PBS News Hour - Full Show - May 13, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

Wednesday on the News Hour, President Trump arrives in China for a meeting with Xi Jinping amid disputes over trade, Taiwan and the Iran war. A court overturns the double murder conviction of Alex Murdaugh. Plus, as Asian Americans remain the fastest-growing demographic group in the U.S., their history and the discrimination they've endured are often overlooked. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Amman Abbas. And I'm Jeff Bennett. On the news hour tonight, President Trump arrives in China for a meeting with Xi Jinping amid disputes over trade, Taiwan, and the Iran war. We cannot change each other, but then we can probably find a way to coexist peacefully. A court overturns the double murder conviction of Alec Murdoch, whose case captured national attention. And as Asian Americans remain the fastest growing demographic group in the U.S., why their history and the discrimination they've endured is so often overlooked. It is that question that we have been wrestling with

for much of the history of the American Republic, of who gets to be an American. Welcome to the News Hour. President Trump is in Beijing tonight for a state visit to America's chief global competitor and increasingly its chief geopolitical rival. Mr. Trump has long targeted China as an economic foe of the U.S.

While cultivating a relationship with its president, Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. As Nick Schifrin reports from Beijing, a host of global issues are on the table. Tonight, for the first time in nearly a decade, an American president landed in China. Onto a red carpet and into a synchronized ceremony by a country seeking stability. But President Trump also arrives to a China confident and hosting an embattled American president at war with a Chinese ally. Iran survived five weeks of war and now maintains a chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's oil and natural gas usually flows.

To help open the strait and make a diplomatic deal, a senior U.S. official says that President Trump will, quote, pressure Xi Jinping to exert his influence over Iran. Beijing hosted Iran's foreign minister just last week and buys 90 percent of Iran's oil. But a separate senior U.S. official told PBS NewsHour, it's unlikely that Xi Jinping will use leverage over Iran, a point shared by President Biden's Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia, Eli Ratner. Even though China does have major stakes, it's going to maintain an arm's length distance so not to get sucked in to the crisis itself.

China could benefit from the U.S. fighting a Middle East war with no obvious end. But China's also the world's largest consumer of oil transported through the strait. Certainly to China's benefit to see the United States stuck in yet another question in the Middle East, losing diplomatic strength and using up military power on the other side of the world. But the fact is that the energy crisis and the economic crisis emerging from the Strait of Hormuz has major implications for China. Taiwan holds even greater implications. The Trump administration recently authorized the largest weapon sale ever to Taiwan and has teed up an even larger sale. Do you think we should still be some weapons? Well, I'm going to have that discussion with President Xi.

President Xi would like us not to. And I'll have that discussion. That statement, despite 40 years of U.S. assurance to Taiwan, it will not consult the People's Republic of China on arms sales. That is not something the United States should do. We should not be in the business of negotiating Taiwan arms sales packages with Beijing. And we should not be viewing America's relationship with Taiwan as somehow a part of the U.S. China relationship. China also wants the U.S. to change diplomatic language set in 1998 by President

Clinton during trip to Shanghai. We don't support independence for Taiwan. China wants President Trump to be more declarative to say, quote, we oppose independence for Taiwan. The Taiwan question is the very core of China's core interests and the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations. China's Taiwan asks have sparked a letter from eight by bipartisan senators this week declaring to President Trump, you can make clear to Beijing that as you seek to level the economic playing field, American support for Taiwan is not up for negotiation. Well, there are some concerns that Trump may say things that undermine the U.S. policy

toward Taiwan. What is actually most important is, again, what the United States does after? Does Trump, after this visit, return to the business of supporting Taiwan diplomatically and supporting Taiwan's defense and resilience? Beyond the national security issues, much of the focus of this trip and deliverables from the summit are economic. President Trump arrives here with a delegation of prominent CEOs. The U.S. and China are discussing extending their trade truce, and they are considering launching a board of trade and investment alongside Chinese purchases of American products.

That includes Boeing jets and agriculture, including American beef and American pork. And despite bipartisan concern that Chinese investments could pose national security threats, President Trump recently said the U.S. is open for business. Because now if they want to come in and build the plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, that's great. I love that. Let China come in. That provides an opening to an already confident Xi Jinping, confident because as China expands its military and nuclear forces, it has withstood President Trump's tariffs. And found its own leverage. China restricted the export of rare earths and rare earth magnets

that the world needs for everything from electric vehicles to fighter jets. The United States is going to need those export controls lifted. Outside of China, very little supply currently exists for many of these materials and magnets. Graceland Boscarin is a mineral economist at the Center for Strategic International Studies. She says as part of last year's trade truce, China agreed to lift export restrictions, but it hasn't followed through. Quite recently, a number of aerospace manufacturing companies here in the U.S. have raised the alarm that if imports from China don't increase, they may have to pause manufacturing.

