PBS News Hour - Full Show - November 28, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: November 29, 2025

Friday on the News Hour, Ukraine's leadership structure gets a shakeup as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's top aid resigns in the midst of a corruption scandal, President Trump vows to stop immigration from poorer countries after the fatal National Guard shooting blocks from the White House and we offer tips for holiday shopping on Black Friday in a year when prices are rising. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm John Yang. Jeff Bennett and Omna Nawaz are away. On the news hour tonight, a shake-up in Ukraine's leadership. The top aid to President Volody Mayor Zelenskyy resigns as a corruption scandal rattles Kiev. President Trump vows to stop immigration for what he calls third-world countries after the fatal National Guard shooting blocks from the White House. And on this Black Friday, we offer some tips for holiday shopping in a year when prices are rising, partly due to tariffs. We want everybody to just take a breath, and you can do a little bit of research, and you can look at price tracking apps to see what the historical pricing is. Welcome to the NewsHour.

We begin tonight with a political earthquake in Ukraine. President Volodymer Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Andre Yermak, the country's second most powerful person, has been forced to resign amid a corruption scandal. This comes as Ukraine is enmeshed in negotiations with the Trump administration on a possible end to Russia's war in Ukraine. Special correspondent Jack Hewson is in Kiev. Jack, who is this chief of staff? and why is this such a big deal? Well, John, Andrew Yermak, as you mentioned, was President Zelensky's chief of staff

and essentially the second most powerful man in the country. Zelensky came to power on the back of a landslide election in 2019, and with that authority, centralized power around the president's office, and Yermak was a very big part of that. Officially, Ukraine, is a hybrid premier presidential system, but under Zelensky and Yermak, is taken on a much more of a top-down executive-dominated shape, And under wartime powers, which include martial law and the freezing of any presidential

or parliamentary elections, that's centralized even more. As one anti-corruption activist put it to me earlier this evening, Zelensky is the face of government while Yomak was the brain. So for Yomak to be gone, it's huge. Corruption, there is an embezzlement scandal that's enmeshing many high-ranking officials in Zelensky's circle. Tell us about that. Well, the scandal is about an investigation by the anti-corruption authorities called Operation Midas, which has resulted in a string of high-level raids and charges over the last month. There have been a laundry list of high-ranking cabinet officials,

including a former deputy prime minister, have either been charged or named. But the cornerstone figure in all of this is a man named Timor Mindich. He's the former business partner of Zelensky, with whom he set up a media company before he was president. And Minditsch and this broader group of appointees and ministers are accused of embezzling $100 million worth of public money that was supposed to be spent on the energy sector. Instead, it was embezzled allegedly through inflating infrastructure procurement contracts and siphoning off funds. So right now, with Ukraine under the daily bombardment by Russian drones and missiles, which are blowing up electricity stations and substation, causing blackouts, As you can imagine, Ukrainians are absolutely furious that at this time of suffering, these cabinet ministers have allegedly been stealing public money

that should have been spent on fixing this electricity grid instead of enriching themselves. Authorities have not yet confirmed if the raid is related to Operation Midas, but following his raid, Jormac has gone ahead and resigned nonetheless. How is all this or how might all this affect efforts to end the war? Well, essentially, this weakens the Ukrainian negotiating, It allows the Kremlin to paint Ukraine as a corrupt and unreliable partner to its allies. It allows Putin to draw an equivalence between Ukraine and far more corrupt or dictatorial regimes. And it throws the peace negotiation into temporary disarray as Yomak was also Zelensky's lead negotiator.

But it's also bad for Ukraine's image with its allies. One major criteria for Ukrainian aid has been to eradicate corruption in this country. And this scandal proves very clearly that that's not what's happened. And at this point, and this is a point that President Zelensky himself made tonight in his evening address, announcing the departure of his most valued aid. To preserve our internal strength, there must be no reasons to be distracted at anything else except for defense of Ukraine. I don't want anybody to be questioning Ukraine, and that's why we have today.

these decisions. And many perceive this weakened position that Ukraine now finds itself in as a complicating factor in why the Trump administration is able to push hard for a peace deal on terms that many perceive to be too favorable to Russia. John? Special correspondent Jack Houston and Kiev. Thank you very much. Tonight, more details are coming to light about this week's shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members, one of them fatally, just blocks from the White House. And new questions are emerging about the shooter's motives and what the attack could mean for immigrants across the country. Our coverage begins with White House correspondent Liz Landers. Late last night, a vehicle procession in Washington, D.C., honoring 20-year-old U.S. Army specialist Sarah Bextram, who died yesterday.

after being shot near the White House on Wednesday. She's no longer with us. She's looking down at us right now. From his residence in Florida, President Trump announced Bexham's death and was asked by reporters whether he'd attend her funeral. I haven't thought about it yet, but it certainly is something I could conceive of. I love West Virginia.

