Because ths what we need and thats what were looking for. Yang all that an on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for60 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. Consumer cellular. The willi and flora hewlett foundation. For more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better at www. Hewlett. Org. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. This program was made possible by the corporation for puic broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Yang President Trump headed abroad today, while at home thes moves closer to mr. Trump will be participating in a nato summit in london this week as the House Judiciary Committee holds its first impeachment hearing. Our Congressional CorrespondentLisa Desjardins is here to tell us whats ahead. Lisa, the president has now landed the london, but whele he was inair, the impeachment news kept happening here at home. The air . Pened while he was i and here he is talking to important allies, but on his mind as well is the impeachment hearing goin tforward. I wa play what the president had to say on his way to london today. s oing to remark on sm something that ukrainian president nskyaid, well come to that. Heres the president building his case as he left the white house today. The whole thing is a hoax, Everybody Knows it. All you have to do is looat the words of the ukrain ukrainin president that he just issued and you know its a hoax. Its an aolse disgrace what theyre going doing to our country. Reporter we will continue to hear the idea from the reblicans the idea that the impeachment is a hoax or sham. President zelensky, here are his words in an interview published in the last day. He said, look, i never talked to the president from the position of a quid pro quo. Thats not my thing. Ve but you o understand, were at war. If youre our strategic partner, then you cant go blocking ne for us i think thats just about fairness. Theres a lot inhat quote, john. Essentially hes saying a quid pro quo is not hising. I dont know if thats a lear common regulation of the president. T but he wenrther. This as the president s job is at stake here, zelensky thinks his country is at stake over u. S. Policy. So an important development. Also smething we need to keep lev parnas, a known associate of Rudy Giuliani, who was working in ukraine on behalf ofuliani and is knowno have been part of this idea of a parallel track of diplomacy, hes under indictment and, in court today, his lawyer sad he would like to turn over a large amount of documentand electronic devices, 14 cell phones and laptops with information that he thinks House Democrats should get. Uhats working through the courts, but thege indicates they may grant that request and get thatvidence to as many as. As. Yang we dont know whatse tht he says it could be helpful or of interest. Reporter yeah. Yang the white house said House Judiciary Committeehe patient heampleghts how does that affect things. Reporter this is the firstwh opportunity the house had to participate. The house intelligommittee in hearings, something they raised a lot of criticism about. But we got this from white House Counsel heading up impeachment a fregal standpoint, he wrote an invitationo an academic discussion with law professors, the aring on wedneay, does not begin to provide the president with any semblance ofp a faocess. Under the current circumstances, we do not intend to participate in your wed. Nesday heari i will note we have gotten the witness list. It is four law professors, one chosen by republicans, but still the white hoe is saying that ths not enough. They may participate later. In the same letter the white house consel is saying whether they consider calling orthowitnesses or participate at a different time but theres a deadline for them to makte tha decision as well. Wre does this go from here . Whats going to happen this week and whats the process after that . Lets go to the calendar. First, lets talk about this week. Again, this is the hearing on wednesday, the fourth. Thats the first house the laprofessors. Ee hearing with after that on friday, that is the deadline democrats have seth for the use to announce if they will participate at all, they want to call any witnesses or crossexamine witnesses in the future. One reason the deadline is so tight is because the following mek is when deocrats seem to be moving toward at least a Committee Vote onctual articles of impeachment, if things move along quickly that could also be a house floor vote. So if the white house is going to participate, they need to eannounce that soon. After that, thmportant date, the 25th christmas, this has been theool toe measure for democrats when they would like to have articlesf impeachment e rough the house altogether. A couple mordates in december that may affect everything december in the, when the inspecialty general of the departme of jog releases a report about the f. B. I. s handling of the russia investigation, somet republicans will say show bias against the president , some reporting it manot. Then december 20th, just the deadline for government speding, when government nd willing run out. So thats Something Else members of congress and the president have to agree on in the midst of all this upheaval and very serious constitutional debate. Yng meanwhile, House Republicans said they will have something to say about this, right . Reporter thats righ in the last hour we will receive a report from House Republicans. Theyve written their prebutle to the impeachment hearings, 110 pages, they say the president never pressured the ukrainian president and this document lays out how they will proceed. By tomorw night, we shod get the democrats intelligence report, we expect that to be lengthy and significant. We