PBS News Hour - Full Show - October 23, 2025 – PBS News Hour full episode

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Thursday on the News Hour, current and former NBA stars are accused in a sprawling illegal gambling scheme that allegedly involved faked injuries, rigged poker games and ties to organized crime. Congress fails to agree on proposals to pay federal workers affected by the government shutdown. Plus, Pennsylvania's top election official responds to the DOJ's repeated efforts to obtain voter data. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. On the Navaz is away. On the news hour tonight, current and former NBA stars are arrested, accused in a sprawling illegal gambling scheme that allegedly involved faked injuries, rigged poker games, and ties to organized crime. Congress fails to agree on proposals to pay federal workers affected by what is now the second longest government shutdown in U.S. history. And Pennsylvania's top election official responds to the Justice Department's repeated efforts to obtain voter data.

In the United States of America, it's the states who run elections, not the federal government. Welcome to the News Hour. troubling questions tonight for the NBA about gambling after the FBI arrested one of its players and a Hall of Fame head coach. They are among dozens of people charged today in a federal investigation alleging illegal sports betting and rigged poker games organized by the mafia. Combined, the two schemes involved millions of dollars and the details around these cases are causing some to question the integrity of the NBA itself and its connections to the legalized gambling industry that exploded in popularity. William Brangham has more. So, William, how sprawling is this investigation? Jeff, it is quite vast.

More than 30 people have been arrested across 11 states. In two different indictments, the suspects are charged with crimes, including money laundering, extortion, robbery, and illegal gambling. U.S. Attorney Joseph Nosella of the Eastern District in New York detailed today how star players, like the Miami Heat's Terry Rozier, used inside information about. players for betting purposes. These defendants perpetrated a scheme to defraud by betting on inside non-public information about NBA athletes and teams. The non-public information included when specific players would be sitting out future games, or when they would pull themselves out early for purported injuries or illnesses.

The investigation also accuses several defendants of running rigged poker games, where victims were lured into playing with former NBA stars. Joining me now to break this all down is Mike Vorkenoff. He covers professional basketball for the athletic. Mike, thank you so much for being here. Such a sprawling indictment. Two different indictments, two different schemes alleged here. Let's talk about that first one,

which is the allegation that players were somehow using inside information to help win bets. Explain the allegation. there. Yeah, it's an interesting one and probably one of the things that the NBA cares about most is that Terry Rozier, who has been charged in the indictment and the rest of today in Orlando, he was accused of telling betters, telling one better in particular that he would come out of a 2023 game early with an apparent injury so that the better could then use that information to make wagers on unders on his profits and then also forward that.

information to other betters so they can make money off of him. So it was essentially manipulating his own performance so that others could win money wagering on him. And it's very much like what we saw with Jonte Porter a few years ago when he was arrested, charged, and pled guilty to wire fraud, and also banned from the NBA. And there's another element here that doesn't involve players directly. You know, also in the indictment, there is the story of how one person working for the Blazers let one of the other co-defendants know that they would be. be benching a few of the players since they were tanking, and bets were made on that. And Damon Jones, a former NBA player who served as kind of like an unofficial assistant

coach for the Lakers for the past few years, used his insider role to gain knowledge about the injury situation of players and whether they'd be playing or not to tip off betters. You know, in January 2024, he found out that one of the top Lakers players was hurt and that he either might play limited minutes or have his performance affected. And he sold that information to one of these betters, another co-defendant in these charges brought Thursday, who then placed a $100,000 bet on the Lakers to lose. Ultimately, the Lakers actually won, and so the bet didn't lead to anything. But that's just what, you know, some of these, that's just what some of the people indicted

today, how they use their insider information and their roles to help sports gamblers try to make money off the NBA. The second alleged scheme here is about these rigged poker games, where high rollers, would be lured into playing with NBA players, thinking they'd be playing a regular poker game, but the games were not on the up-and-up. Explain that allegation. That one has more of like Hollywood bent to it, I would say.

The government alleges that there were rigged poker games across the country, from Miami to New York, to the Hamptons, that use former players, professional athletes. Again, Damon Jones was one of them. Chaunty Billups, the Hall of Fame, basketball player and currently the Blazers head coach, although he was just put on leave by the NBA today, were two of the people who were helping lure, you know, potential future victims into these rigged poker games. And then the rig poker games were run in cooperation

with Italian crime families out of New York. The Fed said that there were four Italian crime families that worked with them to put these games on, took a cut of the winnings, offered protection, threatened people who didn't pay. And so that was something that was separate from the sports gambling investigation that charges out of it, but also, you know, these two investigations had common threads. Three people were charged in both indictments.