You know, I won West Virginia by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere. The president was also asked about the alleged shooter, 29-year-old Ramanullah Lackinwal, an Afghan national who was granted asylum in the United States after working with U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts. And that happens too. It happens too often with these people. Bextram was shot along with 24-year-old Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, also of West Virginia's National Guard. Our hearts go out. Earlier today, the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Janine Piro, spoke on Fox about the new

charges filed against the suspect. We are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree. There will be no stone unturned in this case. We will know everything about what happened. The president and his allies also took to social media with Trump promising to, quote, permanently pause migration from all third world countries. And his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, tweeted, quote, that migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions and terrors of their broken homelands. The shooter's motive for the attack remains unclear. What came to honor Ms. Bextram and Ms. Sewell? But back in her home state of West Virginia, vigils were held last night and today for Bexstrom, who enlisted in the National Guard in

23. Her father posted this message on Facebook, writing, quote, My Baby Girl has passed to glory. West Virginia's governor, Patrick Morrissey, said 24-year-old staff sergeant Andrew Wolf, who was also shot in the attack, remains in critical condition. For more on the president's call for immigration reforms, I'm joined by David Beer. He's the director of immigration studies at the Libertarian Cato Institute. Thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me.

Okay, let's start with some of these social media posts from the president. He wrote last night in a pair of posts demeaning immigrants and calling the country's immigration policies stupid. What's your reaction to that? Well, first of all, this was a horrific attack. No one condones it. This is an individual who should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Unfortunately, what the president has taken away from this attack is that all of the 53 million, as he says, immigrants to the United States, legal or illegal, are now seen as suspicious, as people who should be driven out of the United States, even denaturalized.

If you can look at the rhetoric in that post, he can't find a single good thing to say. about any of the immigrants from any country in the world. And that's really what's different. What I see here is the president has for a long time talked about the problems with certain types of immigration, with illegal immigration, with refugees and others. But this was really the broadest attack that I can remember on the immigrant population overall,

both legal and illegal, even the naturalized citizens who have taken the oath to the Constitution of the United States. Trump's Post had a series of pledged reforms, including but not limited to, a permanent pause on migration from all third world countries. We heard that a few moments ago. Remove anyone who was not a net asset to the United States and all federal benefits and subsidies to non-citizens and denaturalized migrants who undermine domestic tranquility.

How much of that can he follow through on? Well, certainly, he's already trying to carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in the history of the United States. He wants to deport millions and millions of people who are here illegally. So now he's just adding to that campaign promise with trying to deport people who are in the country legally. Now, taking away someone who is illegal permanent residence, their status is quite difficult. You have to prove your case against them. You have to bring that before an immigration judge and lay out exactly what immigration law they violated.

And what he's talking about here, net asset, all this stuff, there is some ambiguity in the law. but there's not that much ambiguity, and it will be difficult for him to actually follow through on that promise and effectively deport most of the legal immigrants in the United States. The Treasury Secretary Scott Besson is saying that his agency is going to issue proposed regulations clarifying that the refunded portions of certain individual income tax benefits are no longer available to illegal and other non-qualified aliens. What benefits do those without legal status receive? And do we know whether what Besson posted about will have any substantial impact? Usually these benefits are based on the social security numbers that are available to them.

So you submit your application for benefits along with your income tax return, checking that box, that you have a social security number that is work eligible, which is the basis for the refund or otherwise. So I certainly support this type of proposal in terms of policy. Unfortunately, Congress is the one who sets the rules for this, and they just went through this tax reform bill that they put forward, and they didn't go all the way with this idea, effectively barring most non-citizens from those. And so really, what he's advocating for is Congress to change the law.

We'll see if that happens. What trends have we seen in immigration recently and what impact could these changes that we're seeing from the president being proposed? What could those have impact on these immigration trends we're saying? Well, ultimately, the president's proposals from day one have been to restrict legal immigration. He's come out with a number of different ideas on those lines, including the total shutdown of the refugee program, a ban on most immigration from 19 different. countries, restrictions on the H-1B high-skilled visa. So across all the different categories of immigration that we have, he's looking to restrict. This is the first time he said an outright ban. And when you think about who gets most legal immigrant visas to come to the United States,

it is spouses of U.S. citizens. That's going to be the number one category that's targeted by a broad-based, absolute ban on legal immigration to the United States. And that's really cutting at the heart of family values and a lot of the other things that conservatives like to talk about. David Beer from the Cato Institute. Thank you so much for joining us this evening, this holiday weekend. Of course. In the day's other news, President Trump also said today he would cancel all executive actions that former President Biden's