hope that to be behd losed doors but we should get that mmorrow right in tifor the hearing. Yang the Judiciary Committee hearing is the basis for their work . Porter the thinking is democrats will recommended impeachment move forward to house judiciary. Yang busy days ahead. Reporter indeed. Yang appreciate itery much. Reporter youre welcome. Yang in the days other news, there were moretr deions in iraq, even after parliament accepted the prime ministers resignation. Women led a protest in the demanding the entire government be dismissed. And in baghdad, protesters also insisted on more chaes. translated we do not want the current government officials, they must go, they the young people are in a teriorating situation, t women are begging on the streets, no medications in hospital enough is enough. All parties must go, we dont want any one of them. Yang iraqi lawmakers say primminister Adel Abdul Mahdi will stain a caretaker capacity until a n government is formed. That process could take weeks. Amnesty International Said today it belves more than 200 people were killed in iran during november prosts and the ensuing crackdown. The iranian government has yet to release a full account of those who died in the protests over gasoline prices. China today indefinitely suspended u. S. Military ships and aircraft from visiting hong kong. It comes after President Trump signed legislation supporting antigovernment protests in the chinese territory. Also today, hureds of Office Workers rallied in hong kongs Central Business district. Ol a day earlier,ice fired tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters. World leaders have begun a two week climate confence in madrid. They convened today amid warngs that the 2015 Paris Climate Accord will fall short of preventing major consequences of Climate Change. U. N. Secretary general Antonio Guterres opened the conference by criticizing global efforts to cut Greenhouse Gas emissions. Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled whe planet burned . He thr option is the path off hope, the pathsolve, of sustainable solutions. Yang house speakcy pelosi led a delegation of u. S. Democratic lawmakers to the fonference, voicing suppor the paris accord. President trump has moved to withdraw the United States from the accord, effectiv november. Back in this country, a storm system blew into the northeast, after making a mess across the midwest. New jerseys State Government largely shut down, as did schools in several states. Parts of eastern new york states were undw emergencies, and new york city warned commuters to brace for the worst. The fact that weve got 58 inches projected for some parts of the city should make everyone aware that number could go up, and it could go up quickly. Weve all been down this road before. This could fluctuate a lot. But when i start to hear 58, you know buckle your seatbel becae youre never sure whats going to happen next. Yang the storm could dump up to 20 inches of snow from pennsylvania to maine. Sixterm california congressman Duncan Hunter now plans to plead guilty tsio mi campaign funds. Today he will appear in federal Court Tomorrow to change his earlier not guilty plea. He said hes doing it to protect his family. Nt is accused of using Campaign Contributions to payti for vas, golf trips and other personal expenses. Chicago police superjotendent eddison was fired today, a month before he was set to retire. He had been found passed out in his car at a stop sign, in mid october. He said he had had a few drinks earlier. But mayor ri lightfoot said today an inspector generals report showed that johnson wasnt telling the truth. Eddie johnson intentionally lied to me several times, even when i challenged him about the narrative that he shared with me. He maintained that he was telling the truth. I now know definitively that he was not. Had i known these facts at the time, i wouldve relieved him of his duties as superintendent then and there. Yang lightfoot gave no details, but said the report may become public later. A new study out today finds one in four young adts aged 1934 is living with prediabetes. The report comes from the centers for Disease Control and prevention. It ao finds men are almost twice as likely to have the condition as women. Prediabetes causes blood sugar levels to spike, and can lead to type 2 diabetes, as well as to kidney and heart disease. Trump declared today he will re impose tariffs on steel and aluminum from brazil and argentina. In a tweet, he accused the twoti s of manipulating their currencies to undercut u. S. Farm products. The president had exempted brazil and argentina from the tariffs, in march of 2018. Al and onstreet, december got off to a rough start amid new worrieabout trade tensions with china. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 268 points close at 27,783. The nasdaq fell 97 point and the s p 500 dropped 27on still to comhe newshour, arguments before the Supreme Court in the first mor gun case in a decade. Amy walter and Domenico Montanaro break down the weeks top political headlines. Why Young Americans are waving goodbye to the cities and settling down in small towns. Plus, trees take center stage in our newshournew York Times Book Club pick the overstory. Yang todays Supreme Court oral arguments were highly ticipated the first gun control case in a decade. D it was about a nowrepeaw york city law that limited where licensed gunowners could carry eir weapons. Second amendment advocates saw the potential to expand gunts ri but based on todays arguments, it appears the issue may have to wait. Marcia coyle is chief washington correspondent for the National Law Journal and was in the courtroom this morning. Thanks for joinings. Why does this highly anticipated moment