PBS News Hour - Full Show - May 26, 2026 - PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

Tuesday on the News Hour, negotiations to end the war falter as the U.S. strikes Iranian missile sites. We report from the location of a deadly attack on a school in southern Iran. The president gets his fourth checkup since returning to the White House, renewing scrutiny of his health. Plus, how artificial intelligence and interactive labs are used to help teach the next generation of nurses. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Amna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. On the news hour tonight, negotiations to end the war falter as the U.S. strikes Iranian missile sites. We report from the location of a deadly attack on a school in southern Iran. The president gets his fourth checkup since returning to the White House, renewing public scrutiny of his health. And we explore how artificial intelligence and interactive labs are being used to help teach the next generation of nurses. The students are here in a safe environment where it's okay for them to make their eras because that's a teachable moment. Welcome to the News Hour. Two ceasefires are on shaky ground tonight. Iran says the U.S. has violated its truce after the U.S. carried out what it called self-defense strikes against Iranian missile launch sites and boats. And Israel is escalating its offensive against Hezbollah and Lebanon.

Still, U.S. officials insist both ceasefires remain intact, and they await a response from Iran on the latest outlines of a deal to end the war. But at least publicly, Iran is digging in, accusing the U.S. of acting in bad faith, and Iran's Navy claims that dozens of tankers have passed through the Strait of Hormuz since yesterday only with their permission. William Brigham starts us off. Across the airwaves in Iran today, state broadcasters promised consequences for recent U.S. strikes that came in the middle of peace negotiations. The foreign ministry, in a statement condemning the ceasefire violation by the U.S. terrorist military, emphasized that the Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered. And on the streets of Tehran, continued public displays of defiance, like this huge banner, depicting President Trump's mouth stitched shut with a ribbon shaped like the Strait of Hormuz,

claiming the U.S. had reached, quote, the breaking point. The U.S. military said it carried out so-called self-defense strikes last night against Iranian missile launch sites and boats that were attempting to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. said they were carried out with restraint in light of the weeks-long ceasefire. But some Iranians viewed it as more evident. that the U.S. could not be trusted. The politicians should not pay any attention to America and their agreements at all because they really go back on all their agreements.

U.S. officials insist the ceasefire is holding. Secretary of State Michael Rubio told reporters the strikes won't set back the peace talks, but he said the details could take some time. Like anything with something like this, it's going to take a couple days to settle on even down to the down to the disagreements over a word, sentence. It's either going to be a good deal or there isn't going to be one. Both Iranian and U.S. officials have cited progress towards an initial deal that would lead

to further negotiations, including on the fate of Iran's nuclear program. In what amounted to a potential softening of his position, President Trump wrote on social media last night that Iran's highly enriched uranium would be, quote, destroyed in place or at another acceptable location with the Atomic Energy Commission or its equivalent being witness. That echoes what Iranian officials have told the news hour that they are willing to export their highly enriched uranium to the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, but not to the U.S. Still, there has been no public confirmation that Iran is willing to restrict its nuclear

program, which it has always claimed is for civilian use only. As part of the latest proposal, there would be an end to all fighting, including in Lebanon. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered more frequent and heavier strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants across Lebanon, despite a U.S. brokered ceasefire there that remains in name only. Massive strikes overnight leveled entire blocks in southern and eastern Lebanon, killing at least a dozen people. Netanyahu huddled with his top military officials today and later announced that Israeli troops would be pushing further north. Under my direction, the IDF is operating with large forces on the ground and is seizing controlled areas. Israeli military officials said their operations will push past the so-called yellow line of demarcation near Lebanon's southern border. Israel has said it will not withdraw until Hezbollah is no longer close enough to pose a thing.

threat to its northern villages. For the BBS NewsHour, I'm William Brangham. For a view on the latest developments in the war with Iran, we turn now to John Bolton, former national security advisor and President Trump's first term. During his tenure, the U.S. announced it was withdrawing from the JCPOA, that's the nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated during the Obama administration. Pastor Bolton, welcome back to the Newshour. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So you've been saying in recent interviews repeatedly that you do not believe the U.S. should be negotiating with Iran or working towards a deal that the U.S. needs to use military force to open the Strait of Hormuz. Explain to us what that means

what it would look like. Well, the Iranians have made palpable what was a potential threat to close the Strait of Hormuz for many years, and people discounted it. We benefited from it from lower oil prices. Now they've closed it and threatened the use of force. I think that their efforts to negotiate a reopening of the strait are simply intended to demonstrate that they do control it and that you have to bargain with them before they'll consent to let Arab oil and other cargoes come out of the Gulf. I think that's a mistake because if they negotiate an end to the blockade of their own oil and opening the strait to everybody else, I think they'll believe they can turn the strait of Hormuz on and off like a light switch.