So even though the formal restrictions are on pause, the imports have not resumed to the levels that we'd like. The U.S. has its own leverage. It restricts the export of the most advanced computer chips that China needs for AI. And the U.S. could re-raise tariffs as the Chinese economy faces headwinds. But the Chinese feel confident, as I discussed today with Henry Wong, the president of the Beijing think tank, center for China and globalization. This 2026 summit is so different with the 2017 summit because at that time China was

not near peer status. And China's GDP has gone up almost 70% of the US and China become a leading power on the green transition. So I think in that aspect, China's achieved counter capability with the US. So as I said, there's a mutual deterrence now. So we have to really find a way to work together. China does have leverage over Iran. Is it willing to use that leverage if President Trump asked for it?

Or no, is it more interested in seeing this war continue? No, I think it's not in the Chinese interest to see this war continue. China was passively brought into this kind of mediating process. China would certainly like to do more. But also depends how well U.S. trade China. If U.S. trade China as a friend as an equal partner, as a, you know, workable partner, then they should give China some respect and should maybe look after China's core interests as well. Core interest, meaning Taiwan.

Yes. I think China is very concerned about Taiwan being supported by U.S. for the separatist and independent tendencies. So that is really, I think, important that our friends in the U.S. has to understand. So I think, you know, selling weapons of Taiwan, Trump is a businessman. He may want to proceed that. But I think, you know, China is certainly against that. I mean, you know, no matter what kind of weapons system China and Taiwan may have, it's compared with mainly peanuts. But how much is China willing to actually do when it comes to Iran?

When the U.S. sanctioned so-called teapot refineries that buy some of the Iranian oil, Beijing told the refineries not to listen to the U.S. sanctions to oppose the sanctions. I mean, it seems to me that Beijing has resisted U.S. attempts to try and use its leverage over Iran. Yeah, that's true. I think, you know, you know, Ghana, the days that the long-arms jurisdiction like U.S. is act as international law. You know, China is big enough not to follow the U.S. law. What does Beijing want to achieve at this summit?

To assure the global community, okay, the two largest economies, the two largest economies, two strongest leaders are meeting in Beijing. You know, we cannot change each other. But then we can probably find a way to coexist peacefully. We need to work together as two biggest country in this world. And tomorrow's meeting will help determine whether the U.S. and China embrace collaboration over confrontation. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Nick Schifrin.

In the day's other headlines, the Senate voted to confirm Kevin Warsh as the new chair of the Federal Reserve. The eyes are 54, the nays are 45, the nomination is confirmed. The vote landed mostly along party lines and comes as the central bank faces a difficult economic environment and ongoing challenges to its historic independence. President Trump has been pushing the Fed to cut interest rates despite rising inflation that included frequent criticism of outgoing chair Jerome Powell, who has said he plans to stay on the Fed's board after his term ends on Friday. The Trump administration is freezing some new Medicare enrollments as part of an effort to crack down on what it says is fraud in federal health programs. Vice President J.D. Vance announced the initiative today, warning that states could lose their funding if they don't cooperate. If they do not aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud, we are going to turn off the money that goes to these anti-fraud units.

Vance also announced a $1.3 billion deferral in Medicaid reimbursements to California over suspected fraud. California Governor Gavin Newsom's office pushed back saying, quote, we hate fraud, but that's not what this is. Newsom says the dispute involves a state program that provides home-based care to low-income and disabled residents, helping keep them out of more expensive nursing homes. In Louisiana, Republican state senators are pushing forward with the plan that would eliminate one of the state's two majority black districts. The proposed map could help the GOP pick up another seat in Congress in this year's midterms.

It leaves one Democratic stronghold remaining, largely based around New Orleans, and follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state's current House map. It was a topic of discussion on Capitol Hill today for Republican and Democratic leaders. It's disgusting, and Republicans are doing it openly in plain sight, targeting African American communities. This is who they are. The ultimate election integrity concern is to ensure that you don't have an election on an unconstitutional map. the highest court in the land says your map is unconstitutional, you cannot proceed. You can't have an election on an unconstitutional map. Also today, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp called lawmakers for a special session next month to

redraw maps there. Georgia joins Tennessee, Alabama, and others in reassessing their maps after the U.S. Supreme Court last month gutted the Landmark Voting Rights Act and said districts could not be drawn with consideration for race. Officials in Spain and Italy say at least 17 people have tested negative for possible hanta virus infection. That means the current number of cases stemming from a cruise ship outbreak stands at 11, with nine confirmed. Meantime, European health officials say a French patient is critically ill and is breathing

with the help of an artificial lung. They also say the outbreak likely started with a single animal to human transmission, as is typical for such infections. Here in the U.S. Good morning, everyone. It is my second day here at the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, and I just wanted to give you a little tour of my room. Travel blogger Jake Rosemarine gave the world a glimpse of life in his quarantine.