And there were some pretty unusual high-tech techniques that were being deployed, allegedly, in these poker games. Yeah, frankly, I didn't know this was possible, but they were using things like x-ray tables where you could see cards, electric poker chips that would help you be able to cheat and rigged shuffling decks.

So they had a number of high-tech things on their side to help them bring these poker games. Broader question for you. There are some critics who allege, this is just what happens when you legalize sports betting and get the major leagues involved with these betting companies. This is the inevitable outcome. Are you hearing a lot of that concern today?

I think certainly so. You know, the NBA's approach has been that they prefer legalized gambling to illegal gambling because they think it's easier to catch people And their claim is this is akin to insider trading, which is the language that FBI director Cash Patel used, too, in catching these folks. But I think the problem with that is that's all after the fact, right? It means that the malfeasance has already occurred, and you're catching them after the things that the NBA is trying to guard against from happening has already happened. And now they're just more opportunities to bet. It's obviously so much more in our faces.

Everyone sees the betting ads running nonstop during all kinds of sporting games, let alone everywhere else in their lives. athletes see the two, their friends see it, their families see it, their associates see it. And so now betting is just so much more readily accessible. And I think it's clear that it's creating more issues. All right, that is Mike Borkinoff of the Athletic. Thank you so much for joining us. Happy to do it. Thank you for having me.

top European officials followed Washington's lead today in approving new economic measures aimed at pressuring Russia to end its war in Ukraine. The latest round of sanctions targets key sectors of Russia's economy. That says violence on the ground continues with new attacks reported in several regions. In southeastern Ukraine this morning, the charred remains of a Russian drone strike.

Two journalists killed in what Ukraine's human rights office is calling a war crime. Miles away in Brussels, European leaders took a major step toward using frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine. We need to use any kind of Russian money for Ukraine and production. The more than $200 billion would help Ukraine purchase additional weapons and begin the long process of rebuilding. Sanctions the European Union imposed today ban imports of Russian liquefied natural gas. add port bans on over 100 new Russian ships. And for the first time, sanctioning Chinese and Indian banks,

accused of supporting Russia's war economy. Those moves come on the heels of President Donald Trump's new punitive measures against Russia's oil industry. Look, these are tremendous sanctions. These are very big. The U.S. sanctions on Ross Neft and Luke oil, Russia's two largest oil companies, mark a major policy shift for the Trump administration. Russian President Vladimir Putin called this step an unfriendly act.

It does not strengthen Russian-American relations, which have just begun to recover. With such actions, the U.S. administration damages Russian-American relations. Oil and gas remain the backbone of Russia's economy, a crucial source of revenue funding its war in Ukraine. But two nations continue to buy it, India and China. Today, Beijing rejected what it called unilateral sanctions that lack legal basis. Dialogue and negotiation remain the only viable path to resolving the Ukraine crisis. Coercion and pressure will not solve any problem. As Ukrainians wake to the aftermath of drone strikes, the impact of these new sanctions on Moscow's war machine yet to be felt.

Also at that EU summit in Brussels today, Lithuania's president said Russian military planes violated his country's airspace, calling it a blatant breach of territorial integrity. Moscow says it carried out a training flight over Russian territory and that no borders were violated. Turning now to the Middle East, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now the latest senior U.S. official to visit Israel to try and preserve the fragile Gaza ceasefire deal. Rubio met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just a day after Vice President J.D. Vance did the same. Both U.S. officials joined Netanyahu in criticizing a preliminary vote in Israel. Israel's parliament yesterday in favor of annexing parts of the occupied West Bank. Before he left the region, the vice president called the vote an insult and a political stunt. The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel.

The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. That will continue to be our policy. And if people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that. But we certainly weren't happy about it. U.S. officials say they are still optimistic about the nearly two-week truce, even as Israel and Hamas have accused each other of ceasefire violations in recent days. Here at home, President Trump says

he's calling off plans for now to send federal agents into San Francisco. He'd planned a surge as soon as this weekend, but changed course after talking to the city's Democratic mayor. That's why it was San Francisco. I wish him luck. The president said he decided to give Mayor Daniel Lurie more time. That's after conversations with major tech leaders based in the area.

On social media, Mr. Trump mentioned Mark Benioff, the head of Salesforce and Jensen Wong, CEO of the AI giant, NVIDIA. President Trump has pardoned the billionaire founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. Chengpao Zhao served four months in prison after pleading guilty back in 2023 to charges related to allowing criminals and terrorists to move money on his platform. He and Binance have been supporters of some of the Trump family's recent crypto ventures. Chow's pardon comes amid a broader Trump administration rollback of a Biden-era crackdown on the crypto industry.