And if we're not prepared to use force today, who in the future is going to be prepared to use it? I don't understand why the Gulf Arabs can even contemplate this, but I think we have a larger obligation because if this precedent is established in the Strait of Hormuz, not only will it have continuing negative economic consequences for the world because of the oil and gas coming from the Gulf, but it will call into question every other international waterway similar to the geography of the Strait of Hormuz. like the Dardanelles and the Bosporus in Turkey, like the Strait of Malacca between Malaya and Malaysia and Indonesia. These have been deemed for centuries to be international waterways, to which ships have right of free passage. And if that is taken away, this is a much bigger change than just the Strait of Hormuz. Ambassador, if I may, wouldn't U.S. military action in that way,

wouldn't that immediately lead to Iran striking more of America's? Gulf allies in the region. These are allies who do not want the war to resume, have reportedly been pushing the Trump administration to try to reach a deal? Well, we don't know what Iran will do. They're as good as bluffing as the Trump administration is. And he had a plan to open the strait and backed away from it. I think because the Gulf Arabs were not at all sure he would continue to defend them. Look, this is a regime in Tehran that's desperately playing for time. And if we let it up off its back, if we effectively give it control of the strait, and they're able to gain the oil revenues from resuming export of their

oil, they will rebuild the Quds Force, they will rebuild the besieged militia, they will rebuild their nuclear program, they will rebuild their missile program, they will rebuild their drone program, they'll repress their own people, and they're threatened the Gulf in the Middle East even more than before. I want to ask you about the regime in just a moment, but specific to the Strait of Hormuz, we did speak to an expert in maritime traffic who talks to a lot of the shipping companies. And this person maintained that the shipping companies don't trust that the U.S. could keep the straight open, that Iran maintains a lot of low-tech capabilities. They could continue to attack ships.

It doesn't take a lot to damage those ships, this person told us. So if the companies don't trust that the strait is safe, what difference does it make? Well, in the Project Freedom, 36 hours while it lasted, Mersk, which is one of the biggest shipping companies in the world, maybe the biggest, had one of their cargo vessels come out. Two American flagships went in. American destroyers were attacked and destroyed the attacking Iranian drones and fastboats. I'm not saying it would be easy, but I am saying that if you allow Iran to keep control of this in effect, whether there's a lot of it.

charging quote unquote environmental tolls or not, we are going to come to regret it in a major way. And so should every other country around the world that depends on freedom of the seas, because that is the fundamental question that Iran is raising here. What had been an international waterway where there was a right of innocent passage, not only for commercial vessels, but even for warships in time of peace, that right of innocent passage is on the way to being history. I've heard in other interviews you've also been calling for regime change, a full-on regime change in Iran. And I want to point you towards some reporting from the New York Times recently, where they talked about the fact that Iran's military remains much stronger than we've heard from President,

from President Trump and from this administration, according to one assessment that they've kept operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz. Why do you think that Iran has proven to be so much more resilient than this administration? seem to expect? Well, I don't know what the administration expected, and I don't know exactly whether we can judge the accuracy of these reports compared against what the Pentagon has said. But I would say this. The Iranian regime has spent 47 years entrenching itself in power. Think of it as an even bigger version of Hamas that over the years spent billions of dollars,

not for the benefit of the Palestinian residents of Gaza, but to build a fortress of tunnels under the Gaza Strip. That's what the regime in Iran has done. Now, you know, if we were going to go after regime change, I certainly would have done many different things than what the Trump administration has done. And you have to rely on the estimates of your military and intelligence for what you think is necessary and plan for the contingency that maybe you need to do more. Because the Iranian regime has proven to be more fanatic and more desperate to keep itself

in power than perhaps the Trump White House realized simply proves the importance of getting rid of this regime before it is able once again to pursue nuclear weapons and international terrorism around the world with the threat of death and destruction that those programs entail. That is, former national security advisor, Ambassador John Bolton, joining us tonight. Good to speak with you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. The U.S. and Israel's air war with Iran has killed thousands since it started nearly three months ago. But few attacks have left a deeper mark than the strike on a school in southern Iran on the war's opening day.