He's one of 18 Americans who were brought back home. He's asymptomatic, but expects to spend more than 40 days in quarantine to be safe. In the U.K. today, King Charles laid out the government's legislative agenda as Prime Minister Kier-Starmurr-Fights for his political future. The King's ceremonial speech is steeped in tradition, but the words themselves are not written by the monarch. They're written by the government in power. This year's address focused on areas like energy policy, defense and national security, but it's unclear whether Mr. Starmor will be able to see those priorities through.

He's facing growing calls from within his own party to step down and a possible leadership challenge from his health secretary. But Starrmer has said he's not leaving. In the Philippines, that country's Senate was thrown into chaos after apparent gunshots erupted inside the chamber during a live session in Manila. No injuries were reported. The incident came after a close ally of former President Rodrigo Duterte claimed police were moving to arrest him. Senator Ronald Della Rosa once led Duterte's brutal anti-drug crackdown, which rights groups say left thousands dead. De La Rosa and Duterte are both facing crimes against humanity charges before the international criminal court in the Hague. Duterte is already in custody there, awaiting trial. On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed after another discouraging report on inflation.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave back nearly 70 points, but the NASDAQ enjoyed a strong session adding more than 300 points. The SMP 500 also ended higher on the day. Still to come on the news hour, a look at why much of Asian-American people, history and the discrimination many have faced so often remains overlooked. Uganda's open-door refugee policy comes under increasing strain due to regional conflicts. And we remember the career and impact of Jason Collins, the NBA's first openly gay player. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News.

A murder conviction that gripped the nation and touched on power and privilege in the south is being tossed out. Former South Carolina prosecutor Alec Murdoch was found guilty of killing his wife and son on their estate. But today, the state's Supreme Court threw out his double murder conviction. Our Lisa Desjardin has more. In a unanimous opinion, the justice has overturned Murdoch's life sentence for the murders, pointing to shocking jury interference by a court clerk during the trial. Murdoch was convicted of killing his wife, Maggie, and son Paul on a summer night in 2021 at their secluded family compound. He took the stand, insisting he was innocent, but had to acknowledge he lied about his initial claim that he was not at the murder scene, disproven by incredible

cell phone video taken by his son shortly before his death. No murder weapon was found, but the jury deliberated just three hours before convicting him. State Attorney General Alan Wilson says he will hold another trial. Meantime, the disbarred lawyer, Murdoch, will remain in prison where he is serving a separate decades' law. sentence for stealing more than $12 million from his clients. No one knows this case better and what it means. Then Valerie Borlein from the Wall Street Journal, the author of The Devil at His Elbow, Alec Murdoch, and the Fall of a Southern dynasty.

Valerie, this is a dramatic decision, but is it surprising? Well, you know, Lisa, there have been so many surprising moments in this case, but yes, this is, and here there is another one. It is surprising. I think in a couple regards, it was a unanimous decision by a surprise. Supreme Court, that just sends a message that it was not even a close call, that they felt like the behavior of the clerk of court. I think they said it was breathtaking and disgraceful and was enough in spite of all of Alex's many misdeeds and they called out the judge and the lawyers

for their, for running a good, good proceeding. But they just felt like her errors were so egregious that they had no choice but to grant them a new trial. So yes, it is surprising to be where we are. Let's talk about that clerk, Becky Hill. You interviewed her at length before the book in the past. At one point, she was going to write a book, but can you spell out exactly what she did here? Well, I think it's important to remember that Walterborough, South Carolina, where the trial was held, is a really small town, about 5,000 people. And Becky knew many of the jurors, and she did write a book. She was later pulled from publication.

She acknowledged plagiarizing some parts of it. But it caused additional problems for her because there were some members of the jury who took umbrage at some of the things they said. And I think partly is how we got here. They, there were jurors. They said, well, that's not how it happened. And they wanted to set the record straight in some regards. In terms of the accusation that she tampered with the jury in favor of conviction, what exactly did she do? Well, you know, it's, there was a real question in the mind of these justices.

