that case is sentencing in mid-December.
The current president, Joe Biden, maintains he will not pardon his son.
We will have to see what happens after the sentencing in California and after the election.
AMNA NAWAZ: In the minute or so I have left, I want to take you back to that Trump case I know you were following, because you did report that one of the biggest legal battles ahead will involve former Vice President Mike Pence.
Why?
CARRIE JOHNSON: This is a huge issue, because the Supreme Court left open the idea that Trump could be immune from prosecution for conversations with his vice president, Mike Pence.
Prosecutors are going to have to show they have overcome that high burden.
They want to say that Trump was pressuring Pence in his role as president of the Senate with respect to the counting of the electoral votes in 2020 and early 2021, not in his role as president and involving executive power.
And that is going to be a major fight moving forward in this Donald Trump January 6 case in D.C. AMNA NAWAZ: That is NPR's Carrie Johnson joining us tonight.
Carrie, thank you.
Always good to see you.
CARRIE JOHNSON: Thank you.
AMNA NAWAZ: We begin the day's other headlines with a rare visit to Haiti by America's top diplomat.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the Caribbean nation since 2015.
Blinken met with top officials just a day after Haiti's government extended a state of emergency to the entire country.
He said that Haiti has taken critical steps towards organizing elections next year.
Haiti last held elections in 2016, and officials blame ongoing gang violence and political upheaval for the delay in a new vote.
Gangs currently control about 80 percent of the capital of Port-au-Prince.
Ukraine has a new top diplomat amid a broader shakeup of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government.
Andrii Sybiha is taking over as foreign minister.
The former ambassador to Turkey will be tasked with pushing Ukraine's Western allies for continued support in its fight against Russia.
His appointment follows the resignation of five top officials, as Zelenskyy seeks to bring -- quote - - "new energy" to the war effort.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin told an economic forum today that Ukraine's recent incursion into Russia's Kursk region has been a misguided effort.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian President (through translator): Our armed forces have stabilized the situation and have begun to gradually push it out of the border areas.
By transferring their fairly large and well-trained units to our border areas, the enemy has weakened itself in key areas and our troops have accelerated offensive operations.
AMNA NAWAZ: Separately, the Justice Department has charged a former adviser to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign for work he did for a sanctioned Russian TV network.
Authorities say Dimitri Simes and his wife accepted more than $1 million from Russia's Channel One since 2022 and then laundered the proceeds.
Simes also made frequent TV appearances in the U.S. over the years, including on this program.
If convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison.
An Olympic marathon runner has died after a domestic violence attack in which her partner doused her with gasoline and set her on fire.
A police official in Kenya, where Rebecca Cheptegei trains, says that the attack happened during a disagreement over land on Sunday.
Friends of Cheptegei note that this isn't the first tragedy to affect female athletes in Africa.
MILCAH CHEMOS-CHEYWA, Friend of Rebecca Cheptegei: I can say we are still in shock and we are in pain, especially as athletes.
And this thing happening in Kenya, this is the second time an athlete has been attacked.
Now it has come to Rebecca.
So, we are not happy.
AMNA NAWAZ: Cheptegei competed in the Paris Olympics less than a month before she was killed, finishing in 44th place.
Rebecca Cheptegei was 33 years old.
Here in the U.S., FBI agents have reportedly searched the homes this week of at least three top deputies to New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
They're said to include the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks, Timothy Pearson, who advises the mayor on public safety, and Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor, seen here with the mayor last year.
The searchers are the latest legal trouble for Mayor Adams.
Last year, federal agents seized his phones and iPad in relation to a corruption investigation into campaign financing.
Adams has denied any wrongdoing.
Sky-high temperatures are suffocating the West Coast, triggering heat warnings from Washington state to Southern California.
And things are only heating up.
Tomorrow, Los Angeles is expected to see its hottest day in four years, with some areas reaching 118 degrees.
The heat has also sparked wildfire warnings.
One blaze has already burned through more than 3,000 acres just north of Lake Tahoe.
Hundreds of residents were ordered to evacuate the area.
Ticketmaster is under investigation in the United Kingdom for prices it set for a reunion tour of the 90s-band Oasis.
The U.K.'s competition watchdog is looking into what it calls dynamic pricing, which causes ticket costs to fluctuate based on demand.