More than 150 people were killed when airstrikes hit the school in Menab, most of them children. And there is little dispute that the missiles were American made. Special correspondent, Reza Seya, is the first American television journalist who report from the site and he sent us this report. Every night for more than 12 weeks, Asma Morayrini says she sits, prays and grieves in front of what's left of Shajarayybe Elementary School.

The sounds of children are still here for me. I can still hear them in my mind. Ever since this happened, my heart has been broken. For Asma and the people of Minab, the grief and pain of what has pain of what happened here still feels fresh. The elementary school believed to be hit by a U.S. Tomahawk missile strike on February 28th, the day U.S.

and Israeli forces attacked and started war with Iran. Fazil Ali Nijad says he was working just a mile away when he heard the booming sounds of missiles hitting Mina. There was the first explosion, the second, third, fourth explosion. My nephew and I took out our phones and started filming. This is what he shot. Fasel says he didn't know what was hit. He just raced towards the smoke until he arrived at the school.

The school building had collapsed. There was smoke coming from the windows. For a moment I asked myself, maybe this is a dream. You're dreaming. Please let this be a dream. I can't have a dream. I looked on the ground, body parts, small body parts, hands, fingers, heads. This is a satellite image of the two-story elementary school prior to the strike.

Authorities here say two missiles fired minutes apart, flattened half the building, burying children inside. All I did was dig like a madman. My hands and fingernails were bleeding. All I did was dig. Just in case... I'm sorry. Just in case we find someone alive.

The Pentagon says what happened here is still under investigation, and the school was inside an active military base. It's not. That's a lie. Jafar Karimi lives near the school. He and other residents say the area used to be a military facility, but that was more than a decade ago. decade ago. The walled area that houses the school has a pharmacy, a cafe, and a cultural center, but no obvious signs of military facilities.

The conclusion is clear. It's a school. America lies. Netanyahu lies. Their Arab allies lie. Authorities here say among the 168 victims of this airstrike, 120 were students between the ages of 6 and 11. We don't have time to give you all of their names, but we're going to introduce you to some. This young man is Seper Karimi. This young lady, proudly holding up her school certificate, is Moteharah Ahmed Zadeh. This young lady is Atare Zarei. This young lady is Khadija Darwishi. This little man, Muhammad Tomah.

Jaffari. This young man with the big eyes, Hami Sadieqi. This young man is Muhammad Sadegh Kulami. This young man is Ali Hafizi. This little man with a big smile is Amir Hossein Jaffari. And here's another young lady, proudly holding up her school certificate. Hanana Mehthah. These are some of the adult victims, mostly teachers and some parents. Authorities say they recovered remains of every victim except one, Makhon Nasiri. But they're not giving up.

Every night volunteers carefully sift through crushed concrete, debris, and shredded pages of notebooks, hoping to find Mokon. even parts of him for a proper burial. This is another one of Minop's heartbreaking nightly rituals. This is the local cemetery here in the city of Minab, and this is where all the victims of the school bombing are buried. Every day at sunset, families of victims come to mourn their loved ones. They sit and pray.

They light candles. They celebrate birthdays of loved ones no longer here. This touch is how Abba Smirani tells his son Arsha he misses him. But he's also honored that in his view, Arsha is a martyr. We had to sacrifice this blood for our country, for our people to understand. No American soldier, no European or Western country will ever bring us peace and security. We knew this from the beginning, but when our children were martyred, our people woke up, nation woke up.

11-year-old Reihane Mehdi Kha was at the school when the missile hit. When they hit the school, the entire building shook from side to side. The window shattered, everything was shaking. It was only by chance Rehanai was in this section of the building, the section that didn't collapse. This part of my face was cut open and full of blood. saw there was an opening we could go through and I followed them. We were on the second floor. We climbed down over the debris until we got to the school yard.

Hours later, Rejane learned that she had lost her little sister, a first grader at the school. Rayhanna says she has hate in her heart for what happened to her sister, but not for the American people. It's just the government that's cruel and dirty. Most people in America are good. They know this is not right. What's right, many hearsay, is to defend the honor of the children of Shajara-Taybe Elementary School and continue the fight against the United States. The country they blame for what they call a crime they'll never forget or forgive. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Reza Seya in Minab, Iran. We start today's other headlines with two developments from the nation's redirements.

districting fight. South Carolina's Senate rejected a push from President Trump to redraw its maps in a way that would have eliminated the state's only majority black district represented by longtime Democratic Congressman James Clyburn. Some Republican lawmakers argued it was too late to enact new district lines with early primary voting starting today. And a federal court in Alabama is temporarily blocking a plan that would eliminate one of that state's two majority black districts. For now, Alabama, will use the same districts from the 2024 election, though the state's Republican leaders are expected to appeal.