seem less than hoped for. Cases are controversy. After the new york city repealed its law, the question arose, is there still a live controversy for the court to resolve. A so tguments today really were dominated by questioning both sides, the citys lawyer as well as the lawyer for the again Rights Organization on whether there still is somhing here for the justices to decide. Yang and even on thiss issue is ideological split on the court evident in the reporter absolutely were. You had justice ginsburg, for for the gun Rights Organization, what is left of this case . She pointed outt the challengers to the citys law had received all that they sought in the initial lawsuit that they had filed, and you had, for example, Justice Sotomayor saying this cit through in the towel here and what are we to do with this . Us youre askingo opine on the old law when theres the new one in plao. Then had ton other side justices gorsuch and alito who pushed back, their questions were geared more toee wre there still issues left unresolved. Justice gorsuch was the court doesnt like it when, after they grant review, one of the parties takes an act to get rid of the case. So Justice Gorsuch called this a herculean latebreaking attempt to moot the case. And justice ali also called this an extraordinary step to keep the case from getting to the merits of theonstitutional challenge. Lawyers about whther there was still something that they could decide. Yang why was it so significant that the court took this case in the fir pce . Reporter first of all, it was the first case in almost a decade iny which tre going to take up the second amendment. Gun Rights Organizations have been very frustrated with how the lower courts have been applying the seconamendment to local and state regulations of guns. At they really want here, the bottom line is, they want the standard, a test that the ler courts have to use, a test with teeth,hey claim, that will probably wk more to their favor than thus far they have had very little success in thelo r courts in knocking down gun regulations. E yang t court rled in 2008 and again in 2010 that there is anbsolute right to own guns. Reporter none of or rights are absolute, john. The Supreme Court in 2008 sad there was an individual right that a firearm in the home for selfdefense but it wasnt abs lute, there is room for regulation and thats where the battle is fought, over how much regulation. And even if they dont decide this case on the merits, as then say,the issue, will there be an opportunity for it tcome up again . There could be. We see almost every term at least one gun rightsge chall coming to the court and, as you pointed out, it had been a decade sine they took on. These challenges will continue to come. Already this term, the court had the cases. They turned away two and took the new york city cse. Marcia coyle of the National Law Journal, thank you so much. My pleasure, john. Yang there are twists and turns two in, two out and now two months to go until the first votes. Yamiche alcindor brings us up to speed on the race to the race house. cheers and applause reporter this is a democratic field, in flux. Candidates on the rise are shoring up weaknesses. M s incarceration must end, its that simple. Reporter candidates whose campais are lagging are looking for a second wind. Th and what archallenges for you as a Small Business owner these days . Rep candidates are dropping out entirely. Today, it was montana govern Steve Bullock who left the racee he said in a snt, it has become clear that in this moment, i wont be able to bre through to the top tier. Yesterday, it was former pennsylvania congressman joe sestak, a tired rear admiral. Despite walking the width of New Hampshire to trynd boost name recognition, he failed to find national support. South bend, indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg hoped to build on his strong standing in iowa with a weekend church visit in North Carolina with the reverend william barber. Today, he announced a new tv ad aimed at boosting South Carolina support. When i say weve got to unify the american people, it doesnt mean pretending that were all the same. It means unifying around issues from wages and family leave togu violence and immigration. Reporter former Vice President e biden spent the Holiday Weekend in iow where his support has been losing steam. He also kicked off what he has dubbed the no malarkey bus to. He stressed his numberone priority defeating President Trump. The reason we nameno malarkey is because the other guys all lies and so we want to make sure theres a contrast in what werk g about here. Reporter the Hawkeye State is also key for californiaka senatola harris. During the Holiday Shopping weekend, she spoke with smalls. Business own yet she is still dealing with the aftermath of damning w york times report oe state of her campaign. The story quoted one former Campaign Aide as saying i haven never N Organization treat its staff so poorly. Meanwhile, a new campaign ad from minnesota senatorllmy klobuchar e also targeting iowans, with a heavy emphasis on health care why do Drug Companies make billions of dollars getting o people hooked oids . The big pharmaceutical companies, they think they own washington. Reporter and iowa was a focus, too, for new jersey senator cory bker, who said this on cbss face the nation. We see my favorabilities now number three in net favorability in iowa. So its working, its not translating to people choosing me in the polls. Thiss why were pushing more reporter the tenor was different at a weekend iowa stop Elizabeth Warren. Senator an attendee questioned whether she ever felt not accepted by someone she looked up to. Warren responded with a personal story how she told her mother that her first