signed using an auto pen. That's a device that replicates someone's signature. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have used autopens, including Mr. Trump, though he says he's used it only for unimportant papers. A Justice Department legal opinion dating back decades authorized its use. President Trump had previously ordered an investigation into his predecessor's use of the device, which Biden's months ago said was a distraction. And Mr. Trump said on social media that he plans to pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras. In 2024, U.S. court convicted Hernandez on drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced him to 45 years in prison. Hernandez served two terms as Honduran president from 2014 until 2022. In the same post, Mr. Trump threw

his support behind the nation's conservative presidential candidate and said that if he doesn't win, he'll stop sending aid to the Central American nation. Police in Hong Kong have arrested eight more people involved with renovating the apartment complex that caught fire earlier this week, killing at least 128 people. The massive blaze wasn't fully extinguished until this morning, some 40 hours after it started. Now firefighters are searching apartment by apartment with close to 200 people still missing. That includes nearly 90 bodies that haven't been identified yet. One former resident pointed out the charred remains of her home and said she's worried about her neighbors. My family is okay. We have many relatives, so we're fine, but we don't know if

others have anyone looking after them. I really want to put down my phone and not look at any news, not read any information, but I can't. My heart just feels so heavy. Authorities say the fire started on scaffolding on the lower levels of one of the buildings and spread quickly because of flammable foam panels on windows. This weekend, flags in Hong Kong will fly at half-staff for a period of mourning. Elsewhere in Asia, floods have ravaged several nations, so far claiming well over 300 lives. Torrential rains battered Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand after a rare tropical storm formed in the Malacca Strait. A separate cyclone hit Sri Lanka more than 1,000 miles to the west.

In southern Thailand's largest city today, receding floodwaters exposed piles of abandoned cars caked in mud. On Sumatra, landslides carved through Indonesia's remote mountain towns. Those who survived were called a narrow escape. I heard a roaring sound that made me go outside. I shouted to warn people to get out of their houses and evacuate. After that, I ran to higher ground. I saw the floodwater carrying pieces of wood and other debris sweeping away houses until they were washed away. Officials are intensifying recovery efforts, but many Indonesians remain without electricity, food, and other critical supplies.

The tropical storm in that region has since weakened after moving out to sea, but Sri Lanka is bracing for even more flooding this weekend. Back here at home, the Thanksgiving holiday is winding down, so it's time for what could be a treacherous trip home for some. More than 50 million Americans were under some sort of winter weather advisory today, stretching from Idaho to the Great Lakes. Residents in upstate New York spent their day digging out of heavy lake-effect snow. The National Weather Service issued travel warnings in the northeast where more snow, along with gusty winds, could make roads slippery and visibility poor. And in a shortened Black Friday trading session, stocks ended with a cross-stead. the board gains. The Dow Jones Industrial average rose nearly 300 points. The NASDAQ added 150 points as most tech stocks closed higher, and the S&P 500 capped off a fifth straight day of gains for the

major indices. Still to come on the news hour, Jonathan Capehart and Pierre Wainer on the possible implications of the National Guard shooting in Washington, D.C. We visit a long-overlooked marvel of ancient indigenous engineering in Ohio. And the first episode of our brand, new video podcast, settle in. Lessons for today from the 1929 stock market crash. This is the PBS News Hour from the David M. Rubenstein studio at W.E.T.A. in Washington. And in the west from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. The Internet has, of course, revolutionized holiday shopping and now worries about the labor market and the effect tariffs are having,

are prompting even more Americans to search online for holiday deals. Stephanie Sye tells us how sellers and customers are navigating this Black Friday weekend. President Trump introduced some tariffs on imports in his first term, but in his second term, the administration's aggressive tariffs

on a wide range of imports have affected manufacturers, sellers, and customers. Frequent revisions to what products are and aren't exempt from the tariffs have only created more uncertainty. So how does one approach their holiday shopping this year? For help with navigating this and finding the best deals, I'm joined by Anne-Marie Conti,

a deputy editor at New York Times Wirecutter who wrote a piece on this very topic. Amory, thank you so much for joining the News Hour. So just to remind viewers, tariffs are, of course, basically taxes on imported goods, and that tax is often passed on to consumers. How big are the price increases you've been tracking at wirecutter in the last year? It's been pretty scattershot, and I think part of that is because these tariffs seem to be an ever-moving target.