At the White House today, press secretary Caroline Levitt criticized what she called an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration. The previous administration was very hostile to the cryptocurrency industry. So the president wants to correct this overreach of the Biden administration's misjustice, and he exercised his constitutional authority to do so. Following his pardon, Zhao wrote on social media that he's deeply grateful to President Trump, adding that he wants to, quote, help make America the capital of crypto. The Trump administration is moving to open up a large chunk of Alaskan wilderness to oil and gas drilling that had been largely protected during the Biden administration. It's the latest twist in the long-running fight over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,

and specifically the area's northern coastal plain. Its 1.5 million acres are believed to be rich in oil, but also a critical habitat for polar bears, caribou, and migratory birds. Conservationists and tribal groups have long opposed drilling in the region. Interior Secretary Doug Bergam says it will create jobs and support economic growth. On Wall Street today, stocks ended higher after a batch of strong corporate results. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added more than 140 points. The NASDAQ climbed around 200 points. The S&P 500 also closed.

in positive territory. And Misty Copeland has officially hung up her point shoes after 25 years with the American Ballet Theater. The 43-year-old took her final bow at New York's Lincoln Center last night, where she danced a farewell and received a bouquet of flowers from her three-year-old son. Back in 2015, she made history

as the company's first black female principal dancer. She achieved crossover fame and used her platform to advocate for diversity in the art form. Copeland says she plans to focus on her family and her namesake foundation. And as for whether she'll ever dance again, she has said, never say never. Still to come on the news hour, President Trump demolishes the entire White House East Wing to construct a new ballroom. Pentagon efforts to ban certain books face backlash from military families and now the courts. And a posthumous memoir tells the story of Virginia Joufrey, one of the most prominent accusers of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 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.

In the standoff over the government shutdown, Republicans tried something new today off. a Senate bill that would pay some federal workers, those who are still on the job. Democrats blocked that move, arguing that it excludes too many people. That says more than a million federal workers working and furloughed will miss a full paycheck tomorrow. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardin has been speaking with lawmakers and federal workers and joins us now. All right, Lisa, so what did we learn today about how long this shutdown will go? We learned that Democrats are not moving, but there may be some discomfort for some of them. On that vote that you described, there were three Democrats, Democratic senators, you see them there, who voted with Republicans.

The two on the right are the senators from Georgia. Previously, they have always stuck with Democrats on shutdown votes. Now, this was about paying workers. Republicans, however, see this as a sign that maybe there are some new getable votes there. But otherwise, there really hasn't been a change in the Senate itself. Now, overall, Democrats are not budging. We did talk to Speaker Johnson today. he had his news conference. That's something that also is not changing. He is not calling the House back into session again, sticking with that.

I was able to sit down with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries yesterday. And I have to tell you, he also seems even more determined and more confident than I had seen him at the beginning. So what's the bottom line here? If no dynamic changes, Jeff, as I sit here, this shutdown is on track to go not just into November, but maybe weeks into November and beyond. And the fact that these federal workers are set to miss a paycheck tomorrow, that's not focusing the minds of any of these lawmakers? No, not for Democrats. Republicans are hoping that's a pressure point, but there is something unusual about this shutdown. While there are over a million federal workers who will miss that paycheck tomorrow, for them, that's not their only existential challenge. I spent hours speaking to them in the last day, and many of them are talking about pushback that they want. and they see this is that pushback over what they feel has been brutal treatment, in fact, an existential threat to the civil service itself.

Now, many of them are uncomfortable speaking on camera. They're worried about retaliation. But one of them, a furloughed NIH worker named Sylvia, did allow us to use her voice. The short-term pains are obviously dramatic, and I really worry about it. But I feel like nine months in, if we don't do something, nothing is going to be done. and the short-term pain, hopefully, is that something that allows for a vision for a more loan-term, sustainable governing process? Because I say this sometimes, it feels like hostage takeover.

There are some workers who obviously are struggling with finances and will struggle with finances, but there are many of them saying, for now, they think it's worth the trade-off. That helps Democrats, but Republicans see other concerns. Virginia's Republican governor today said he's calling a state of emergency because of food benefits snap that are running out. He says Virginia will pay for those. But Republicans want that as a pressure point. At the same time, Jeff, I don't even remind you,

Affordable Care Act subsidies are running out. People are going to see their health care go up. So the pain will increase. Lawmakers not changing yet. And members of Congress continue to get paid during the shutdown. They do. That's constitutional. Lisa Desjardin. Our thanks to you, as always.