marriage wasen ng. I heard the disappointment in her voice. I knew how she felt about it. Th but i also kno it was the right thing to do. And sometimes, you just got to whats right, inside, and reporter a quiet, deeply personal momenteven in the rush to the states first in the nation caucuses, just twoy. Months a and now its time for politics l nday. Here to analyze e weeks polical news, amy walter of the Cook Political Report an host of public radiostics with amy walter. And Domenico Montanaro. At npr. Sior Political Editor thanks smuch for being here. Amy, this is the democratic field, still in flux for two months away from the iowa caucuses, the people ar having bus tours, there are tv ads. How wide open is this fieldno righ . Well, you laid it out pretty well in your opening list, the ct that you have tw candidates really focusing on so joe biden is ahead in all the National Polling and has ha a pretty consistent lead for the entirety of the campaign. It na hrowed sin first jumped in, but his big problem spot is iowa, the first state that kicks us of where hes somewhere send, maybe third, bud certainly beete buttigieg. Pete buttigiegs problem, as he pointed out, is not with iowa where he could win and even do well in New Hampshire where hes up in the polls, his problem e the states that come afterwards, states that have a more diverse electorate, manyic more aamerican voters, many more voters of color where he still has not been able to pick up much support, and hest not jn North Carolina, hes spending this week in alabama, which is also, i think, a super tuesday ste, and in South Carolina as well. If you have half to twothirds of demratic primary voters saying theyre not decided on the race, they dont have minds made up, and that leads to volatility. So thats why youve seen spurts from some candidates and decreasing back down. The most recent and maybe the Biggest Development of the mpaign has been izabeth warrens surge and collap when it comes to her talking about medicare for all as a replacement to private insuranc that has been a very difficult defend. N for her to try to i think a lot of democrats actually very curious why she went that far when, honestly, the way the senate is currently, theres no way that that would pass anyway so why go that far and take that position when she could have pu it as a goalpost and say this is a goal but not what were going to do right away when i get in n to be president. So theres a lot tcohat coulde and were in the final stretch now until iowa where youre going to se voters rt to really make up their minds. Youre talking about Elizabeth Warren having a peak and then crashing. Amy, youre lking about this idea that the sirmer vice pnt who had all this name recognition is now but domenico, do you think there are clear top tier candidates etch though the democrats havent made their minds upgh away. I think this is the time of the year we need to talk about paths to the nomination and not the time of the year they talk about National Polling. National polling is a barometer of how well somebody mirght do how well people feel about them but its not a national race. We if tha the case, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani would have been thnee 2008 no and ran away with it, you have to have a pah. As amy is laying out, joe biden has a path still, even if he is democratic party,e were to win, place or show in iowa, top three, still be in the game in tw hampshire, he can reain whats held him up which is the 60 of africanamerican and if he can do that, he has a shot of winning in the south where black voters make up the majority of democratic voters. Put that doesnt mean some other candidate cant come along and ke other voters away. If hes fourth or fifth in iowa, that could comlapletely cole his momentum if there was any. Yeah, we could absolutely be looking at the possibility that there is a diffeinner in each of the first four states, which would be incredible, a ld thad us into super tuesday, whereby the end of march 3rd, 40 of all del wegatl have been selected. So we could get into the discussion of is anyone able to coordinate. And then were talking aboutg michael bloombho spent 50 million in his first two weeks of advertising to get his. Named. Out. Hes not even competing in the first four states. E nobodyr done that before. Hes got the money, he can do it. But, still, putting that in context, i mean, thats 20 times what every town spent in virginia, a gr bp that heacks for gun control and, remember, they were able to take backth e Virginia State house and the senate just based in many ways because of tat 2. 5 million that every time was able to pour in and outspend the n. R. A. Whioh spends about 300,000. I saw this weekend senator john kennedy on meet the press defending President Trump. Heres what he had to say. I believe that a ukrainian 2018 slapped down severalr of ukrainian officials for medaling in our elections in violation of ukrainian law. I didnt report thosfacts. Reputable journalists reported does that mean that the ukrainian leaders were more aggressivehan rusa . No. Russia was very aggressive, and theyre much morsophisticated. But the facthat russia was so aggressive does not exclude the fact that president poroshenko secretaryorked fo clinton. We know ukrainian medaling in 2016 election is a bebunked claim pushed by russia, the Intelligence Committee has not backed the theory. They say russia meddled in the 2016 election. Whats going on . Seeps like democrats and republicans cant even agree on the facts. Whats going on here is that republicans, and were seeing this, i think, also, in this report that they just released today from the house intelligence replican report, that the president s interest in ukraine wasnt just about joe