In Washington state, authorities say an undisclosed number of people died when a chemical tank imploded earlier today. At least 10 people were injured and others remain missing. Fire officials say that a tank containing a chemical solution that's used in the paper making process ruptured at the Nippon-Dinawave packaging company. Authorities say some victims had suffered, burns or inhalation injuries, but there is no immediate threat to the public. Meantime in California, emergency officials have lifted an evacuation order for thousands of

people who live near a damaged chemical tank. They say temperatures have fallen enough to eliminate the risk of a major explosion, but they warn there's still a chance for a smaller blast or a fire. As a result of the decreased threat, authorities reduced the evacuation zone in the city of Garden Grove, saying it's safe for about two-thirds of the affected residents there, to return home. I want to reassure everyone who is outside of the new evacuation zone that when you go home, you can feel safe. There was no contamination.

There were no fumes. There were no vapors that came from this incident. There was no leak. Despite the signs of progress, around 16,000 people are still not allowed to go home. The officials say they'll keep monitoring the air and checking the sewer and storm drains in the coming months for any sign of contamination. Well, there was a full. A blurry of activity from the U.S. Supreme Court today, while there were no major rulings,

the justices decided the fate of a handful of cases, including Florida's attempt to sue California and Washington State over commercial licenses for drivers who don't speak English and who entered the U.S. illegally. The justices rejected the long-shot bid, which stems from a crash in Florida last year that killed three people. They also sided with the Trump administration in a free speech case involving immigration judges and how they get approval for public speaking engagements. They refused to intervene in a discrimination lawsuit brought by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores against the NFL. And they declined to hear a bid by META to block a Vermont lawsuit accusing the tech company of harming young users. In Western Europe, an early heat wave is

shattering records and raising health concerns for millions across the region. For a second day in a row, the UK broke a century-old heat record for May, with temperatures topping 95 degrees Fahrenheit near London. Meantime, firefighters in Scotland have been battling a wildfire near Edinburgh. British authorities say at least four people have died in drownings that may be connected to the heat. Similar fatalities have been reported in France, which also broke its heat record for May on Monday. Health officials there are warning people to take the heat seriously. You need to protect yourself from these heat waves, even if we're starting to get used to them. Check on vulnerable people around you who might be less likely to think about drinking water.

It's a kind of general solidarity needed with this heat wave underway. The unseasonal heat extends to the south as well, with tourists and locals braving high temperatures today in Rome, among other places. The heat there is expected to peak tomorrow before starting to cool off. On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed following the long holiday weekend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slip. more than 100 points, but the NASDAQ surged around 300 points or more than 1%. The S&P 500 also posted a solid gain.

And Clarence B. Jones has died. He was a lawyer and organizer during the civil rights movement of the 1960s and a close personal friend of Martin Luther King Jr. That's Jones behind Dr. King in 1963. Jones helped plan the march on Washington that same year and drafted parts of the famous I Have a Dream speech. In the first few paragraphs, Jones wrote that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were a promissory note for future generations to cash in. Words then delivered by Dr. King. This note was a promise at all men. Yes, black men as well as white men

would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jones was the unsung hero behind a number of landmark civil rights. events, which included a pivotal role in sneaking out Dr. King's notes that later became his letter from Birmingham jail. More than a half a century later, in 2024, Jones received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Clarence B. Jones was 95 years old. Still to come on the NewsHour, health workers in Central Africa struggle to slow the Ebola outbreak as officials warn its outpacing containment efforts. Historian John Meacham joins the News Hour podcast to reflect on 250 years of the States. And we look back at the remarkable life of the late jazz legend, Sunny Rollins.

This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, headquarters of PBS News. President Trump's health is under renewed scrutiny this evening, as his more frequent than usual screenings seem at odds with his own proclamations of being in exceptional health. This morning he got his fourth publicly announced exam of his second administration. Our White House correspondent, Ms. Landers is here with what we know and what we don't know about the health of the president. So, Liz, tell us about today's visit. What do we know? The president was at Walter Reed Medical Facility for about three and a half hours.

He was also there, apparently, according to the schedule to meet with troops and to speak with them as well. But this is the third medical checkup that he's had in about 13 months. He's also had a dental checkup a few weeks ago in Florida. This is the oldest president to ever be inaugurated. But listening to the president and his aides, he's constantly touting his vitality and his health. He said on truth social after his visit that he finished his six-month physical and that everything checked out perfectly. We have reached out to the White House to ask for a more detailed readout of what tests were done, what happened while he was there today.