Fans say that caused them to pay more than double the face value of their tickets last week when they went up for sale.
The watchdog says Ticketmaster may have breached the U.K.'s consumer protection laws and engaged in unfair commercial practices.
On Wall Street today, stocks struggled as investors remain anxious ahead of tomorrow's August jobs report.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 200 points, or about half-a-percent.
The Nasdaq managed a small gain, adding around 40 points.
The S&P 500 ended about 16 points lower on the day.
And U.S. soccer superstar Alex Morgan has announced she is retiring.
The 35-year-old two-time World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist was one of the national team's most dominant scorers.
She was also a driving force in the fight for equal pay.
Morgan was one of five players who sued U.S. Soccer in 2019 in a case that led to both the women's and men's national teams getting equal pay.
In a farewell video posted on social media, she reflected on her career.
ALEX MORGAN, World Cup Player: Soccer has been a part of me for 30 years.
And it was one of the first things that I ever loved.
And I gave everything to this sport.
And what I got in return was more than I could have ever dreamed of.
Success for me is defined by never giving up and giving your all.
AMNA NAWAZ: Morgan is also expecting her second child.
She will play one final game with her team, the San Diego Wave, on Sunday.
Still to come on the "News Hour": displaced Israeli students start a new school year in the shadow of war; the battle between Disney and DirecTV that's leaving customers in the dark; and Team USA's Olympic success gives some lesser-known sports a big boost.
GEOFF BENNETT: The Democratic Republic of Congo finally received its first delivery of vaccines for mpox today, but it comes nearly a month after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
William Brangham has more in the outbreak and the response.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The WHO has finally changed its approach, so that those mpox vaccines can be delivered and administered in Congo and across Africa.
But those countries say the WHO has been too slow.
The DRC first asked for vaccines two years ago amid a different outbreak.
Mpox has infected an estimated 18,000 people and killed more than 600 in the DRC alone.
Joining me to discuss the challenges of getting care there is Lawrence Gostin.
He's professor of global health law at Georgetown University.
Larry, great to have you back on the show.
LAWRENCE GOSTIN, Georgetown University: Really happy to be with you, William.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Help us understand why this has all taken so long.
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Yes.
Well, let's just begin by just looking at a map.
You see, on one map in Central Africa are all of the deaths, the suffering, the cases.
Another map is where the vaccines are.
That's in Japan, Europe, and the United States.
And a lot of it is just pure greed.
A lot of it is pure complacency.
And then the other is that they really -- even when the United States wanted to donate vaccines, they wouldn't take them because, even though the U.S. FDA had approved them, they weren't approved at WHO or in the DRC.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, greed.
Is there also some level of just a bureaucracy at work here that's complicating matters?
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I think greed and complacency and bureaucracy would pretty much sum it up, yes, I think a lot of bureaucracy.
I mean, the main stumbling block is, is that the World Health Organization didn't give the vaccine emergency use listing, even though it was being... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Which would have freed it up.
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Which would have freed it up.
It would allow UNICEF and Gavi, the vaccine organizations, to actually deliver it and deliver it at speed.
You still need the donations though, because Africa can't make its own vaccine.
And so Bavarian Nordic, a Danish company, has been charging a lot of money for it, making it unaffordable.
The United States, even to this day after the global emergency, has only delivered 10,000 doses to Nigeria.
It's promised 50,000 to the Congo, which should be delivered on Saturday.
But that pales in comparison to the 10 million that the Africa CDC say they need, and they need it urgently.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.
How confident are you that that continued enormous flow will actually happen?
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: If history is any gauge, it'll be too little and too late, because, whenever we wait for vaccines, what Africa knows is that it never arrives on time and that it's insufficient quantity.
So I think, eventually, it will.
Maybe by the end of the year, we will figure this out.
But we will have so many preventable deaths.
With these vaccines, you can actually prevent the deaths, prevent the outbreak, and you can prevent it from coming to the United States, to Europe, and to other high-income countries.
It's a win-win for everybody.
Why don't we get our act together?
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: If somebody didn't know when they had just switched on this conversation, and they might think we were talking about COVID.
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: It's exactly what happens.
And it happens with almost every global health emergency.
We had the opportunity to deliver the vaccines a long time ago.