biden, and it wasnt just about digging up dirt open his rival, that there are real reasons the president had to be wary of ukraine. Theres a lot of corruion in ukraine. Theres tilot of polil sort of malfeasance and its very murky, and introducing that elent into it isalso making the case for the president to say, look, all i was doing when i was making these calls toto ukraine waay you guys got a lot of problems, you got a lot of corruptn. I wasbsolutely right to question that. Look, the truth is the truth, though, and the fact is the u. S. Intelligence community has d that ukraine was not who was pushing a governmentled effort to, you know, hack and to and, you know, try to getme people, you know, voting for donald trump. That was russia. Rust did that. And, you know, we have a president of the United States who doesnt believe his own Intelligence Community because it doesnt suit hie neds. Yes, there were ukrainian officials who were upset about President Trump potentially being president , but a couple of opeds and tweets aret the same as a govfonmentbacked to get somebody installed as preside. The impeantment inquiry ues to move through the hous amy, what do you make of repuicans spending a lot of money on ads, air dpiewg President Trump shouldnt be imimpeached or removed . How vulnerable are democrats who are moderate and how vulnerable moderate . Licans who are like you, if you were for thanksgiving, i was watching live events and seeing a lot of adds that were in soth carolina where theres a freshman member of congress named joe cunningham, democrat, lot of advertising from republican oups encouraging this freshman democrat to vote against impeachment. So i look at t districts where fu do have fresh phendemrat democrats, republipending between 300 andgi 500,000 the democrats to vote impeachment. In tend, i dont think they will sway democrats. But even when i lked to republicans today, ke on this is, look, are we stale ng abouting to be tal impeachment by the time we hit the november 2020 election . I dont think so. Im under the same ission. I believe this is quite remarkable that there is going to be an impehment for the president for only the third hime in history, it is bot remarkable and predictable in this very partisan era were int and e time we hit next summer, we probably will have moved on to Something Else. Talk a little bit about the dee,crats time line hermy saying this might not be something were talking about when the 2020 election rolls around. Look, the fact that dgeocrats want tt this out of the way, too, they dont want this to be the dominant issue. You have half a dozen democrats who are in the senate who would have to sit for a serinate al. They dont want to ve to be know, campaigning in iowa or you New Hampshire or elsewhere. Democrats wanto get this out of the way. They do feel, though, that at least itm,ast hurt thehat pushing for impeachment, they havent lost independents, they gained some and its firing up the base, south a winwin and basically the views of president rump are as locked in as they ever were. Thank you so much Domenico Montanaro of npr and amy walter of the Cook Political Report,o i appreciate both beng here. Thank you. Or yang ears, rural and small towns have beenbr experiencing an drain as some of their most talented young people moved to more urban areas. But recent census data has shown that millennials those born between 1981 and 1996 are increasingly chosuing to live in rbs and smaller cities. Jeffrey brown traveledo montana to heawhy. I have to talk strategy with you for a minute. Ep ter for karoline rose, its just another day at the office. Yeah, a link that says fall 2020 and production salesonnd you click t and it pulls up on screen. Reporter the 27 yearold is the founder of a Digital Consulting and Agricultural Marketing company near toston, montana, population 108. The town of toston isnt much. If you blink, you kind of miss it. Reporter n a typical setting for a millennial c. E. O. , perhaps, but with clients across much of Rural America, she not only surviving, but thriving, in a place where cows outnumber people. Rose started Krose Company in 2015 and began using social media to do what her familhas always done sell cattle. So we listed them and they sold it in about six minutes. And i called my dad on the phone and i said, i have something. Reporter b her dad, john rose, a man who has sold cattle in montana since the 1980s, was initially skeptical. Agricultures still very much a handshake business. And she came home and were just going to put them on facebook or the internet and were ing to sell cattle. And i said, theres no way thats going to happen. I said, it just is not whathe agriculture inest is. And she said, oh, yeah, we can do that. Reporter karolines success is no surprise to Ben Winchester, a researcher at the university of minnesota. Hes bn documeing rural Population Trends for more than 25 years and says young adults are increasingly coming to these areas for the cheaper cost of living and new opportunities. You can be a doctor in a you can be an editor for a newspaper in a rural community. You can be a book publisher, you can be elerical engineer. While not every town will have that diversity of employment o occupation, when you start putting together 57 counties, youve got the same diversity in a rural region that you find in the metropolitan area. Reporter and according to thlatest census data, millennials are no longer finding metropolitan areas as attractive as they once did. Lost nearly 30,000 millennials inve018 the fourth consecu year their population of young adults declined. s and ot just millennials. A 2018 gallup poll found that a while 80 americans live in urban areas, rural life is most desired. All is is fueling migration to