And so the manufacturers have had a really hard time planning, and so they've tried to absorb as much as they can. But according to our tracking, we've seen as little as a dollar or two, up to $20, $25, depending on the cost of the item. Help us understand to what degree we've seen tariffs pass down to retail consumers. It's been pretty significant. We know now, according to New York Times reporting, that 50% of all U.S. imports are affected by the tariffs. And a lot of manufacturers were able to bring stuff stateside and hold it in warehousing here to avoid some of those tariffs. But as that stock depletes, now, therefore, worse to pay them. So they are trying to warn people as much as possible if there's an additional

cost and if they can't absorb it. This is especially happening with direct-to-consumer brands that don't have the buying power of the larger brands. Black Friday sales, of course, start earlier nowadays, is now still the best time to get Blockbuster deals? And do those deals mean more given that prices seem to have gone up at least a little bit across the board? So the deals aren't going to be the best ever, and that is because of these price increases, but it seems like a lot of these retailers have saved their best pricing for Black Friday. So what we've seen is that it started earlier. It started as early as Monday, and it's going to continue through Cyper Monday.

So it'll be almost a full week of deals. And are there certain categories where we might see better bargains than others based on where the goods are manufactured? It's hard to say. The one thing that we definitely recommend is that if you need or want any electronics, now is the time to buy it. There's a number of factors. The tariffs are sort of a catch-all of involving price increases, but there's a lot of factors including AI, driving up the price of chips. So if you need or want any electronics or headphones, laptops, things like that, gaming consoles, now is really the time to buy because you're going to get the best pricing, and we expect the prices to only

increase in 2026. What about on toys? Toys have really been affected. It's significant because a lot of toys are manufactured in China. So what we do is we track prices every day of the year, and so we only post the best prices on the best products. And what we're seeing now is there are discounts now because it is such a heavy gift-giving category. A lot of mass market items are, of course, available at multiple retailers. What's the best way for consumers to compare prices? Yes, these retailers will definitely price match each other, and it's important to do a little bit of research.

One thing that we think is incredibly important is not to panic. So you're going to be getting a lot of signals, a lot of marketing language, countdown timers, lightning deals, and we want everybody to just take a breath and you can do a little bit of research and you can look at price tracking apps to see what the historical pricing is or you could use a resource like wirecutter

which does that for you. You know, there's all these tricky sciops to make like sales and deals look like great deals, but sometimes the tariffs are more obvious, right? In your article, you described instances where customers ended up getting billed for the tariffs. And I've heard instances myself where the tariff bill was greater than the item that was actually bought. Where would you put up the buyer beware signs when it comes to online shopping?

I think it's really important to know where an item is being shipped from, and you can't always tell. But if you're shopping a site like Etsy, you can actually filter down to U.S.-based sellers, and that will help mitigate that. We have definitely, you know, Wirecutter buys thousands of items per year, and we have definitely seen. that happened here where the shipper is going to give you a bill. It's usually about $30, $35 in our experience, including fees, because they also have to tack on their fees on top of the tariff. And so we've seen that they will not release the product until you pay the bill. In your article, you mentioned a great way to get around tariffs, and that is secondhand shopping. That happens to be the way I get most of my close. But is that really something you think will be more popular in this tariff environment when it

comes to gift giving this season? I definitely think so. I think the secondary market is really important to that. And, you know, know your audience, right? If you are giving a gift to somebody who wouldn't appreciate it. But I do think so many more people do love a pre-loved item. And so you can look on eBay or Poshmark or all sorts of secondhand sites or, you know, thrift stores, things like that to find something that's wonderful and like a wonderful delight as a gift or for yourself. Anne-Marie Conti with Wirecutter at the New York Times. Some timely advice. Thank you. And happy holidays. Happy holidays. Thank you so much for having me. The president is responding to the shooting of two National Guard.

members by an Afghan national on the streets of Washington with an even tougher crackdown on immigration. For analysis of that and the rest of the week, we turn now to Capehart and Wainer. That's Jonathan Capehart of MS Now and Peter Wainer, a contributing writer at the Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum. David Brooks is away this evening. This is still the big domestic story as the weekends. Pete, I wonder what you make of the way the president responded. He immediately sent in 500 more troops. immediately blamed the Biden administration for admitting the alleged shooter, and then cut off, essentially cut off a lot of immigration. Yeah, I'd say he reacted predictably and awfully. He predicted as he is. This was sort of the Trump DNA kicking in.

I should say first that I just find a kind of ghoulishness that happens when people die tragedies in life and the way that the people who die and the victims are turned into political pawns has always left me kind of disquieted. That's particularly the case here and now. But look, Trump is taking advantage. This is going back to the fever swamp from which he came. His first announcement for president in 2015 when he came down the golden escalator was what? It was an attack on Mexicans where he said there were drug dealers and criminals and rapists. Then during the campaign, he said that he was going to ban Muslims from coming into the country. And that united his base. So I think he's returning to form, but I think it's broader now. And in this case, with the Afghans that he's attacking, you know, these are people either

help the United States during the war or were targeted by the Taliban themselves. And this was an act of American decency and compassion. And to take that and turn it around and to go after these weak and vulnerable people and then broaden it to a wider attack on immigrants is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is a really ugly thing to see. Jonathan? Well, this is not a surprise. Anyone who's been paying attention to President Trump

would have expected this reaction. You know, to Peter's point, he's been saying these things, these anti-immigrant xenophobic things since he started his, since he entered the political arena. Go all the way back to the birther controversy with President Obama.