I went down in February for a long hearing where they kind of erred their concerns about the case. And their chief concern were Becky's errors harmless. Did she say a few things offhandedly to the jurors in passing? And they didn't change their view? Or were they so, is it so egregious for a member of the court to speak to jurors in a proceeding like that? Is that just a structural error that can't be denied? But what they agreed and they're filing that she did do, according to the jurors that were interviewed by the courts,

she talked to them, a couple of them, around the time that Elyke Murdoch took the stand. You referenced it, this kind of bombshell two days on the stand where he told his version of events and said things. The jurors said that Ms. Hill said things like, don't listen to what he said, watch his actions, or be careful as he testifies, you know, things like that. But the judges, the justices just felt like,

You know, there's no remedy except for a new trial if someone, and they said, places their finger on the scales of justice. And they further said, you know, justice is supposed to be blind and court officials are supposed to be mute. So we returned to this ecosystem that really was that incredible trial. Is there going to be a new trial? The attorney general says yes, but his term is up in January. He's running for governor. Do you think the next Attorney General and the state will, in fact, have a new trial? Yes. And the Attorney General Alan Wilson wasted no time in saying today that he would try him again.

And credit where credit is due, there's an outlet in South Carolina called Fitz News. And they surveyed a week or so ago all the candidates, the four candidates who are running for Attorney General. And to a person, they said they would retry him. The question is, where? Dick Harpoon-Land told me some weeks ago that, if they, the head defense lawyer, if they got a new trial, they would request a change of venue. So we're not exactly sure in the state where that might happen and when. There's a desire, I think, on both sides for a speedy trial, but what does that mean here kind of halfway through 26? It would be difficult to find a term of court for a couple weeks or however long they might

need this calendar year, even early into next year. So it's not clear when and where that trial might take place. Now, so much has changed, including that the location of the murders was sold and that scene itself was destroyed. Is this going to be much harder to prosecute now that so much time has gone by? Well, I think a lot of things have changed. Moselle, the property where Maggie Murdoch and Paul Murdoch were killed has been sold and broken up kind of into pieces. You know, there's some question, DeCarputlian mentioned to me that there would be real questions about whether Alec Murdoch might take the stand again. And the justices in their ruling, it was about 20 pages what they had to say. And they had said a couple of things about all that financial

evidence that we heard of the millions of dollars he stole from, he pleaded guilty to stealing from the least of these, his personal injury clients. There were some warning from the justices about treading lightly there. There might be, you know, just be careful how much of that comes in in order not to prejudice a jury. So it'll be a different proceeding. And I think, and we all sense it every day, I think technology has changed so much. We may have access to some parts of the records that make a little different sense than they did at the time. So we'll see. But no, it's a different landscape for sure. And there wouldn't be that same kind of bombshell evidence that you reference the video on Palmer Docks phone that was found fairly late in the game,

proving that Eleg was lying about where he was that night. So it'll be, I plan to be there every day, for sure. Oh, let me ask you the big question. For those who may not have paid attention, why do you think this case has generated so much thought? Well, you know, it was, we have to remember this, it was a six-week trial in 2023, by far the most streamed court proceedings. in this country ever. There was something so kind of baroque about it. But I really also think a couple things. There's this duality between the family that looks so perfect on paper, right? This beautiful clothing, furs, property, smiling, family. And then what was going on underneath the surface, there were so many secrets. And I also think we're really drawn to the south,

the rural south, the deep south over this happened. There's something about, the South that just invokes this picture in our minds. And I think the setting was a big part of this, too, for sure. Valerie Borlein, author of The Devil at His Elbow, we will keep watching along with you. Thanks so much for having me. President Trump's visit to China is a reminder of the long intertwined history between the two countries. Asian Americans are the fastest growing demographic group in the United States. Yet across 250 years of American history, their stories and the discrimination they faced have often been overlooked. Tonight, Judy Woodruff looks at how that passed continues to shape the question of who belongs in America. It's part of her series,

America at a crossroads. In the early morning light, Manhattan's Chinatown is already in motion. Vendors unpack for the day. Children head to school. And in Seward Park, Tai Chi warm-ups slow and steady. But this neighborhood also holds a darker story of arrival, exclusion, and resistance. This is kind of where Chinatown in New York City really got its start. I met up with journalist and author Michael Luo, whose latest book, Strangers in the Land, traces that history across the United States, beginning in California. As the hostility towards the Chinese got worse and worse, on the West Coast, they started to come east,

and they ended up here on Mott Street. And the story of Chinatowns in the United States is a story of exclusion, because these were essentially ethnic ghettos where people were just kind of clustered together in this Chinese quarter. To stay safe. Yeah.