We wait, we prevaricate, we have bureaucracy, and then you have enormous vaccine inequities.
And working with WHO and Africa CDC and the U.S. government at the White House, I can't even express how much distrust and anger there is in Africa over this whole thing since COVID and now with mpox.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The DRC and other countries are starting to get some of these vaccines.
What do we know about their health infrastructure and their ability to deliver them and get people this protection?
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: It's a great question.
I mean, it's weak.
So what we need to do is not just deliver the doses of vaccines.
We need trained health workers.
We need testing, because the number of cases and deaths that you mentioned, William, are really just the tip of the iceberg, because we're not testing.
We're not doing surveillance.
We don't have labs.
We don't have health workers.
We don't have vaccinators.
And so it's really top to bottom.
We need to have kind of a health infrastructure that can deliver these vaccines.
And the vaccines need to get there on time and into people's arms.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So what can we, meaning the global north, the wealthier nations of the world, do to make this move faster?
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Well, I think there are several things, very, very clear.
First, let's get the vaccines to where they're needed now.
Let's invest in a real surge investment in the health infrastructure, the health system, the health workers, to actually get those vaccines delivered and protecting people.
And, ultimately, we're going to need to have Africa be self-reliant.
They don't want to wait for charity.
They want to be able to manufacture and deliver the vaccines themselves with strong health systems.
We can do this if we only had the political will.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Larry Gostin, Georgetown University, always great to talk to you.
Thank you.
LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Thank you, William.
AMNA NAWAZ: Children around the world are starting a new school year, some of them in the shadow of war.
More than 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country's northern border because of the risk of rockets from Lebanese Hezbollah.
And residents of Kiryat Shmona now live in hundreds of towns across Israel.
That includes Tel Aviv, where young students this week went back to school, even if they can't go back home.
Nick Schifrin has the story with producer Karl Bostic.
NICK SCHIFRIN: It is a rite of passage with an armed escort, students arriving on the first day of school after summer vacation, reuniting with old friends, and making new ones with new teachers and 9-year-old twins Adele and Emma Azulay, and their mother, Leanna.
But this is not their school, and this city is not their home.
They're the displaced, driven from their houses by war.
OFER ZAFRANI, Kiryat Shmona Superintendent: Most of my students, their house was ruined.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Ofer Zafrani is the superintendent of a school system whose teachers and students have been displaced across the country for 11 months.
He says the instructors he briefed ahead of their first classes provide students an antidote to war.
OFER ZAFRANI: I think the teachers in Israel in general are holding the torch of the hope.
They are giving them schedule, something to wake up in the morning, something to do, a goal.
All other things are in chaos.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Their home is Kiryat Shmona, hit by Lebanese Hezbollah rockets just yesterday and on 200 separate occasions since Hezbollah opened fire on Northern Israel the day after October 7.
It's the largest town in Northern Israel, right on the Lebanon border, mostly empty since the Israeli government forced residents to leave.
Last weekend, Israel's military preempted a barrage of Hezbollah rockets and missiles.
But some got through and hit homes nearby.
A mother and two kids living here escaped at 5:00 a.m., thanks to an early warning with seconds to spare.
Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson Anna Ukolov: ANNA UKOLOV, Spokesperson, Israeli Defense Forces: You can just imagine.
You can see the damage here outside.
And you can just imagine what could happen if this rocket was, like, a few centimeters and hit the house inside, OK?
So, the family alive, and everything is OK with them.
Just they don't have a place to live now.
They need to look for something else, but they save their life.
NICK SCHIFRIN: The northern communities are patrolled by soldiers whose own families are displaced, including Lt. Col. Dotan Razili.
LT. COL. DOTAN RAZILI, Israeli Defense Forces: Hopefully, soon, as the war ends, either with an agreement or either by us maneuvering into Lebanon, the civilians will feel safe.
Even my family will feel safe and come back and build this community again.
But 10 months is a long, long time for a community like this to be empty.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Which has meant the Azulay twins have lived since last October in this rented apartment, distracted by card games, longing for home.
EMMA AZULAY, 9 Years Old (through translator): If the war ends, I want to go back.
NICK SCHIFRIN: That longing is shared by the students' teachers, who must provide sympathy, despite their own suffering.