White House officials said that they are still working on it. We have not gotten that yet. But I did speak earlier today with former White House physician Dr. Jeffrey Kulman. He wrote a book on serving presidents. He served under Clinton, Bush, and President Obama. And he said that most 80-year-olds go to the doctor frequently. President Trump is almost 80. So he said that this is likely related to his age and not necessarily to his position as the president. He also explained that a visit to Walter Reed is usually for more advanced medical checkups, like a colonoscopy, an MRI, a CAT scan, things that you cannot do at the doctor's office within the White House. They do have that facility there, Omna, that allows for blood tests, he said, some kinds of dental checkups,

and they can also do ultrasounds there as well. So what did Dr. Coleman say he would be looking for if he were President Trump's doctor? Dr. Coleman said that he has three main things that he's looking for. Here's what he told me earlier today. Specifically for an 80-year-old president, advanced age is by far the number one concern.

I'd worry about cardiovascular fitness, cancer, and making sure they don't have neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Coleman also said that for a patient, the president's age, that he'd want to do a treadmill test to test that cardiovascular health, also a cat scan of his heart to look at coronary arteries. He said when it comes to cancer, that the president has a lower risk of that. He's a non-smoker and has always been a non-drinker as well. He said for cognitive health, that he would recommend doing more advanced cognitive tests than something fast. And I also asked him about some of the images that people have seen

of the president. The president has been photographed with swollen ankle. recently also bruises on his hands. The president has said that the bruises on his hands are from aspirin use and handshaking. He has covered those up with makeup. Dr. Coleman said that those can be benign explanations as for why the president may have those swollen ankles and those bruising on his hands. But he's concerned about the transparency around that and maybe that the public is not getting all the information that they need. We'll see if the White House releases more information. In the meantime, some of the president's activity has caught the public's attention as well, specifically things like his late night social media activity, a lot of flurry of tweets and so on,

the habit of closing his eyes during some daytime meetings. What did the doctor say about the president's sleep habits? The president has been posting really late at night. Sometimes after one in the morning, we've seen some recent examples of that. Dr. Coleman's take on that was that he thinks that, you know, people that survive on sleep deprivation, It's actually not good for your mental or physical health. So he did have some concerns about some of the late night posting that we've seen from the president. He also noted that President Biden was evaluated for this and used CPAP for sleeping.

And President Trump has attacked President Biden consistently for his lack of energy and stumbling during public events. But critics of President Trump have noted recently some of those moments where his eyes are closed in meetings on them. All right, our White House correspondent, Liz Landers. Liz, thank you. Of course. At least 220 people are believed to have died from the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa, with suspected cases now nearing 1,000. The Director General of the World Health Organization warned the outbreak is spreading so quickly

that response efforts are struggling to keep pace. The epicenter remains in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where deep mistrust of health authorities is complicating containment efforts, Funerals organized by the Red Cross teams are now taking place under military and police escort and after several health care facilities were attacked in recent days. Here's how one Red Cross volunteer described the resistance she's encountered. We've come to tell the people of Bibo Colomani that the disease is here. Unfortunately, we're facing resistance, and some people want to stone us, but we're not going to give up.

We're continuing to tell them that the disease is here. Some accept it and others don't. We fear that because the resistance is strong, people will continue to die, but we're not giving up. For more on the outbreak and efforts to contain it. We're joined now by Dr. Saline Gounder, editor-at-large for Public Health at KFF Health News. Thanks for being with us. My pleasure. You were on the ground back in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

As you watch this outbreak unfold, what stands out to you most about the response? You have many of the same conditions that we saw during the 2014-2016 West African epidemic. So, again, we have no vaccine, no specific treatment, which at the time was the case with that species of Ebola. We're seeing delayed detection in part because of difficulties with contact tracing, a health care system that is dysfunctional, cross-border spread in part by migrant workers. On top of that, you have armed conflict. You have these militants backed by the Rwandan government in much of the affected area. You also have refugee camps in southern Sudan. And Kampala, where we've seen some of the cases in Uganda, is a major travel hub.