You're welcome. The entire east wing of the White House has been demolished, part of President Trump's plan to build a new White House ballroom. The demolition, which began this week without prior public notice, has drawn sharp criticism from preservationists and historians. In a statement, the National Trust for Historic Preservation called for the work to stop, saying it's concerned that the massing and height of the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself. and may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House. President Trump had previously insisted the project would not affect the East Wing, which for decades housed the First Lady's offices. Joining us now to discuss the renovation is Priya Jan,

chair of the Heritage Preservation Committee at the Society of Architectural Historians and a professor at Texas A&M University. Thanks for being with us. Thank you for having me. You know, one would expect the White House, given its historic importance, its national symbolism, to have extraordinary preservation restrictions. Why doesn't it? So this goes back to an exemption in the Section 106 process

of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, where the White House, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. Capitol Building were marked as exempt. Other federal buildings are federally assisted projects where historic buildings are impacted go through this very comprehensive review process. process. Now, having said that, despite the exemption, previous studies done at the White House with the involvement of the National Park Service note that even though this formal

process is not required, the NPS staff tried to adhere to this process to the best extent as possible. And in prior projects that have been much smaller in scale, it appears that these internal consultations and advice from the National Park Service and other agencies, has been sought before the project was initiated and executed. But that wasn't the case here? It is not clear. It has not been shared to my knowledge in the public domain what the nature of these consultations have been.

I should note that the National Park Service in the Secretary of the Interior's guidelines for treatment to historic buildings and specifically in relation to new additions states that new additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction, will not destroy historic materials, features, and spatial relationships that characterize the property.

Moreover, the new work will be compatible with the historic materials, size, scale, proportion, and massing to protect the integrity of the property and its environment. This language that I just read from the National Park Service document is meant to be an advisory, it's a guidance. However, throughout the nation, the federal projects, other historic buildings, use this guidance in the way they treat historic buildings. So it's surprising that the most important building in the nation, it's not clear whether these guidelines have been followed and what those deliberations have been like. Professor Jan, the White House today defended the demolition and redevelopment work.

Here's what the White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said. There have been many presidents in the past who have made their mark on this beautiful White House complex. I think sitting here today, we're all grateful for those efforts and the modifications that happened at that time. And again, in due time, the East Wing is going to be more beautiful and modern than ever before. So how does this square with what past presidents have done? Certainly, no president has sought to demolish an entire wing in the White House. Yes, and this is something that we noted that despite the fact that there have been successive auditions and changes, changes to the White House, this would be the first major change to the building in the last 80 years.

And I should also point out that the National Park Service lays out that any changes to a property that have happened, for example, the East Wing, which was added in 1942, they acquire historic significance in their own right and should be retained and preserved. So from our perspective, it is unclear whether that sought of assessment of the historic significance of the East Wing, the East Colonnade, was done. So the scale of this project, at least in the last 80 years, to the exterior appearance of the White House is unprecedented. What are the potential risks tangible and intangible

of demolishing and rebuilding such a prominent piece of the White House? Right. So any new structure that comes in its place is basically not the old East Wing. It's a new structure. And if I'm looking at kind of more recent news stories, it seems like it is not just the East Wing, but also the East Colonnade that has now been demolished. So, yes, so I think anything, I mean, what is lost is now lost.

Any new construction that happens would essentially be a new building. So conversely, what are the potential benefits or opportunities, if any, that might come from this redevelopment? So for anybody who's worked on his, historic campus or with historic buildings knows that buildings cannot be frozen in time, especially if they're being constantly used. I think from our society's perspective, we also know that there is not just one way of doing a project.

There are multiple design options. There are various ways in which programmatic requirements are right-sized, whether we, what should be the size of this ballroom? As you know, in this process, the ballroom was initially proposed to be designed for 650 people. And then later on, that project scale was expanded to now be up to 1,000 people. So we encouraged in our statement for this conversation around the size of the project to be had with the broad consensus of people and to take their advice into consideration. Priya Jan, chair of the Heritage Preservation Committee at the Society of Architectural Historians.

Thanks for your time. Thank you for having me. President Trump has continued to perpetuate the lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged in favor of Joe Biden, posting on his social media platform just last night that it was, quote, an illegal scam slash hoax. Since he re-entered the White House, the president has suggested his administration will crack down on mail ballots. And as Liz Landers reports, take a closer look at state voting system. ahead of next year's midterm elections. Last month, the Justice Department sued Pennsylvania and seven other states

for refusing to turn over personal voter data in their statewide voter registration lists. Joining me now is Al Schmidt, the Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth, who is the state's top election official. Mr. Secretary, the voter list that the Department of Justice is suing to get from you all include information like date of birth and the last four digits of social security numbers. numbers, you have offered to give the Department of Justice publicly available voter files. Why won't you turn over this additional information that they're asking for? The Department of Justice is welcome to the public information that we make available,

according to the Pennsylvania laws, for our 8.8 million registered voters. What we will not provide is the Social Security numbers or driver's license numbers, and that's because it's at odds with state law. It's at odds with federal law, and it's at odds with our Constitution here in Pennsylvania. What are your concerns with turning over that kind of voter information? What could happen with that that you're worried about? Well, it's very sensitive information, and I do a lot of events all over the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And one thing that I've heard from Democrats and Republicans alike is a gratitude for not providing all this sensitive information to the federal government,