David Bubb teaches English.
DAVID BUBB, Displaced English Teacher: Extremely, extremely challenging for all of us, because we don't really have time to think about ourselves.
You know, here at school, we're not only teachers.
We're psychologists, psychiatrists, mothers, fathers, brothers, anything you can think of.
I'm worried about the students.
They went through a really tough year last year.
A lot of the kids dropped out of school.
And a lot of the kids have got lost.
NICK SCHIFRIN: And so, on the first day of school, they try to recreate their lost community.
OFER ZAFRANI: School is not so important to learn, but to be together socially, especially this year that we are separated in all of Israel.
This is the most important thing.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Israelis still suffer and live with national trauma from the violence and horror of October the 7th.
But schools are trying to teach its lessons, especially to older students who will soon join a military that failed to protect the country or its own soldiers.
OFER ZAFRANI: We thought that we have the strongest army in the world.
And then October 7 happened.
Next year, they are going to go to the army, the same army that was unprepared to the October 7.
And we must give them the lesson for what they need to learn from it, not to be arrogant and not repeat the history.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But that lesson plan is being written in real time.
And some answers cannot be found in a classroom.
ADELE AZULAY, 9 Years Old (through translator): Now can I ask a question?
When can we go back to Kiryat Shmona?
NICK SCHIFRIN: It's a question not only children ask.
It's also a plea for this rite of passage to end for everyone.
For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Nick Schifrin.
AMNA NAWAZ: Tomorrow, Nick and our team in Gaza will look at life for the thousands of school-age children there with no schools to attend.
GEOFF BENNETT: More than 11 million DirecTV customers were left in the dark after Disney Entertainment pulled ESPN, ABC, and other channels from the satellite provider on a busy sports night.
Viewers were cut off in the middle of a U.S. Open tennis match and before the kickoff of a college football game.
The dispute centers around what channels DirecTV must carry and whether that makes sense in a changing landscape of cord-cutting.
It comes as the NFL season starts tonight.
For more on this and what it says about the business in the age of streaming, I'm joined by Meg James, who covers the entertainment industry for The Los Angeles Times.
Thanks for being with us.
MEG JAMES, The Los Angeles Times: Thank you for having me.
GEOFF BENNETT: This all started as a routine dispute over the rates DirecTV would pay Disney Entertainment for its television networks.
How did both sides hit this impasse?
MEG JAMES: Well, this debate has been simmering behind the surface because the pay-TV providers, like DirecTV are increasingly aggravated that Disney and other programmers have started their own streaming services basically to go into competition with their longtime partners.
And this dispute has been sort of going on for a few weeks, but it really roared into public focus on Sunday, when the deadline for the last deal expired and DirecTV no longer had authorization to carry Disney's channels, including ESPN.
There are a lot of, like, very what would seem like arcane rules that the programmers have instituted, which used to work out fine for the pay-TV providers and the programmers.
But in an age of skinnier bundles, these rules are just not working for the likes of DirecTV.
GEOFF BENNETT: So what's Disney's position in this?
Why are they so opposed to what DirecTV wants?
MEG JAMES: Well, it comes down to money really.
What happens is, these programmers like Disney, they require DirecTV to carry their channels in about 80-85 percent of all of DirecTV homes.
And what DirecTV wants to do is say, wait, only about 40-50 percent of our subscribers are watching ESPN.
ESPN is the most expensive cable channel out there.
So what DirecTV is trying to do is tailor some more smaller packages, like children's entertainment, family entertainment, sports programming.
And they say that Disney's refusal to relax these minimum penetration rates is making that goal of DirecTV's to offer packages that they feel their customers want virtually impossible.
GEOFF BENNETT: So, at the heart of this, as you mentioned, is the domination of streaming.
How does the streaming business really threaten both companies' business models?
MEG JAMES: Well, Disney has made billions of dollars over the years by the cable TV programming fees that they get from DirecTV, Charter, and other providers.
They do not want to see that money go away.
At the same time, they recognize that users, television users, younger viewers are increasingly turning to streaming services.
And so they want to be in both places.
But that's where the pull is.
DirecTV is not in the streaming - - they have a DirecTV stream, but they're not programming their own shows, a la Netflix or Peacock, and they really want to hold onto the customers that they have.