So you have all of the conditions ripe for a huge epidemic. And you've raised concerns about the cuts to USAID at a moment like this. Walk us through the practical impact, the capabilities, the staffing, the response infrastructure that is potentially undermined by a lack of funding. So a key number here is one in five. One in five contacts of Ebola cases or who've had high risk exposures. Only one in five are currently undergoing contact tracing and follow-up. So once they're identified, having follow-up for three weeks to make sure they don't develop symptoms,

they develop symptoms that they're isolated and they receive treatment. And that's exactly the kind of work that the people who were funded by USAID were doing. And so now you don't have local health care workers funded to do that contact tracing, to do the isolation, and then also importantly, safe burials. So a key part of Ebola control is if somebody passes away from Ebola, that the body is handled safely. that other people don't get infected. And that requires special, safe burial teams

that have the equipment to do this and also have a relationship with the community to do this safely. You mentioned the cross-border spread of Ebola. What should people understand about the risk beyond the region? Well, I do think we're going to see a very large regional outbreak. We may see some sporadic cases outside of the immediate region.

I don't think for a whole host of reasons that we're going to see sustained transmission outside of the region. Our level of infection control in health care facilities is much higher in Western health facilities. We also have better water, sanitation, and so forth. So I don't think you're going to see that kind of explosive spread outside of the region, but we may see some sporadic cases. And researchers at the University of Oxford, as I understand it, are testing a next generation Ebola vaccine using technology,

similar to what was used during the COVID pandemic. How promising does that appear at the moment? This is still very early stage, and I'm not aware of anything that is ready for human clinical trials at this stage. Ideally, you would have something that you could study in the middle of an outbreak. That's the best way to actually get data on the vaccine quickly, but I don't think that we have anything that's ready for prime time yet. Dr. Celine Gounder, thanks for your insights as always. We appreciate it. As we've been reporting, there's real concern about the growing prevalence of AI and other technologies in higher education. But some schools have found benefits as well. In the case of

nursing programs, more and more are integrating immersive technologies like generative AI and virtual reality into their curricula. Allie Rogan spotlights one of those for our series Rethink in College. It's a familiar hospital scene. The patient's heart has stopped. It's a code blue emergency. But this patient is a mannequin. And while this looks and sounds like a hospital, it's an immersive, interactive lab. It really mirrors just what they will see in any given day in the hospital.

Tina Scott is director of the Experiental Learning Center at North Carolina Central University. There are scenarios, case studies that we can embed and just transform that room into any type of scenario we would want it to be. You hear beeping, you may hear someone screaming, they can even simulate smells. North Carolina has one of the largest projected nursing shortages in the country. To help meet demand, schools like North Carolina Central University, a historically black institution, are turning to technology. We're able to train more students.

We're able to bring more students in any event that we cannot get a clinical space. We can do a clinical day right here. Even CCU does not have a hospital, which means students have faced barriers to securing clinical placements where they would get hands-on experience in a real-world health care setting. We're competing against a lot of other nursing schools for clinical rotations. So immersive technology is expanding access for students like Jasmine Locklear, a member of the Lumby tribe of North Carolina. I grew up in a real small southern rural area.

to health care isn't always the best. I wanted to be the change for our people that we needed to create. NCCU introduced virtual reality clinic goals two years ago. Hello, my name is Haley. I'll be the nurse working with you today. Students are put in virtual healthcare settings where they treat patients that are powered by conversational artificial intelligence. Can you state your inhibitor birth for me? My name is Habib Abdallah. I was born on July 13th, 19, He's very sensitive, so very realistic, and they go in and take care of the patient. Mr. Habib, are you in any pain? I have a headache created around four out of ten, but I don't want any pain medication.

First-year nursing student Haley Turner thinks this kind of practice is invaluable. The biggest things that I'm, you know, still get a little nervous about, is actually talking to the patient, like knowing what to say, knowing the right questions to ask them. them. Clemson University researcher Jason Thrift says exam room nerves are common. Simply knocking on the door and walking in the first time and being able to just talk to a patient. That can be the most scary, trying thing that they do when they're first trying to understand these processes. So putting them in VR, that can kind of take away some of that angst. Jasmine Locklear had a miscommunication with one of her AI patients. I do have an accent sometimes, and I needed to announce.

she ate better so that I didn't offend the patient because she kept telling me that I was pronouncing her name wrong and that's a very real scenario that I could experience in the hospital. Scott says VR clinicals sharpened several skills. Critical thinking. That patient is vital signs of changing. What am I going to do? Not only that but delegation. You know, now that I'm in this room taking care of this patient, all of a sudden I'm getting a buzz from my other patient in the other room. What do I do? Prioritization. Which patients should I go see first?

Kimberly Johnson is in the accelerated nursing program. I had four patients that were all, well, that could have all been deemed high priority. Walk me through that decision-making process. How did you prioritize those four patients? So we have something called pre-brief. It allows you to see the client's vital signs. It allows you to see their diagnosis. It allows you to see medications.