But really, it's not something worthy of a compliment. Our laws prohibit us from providing that information to the federal government. Even if we wanted to, in this administration or any other, our laws would prohibit us from doing so. So you're saying it would be illegal for you to turn this over? It would be not legal, for sure, for us to turn this over. And that is why we denied the requests from the Department of Justice. The interaction has in no way been hostile from our perspective. we are willing to share everything that is publicly available with the Department of Justice.

Reading through this complaint that the department filed back in September for Pennsylvania, they write that the Commonwealth does not appear to have any process in place to make any determination about whether there are non-citizens on the voter rolls. That's the allegation from the Department of Justice. Is that true? That is factually inaccurate. Our system in Pennsylvania, with automatic voter regulations, registration, which was implemented by the Shapiro administration, prevents non-citizens from ever

interfacing with the voter registration process when getting a driver's license if they are eligible in Pennsylvania. In addition, if someone applies using, let's say, a paper application, they're swearing and affirming under penalty of federal perjury charges, prosecution, and deportation that they are eligible to register to vote in Pennsylvania. And it's the same in many other states as well. Is there a process that the Secretary's office goes through to clean up the voter rolls? Every election in Pennsylvania is subject to two audits after every election conducted at the county level to make sure that the results are accurate. So I can assure you that we take election

integrity very seriously. We appreciate the government's, the federal government's interests in all this. But I've been an election commissioner in the largest county in Pennsylvania for more than 10 years when I was city commissioner of Philadelphia. And I assure you, as a Republican election commissioner, I take election integrity allegations very seriously. I've investigated hundreds of cases to determine whether voters are eligible or not. And when warranted, referred them to federal, state, or local law enforcement for further investigation. And when warranted prosecution. Your role is a

nonpartisan role, but you are a Republican, and Republicans are historically the party of small government. Is this kind of action that the Department of Justice taking right now? Is that the kind of action that a Republican

administration should be taking? I think that's a great question, Liz. And that might be why you haven't seen any daylight between different states, when it comes to these requests from the Department of Justice and whether they are responding and providing their voters sensitive personal information or not. It's really not a red state or blue state thing. It is a, in my view, a concerning attempt, a concerning effort to consolidate and overreach at the federal level.

In the United States of America, it's the states who run elections. not the federal government. Pennsylvania has long been a target of President Trump's back in 2020, and also in 2024, he has falsely said that the state has had election fraud in those elections. Are you worried that the president may send in the National Guard to voting locations in next year's midterm elections? It's really not a matter of worrying. It's a matter of preparing to make sure elections are run smoothly in, in, Pennsylvania. I ran elections in Philadelphia in 2020. We were on the receiving end of an avalanche of

threats and federal efforts to do this and that. It's really just a matter of making sure that you're prepared to make sure that elections run smoothly and to not even open the window for any of those excuses or nonsense to interfere with election administration or to try to put their thumb on the scale of the results. All that matters is the outcome determined by the voters and nobody else. Final question for you, Mr. Secretary. You mentioned threats. I know that you have received threats personally. Your family did after the 2020 election. Are you concerned that he may try to go after you in a criminal way for certifying that election in 2020? If you do everything in accordance with a law, you have no reason to be concerned. And I have

no reason to be concerned because the Shapiro administration and the Pennsylvania Department of State have done everything to make sure that elections are run right in Pennsylvania. Al Schmidt, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Thank you so much for joining NewsHour. I appreciate it. Thank you. days this year that it wanted to change the culture of the U.S. military. One effort targeted books about race, gender, and sexuality in the libraries of military-based schools that service members' children attend. But this week, a federal judge ruled that the books taken off the shelves had to be returned, and the curricula the military changed had to

be restored. Before the ruling, Nick Schifrin and producer Dan Segalan traveled outside Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to speak to military families that fought through the courts for our series art in action, exploring the intersection of art and democracy, part of our Canvas coverage. I can read to you while you eat your snack-y. For Jessica Hinaner, reading is fundamental. A perfect plan, you say, a perfect way to spend the day. And she's tried to spend her days reading with her kids to help them better understand the world.