places like bozeman, montana, now one of the Fastest Growing cities of its size in the nation. Dr. Mean johnston grew up in montana and settled in bozeman after finishing her residency in seattle. F my daycare e minutes from here so i can. My nurse will tell you that i run out of here at 5 20, i dsn pick up my nd go home for dinner and be home at 5 35. D know my good friends that live in seattle that, logistically, is so much morele ching. So i think the quality of life here is just easier. Reporter dr. Johnston also trains medical students like ezekial sharples, o has another reason for staying nearly 80 of Rural America is classified as medically underserved, and sharples says his hometown of chinook in northern montana remaihout a doctor. All these small towns are either single physician or no physician towns. And so, that experience growing up really gave me this drive to back and kind of be part of solving that issue. Reporter Ben Winchester sees a pattern. Ia mille especially, theyre starting to hit the same trends that we had seen in othe generations wh, as you age and you start to gain some stability that you start to question some of the of your life. Reporter of course, moving to a more rural life hardlyar tees success. You know, you have some towns that succeed and other towns th w fail. And whfind is that really the biggest differential in communities is sociacapital. And it is how well do people work together. Reporter another factor cultural life. Bozeman may not have the nightly highprofile music and arts scene of a larger citybut it does have live from the divide. I started with the intention of just creating a place for songwriters to have a place where they could play their songs and people would respect that and listen. Reporter 35yearold jason wickins is a singersongwrit from central montana. He lived briefly in nashville, but decided to come back home,ru and no a music venue where National Touring acts can play to small, intimate crowds. So when did you realize that yoi could gia go herin montana . If youre in nashville or new york or l. A. , it is hard. I would say its a lot harder, r pending on what your reporter harcause its expensive . Its expensive, its way more cutthroat. You have to really be a hustler and therthing wrong with any of those things. For me, i had no interest in even trying to make it work there because i wanted to be bae in montana and back in culture that inspired me in my music and to do the things i wanted tdo. Reporter back on her familys ranchsakaroline rose shes now buying, selling and marketing cattle to more than 300 cents in 12 states. And she has this advice fo those who might want to try making it out here its really important that when you move in Rural America that you get out and you know e community and you show up. But also that youre differentd u bring your skills and your knowledge to the table because thats what we need and thats what were lookinfor. Reporter for the pbs newshour im Jeffrey Brown in montana. Yang and well be back shortly with richard powers, the author of our now read this book club pick, the overstory. But first, take a moment to hear from your local pbs station. Its a chance toffer your support, which helps keep programs like ours on the air. Se yang for ttations staying with us, roughly four million children ent kindergarten last year, and nearly onethird of them had l. Eviously been in presch special corrpondent lisa stark, oour partner education week, has an encore look at an effort in portgend, oregon, to those students ready. Good morning kindgartners. Reporter this has the look and feel of a pical kindergarten class its designed to get studts ready for the real thing, says teacher donna shinagawa. Ts a preview to kindergarten, and so we try to make it as similar to kindergarten as possible. Reporter the Summer Program in portland, oregon, runs for three weeks helping ease thesi tron to kindergarten. Put your thumb in like this, and two fingers here. Reporter some have never attended preschool, others struggle with poverty, or their the start of kindearten can be overwhelming for anyone, but especially for these children. Mom suzhen li and her daughter sukey chen are taking part. Why you wanted your daughter in this program . She can meet the teachers and new classmates here first, and t ths better for her to get used to the others. Offered in a dozen of portlands high poverty schools, is helping some 240 children this summer. Here at the Harrison Park school those participating speak eight eafferent languages and at a third have never been in a classrm setting. Whats your goal for the kids in this program . School. To be confident about just to know that school is fun saand its a place thats fe reporter students learn everything from how to navigate the cafeteria,ine up in the hallways, use their lockers, even how to bid parents goodbye. Bye, bye. Reporter theres also big reporter can three weeks reallyake that much of a difference . Yes, it really helps build community. Comfortable when they drop the kids off, they know the building, they know the teachers, they know the classroom and the kids feel the same way, too. Reporter sukey is settling in. In my class in one day i got a sticker reporter you got a sticker two times in a row we will build connections with each other, you know, coming to school and not feeling isolated. Oversees the portland schools program. We know that families who are coming into kindergarten without a preschool experience really kindergarten, understandingio expect, and we know that they also start kindergarten with a higher level of stress. N reportestudy of countries, the unistates36 ranks near the bottom, above just three other countries. He in. S. , publicly funded prek serves only about 44 