But for Luo, the son of Taiwanese immigrants and now an executive editor at The New Yorker, the story began far from China Town. from Chinatown with a confrontation with a stranger on Manhattan's Upper East Side in 2016. She turned and said, go back to China. And so I, with the adrenaline flowing, trying to think of something smart to say in response, I yell, I was born in this country, and it just felt so pathetic. Luo sees his own personal experience growing out of a much deeper pattern in the country, one that was tested time and time again.

It is that question that we have been wrestling with for much of the history of the American Republic of who gets to be an American. We sat down inside Cooper Union's Great Hall, a stage for American debate for more than a century. At one point, I think you said the precarity. of the Asian American experiences. Precarity, I think, is a good word, because it might be easy for some Asian Americans to feel like, oh, you know, we are in these rooms

and we are successful and that kind of thing. But if there's some sort of shock to the system, like COVID, like an economic downturn, that precarity is revealed. And we've seen throughout American history the way that happens. An extraordinary place that preserves this history. Luo took us to the Museum of Chinese in America, which highlights that history, including

the massive influx of Chinese laborers during the gold rush. After that faded, many went on to help build the Transcontinental Railroad, segregated from white workers, and paid far less. This is a famous photo because there are no Chinese in it. Even though they played an enormous role. That gap between contribution and belonging kept widening. And by the 1870s, economic fear and political division were growing. That is when you start to see just, you know,

legions of unemployed, underemployed, white working men, as they called them. And also, I think the country was really politically polarized. It sounds familiar. This all sounds very familiar. Both the Republicans and Democrats, and remember, the Republicans were the party of Lincoln, freed the slaves, stood for equality in all these great ideals. They became just as ugly and vociferous in their rhetoric about the Chinese as the Democrats. And the reason is because they were trying to win the votes on the West Coast,

and so they needed California, Washington, Oregon, these young states that had a heavy influence of Chinese arrivals, and there was a growing hostility there. That backlash led to the Chinese exclusion, Act of 1882, the first U.S. law to bar entry to the United States based explicitly on race and nationality. Nearly 200 communities in the American West expelled the Chinese from their communities in many cases violently. And historians call this period the driving out, but that Chinese were still coming in and communities were upset and they took matters into their own hands.

In 1871, a mass lynching in Los Angeles killed at least 17 Chinese immigrants. Fourteen years later, another attack in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Anti-Chinese policies intensified. The 1892 Giriac forced Chinese residents to register and carry papers or face deportation. On the West Coast, many were detained at Angel Island. This is a photograph of an interrogation. And so you would come in, get off the boat, you would be sent to Angel Island, and they'd be interrogating you about your story. And so...

He looks young. Yeah. He looks young man. Maybe even a teenager. Yeah. During his research, Luo found a notebook from a sheriff. It's almost like mug shots. Tracking Chinese residents.

It's like a record of surveillance, which is, you know, you know, you know, are really haunting. Creepy. So some of these things like gone to China for good, 1900, went to China. And then you start to see this one, you see this one and says dead. When you look into their faces, like you're just kind of curious who they are, what their stories are. As restrictions grew, so did the resistance. Like here at Cooper Union, where Chinese activists gathered in 1892 to protest,

led by Wang Chin Fu. It's kind of extraordinary. We found a signature from the civil rights organization he co-founded hidden deep within the archives. You come down to September 22nd and it says Chinese Equal Rights League. Other Chinese community leaders ordered people to refuse registration. It was also during this period that the nationality of San Francisco-born Wang Kim Ark was challenged. leading to the landmark Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship that is again being tested in the courts today. For Luo, all this history reveals a consistent thread.

Difference is hard, I think, in our personal lives, I think, in our companies, in our churches, in our schools. And so I think just human nature, I think this is why this kind of experiment that was happening, in California, this multiracial experiment really was a test for us as a country, and we didn't do particularly well in it. The exclusion era lasted 83 years. Restrictions eased slightly during World War II, but full immigration equality didn't come until 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act here in New York at the feet of the Statue of Liberty.

That changed helped drive a new wave of migration, including Luo's own parents. Today, the United States is home to the largest Chinese diaspora outside of Asia. This is not just the story of the Chinese in America. It's the story of any number of immigrant groups who have been treated as strangers. Is the United States held to a higher standard

than other countries? I think we should be, Perhaps, you know, when you look at our founding documents that, you know, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, I mean, America has always been a place driven by that, the idea of America. We've stood for these ideals. And so maybe we should be judged by our higher standard. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Judy Woodruff in New York City.