So the idea that he, He now, in a second term, where he feels unleashed, unfettered, is surrounded by an administration that is enabling him to do all the things he wants to do. The fact that he used a tragedy to sort of amp up what he was already trying to do, not shocking at all. When it comes to bringing 500 more National Guard troops here to Washington, for what purpose? I mean, originally he said, it's about crime. Well, if you're really serious about crime, I think a functioning White House,

a functioning justice department, would work with local officials from the mayor and certainly the police chiefs to talk about how can we help you with crime, even though in a city like Washington and other large cities around the country, crime has been falling. And so I think what we see

is that the National Guard, to Peter's point, It's sad when people who lose their lives are instantly used as political pawns. But the National Guard, they've been used as pawns from the very beginning, brought in under the guise of crime and then used for other things. The National Guard here used to beautify the parks. That's not what they're for. And so, you know, what the president is doing is it's shameful. It's xenophobic, and in the end, it is going to hurt America's national security. This perpetrator worked with the CIA in Afghanistan with the United States, and we all know what he was doing.

He was helping us and furthering our national security interests. Pete, do you want to add to that? No, I just underscore what Jonathan said. you know, this, it's so central to understand about Donald Trump and I think his psychological makeup, which is that he seems to draw energy from hatred, from generating hatred toward other people, and this capacity to unleash the dark passions and the dark emotions. We've never seen anything like it, certainly in modern American history, maybe in all of American history. And the way he, the capacity that he has to amplify that is extraordinary.

One of the thing I would add to it is he does know what he's doing in this sense. His base responds to this. This is a base that has been morally deformed, and that was at the beginning of the Trump administration. But 10 years of this has turned it into an even worse manifestation. Jonathan, another point. This week we saw three big cases, high-profile cases dismissed in federal courts. The last remaining election interference case against Mr. Trump in Georgia. the James Comey case, the former FBI director, and Letitia James, the former New York Attorney General.

What should we make of this? The wheels of justice are turning, and they're turning wildly in various directions. When it comes to Georgia, we all heard it in his own voice. All I need, 11,780 votes, one more than we need. that's election interference, but because of inappropriate actions by the prosecutor, that was an avenue for the president and his legal team to get the result that they just got. When it comes to former FBI director James Comey and state attorney general, Letitia James, this malicious prosecution.

And the courts, the courts saw that. And to me, it shows that at least the lower courts are sticking to the law, sticking to the Constitution and looking at the briefs that the prosecutors are bringing into court, which are not, let's say, up to snuff. But where my enthusiasm for the judicial branch gets tempered is the president goes to court. And his first action after losing in court is to go right to the Supreme Court. And I am still not comfortable that the Supreme Court will take a look at the Comey and James cases and side with the lower courts.

I'm just not convinced of it yet. Peter? Yeah, I agree. Jonathan said it was malicious, which it was. It was also incompetent. And I'm not sure which case more than one more than the other. I mean, this thing was thrown. I wasn't even on the merits.

It was that the prosecutor was chosen, had been improperly chosen. But this was, again, as all of these things seemed to be, a kind of window into the heart and soul of Donald Trump. And here it touches on this issue, which, is awfully high on the list of things that I think ought to worry us, which is President of the United States, Commander-in-Chief, using the extraordinary power at his disposal to target people, the weaponization, in this case of DOJ and FBI, to destroy people that he disagrees with. I mean, that is how police states happen. I don't think we're in a police state. But that's only because Donald Trump hasn't gotten his way yet.

And as Jonathan was referring to, I mean, the courts are the one institution right now in American life that had stood up to him. Not always, but in some cases. But we still have three years left, and this is a lot to play itself out. And it's not clear if Trump ever decides to defy a court order, including a Supreme Court order, how that gets arbitrated. So we've still got a ways to go. What do you think, Jonathan? Well, I mean, you ask Judge Bozberg whether his orders, in terms of supporting Venezuelan migrants out of the country against his orders saying no planes should take off. And if planes are in the air, they should turn around.

And that he was defied on that so that they are defying court orders. It's just a matter of when will the courts take that step to hold them accountable? We don't have much time left. I'm sorry to ask this question, but we've got such a polarized nation, and we're going into the holidays. How do you deal? People, let me start with you. How do you deal with uncomfortable conversations? Well, I guess one is whether you can avoid them, and sometimes that's necessary.