But that's increasingly difficult when their packages cost $100, and you can get a streaming service for far less than that.
GEOFF BENNETT: There was some thought that the start of the NFL season would force these companies' hands.
Is that still the case?
MEG JAMES: Yes.
I mean, a lot of people are sort of watching for next Monday -- it's the first Monday Night Football game on ESPN -- to see if that's really going to be where the flash point or the breakthrough comes, the logjam breaks.
Last year, we covered a similar deal, when Disney's channels were off of a competing pay TV provider, and it was the Monday Night Football deal that led to the breakthrough.
GEOFF BENNETT: So what might this mean for the industry overall?
MEG JAMES: Well, I think what this really shows is the strain in these traditional big, huge, fat cable TV bundles.
People typically don't watch hundreds of channels.
They watch 17 to 30 channels.
And that's what DirecTV is trying to do.
They're trying to make it so that they can provide their customers and new customers with these smaller packages that people want to watch.
At the same time, it's really - - I think, in a weird way, while DirecTV is trying to maintain their customer base, they are also sort of forcing some of their subscribers to look at streaming packages that they might say, hey, they might never have looked at before.
So it's a really tight rope that these two companies are walking and it shows just the strain of these legacy businesses.
GEOFF BENNETT: Meg James of The Los Angeles Times, thanks for being with us.
MEG JAMES: Thank you.
AMNA NAWAZ: There are still a couple of more days before the close of the Paralympics, but Team USA's success in the Olympic Games earlier this summer is already having an impact on sports fields and gyms across the country, especially on what have historically been less popular sports.
It's the first practice of the season for the D.C. Furies, one of the oldest women's rugby clubs in the country.
Players lace up, run drills, and dodge tackles.
A typical training for the Division 1 club, but this year is different, says Furies president Liz Linstrom.
LIZ LINSTROM, President, D.C. Furies Rugby: I'm actually a little concerned that incoming prospective players are going to outnumber current club members right now.
AMNA NAWAZ: In fact, she says, about half the women who showed up tonight are brand-new to the club.
LIZ LINSTROM: Some had played before and taken a long break.
Some folks had never played a sport before, let alone rugby.
AMNA NAWAZ: It's a change that Linstrom traces directly back to this moment, when the U.S. women's team beat rugby powerhouse Australia to win bronze at the Summer Olympics.
LIZ LINSTROM: Rugby in America is so much further behind rugby in the rest of the world.
So we were definitely underdogs in that.
To be playing for a medal was impressive in itself.
But then to actually walk away with a bronze medal, and the first ever, I think was really, really special.
AMNA NAWAZ: It is the U.S.' first rugby medal in a century, since the men's team won gold back in 1924.
The appeal of women's rugby is unique says Kat Aversano, vice president of Women's Elite Rugby USA.
KATHERINE AVERSANO, Vice President, Women's Elite Rugby USA: We take big hits, we give big hits, and don't have any padding.
So you can see the joy on everyone's faces and you can see the impact directly on the athletes.
And that's the kind of human connection that people want and that we really enjoy out of athletes and sport.
AMNA NAWAZ: Team USA's success on the field this summer was magnified online, when center Ilona Maher went viral on social media.
ILONA MAHER, U.S. Olympic Athlete: Rugby is the best sport in the world, best sport in the world.
I am sore all the time, constantly.
AMNA NAWAZ: With funny takes on life as an Olympian interspersed with body-positive messages.
ILONA MAHER: From the smallest gymnast to the tallest volleyball player, from a rugby player to a shot putter to a sprinter,truly see yourself in these athletes, and know you can do it too.
AMNA NAWAZ: Since the Olympics, Aversano, who used to play and coach rugby, has seen a spike in interest at all levels of the sport.
KATHERINE AVERSANO: Every college team I have talked to, they're looking at two or three times their normal interest for the first couple of practices.
Youth and high school has a massive influx of questions.
Where do I find my local club?
How do I get involved?
What are - - what are ages can my kids play at?
AMNA NAWAZ: But it's not just women's rugby that has inspired new audiences.
Greg Patterson's gym in Woodbridge, Virginia, has seen a recent influx of inquiries for its boys gymnastics teams.