And it also allows you to see what was done before you entered that VR clinical. And so I often would just use that as my guide to say, hey, if this was already done for this client, I know that I can lower this client's priority status. Afterwards, students debrief with their instructors. We're able to talk to them about their behaviors, what went well. It actually will give them a report. So they're actually able to see their gaps. Those things they may need to work a little bit more on.

It also helps us tailor a better plan for them. And says Professor Janice Collins-McNeil, since these are simuling, there are no life and death mistakes. The students are here in a safe environment where it's okay for them to make their errors because that's a teachable moment. But there are drawbacks to headset training. The VR in particular isn't great if you have emotion sickness. But Locklear says illness isn't an issue in the immersive interactive room,

where students can experience more than 2,000 medical training scenarios with images and graphics projected onto the walls. Johnson raced the clock to spot all the hazards in a hospital room. Sharp's been overflowing. When I'm walking into rooms at a hospital during clinical, these are the things that I need to be looking for. The technology is used to test knowledge through interactive games like Jeopardy. A client is experiencing a nosebleed. Work terminology with a nurse use when documenting this.

It is epistasis. the stasis. After the introduction of immersive technologies, North Carolina Central's pass rate for the nursing licensure exam rose from 94 to 96 percent. Professor Collins McNeil thinks her students are more prepared than ever. We're seeing a level of professionalism that we had not seen this early in their education. They're much more critical in their assessments and their decision-making. I think that we will see VR become kind of a mainstay for a while. As nursing programs grow to meet high demand,

Clemson's Jason Thrift predicts the use of virtual reality will grow too. It may provide an ability to do more clinical aspects, even including when they become a nurse, to help renew training for, say, CPR. Jasmine Locklear, for one, is eager to put her high-tech training to good use in the real world. There's something at home that we like to say about making the impact that lasts the next seven generations.

As a nurse and a future family nurse practitioner, I want to make sure that we're living our healthiest life and we're not still dealing with the health disparities that plague our communities. America's nursing shortage is critical, but on this campus, America's nurses to be are showing strong signs. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Ali Rogan in Durham, North Carolina. We turn now to our PBS video podcast, Settle In. at an episode with Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian and best-selling author John Meacham.

We talked about his latest book, American Struggle, which looks back at historical texts to tell us more about who we are today and why he still has hope in the state of our democracy. Here's part of that conversation. There's a difference between optimism and hope, right? Hope is the opposite of fear. I am still full of hope that we can construct a present and a future commensurate with the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence and the country that abolished slavery and preserve the union and extended suffrage and did away

with Jim Crow. But the same country that did away with Jim Crow created Jim Crow, right? The same country that extended suffrage, denied suffrage. The same country that abolished slavery, protected slavery. So it's never fully light versus dark. I thought after Charlott's full, after the tone and the chaos of the first Trump term, I thought the country would say, you know what, we wanted to send a message to the establishment, the world as it's taken shape, since, really since the mid-1960s, has not been commensurate with our cares and concerns. So get it together. I thought that message had been sent and that people, having sent it, would realize that the messenger

was now actually causing more harm than good. And in 2020, that was proven right. President Biden's been elected. There's a certain return of gravity. history confounds us. Human nature confounds us because in the midst of that return of gravity was the introduction to shift metaphors of a particularly devastating virus into the body politic, which is the denial of full free and fair elections if you don't like the result. And so the undermining of trust in the ways in which the will of the people is expressed,

was something I didn't foresee. It's worth noting you're close to President Biden. You've called him a friend. You've called him an American hero. You've advised him on his speeches. Understanding there were a lot of other forces at play, the pandemic, as you mentioned, and a lot of other things happening in the country bubbling up for a generation at least. How do you look back now on what President Biden as a leader and his administration did or didn't do

that also helped to get us where we are today? And not just the decision to run again, right, which has been called into question and examined a dozen different ways, but also maybe not going after some of the officials from the first Trump administration the way some Democrats wanted them to. How do you look at that now? So the first answer before I blather on is I'm not sure. My friend Michael Beschloss, our friend Michael Beschloss likes to say it takes 20, 25 years to be able to assess a presidency and historical terms as opposed to journalistic. ones. And I think that's true. It was true for Truman. It was true for George Herbert Walker Bush. And it's going to be true for President Biden. What happened with President Biden and choosing to run again was in many ways a classic tragedy. And I mean it this way. The personal characteristics that enabled Joe Biden from 1972 until 2020, to survive and even ultimately thrive amid immense personal tragedy and remarkable political setback and stasis, right? Those characteristics prevented him from stepping away.