The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has drawn attention away from other devastating wars around the world, including in Sudan, where millions of civilians have been displaced and many forced to flee to neighboring countries. The crisis comes as many donor nations sharply reduce refugee assistance, leaving humanitarian agencies scrambling to adapt. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports now from Uganda, long one of the region's leading destinations for refugees. In a world that seems ambivalent, even hostile toward refugees, Uganda stands apart. One hundred dollars.

Patrick O'Kello is Commissioner of Refugee Affairs overseeing what he readily calls an open-door policy. This is a very small number. Today has been a good day. Every morning, just outside his Kampala offices, hundreds of recent arrivals gather, on this day most from Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia. The vast majority are approved for asylum. In terms of rejection, it's about 2%,

which is the lowest number anywhere in the East African region and even in the world. We traveled to Kiriandongo about three hours from Uganda's capital where tens of thousands of refugees have settled and where hundreds continue to arrive every week. Uganda has perhaps the world's most liberal refugee policy, and over the recent decades, up to 2 million people fleeing conflict in surrounding countries have come here. They're given work permits, a small plot of land to cultivate, things to start life over.

That's never been easy in a low-resource setting, but after cutbacks in international aid programs in the last couple of years, it's become exponentially more difficult, and the government's been forced to make some tough decisions. Refugees here have come mostly from South Sudan in recent years. That country, carved out of Sudan in 2011 after decades of brutal civil war, has been beset by internal conflict since. Then, about three years ago, Sudan itself became racked by violence, sending waves of Sudanese into a neighborhood now occupied mostly by their former South Sudanese antagonists.

Beatrice Imani arrived here several years ago and settled into this home built with assistance from a non-government group and tins a small plot of land. This used to be yours. Then a chunk of it was recently taken from her, she says. They told me they had a lot of Sudanese coming in, so I had to give them some of this land. Food assistance, she used to get in commodities and later cash. That too went away.

They said they are going to give us food again, but that has not happened. Maybe those people are taking all the support. Resentment and conflict have arisen here, and even killings, driven as much by scarcity as old animosity, officials say. The stability of the situation in the settlements is something that is extremely worrying. Jason Heps heads the Uganda Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR has for years provided support to the Ugandan government, but this year it's raised just 10 percent of the funds it says are needed here. And so you have to triage.

Because they are new here, the Sudanese get priority, but they don't get much. 37-year-old Aisha Adan Musa, separated from her soldier husband, fled here from the Darfur region with four small children. arrivals in earlier years, there's no assistance to build her studio home than this tent-like structure. She receives just under $75 in food assistance, which must stretch for two months. I get some maize, yams, cooking oil. Sometimes I can buy tomatoes. I go to the market and around the neighborhood to collect clothes to wash so I can get something extra. I can make porridge with sugar for the kids.

Her children will not likely see a school anytime soon. This year, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of children, will just not, it will be a lost year for them. There's simply no money, he says, as most donor nations have reduced their assistance budgets. The U.S., by far the largest donor, cut its global humanitarian assistance to one-third of what it was two years ago. HEPS says health care funding has fallen through the floor. We had about all told $30 million. That was 24. In 25, that was reduced to about 15.

And this year we started the year with about $2 million. At the Panyadoli Health Center, serving some 300,000 people in the area, the staff has been trimmed from 133, two years ago, to about 50 today. them just two doctors. I'm delivering 85 to 90 women per week. One of them is Alex DeZita. And 45 beds to accommodate these women. And the rule you say is if you have a normal delivery,

you're on the floor. If you have a C-section, you have first dibs on a bed. Yes. To try to prevent complications, infections and so on. So on. Cesarian sections are common among the Sudanese patients, he says, due to the practice of female genital cutting. Out of five, you will find that Philly are by C-section.

Three out of five. Yes. As we spoke, I had to quickly duck out of the way as the family of a patient just behind us sought the doctor's attention. The patient had just delivered, and her blood pressure was. was spiking. Let me first bring my gloves. Last year, I didn't lose a mother.

But I've lost babies. I lost around 67 babies. 67 babies. How many of these would have been preventable if you had the amenities that you need? Around 50 of them would be preventable. He's worked to better the odds for babies, landing donations of incubators and improvising. This contraption with three naked light bulbs, for example. That was my phototherapy.