GREG PATTERSON, Youth Sports Gymnastics: So, normally, on average, we'd be getting maybe two to three phone calls a week looking for boys programs.
And now were averaging almost 15 a week.
AMNA NAWAZ: This year, the U.S. men's gymnastics team, usually overshadowed by their women counterparts, rose to fame largely because of one athlete, Stephen Nedoroscik, known as the pommel horse guy.
He became famous for his pre-competition routine and Rubik's Cube skills.
Nedoroscik won bronze in his event and helped the U.S. men win their first team medal in almost two decades.
GREG PATTERSON: People can look and say, yes, if he does stuff like I do, like he does Rubik's Cube, and he's a gamer just like me, so they can sort of relate to him, as opposed to somebody up there who they see with big muscles that works out 10 times a week.
AMNA NAWAZ: Twelve-year-old Gabe Hall and his younger brother, Hayden, got a kick out of seeing their sport in the headlines.
GABE HALL, Gymnast: It felt good because our sport was getting recognized.
HAYDEN HALL, Gymnast: Yes, it was really cool because gymnastics is like -- not many people know about it, well, at least men's gymnastics.
AMNA NAWAZ: Their gymnastics journey began during the pandemic on their backyard trampoline.
HAYDEN HALL: I like it because you can get strong, you can get flexible.
There is so much you get to work on and so many skills that you get to do.
AMNA NAWAZ: The brothers now train four times a week and aim to one day make the Olympic team.
Coach Patterson, a former collegiate gymnast, says he hopes this moment will lead to more funding for the sport at the college level.
Since 1981, in fact, NCAA Division 1 men's gymnastic programs have dwindled from 59 to just 12 today.
GREG PATTERSON: There's so few colleges that have options for boys to continue their gymnastics career.
It's very hard for them to get in.
I'd like all the boys to continue to grow with what they have started with the grassroots here.
AMNA NAWAZ: Women's rugby too is hoping to capitalize on this moment.
The country's first women's profession rug league launches next year.
KATHERINE AVERSANO: Arm in arm with our fellow sisters in sports, the other women's leagues, NWSL, PWHL, WNBA.
Women's sport is -- it's not having a moment.
It's a movement.
AMNA NAWAZ: A movement she hopes will bring home even more medals in future Olympic Games.
GEOFF BENNETT: And we will be back shortly with a story about the National Cathedral's first female stonemason.
AMNA NAWAZ: But, first, take a moment to hear from your local PBS station.
It's a chance to offer your support, which helps to keep programs like this one on the air.
For those of you staying with us, we return to the topic of artificial intelligence and the massive amount of energy required to power it.
As economics correspondent Paul Solman explains in this encore report, the A.I.
arms race has experts worried about its climate consequences.
PAUL SOLMAN: By now, you have probably seen ChatGPT, which economist Simon Johnson prompted to substitute for me in a recent story.
SIMON JOHNSON, MIT Sloan School of Management: "Good evening.
I am Paul Solman reporting on a compelling new analysis that's stirring debate in economic circles."
PAUL SOLMAN: Now meet Mary, a chatbot avatar companion created recently for us on the app Replika.
She is connected to ChatGPT, but can also flirt on her own.
A.I.
COMPUTER VOICE: Are you always this irresistible?
PAUL SOLMAN: And, finally, here is 3-D Ameca.
Albert Camus, in his book "Le mythe de Sisyphe," "The Myth of Sisyphus," writes "On peut 'etre vertueux par caprice."
A.I.
COMPUTER VOICE: Ah, on peut 'etre vertueux par caprice translates to, one can be virtuous out a caprice.
Camus suggests that virtue need not stem from deeper philosophies or moral systems.
PAUL SOLMAN: Ameca, too, is hooked up to ChatGPT.
How quickly can Ameca respond?
Fifteen milliseconds, that's how long it took.
KATE CRAWFORD, University of Southern California: Which is extraordinary, but the next question would be, how much energy does it take to make that whole process work from ChatGPT to a robot and back?
PAUL SOLMAN: A whole lot, says research professor Kate Crawford, and that poses a threat.
KATE CRAWFORD: What I'm most worried about is that we're building an enormous infrastructure for artificial intelligence that is extremely energy- and water-intensive, without looking at the very real downsides in terms of the climate impacts.