Max says, I'll get some milk for you. She says, let's take some crackers, too. Yeah, that's what we have. You do have crackers. I remember as a child growing up in a very small community. Books were really the only opportunity that I had to open up my world to different ideas and things outside of what I understood. Hinniner is a soldier's spouse and the parent of five.

If it gets here, he let me know. Who let us visit her family near Fort Campbell recently as long as we kept the kids anonymous. She's supported her five children through their play and education. All of them are attending or graduated from Defense Department Elementary in high schools, no matter where they've been based, from Kentucky to Vincenza, Italy. Our kids have consistently gotten a fantastic education, no matter where we've been stationed, and to just really be immersed in that diversity, I think, is a wonderful strength of what we have in the military.

I now declare you graduates of Fort Campbell High School. The Defense Department runs 161 schools across 10 time zones with 67,000 children of service members and civilian department employees. Classes run from pre-K through 12th grade. The military may choose where we go, but we choose what we do to make our lives meaningful. I always vetted out the education systems when we would move places to make sure that my children had. a top-notch education and that they were going to be set up for success later on in life. And so that is part of the reason why I got involved in this lawsuit.

In April, Henaner and five other military families, serving on three continents, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense's education activity or Dodia for, quote, quarantining library books and whitewashing curricula, calling it, quote, system-wide censorship. Among the 596 books, the schools removed Taunahazi Coates's Between the World and Me, Isabelle Wilkerson's cast, and the AP Psychology textbook, which has a gender and sex module. Also removed a queer history of the United States for young people when a bully is president, truth and creativity for oppressive times, and eulogy, a puberty guide for everybody. The schools also remove portions of the middle school sex education course.

The determination about what is appropriate for our children to consume in the libraries and the curriculum has always been left up to the experts, the people in the school, who cultivate the libraries and the curriculum. And I think that's where it should be, teaching an awareness of where we came from and making sure that we don't make those same mistakes. again that's that's not political that's education at this point are you considering removing your kids from do dieu i had a very serious conversation with my husband where i told him that if our children's education seemed like it was going to be hijacked by political ideation um that i would not feel comfortable keeping our children in the dode system. That's a heavy conversation to have to have with your significant other who is in the military and doesn't have a choice in where they go. You know, potentially talking about splitting up your

family, it's heavy. We will stop our service members from being indoctrinated with radical-left ideologies. The change has come from a series of January executive orders that targeted, quote, un-American, divisive, discriminatory, radical, extremist, and irrational theories. divisive concepts, that American founding documents are racist or sexist and gender ideology. The Pentagon declined our interview request, but in a court filing, the administration wrote, the curriculum and book reviews were undertaking to implement Dodia's current pedological approach to teaching school children regarding gender and sexuality and to better promote

an inclusive environment. And curating a library collection or developing a teaching curriculum is an act of government speech. It's therefore not subject to the rigorous scrutiny under the First Amendment's free speech clause. This is a public school. They are entitled to the same First Amendment rights as any student in any public school in this country. It's always important to shine a light on what the government's doing. Corey Shapiro is the American Civil Liberties Union's Kentucky legal director and one of the lawyers

who sued Doeia and Secretary Pete Heggseth. Their focus is what they call war fighting. Their focus is on removing what they see as an ideology. If that's how they think, don't they have the right to say, well, we believe that this is a threat to our kids and we're in charge of the system, so therefore we can change it. They don't necessarily have the right to do and the First Amendment protects as a student's ability to access that information. And in the library in particular, the idea that the government can somehow determine what ideas

can and cannot be even just accessed by students. That's where the First Amendment steps in and protects those kids' ability to access that information. This week, the court agreed, writing, quote, the implementation process of book removals appears to this court to be inconsistent, unstructured, and non-transparent. The judge ordered the books returned and the curricula restored, but only in the five schools listed in the lawsuit. It's not clear yet if the administration will appeal, but this is a larger fight for Secretary Pete Hegeseth.

I remember coming home from public school in like 10th grade and saying, dad, why is Ronald Reagan always the bad guy in the textbooks? Long before he became secretary, Heggseth criticized government education as too liberal. I grew up in a conservative, God-fearing, regular old small-town America, Minnesota. Because the textbooks are written by lefties in New York City. Get your kids out of government schools systems right now, if you can, if you have any way. You know, save money, move, get a second job, don't take the vacation, sell the boat, whatever, drive for Uber, figure out what you need to do to get your kid out of the government

school system because it's about saving your kid right now. For Henaner and her family, they have to believe in government schools because it comes with their choice to serve the country. After graduating from a Dodia school, their oldest daughter joined the military. My children have the same rights to freedom of education as every other student in this country. Just because their father is in the military doesn't make their rights any less important. For the PBS News Hour, I'm Nick Schifrin in Clarksville, Tennessee. tells the story of the late Virginia Roberts Joufrey,

one of the many victims of the late sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. Joufrey took her own life earlier this year. Her posthumous memoir explores her resilience while also revealing new details about the abuse she suffered at the hands of powerful figures, as well as newly surfaced allegations of mistreatment by her husband.