For baby, we have joined this yellow wing of the eyes and the skin. For Pilirobin. Overall, the survival rate of newborns here climbed from 90 to 96 percent between May 24 and May 2025. Mothers and babies are just one part of the workload here. On any given day, there are hundreds of patients with HIV, and malaria, with hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. Dr. Tazita says he hasn't taken a vacation since at least 2024, and he's been awake most of the

time. How many hours do you sleep? At some time, to yesterday, I have this place. You left this place at 3 a.m. And woke up. I was here. In response to UN appeals, the United States received. It's recently announced a $2 billion rent for humanitarian assistance worldwide.

The funds are to kick in later this year, with Uganda share at $75 million. That will cover a lot of the humanitarian immediate life-saving needs for health workers, for medicine, and what we were calling a bridge. A bridge that will span only a part of a sea of humanitarian need, he says, in a region where conflict seems unrelenting. Hosting refugees is a global shared responsibility. It should not be left entirely to Uganda long. We've given land, but the refugees need shelter.

We've given land. The refugees need food. We've given land. Children have to go to school. Children need health services. The women need to deliver children in decent hospital environment. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Fred Di Sam Lazaro in the Kiryandongor refugee settlement, Uganda. A pioneer in the world of sports has died. Jason Collins was the first openly gay athlete to play in one of the four major American sports leagues.

Today, tributes are pouring in for a man remembered as a beloved friend, a fierce competitor, and a tireless advocate for equality. He was a barrier-breaking basketball pro whose bravery inspired a generation. Jason Collins becomes the first openly gay athlete to play in any of this country's four major professional sports. Jason Collins, a seven-footer known for his hustle defense, played 13 seasons in the NBA for six different teams. But it was this 2013 essay he wrote for Sports Illustrated that made history, where he announced in the first three sentences, I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black and I'm gay. The country was

still two years away from legalizing gay marriage, and the revelation sent shockwaves through professional sports. Collins told ABC News that day, he was at peace. I think the country is ready for supporting an openly gay basketball player. Twelve hours later, how does it feel? It's incredible. Just try to live an honest, genuine life. And next thing you know, you have the president calling you. What did you say? He was incredibly supportive. Despite that high-profile support in the macho world of the NBA, the reaction was mixed.

Some responded with homophobia. Others like Kobe Bryant, who just two years before had been fined by the league for using an anti-gay slur on the court, praised him, tweeting, proud of Jason Collins, don't suffocate who you are because of the ignorance of others. For Jason to come out in 2013, pre-marriage equality, we're talking about a hostile culture. It's easy for us to forget what we were like as a nation, but we were not kind. And the NBA was not kind. Sports writer L. Z. Granderson covered Collins' career and was a friend. It was a starting center for a team that was in the NBA finals.

you don't get to be the starting center of a team that good unless you are excellent at what you do. And Jason Collins was an excellent basketball player. The league was forced to confront its internal homophobia within this organization and say, there's no way we can justify keeping out a veteran player who has been excellent in his career and caused no problems without looking like we're homophobic. After retirement in 2014, Collins became an ambassador for the NBA. Last night, NBA All-Star Jason Kidd who played with and later coached Collins called him a pioneer. He had courage like you've never seen, Kid wrote.

Those who knew him were blessed to call him a friend. You were already missed, my brother, rest in power. You know, I was blessed to be at his wedding. And the day before, I spent time with his uncle, who he has talked about before, his uncle came out first in the family and sort of took the brunt of the shock of it all for the family. When Jason came out, he's remarked that it was a lot easier because of his uncle. We've come a long way as a nation. And Jason was a major step in that progress in terms of us coming a long way.

Collins announced last year he was undergoing treatment for stage four glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. Granderson remembers his friend as much more than an athlete. So in addition to be a true competitor in the highest sense, in a professional in the highest sense, He was a wonderful friend. He was a wonderful brother, husband, son, uncle, and he was a wonderful friend. And I'm going to miss him a lot. The world is going to miss him a lot.

Collins tackled his diagnosis with the support of his friends and family and the same courage he'd shown in his career. I'm not afraid to break through a wall or try to do everything possible. I think because I'm such so surrounded by love. And I know that my family is so strong and they will be okay. Jason Collins was 47 years old. Even though half of the world's population will experience menopause, it's still a misunderstood phase of life, under-researched, and rife with misinformation.