I will say, and my wife has been very helpful on this, in my experience, I don't obviously do this perfectly. But when it's worked, it is when you have a conversation with someone and you genuinely listen to them. and you seek to learn their story, to find out why they have turned out where they are. So it's not the reflex to turn it into a debate. It's rather to try and connect with people on a human level. And then to remind ourselves not to dehumanize

and politics is not defining to who we are. It matters. We're in politics because we think it does matter. But in the end, it's not the most important thing and we have to have civility in that approach. Jonathan, I would say conversations are two-way streets, that it is not just incumbent upon, say, someone from my political's perspective to sit and listen to the other person. The other person needs to sit and listen to me, sit and listen

to us. And if we are not, I don't think, duty-bound or even morally required to sit and listen to someone who says things that denigrates our humanity that is offensive to us, we have every right to push back, it's on that person, whether they are the ones who are going to listen and understand where we're coming from. Jonathan, you got the last word because we're out of time. Peter Wainer and Jonathan K. Part, thank you very much. Thanks, Elijah. On this Native American Heritage Day, we examine. On this Native American Heritage Day, we examine a long-overlooked marvel of ancient engineering that had been tucked away

beneath a golf course near Columbus, Ohio. Some archaeologists say it's on par with Stonehenge, but its struggle for recognition spanned decades, ending only recently with validation as the state's only world heritage site. Stephanie Sye is back with that story. So we're approaching the avenue, the parallel walls that connect the observatory circle

with the octagon beyond. From the ground where archaeologists Brad Leper stands, you can't really appreciate its complexity. It's the view from above that reveals the site in Newark, Ohio's astonishing geometry. The octagon earthworks are composed of vast soil mounts, a perfect 20-acre circle connecting to a perfectly symmetrical 50-acre octagon, large enough to fit four Roman Coliseums. The intricate design mirrors the moons, 18.6-year journey across the sky. Its central axis meticulously aligned to the spot where the moon rises at its northernmost point. And they're not just close to being precise. They're very, very precise. What's even more

impressive is when it was constructed. About 2,000 years ago, the span of time we're talking about is like 1 CE all the way up to 400 CE. That's about the time of the peak of the Roman Empire. There are still many unknowns about who these Native American builders were. It's a long-gone ancient cultural network spread across the eastern United States that researchers now call the Hopewell. These people lived in scattered little communities, and thousands and thousands of those communities probably came together here, but they have left no written records. I think this was like Mecca or like Jerusalem as a pilgrimage center, but without a Koran or a Bible, we don't have the knowledge of who these ceremonial leaders were. What was the vision that compelled people to come here for hundreds of miles?

But to Lepper, who spent almost 40 years studying them, the Earthworks themselves speak volumes about their builders, who lived roughly 1,500 years before Galileo. They were geometers, mathematicians, they were astronomers, they were geniuses. I mean, they were soil scientists. They knew what soils to use, to build, enduring earthworks. When I go to those mounds, I can hear those ancestors singing. They didn't have steel. They didn't have concrete. They didn't have metal. What they had was Mother Earth.

Glenna Wallace is the chief of the Eastern Shawnee tribe of Oklahoma, descendants of the Hopewell people. They were forced out of Ohio after the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Ohio truly didn't have a voice, a Native American voice, a Native American presence. Without that voice, these mounds were buried over time, beneath railroads, development, and housing. Today, of the dozens of Hopewell Earthworks that once stood across Ohio, less than half remain preserved. Will they never be content until they have eliminated every trace of our ancestors? That's what's going through my mind. The octagon earthwork was spared only because of how the site was used.

This is part of the golf course infrastructure. There was even a time when they teed off from the top of the mound. For more than a century, the site was taken over by a golf course. It was such a contrast to have golfing going on in a place that's like Notre Dame Cathedral or something. It always was jarring. The first thought that came to my mind was the biblical scripture, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Earthworks are sacred to us and to then look out and see that those men's had a golf course on top of them. I can't explain the

disappointment, the hurt, the lack of respect that I felt on behalf of my ancestors. Over the years, the golf course became a member's only country club, which limited access to the historic site. It was very much that sort of private aspect that made it really challenging for us, even to do things like research. Jennifer Altman is the director of historic sites and museums at Ohio History Connection, which hatched a plan for the long overlooked ancient mounds more than two decades ago. There was sort of this thought that like, this place is as significant as Stonehenge and Machu Picchu, and nobody seems to understand that. And if it was a World Heritage Site, like, people would have to understand that.

But to become a World Heritage Site isn't easy. It's a list that includes the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids of Giza. It took Ohio History connection more than 20 years, including a lengthy legal battle for control of the site before the moment arrived in 2023. Adopted. Congratulations to United States. At the World Heritage Committee hearing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, eight of Ohio's Hopewell mounts were put on the list. The gavel came down, and it was in that moment a world heritage site.