of fouryear olds and 16 of three yearolds. Education analyst Aaron Loewenberg says thats a problem. Its important to realize that while these Summer Programs are definily helpful with the transition to kindergarten, theyre not a replacement for high quality prek. Highquality prek is also going to help them build the academic and social, otional skills that will help them beul succ one they get into the kindergarten classroom. Reporter those in portland agree but in oregon there are limited state and fey funded preschool slots for low income students. So the district packs as mh as it can into three weeks. Kindergarten is so getting Young Students excited and ready forga kinden is only part of the Summer Program. Another key ement is getting their parents ready as well. So, welcome. Reporter parents gather for six mornings over the three week program. Childcare, and translators. s, it all to encourage parents to be an active part of their e childrenducation. If you guys do stuff with math. Thats critical to student achievement. The Program Allows parents to get to know each other, build their own support systems and connects them to the school. Heres principal leah dickey. It really helps parents feel thy have a voice and that t know answers and theyre not just coming into this blindly. I was a teacher in china e fore i move here, so i know that school and mily, is a very good idge to get it together, we need to know each other to hp the kids grow. C today were going to talk about the schoolalendar. Reporter the school staff stresses attendance howis critical io get students to school everyday and on time. Nationally about 1 in 10 kindergartners is chronicall absent. Its a big concern, and in oregon the numbers are even worse. Ultimately were trying to change behaviors in both parents and in kids. Reporter researcher Beth Tarasawa has analyzed portlands Early Transition Program and says students who attend a less likely to be absent, not through third grade. , but so when youre seeing promising results in the very population that were trying to reach, that weve struggled to, historically, in our Public School system. That is something that is very noteworthy. She also looked at early readinf skills and mixed results. In most years, Summer Program particants showed more growth than their classmates, in other we cant expecteeeek program to come in and eradicate what years of poverty and trauma, potentially, in these kids lives, have exposed them to. But those first few ars, without this intervention, could look a lot different for these same kids. Reporter many districts make efforts to ease the entry into kindergarten maybe an open house, or meet the teacher evt but few districts ha as extensive a program as portlands. At abo 14,000 a school, supporters say its a relatively affordable way to help families hit the ground running on that first day of kindergarten. See if you can find any more es. Eee reporter for the pbs newshour d education week, im lisa stark, in portland, oregon. Yang next, now read this. Our Monthly Book Club partnership with the new york times. Novembers selection take into t natural world, through fiction. Jeffrey own has that, part of our ongoing arts and culture coverage, canvas. Er the ory, the most exciting novel about trees you will ever read. While it is about trees and perhaps more, its about people ifrom different walks ofe who become aware of their place in the natural world, see its tstruction, and begin tke action to defend against it. The book won the pulitzer prize. Answer questions fend ourhere to readers. And thank you very much for doing this with us. Oh, its a great pleasure to be here. Lets eveone, readers and nonreaders here, its an interesting mix of trees and about people. What were you aft ter . Whate story . I wanted, i guess, to recover a lost kind of drama thats falon out of literary fiction. Were very good at tellingca psycholostories, conflicts inside individual people. Al wer really good at telling sociological or political stories, conicts between two people where both si es arequally defensible and admirable somehow but not compatible. Yeah. Weve, more or less in recent years in the west forgoen about a third kind of drama, which is we humaneings may want something that the rest of the living world is at best indifferent to and may be hostile tord or at least incompatible. With i wanted to tell a story that brought peoplend nonhumans back together intoth same negotiating space. Thats were interesting, sitting on nas program where were lking about thse things a lot, but you wanted to bring it into the orld of fiction. Yeah. To create a novel that is vocalized through people but ha nonhumans, a central protagonist in the story, but theyre not the just for window dressing, they are whats at stake. Re we like to think about people and naat two separate things. This book is precisely a book isat challenges that notion of human separ so we meet a number of people along the way with their own storie and you slowly bri them together. Many of our readers wondered about the mix of fact and fiction and the level of research, because we learn a lt about the life of trees here. Would you comment on the enceling of factual tree sci or the history of tree saving activism thatnforms the development of the characters in this utterly surpring and impactful story . What a lovely question. Whatever i bresent in thook as scientific fact was, to the best of ability at t time of pblication, verifiable, consensually repeated and agreed upon. So i didnot play fat and loose with any of these extraordinary discoveries abt trees that have been made over the last three or four decades. The ct tht trees communicate to each othter ove air with chemical signals warning about predation and sharing