I do not think, and I would bet the mortgage on this, I don't think President Biden was clinging to power because he wanted an airplane or because he loved power so much. It was a result of his resilience, his determination to keep moving no matter what, and not ever surrendering. And he believed that he was the person who was the catcher in the rye, if you will, between the country and Trump, President Trump. And he was wrong. But this is from Greek tragedy through Shakespeare, this is a fundamental human drama. The characteristics that propelled him to the pinnacle of power prevented him. from doing what he needed to do to step away from it. Do I wish that history had turned in a different way?

Do I wish President Biden had made different decisions in his last two years? Absolutely. What in one season was admirable resilience became, in a different season, a blindness to reality. And you can watch that full episode of Settle In on our YouTube page or wherever you get your podcasts. Finally tonight, remembering one of jazz music's all-time greats, Sonny Rollins died yesterday after more than five decades pushing the boundaries of the genre. One of the best jazz musicians of his time, Rollins won two Grammys and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in the early 2000s.

He toured well into his 80s and died at his home in Woodstock, New York, after years of health issues. Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown has a look back at the life and impact of Sunny Rollins. Sonny Rollins often said he was always a work in progress. And that work, as the world got to hear, was as prolific as it was varied. He spent almost seven decades recording more than 60 studio and live albums, relentlessly experimenting and honing his craft. He received numerous awards in his lifetime, including a 2011 Kennedy Center honors.

honors. And ahead of that, he talked to us about his life and work. So I was just immersed in it from the beginning, really. Rollins was born in Harlem in 1930 to a musical family. He received his first saxophone at 11 and was largely self-taught. When my mother brought me the second hand out of saxophone, I went into the bedroom, you know, and I just started playing. I mean, I don't know what I was doing, but I was in the zone. I was already doing something. In fact, Rollins was a sensation even as a teenager.

He performed and recorded with leading players of the day. His first album as bandleader came in 1951 and many more followed. Playing with those great people like Charlie Parker, the Loneysmartin-Wiles Davis and all those giants. I wasn't afraid because I felt that I belonged there. You felt you belonged with them. Yeah. But I was still in awe of them, and it was, I mean, I didn't feel I was equal to them.

I'm not saying that, but I felt that, especially they accepted me, but I felt that I was where I was supposed to be at. So it was quite a wonderful experience. in a way. You know, one of the things that people have long admired you for is the ability to, and I always hear this phrase, find fresh musical ideas. Wow. Well, jazz, as you know, is an endless source of ideas, because you can use anything.

You can play operatic arias, you can incorporate them into jazz, you can play gypsy music, you can incorporate into jazz, you can play European classical, you can incorporate into jazz. you can use anything and jazz it up, as they used to say. And where does the improvisation come in? Well, Jeffrey, improvisation is something which is highly misunderstood these days. Improvisory. I think my friend Granford Marcellus saxophone, he explained it very good. Improvisation is really not so much remembering.

things. And this is what I do when I play. I forget things. When I go on the stage, I want my mind to be a blank so that I can, things can come into me without my knowing where they came from. So are you surprised by what comes out? Sometimes I'm surprised by what comes out. Yeah. At several key points in his career, Rollins simply stopped performing and recording. Most famously, he spent one of what he called his sabbaticals practicing on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York. He later released an album titled The Bridge. Jeffrey, I think the biggest thing that in my life that I can be proud of, my epitaph, is that I knew inside how I was doing, whether I was playing great or whether I wasn't

playing great. And I shut out the people that were telling me, oh, Sunny, don't go away. way you lose your audience. So I said, no, I want to practice. I want to get better. So I feel that I have an obligation to jazz and also to myself to play as good as I can play. I haven't reached that point yet. When we spoke in 2011, Rollins had outlived many of his renowned contemporaries, including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Thelonius Monk by decades. You're one of the last ones left from that great time, right? You must be aware of that.

Does it weigh on you? Well, it does. All my friends are gone, Miles, Coltrane, Monk. I mean, in a sense, they're gone, but not really. I'm the last guy, but in a way I'm not, because when I'm going to music, my music is going to be here. So we're all still here. We're all still here.

Tony Rollins was 95 years old. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Jeffrey Brown. And that's the News Hour for tonight. I'm Omna Nawaz. And I'm Jeff Bennett. Thanks for joining us and have a good evening.