That was moving enough, but to be in that room with representatives from all over the world and have Chief Glena, whose people were forcibly removed from Ohio, speak, that was the moment that it really came home, like how important this was. that we did this. They were not just geniuses. They were uncommon geniuses. Their genius lives on today in many descendant tribes.

What do you think the significance is of having it be designated as a World Heritage Site? It certainly gives us as Native Americans a wonderful feeling, a pride. And I am so proud of the changes that are

occurring in Ohio. The people are beginning to recognize what they have in their communities, and they want to do the right thing. There was just a lack of knowledge, a lack of information. Earlier this year, Octagon Earthworks opened to the public for the first time as a World Heritage Site. Visitors poured in, and they've kept coming, and what they learn and see here may contribute to a fuller understanding of Native American civilizations. For so long, Our society has regarded Indians as savages.

They were here in the way. They had to be removed and forcibly removed into the West so that, you know, these lands could be civilized. But the irony of that is that there's evidence of this wonderful civilization that was here 2,000 years before Europeans got here. An ancient astronomical observatory in Ohio that will now be preserved for the ages. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Sye. This week we're launching our new video podcast, settle in. In the premiere episode, Amna Nawaz has a fascinating discussion with financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin about his new book, 1929, inside the greatest crash in Wall Street history and how it shepherds.

a nation. In their conversation, Sorkin describes how Wall Street Titans persuaded everyday Americans to invest in the stock market using borrowed money. I want to underscore here what you lay out so well through stories in the book, which was this idea that at the time, that big change of being able to buy stock on credit, that was a huge shift, right? How dramatic was that shift when people were suddenly able to do that? That was a huge shift. And by the way, it was even a broader shift in America. I mean, up until 1919, taking a loan was considered like a moral sin. It was something that only, you know, the grubby of the grubs would do.

Like going to a pawn shop. It was really something that was looked down upon. Like culturally, right? Culturally, culturally, just as a, you did not want to be somebody who took on credit. And what happened in 191919 was General Motors decided they needed to sell more cars. And how are they going to sell more cars? They were going to start to loan people money. And somehow people decided that that was acceptable because it was a big purchase.

And so if you were going to buy a car and you needed to take the loan from GM. Well, then Sears Roebuck clocked what was going on and said, oh goodness, people are willing to do this. That's interesting. We are now going to actually sell appliances and we will loan you money so that you can buy those appliances. Again, some of those are expensive products. And then folks like Charlie Mitchell on Wall Street see what's going on and say, ah, we can do this too. And now we are going to democratize finance. That was really the phrase during that period.

We're going to take finance away just from the elites and now make it available to everybody by loaning people money so that they can also play in the markets. So there's a democratization of the financial world going on. But, of course, the little guy is always at a bit of a disadvantage. and you outlined some of these really shady practices that were engaged in by the bankers. They would form sort of an investment pool, right? Then they would drive up the stock price. They would bring in ordinary investors, and then what?

A couple of very rich, wealthy, typically men, got together. Sometimes, by the way, in their wives' names for tax purposes, were effectively putting together a group that was going to run what might be described as a pump and dump scheme where they would say, you know, you're going to buy it 100, then the next person's going to buy in a 200, then 300, then 400, then 400. And at some point, we all know the day that we're pulling the rug, meaning we're all going to sell at the same time. But we're hoping that all of the little guys and

everybody else who's not part of the scheme, they will buy up on top of us so that we will be the winners, and effectively they'll be the losers. It was almost like actors on a trading floor with their own instructions about what they're supposed to do at any given point. It was shocking. And then ordinary investors, everyday Americans are just caught in the middle of all this? Well, ultimately, that's what happened. And the worst part about it is it wasn't just that the stock market crashed in October. And by the way, I think our perception that the market dropped on one day is clearly wrong. It actually happened over a series of days. And then a whole bunch of other things happened that genuinely led to the Great Depression. But as the stock

market was dropping, it wasn't just that you were losing money insofar as the stock went from $50 to $30 or $40 and therefore you lost $10 or $20. The problem was because you had borrowed all that money, you were on the hook. So famously Groucho Marx, who apparently, according to his son, was somebody who actually was very conservative about his money, at least thought he was, had been spending all of his time at this brokerage in Long Island, you know, trading constantly and being told, of course, by the broker, everything's going to be fine. This is all, you know, this is the future. You have to invest in this stuff.

Otherwise, you're going to be on the losing end of things. Gets a call in the late October and says, you've got to come down here. You got to pay up your margin loan. And he doesn't have the money. And so what happens? He ends up having a mortgage his home. And so I think there was a generational almost scarring that took place during this period. And, you know, it becomes very dramatic.

you know, a whole bunch of people, some of the characters in the book ultimately kill themselves. There are people who jump out of windows. I don't tell the story in the book, but my grandfather was 11 years old during this period. And his older brother was actually a messenger boy down on Wall Street. And he had taken my grandfather down there in October. He'd actually missed a day of school. And my grandfather watched somebody jump out the window. This is after the crash.