an immune system, if you will. A i waolutely astonished, while researching this boo to discover how little primary or growth foresin the United States is left. The number is somewhere between 2 and 5 of tese forests that were supposed to bean inexhaustible,thats basically the heart and soul of this story, the attempt to stave that lst ltle irreplaceable bit of National Patrimony that we have been losing soraidly. I want to go to the next question from the viewer because it goes this experience. Did you have any idea how much this book could change the readers perception and emotion relative to tes . Ive never experienced anything like this. The reaction . Anelt close to the story, yeah. And the subject matter really lifted me up, but to go to these d ents anme face to face with people who, yo know, will stay till all hours of the night order to tell me a personal story from their childhood or from their adulthood and toou oby do so with great emotion. Its very unusual for me to come away from an event like this and not hav eperienced some deep linkage with people who have tsponded to the subject e story in a deeply emotional way. Part of that response that also came out with our readersca is a to actions right, because thats a big part of the story, to have novel. So lets look at one mo question here. Does the world need to take more immediate andrastic actions toward Climate Change and what can we as citizs do . You know, we are living at an traordinary moment. The outpouring of emotion that people have toward this subject matter, any book that attempts to bring in that question of what were doing to the living world is trisyggerinpathetic grief in people, terror, fear of whats happening. I want to ask you one more personal question, becse you tolde before you started that you moved because of this book. T book moved me aross the country. Yeah. Over the great smkey mouains . Yeah, i was living and working in silicon valley, teaching at Stanford University when i got thedea the book. As i was reading about how little overgrowth forest was left, i kept reading, if you want to see what an easternoa leaf deciduous forest looked like before europeans me, you have to go to the smokies because thats one of the last large cotiguous chunks of full growth. I went there strictly as a research outing and walk into the growth, looks like that moment inar the wof oz where everything changes color, i thought here is what mcountry looked like. It was such an overpowering, such a visceral feeling, the look, sound and smell of it, eight months later after the Research Trip i was thinking about the place and i bought amo house there aned and have been living there ever since. Thats a personal reaction to the book. Yeah. Well leave it there and have more available on our now read this Facebook Page. For now, richard powers. Thank you very much for this. Very grateful. Isre thrieghtd to make t our december pick. As always, you can rea,d alo join in discussions with others and get insight from the author herself. Its all on our Facebook Page for now read this, our bo called partnership with the new york times. Me the senate tonight conf dan birette as the new Energy Secretary arm Ford Motor Company lobbyist and served as deputy se 2cretary since017, replaces rick perry who resigned amid scrutiny over his role in the u. S. Ukraine policy at the center of the impeachment probe. And former president jimmy carter has behospitalized infection. Time for urine tract e 95yearold was admitted to a hospital in ahmer cues, georgia, over the weekend. In a statement his spokeswoman says he is feeling bert and hopes to return home soon. Mr. Carter just had been released from a hospital in atfnta last wednesdayer a surgery to relieve pressure from bleeding in his bra caused by a recent fall. Richard powers shares books thaw helped himrite the overstory. Arver a wide range of topics from the disapce of the american chestnut to the mysteries of forest activis and thats the newshour for tonight. Im john yang. Join us online and a tomorrow evening. For all of us at the pbs newsur, thank you and see you soon. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by i have some questions. Wadoing my job. Do you have any idea who might have put that package there . No, sir. Did you plant a bomb in Centennial Park . This is a capital crimhere. My son is innocent. Do ou have any case against me . I report the facts. Youve ruined this mans life. I didnt do this. Richard jewell, a Clint Eastwood film, rated r. Bnsf railway. Consumer cellular. And by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. Supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Mm ted to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org and with the ongog support of these institutions this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. D contributions to your pbs statn from viewers like you. Thank u. Captioning sponsored by newshour productio, llc captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Or er hello, evne, and welcome to amanpour co. During this thanksgiving holiday were taking a look back at some of o favorite interviews. So heres whats coming up. The man behind one of the most iconic. American and global bran even if youre a little bit unre, maybe i dont know, that job is going to ask more of me that i might be capable,u got to walk through it. You got to say yes. Give me a chance. Disney c. E. O. Bobjoins me for an extensive conversatiou his new memoir, his incredible career, and some of the most difficult tis in his life. Plus. In one of the manuscripts, he said the eye does not know the edge of any body. And indeed mona lisa does that. Two leonardo detees marvel at his genius. Biographer Walter Isaacson sits down with author martin kemp abous