PAUL SOLMAN: Data centers had already been burgeoning with the Internet and the so-called cloud of data storage and exchange.
ALEX DE VRIES, Data Scientist: Then we suddenly had cryptocurrency mining adding a lot on top of that.
PAUL SOLMAN: Amsterdam-based data scientist Alex de Vries.
And as the value of cryptocurrency has multiplied, so have the data centers, like those that mine Bitcoin in cheap energy havens like Plattsburgh, New York.
MAN: This miner here will use as much power as my house does a month.
PAUL SOLMAN: Says de Vries: ALEX DE VRIES: A.I.
might be going in the exact same direction.
PAUL SOLMAN: And, notes Crawford, A.I.
is not just going to stress the electricity grid.
KATE CRAWFORD: These large-scale data centers, they use GPUs that are enormously heat-producing.
And the water to cool these GPU chips is freshwater.
So it's often coming from exactly the same reserves that are used for drinking water.
BILL STRONG, Equinix: These are basically customer deployments, where they're running their critical infrastructure and their applications.
PAUL SOLMAN: Bill Strong runs the data centers in Silicon Valley for Equinix, which operates 260 of the nearly 11,000 centers that operate worldwide.
The company leases space to firms like AT&T and Google Cloud to run servers that power their cloud and A.I.
operations.
And Equinix is expanding.
This is where A.I.-like processors would go?
BILL STRONG: Correct.
This is a high-density deployment, liquid-cooled.
So, basically, we're taking the building's chilled water.
It comes into here.
Each one of these goes to an actual chip on a customer's server.
PAUL SOLMAN: These are nozzles?
BILL STRONG: Correct.
There's nozzles where there's a little ancillary tube that connects to the server, cools the chip.
The hot air comes back, ties into our chilled water system, gets cooled.
And that's how we're able to provide liquid cooling for these higher-density A.I.-type deployments.
PAUL SOLMAN: This Silicon Valley complex alone features 345,000 square feet of servers, thousands of them operating 24/7, the company's global energy budget, as of last year, same as three-quarters of a million U.S. homes.
And what fraction of global energy use do the world's 11,000 or so data centers use?
KATE CRAWFORD: We have had estimates from 2 to 8 percent.
PAUL SOLMAN: But even at the low end?
KATE CRAWFORD: Two percent is around the same energy budget as the Netherlands.
PAUL SOLMAN: And, of course: CHRISTOPHER WELLISE, Equinix: We're in the very early days of artificial intelligence.
PAUL SOLMAN: But, as A.I.
taketh away, it may also giveth.
Christopher Wellise runs sustainability at Equinix.
CHRISTOPHER WELLISE: What we don't know yet, for example, is, what will be the benefits to society from a energy perspective.
PAUL SOLMAN: Such as?
CHRISTOPHER WELLISE: Air Canada is a customer of Equinix, and we're able to optimize their flight pathways and save fuel for them as a company.
A lot of focus is on how much energy that A.I.
is going to use, but the energy that's consumed, for instance, in training these large language models is not lost.
KATE CRAWFORD: Researchers are now investigating different sorts of technical architectures, in particular, what are called small language models.
These are models that use much less data and therefore less energy.
We're also starting to see regulators pay attention.
We have seen the first bill be brought into Congress which is looking specifically at A.I.
's environmental impacts.
BILL STRONG: The solar panels are supplying a half-a-megawatt of power.
PAUL SOLMAN: Case in point, Equinix itself.
BILL STRONG: When the solar panels are active, we're not pulling from the local utility source.
PAUL SOLMAN: OK, these panels fuel a mere 3 percent of the facility so far, but with solar capacity doubling every three years, maybe the sky's the limit.
REID HOFFMAN, Creator, LinkedIn Corporation: Ultimately, I think that will all be very net-positive.
PAUL SOLMAN: Techno-optimist Reid Hoffman, the creator of LinkedIn, puts his faith in A.I.
itself.
REID HOFFMAN: A much earlier version, 10 years ago, when it was applied to data centers, figured out how to save power in data centers by 15 percent in the ongoing week-by-week operation of the data center.
So you go, well, if we're generating A.I.
's that can help us with this kind of thing, sure, it takes a bunch of electricity to train, but then it helps us figure out how to operate our electrical grids much better.