On horizons from PBS News, which airs as both a broadcast and a podcast, R. William Brangham recently discussed why with two menopause. practitioners. Let's do a little bit of medical breakdown here. Menopause and perimenopause. Walk us through just some definitional understanding of what those two stages are. Okay. Well, menopause is a little bit easier to define because it does have a bright line, and that is

the time at which either your ovaries stop functioning naturally as a result of age, or you may have had surgery, you may have had chemotherapy, things that prematurely plunge you into menopause. menopause. So that's easy. It also marks the end of your reproductive years. So that's menopause. Parimenopause is, I think, where people start to get confused because they kind of know what menopause is, but the phase beforehand, which can go on anywhere from four to 10 years before you get to menopause, is where the confusion lies. And I think that a lot of doctors don't understand that this is a years-long process that needs to be dealt with. A lot of the symptoms that we associate with menopause, such as hot flashes and mood swings and night sweats and

sleeplessness, happen during perimenopause and oftentimes are worse doing perimenopause than after you. Oh, interesting. So it can be more volatile. Oh, yes. Yes, because what's happening, you know, there are two different things going on hormonally. And when you're in perimenopause, it's not that your hormones are low and completely gone. They're fluctuating wildly, and that is having effects throughout your body.

you know, mentally, physically. Hormonal rollercoaster. All of that hormonal change. So some days your hormones are too high. Some days it's too low. And that is what you are constantly feeling sort of out of sorts because you're not in the normal balance that you would have been in your premenopausal years.

And then once you get to menopause until you, four to ten years, well, how do you know how long it's going to be? You don't. You don't get a telegram in the mail saying, you don't. No one gives you an expiration date. And I think that the experience of menopause differs for different ethnicities. You know, black women in this country, even though we say that menopause average four to seven years for black women, that perimenopausal transition takes as long as 10 years.

And it starts earlier and their symptoms are more severe as they go through this transition. And yet they are the women who are least likely to have a discussion and to be prescribed hormones even when they're symptomatic. I want to ask you, Dr. Stryker, about this. What I have come to learn is a sort of seminal moment in the treatment of menopause. And this was in the early 2000s, when a decade-long study that was being run by the NIH about the effects of hormone replacement therapy was suddenly stopped because the studies authors said, whoa, we have detected a signal of real health implications.

I'm going to just put this graphic up and say, This was the Women's Health Initiative study, and it said, quote, long-term use increases the risk of breast cancer by 26%, stroke by 41%, and heart attacks by 29%. I know you were both treating women back at the time. Tell me a little bit about what the impact of that. We'll talk about the study in a moment, but the impact of that study must have been like a thunder clap. It was, I called it the flush that was heard around the world, because every single woman took her hormone therapy, flushed it down the toilet,

and not only were they terrified, they were angry. They were angry that I have been sold a bill of goods. And quite frankly, first of all, I just want to be very clear. The study was an excellent study. A lot of people say, oh, that study was a flawed study, it was a bad study. It was a very good study. The problem is that the women in the study were not reflective of most women when they're going through perimenopause and menopause today, 70%

of the women in that study were over the age of 60, completely different population. They were given a form of hormone therapy that we do not routinely use today. And it was the progestogen, the synthetic progesterone that was actually the culprit in terms of increasing the risk of breast cancer. It was not the estrogen, the conjugated equine estrogens, which we know actually is protective when it comes to the breast. The biggest issue though is your folks. It was the media.

The media completely misrepresented the data that was frightening both to women and to physicians, quite frankly, who did not read it correctly and analyze it. And the truth of the matter is, is the study was actually reassuring. 98% of the women in this study did very, very well. And once we realized that it was really the progestogen that was the culprit and changed that out to do something else, estrogen therapy, hormone therapy, is very, very, very very safe. But unlike any other study, I think, that we've ever dealt with in our lifetime, in our careers as physicians, it just doesn't go away. The repercussions of this keep going on

and on and on, and we're still explaining it away today. You can watch that episode of Horizons on our YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts and tune in for new episodes every weekend on your local PBS station. Meanwhile, the sixth season of the podcast on our Minds is out now. It's brought to you by the teens and PBS News as student reporting labs, which is our high school journalism training program. And this season marks America's 250th anniversary by exploring what it's like to be young in every corner of the country. On Our Minds is a teen life podcast produced by us for us with PBS News student reporting labs. We're your host, Zach from Southern California. And Helena from North Carolina. This year,

we're taking you on an audio road trip. Indiana is full of stories. Minneapolis is anything but ordinary. Driving through Winter Park, I remembered a part of me that had been lost the time. So you started dancing, pretending we could play along with the sculptures. You'll hear stories from young people all across the country. So buckle up and hop in. Because you're coming with us on the On Our Mind's road trip.

And you can find the On Our Mind series anywhere you get your podcast. Meanwhile, that is the News Hour for tonight. I'm Omna Navaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett for all of us here at the NewsHour. Thanks for spending part of your evening with us.