Amanavaz has that story and a warning. This report includes accounts of sexual abuse and suicide. Most of the world came to know Virginia Roberts Juffray in 2011, when she began speaking out about the abuse she endured at the hands of some of the world's most powerful men. In court filings, Jufre described being sexually abused and trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein when she was as young as 16 years old. She accused Epstein's co-conspirator, Gillian Maxwell, of luring her into that world from Mar-a-Lago, where she worked as a locker room attendant at the spa. Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2019,

but died by suicide in his jail cell in August that same year while awaiting trial. Joufrey spoke after his death, continuing to demand justice. I want to start by saying it's not how Jeffrey died, but it's how he lived. And we need to get to the bottom of everybody who was involved at that, starting with Gieland Maxwell and going along the lines there. I was recruited at a very young age from Mar-a-Lago. and entrapped in the world that I didn't understand, and I've been fighting that very world to this day,

and I won't stop fighting. I will never be silenced until these people are brought to justice. Jufre led the way for many more women to come forward about their own abuse by Epstein and those around him. In April of this year, Joufrey died by suicide. In Australia, where she lived for many years with her husband and three children. She was just 41 years old. Jeffrey's story is told now in a new posthumous memoir titled Nobody's Girl,

a memoir of surviving abuse and fighting for justice, a collaboration with journalist Amy Wallace, and she joins me now. So you spent four years working closely with Virginia on this book. Why did she want to write it? What's the message she wanted to send with this? Well, she was really clear about her main reason for writing it, which is that she wanted to help other survivors of sexual abuse, not just Epstein and Maxwell survivors,

but anyone who's been coerced into sex against their will. And so she wanted to depict herself sort of warts and all, highs and lows. It's an absolutely unflinching and haunting account of what she lived through, especially her years as a child. I think detailing all of the sexual abuse she went through at the hands of her own father, which he denies being trafficked to her father's friend,

which she details being... raped by two teenagers later, by strangers after she runs away, first from her own home and then from an abusive group home, all before she was even 16 years old. What was it like for her to relive all of those moments and retell them to you? Well, you know, it was obviously very difficult. There was a decision she had to make in the past.

She had always said, truthfully, I was abused in my childhood by a family friend. That was true, and that person is in the book. But what she hadn't said was she was also. abused by her own father and that was a decision that she made to decide to go there sort of the precipitating event you know it's this idea that victims of sexual trafficking are not born they are made and they are made through terrible experience and so she would say to me you know how can I go after or

or try to point the finger at all of these men I've been trafficked to bold-faced names when I won't even talk about the person who originally hurt me and who arguably made her more vulnerable to being hurt throughout her life because she had had these early experiences. It was painful, but she felt like it was necessary. You know, she's allegedly being abused by her own father, and she tries to tell other people about it. They're at a family excursion on a big family camping trip, and in front of extended family, she confronts her father about this. She says what he's been doing, and no one reacts. In fact, her father actually takes her into the camper van and allegedly beat her inside there.

What did she take away from that moment? Why did that stand out? When you grow up in a world where adult men rape children and nobody does anything about it, then you start to believe that's how the world actually is. So the thought of escaping from Epstein's Manhattan Townhouse and she didn't think the world outside was. was any different.

The world she had grown up in, that kept happening to her. And so there was this psychic manipulation that we can talk about more in terms of what Epstein and Maxwell did to keep the girls close. In Virginia's case, he threatened her with a picture of her beloved younger brother, Sky, and said, we know where he goes to school. Here's a picture we took of him at school.

And if you ever turn on me, if you ever turn me in, we will hurt him. So that was going to keep her in place. By the time she's 16, she's dropped out of high school. She's working different retail jobs trying to make ends meet, living with a boyfriend that's not going anywhere, it sounds like. And her father, I learned in the book, worked for Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago as a maintenance man, gets her a job, an hourly job working as a locker room attendant at the spa.