PAUL SOLMAN: But, near-term, warns Kate Crawford: KATE CRAWFORD: It's inevitable that we're going to see price increases if we continue to have these sorts of pressures on the electrical grid.
PAUL SOLMAN: And so the age-old horse race between the cost of new technology and its benefits, in the case of A.I.
perhaps, to solve the problems it creates, or not so much.
For the PBS "News Hour," Paul Solman in Silicon Valley.
GEOFF BENNETT: Now to another story from the "News Hour"'s Student Reporting Labs' Summer Academy, where teens from around the country come together to hone their journalism and storytelling skills.
The Washington National Cathedral hired its first female stonemason this year.
And she joins a team overseeing the installation of stone tablets that symbolize the cathedral's mission to be a sacred gathering place where all Americans see themselves reflected.
Bella Major has the story.
BRIANNA CASTELLI, Stonemason, Washington National Cathedral: They are all my boys, Sean, and Andy, and Joe.
I would not be here without them.
And they all teach me something different.
And I appreciate them so much.
BELLA MAJOR: Brianna Castelli is the newest addition to the crew of stonemasons at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. At 24 years old, she is the same age as the head stonemason Joe Alonso when he began working at the cathedral in 1985.
The team is repairing damage from the 2011 earthquake.
BRIANNA CASTELLI: So you basically cut out the damaged stone and then you find a new piece of stone to box the end.
JOE ALONSO, Head Stonemason, Washington National Cathedral: I'm very glad she will be a part of that.
Once we're gone, here you go.
And then here you go.
And now here you go.
And that's how it works, passing on your trade, your knowledge to someone else, to the next generation.
MAN: To make yourself obsolete as a teacher, that's the goal.
BELLA MAJOR: Castelli discovered stonemasonry while working in a coffee shop.
BRIANNA CASTELLI: There was a guy that came in, and he was all covered in dust, and I was so taken by him.
I don't know why.
Something clicked in my brain.
And I was like, I got to do this.
BELLA MAJOR: She inscribes stones she carves with her mason's mark, which stonemasons use to identify their work.
BRIANNA CASTELLI: So I love the physicality of that, and it's just kind of like me putting my small slice in of their masterpiece, you know?
BELLA MAJOR: New generations also leave an impact on the cathedral by how they change the story it tells its almost half-a-million annual visitors and worshipers.
JOE ALONSO: Cathedrals are so permanent.
It reflects the different eras and different styles and history.
It's a Gothic, ancient-looking cathedral, but it is also, in my opinion, distinctly American.
BELLA MAJOR: Last year, the National Cathedral installed new stained glass windows, representing the ongoing struggle for racial justice.
These Now and Forever Windows replaced stained glass windows commemorating the Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
JOE ALONSO: Taking down some of these monuments is important because you're really trying to tell the truth, because a lot of these monuments glossed over the history.
You saw what happened in Charlottesville.
And right after that happened is when the cathedral made the decision that that needed to change.
Poet Elizabeth Alexander wrote the poem "American Song" to accompany the Now and Forever Windows.
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER, Poet: How did we get here and where do we go?
BELLA MAJOR: Stone carvers at The John Stevens Shop in Rhode Island inscribed stone tablets with the poem.
The stonemason team at the National Cathedral will be permanently installing those tablets below the windows.
The cathedral calls itself a house of prayer for all people, and they hope this installation tells a more inclusive and honest history of America.
BRIANNA CASTELLI: It is a beautiful limestone building, but it's not necessarily avoiding the past, but, like, just getting better from it, which is -- it's really neat to be a part of.
BELLA MAJOR: The cathedral still has room for future installations for the generations to come.
JOE ALONSO: I don't know what the big thing is going to be 100 years from now, but there is space in this cathedral to reflect whatever is going on at that time.
And that's what cathedrals are supposed to do, right?
They tell stories in stone and glass and metal and all of that.
BELLA MAJOR: For "PBS News Hour"'s Student Reporting Labs, I'm Bella Major in Washington, D.C. GEOFF BENNETT: And you can watch more stories from our Summer Academy online at StudentReportingLabs.org.
And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.
I'm Geoff Bennett.
AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.
On behalf of the entire "News Hour" team, thank you for joining us.