And he would always tell us this story. Because he would always tell us that he would never buy stock. He lived until he was 91 years old and never bought a share of any stock. No stock. Because of what he lived through and what he witnessed. Because he would have what he witnessed, he would say, Andrew, the stock market is not for us. It's for these other people. And so he bought bonds.

I think he probably kept some cash under his mattress. But I think there was a whole generation of people that were psychologically scarred by this period. No doubt. You can hear and watch full episodes of Settle In on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. Tis the season to buy a Christmas tree, but it takes a lot of people and business planning to get that perfect tree all the way to your home. PBS News digital video producer Tim McPhillips visited one stop along the route. You might say this is where the Christmas season is where the Christmas season. The season truly begins at a produce auction in the heart of Pennsylvania.

Freshly cut, the roughly 45,000 Christmas trees behind me are here for a single purpose to be auctioned off in just a single day. This isn't just any auction, though. This one is billed as the largest Christmas tree auction in the world. The Christmas tree auction started in 1989. Ben Courtney is the operations manager at Buffalo Valley Produce auction in Miflenburg, Pennsylvania, which holds this event every year. His father, Neil, is the auctioneer.

We had about 3,000 trees back then, and it's been kind of growing ever since. The full auction runs across a Thursday and Friday in late November. Before the trees go on the block, multiple auctioneers snake their way through rows of Christmas decoratives, wreaths large and small, Santa-themed planters,

chainsaw reindeer, and more, all laid out in an open-air warehouse the size of an airplane hanger. But on Friday, it's the trees time to shine. Most of the trees being auctioned off behind me are from here in Pennsylvania and from North Carolina. But others have traveled from as far west as Oregon and as far north as Canada. So they started arriving about nine days before the auction. The auction takes nearly seven hours, with Neil leading it the whole way.

Ladies and gentlemen, your eyes, you're a guide, your checkbook talks, and when we say sold, you own it. Perched on top of a red truck, he slowly rolls through the rows and rows of balsams, Frazier's, white pines, and more. buyers from up and down the East Coast in tow. Our main customer are garden centers, like independent garden centers and farm markets. Like Debbie Schmidt, who came from New York State. We have a three-form stands on Long Island, and we came to Pennsylvania to buy some of our Christmas items. And Jack Harris from outside Pittsburgh. My dad always went to sell Christmas trees, and we started the Christmas tree lot, and we have a thing.

Santa comes, the elves. My mom has gifts and crafts for all the kids. But as idyllic as it may look, live Christmas tree sales are a billion-dollar industry and a risky business for buyers and sellers. The last USDA census of agriculture found the U.S. cut down 14.5 million Christmas trees in 2022. More come in from Canada, but all are sold in a season that lasts barely a month. The pendulum could swing either way. It could be high price or it could be very low. Christmas trees can take a decade to grow, so farmers have to make it through 10 years of changing seasons, predicting.

demand along the way. And it's kind of hard to tell what the supply is going to be and what the demand is going to be that far in the future. Seasonal success rests on the buyer's bets made here, how many trees to purchase and how much to pay. This is Mark Spicer's second year in the business. It was really tough for me the first year because I had no idea how many to buy. I bought a bunch of trees and I had quite a few left over. I mean, there's nothing like paying to pick them up and transport them back and then paying to throw them away. There is definitely a gamble to it. especially at auction. The gamble doesn't end there. Elijah Lepinto and Dante Williams sell trees in New York City, where sellers stake out their valuable street corners weeks in advance.

First come, first serve kind of deal. The rules are, as long as you have permission of the closest business, you're allowed to sell anywhere on the street. As soon as the trees are sold, they're loaded onto trailers and hit the road, to greet peak demand after Thanksgiving just in time. It's a big push. As soon as the trees are sold, they're starting to be loaded. A push towards a home for the holidays. capping off years of risk, reward, and Christmas care. There's a lot of people that put a lot of hard work into it, long hours, but it's what we do. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Tim McPhillips in Miflinburg, Pennsylvania.

You can find additional tips about how to pick the perfect Christmas tree and keep it alive on our YouTube page. Be sure to tune in to Washington Week with the Atlantic later tonight right here on PBS. Jeffrey Goldberg and his panel discussed controversial moves from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. And join me for PBS News Weekend tomorrow for a look at how some low-wage workers with full-time jobs are being pushed into homelessness.

That's Saturday on PBS News Weekend. And that is The News Hour for tonight. I'm John Yang. For all of us at the PBS News Hour, thank you. I'll see you right back here tomorrow for PBS News Weekend. Have a great night.