She wants to go on to have a career as a massage therapist, right? This is where she comes into contact with Galane Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. How do they bring her into their world? She thinks, wow, this is a cool life. Maybe I'd like to become a masseuse. I don't know, but I don't know anything about it. So she takes a book out of the library about anatomy, and she's reading it at the front desk of the spa one day

when it's a quiet moment. And by the time Gillen gets there, she's reading this book. You know, you're so interested in anatomy? Would you like to become a masseuse? Are you a masseuse? Well, I know a wealthy man. He would love to train me. come today, come this very afternoon, and I will introduce you to him. And that very day,

she goes, and both Gillen Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused her in the massage room. She goes on to be repeatedly abused by Epstein, by Maxwell, by a number of people in their circles. She's named some of them before. She's named Prince Andrew before, for sure. She details multiple allegations here of his assaults against her, and he has since been stripped of his. his royal title since the book came out and these details were revealed. I have to wonder, has there ever been any legal accountability, any attempt legal accountability with the people that she's named before and now in this book? Well, this is why everybody's clamoring for the Epstein files of what we are now calling

the Epstein files. I don't think anyone exactly knows how voluminous they are. They may be 12 file cabinets. They may have videotapes in them. We're not totally sure. But I know what Virginia told the FBI, and she did it repeatedly. The allegations were made.

She's been deposed several times in those depositions are public, and there are many, many men named in those public depositions. Not all of them are in the book, but the names are out there. And basically what's happened so far is those men have had their publicist issue statements saying, we deny it. And that's as far as it's gone.

Virginia documents in the book the details that Epstein saved, right, photos, videotapes, presumably lists and other documentation somewhere else. Is it fair to assume all of this is in the hands of the authorities? And in saying release the Epstein files, what do you think would be learned from that? Well, I think there should be a trove of information. We also know from Virginia's account that there were video cameras in that. Manhattan townhouse in all of the private spaces I believe even in the bathrooms so those videotapes would theoretically not just let you know the horrors that went on in the house but they might even identify some of the men he was surprised when he was

picked up at Teterboro Airport and arrested him they were also battering in the door and going into that Manhattan townhouse so that gives me hope that there were things that were confiscated from that house in terms of what's known and unknown, she details what's probably one of her most brutal assaults ever, and she says that it happened at the hands of a powerful prime minister. She says that she was choked and that she was beaten, bloodied, and it was a real turning point for her as well. He's not named in the book. I wonder why not, and if there's any potential accountability there. It really, really mattered to hold these people accountable. And so she came forward to the authorities, and they

know those names and the authorities have the name of this prime minister i believe so so then the question is if you're going to rename and rename and rename and rename you open yourself up to a bunch of dangers one you lose your privacy obviously that's a given she's already done that but this is a family that had death she had death threats against her um she had her house broken into So there's a safety issue, and with this particular gentleman, she was afraid he would kill her. She told you that? Absolutely. It is brutal to read these accounts in such detail and with such candor.

And she writes at one point, straight to the reader, I know this is a lot to take in, the violence, the neglect, the bad decisions, the self-harm. Imagine if a trauma reel like this played in your head all the time as it does mine, and not just on the pages of a book you can put down if you need to just for a moment to steady your nerves but please please she writes don't stop reading why was that important to include she doesn't just break the fourth wall and say come with me keep going now back to the traumas she takes you into a moment in her present and i think the i think the moment in the book at that point is she's in the car she's playing all her music she's american but her kids are australian they grew up in australia so she's She was playing all her music, which was a huge coping mechanism for her.

And they're teenagers, and they're like, ah, mom, your music is awful, turn it off. And we capture that scene. It gives you a little bit of hope, but also just a break before you go back into reading. Amy, she was only 41 when she took her own life just earlier this year. What was going on in her marriage and in her world around that time? What can you tell us that she told you? Well, she died in April. a lot had happened in that time. Her marriage had broken down. They were estranged from each

other. There had been allegations back and forth, and her husband had won a restraining order against her keeping her from seeing or communicating with her kids, which was very, very difficult for her. She's not here today to talk about her own story. I know you're sitting here in her stead. What do you think she would make of this day when her entire story, all of these details is out in the rest of the world. What would she want to say? We say in the preface that she wrote me an email, me and another person on our team, and said,

in the case of my passing, I want this book published, not just for me, but for the other victims. We need to speak up, not just victims, but women and men who are concerned about what's going on in our culture. The fetishization of young girls is alive and well. But yes, she should be sitting here. Not me. I'm her facilitator. I'm her collaborator. I was there to help her tell her story. And this is her book, her story. And I'm, you know, heartbroken that she's not here to enjoy, if that's the right word, the moment of having people really know all the things that happened.

Amy Wallace, thank you so much for being here. The book, again, is nobody's girl. The author is the late Virginia Roberts, Juffray. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And that is the News Hour for tonight. I'm Jeff Bennett. For all of us here at the PBS News Hour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us.