wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. xfinity internet. made for streaming. ♪ amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz. geoff bennett is on assignment. on the “newshour” tonight. israel bombards rafah as its leaders respond with defiance to president biden freezing some weapons deliveries. stormy daniels clashes with

donald trump's legal team, as she takes the stand for a second day in the former president's hush money trial. and a look at a battery-powered aircraft that could lead the transition away from fossil fueled flight. >> you can get in it, you can fly in it, you can carry cargo in it. this aircraft isn't a gimmick. it is a real-world aircraft. it is reliable. ♪ >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- ♪

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this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the “newshour”" today, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu said his country would quote, stand alone if necessary, a response to president biden's recent move to pause deliveries of some bombs to israel. that decision has created a possible turning point in the u.s.-israel relationship and the war in gaza, with the fate of hostage negotiations in the balance. israel is now poised to expand its operation in rafah, a step the u.s. is warning netanyahu not to take. nick schifrin begins our coverage.

nick: in southern israel, tanks are massed and nearly ready for an assault. they fire at rafah, where ongoing airstrikes rip the roofs off homes. toppled minarets. and killed victims who are so easy to carry the burden becomes all the heavier. and president biden is concerned an expanded military operation, would kill more gazans like yazan hassan mohanna. >> civilians have been killed in gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers. i made it clear that if they go into rafah -- they haven't gone in rafah yet -- if they go into rafah, i'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with rafah. nick: but hamas fights from rafah, including with mortars that last weekend killed four israeli soldiers and blocked humanitarian aid. israel is determined to eliminate hamas' final four

battalions, no matter what the u.s. says. prime minister benjamin netanyahu said today -- >> if we need to stand alone, we will stand alone. i have said that if necessary, we will fight with our fingernails. but we have much more than fingernails, and with that same strength of spirit, with god's help, together, we will win. nick: the fighting has forced some 80,000 gazans, many already displaced, to flee rafah. the main hospital is closed, its rooms abandoned. humanitarian aid shelves are nearly bare, and fuel trucks are stuck in egypt. there is only one to two days of fuel left, since israel seized and closed the border, the u.n. said this week. >> the first act is to stop the fuel, stop the food, to stop the medicine, at source, at the border. i don't call that limited and i don't call that restricted, i call that a re-imposition of total blockade on nearly 2.5 million civilians. nick: the fate of rafah is connected to the fate of israeli hostages. every night their families march

through tel aviv, demanding the government accept a deal that would pause the war, to release their loved ones. today, national security communications advisor john kirby said the u.s. shares israel's strategic goal of an enduring defeat of hamas, but said it disagreed with how to achieve it. smashing into rafah, kirby said, will not get israel there, and he also said it's unacceptable that the rafah crossing is still closed. amna: you mentioned how the fate of rafah is intertwined with the hostages held in gaza. what is the status of those negotiations? nick: caa director bill burns has left the region. but u.s. officials tell me that does not mean the negotiations have stopped. there is clearly a difference between the u.s. and israel and how those negotiations should proceed. israel has argued that president biden's decision about pausing some weapons deliveries and making that decision public actually strengthens hamas's negotiating position.

kirby today argued a major operation by israel in rafah would actually strengthen hamas's negotiating position. he said that operation would show that israel is not interested in actually achieving a cease-fire hostage deal and it would cause more civilian casualties, therefore putting more diplomatic and international pressure on israel. but it is all coming to a head. israel said the end of this week is the deadline. they will launch that major operation in rafah if there is not a hostage deal. amna: nick schifrin beginning our coverage tonight. nick, thank you. nick: thank you. ♪ stephanie: i'm stephanie sy with "newshour west." here are the latest headlines -- large stretches of the deep south faced a new wave of severe storms, including possible tornadoes. dangerous conditions delayed flights in atlanta and charlotte, and closed schools in some places.

a day earlier, tennessee reported multiple tornadoes and saw barrages of massive hail. the storms also left widespread destruction and hundreds of thousands without power. in all, four people have died this week from the extreme weather. puerto rico has declared a state of emergency and activated the national guard amid unrelenting rain and flooding. the u.s. territory has had more than 10 inches of rain in just two days, turning streets into rivers and triggering landslides. officials say one person is missing, several people have been rescued from rooftops, and crops have been badly damaged. in ukraine, president volodymyr zelenskyy warned today his country faces a "really difficult" situation in the east, as russian forces gain ground. zelenskyy spoke in kyiv, with the president of the european parliament. he said new military aid from the united states needs to arrive soon.

pres. zelenskyy: with an increase in the supply of weapons, we will be able to stop them in the east. as of now, they seized the initiative there. this is no secret. we need to stop them, take the initiative into our own hands. this is possible only when you have something strong in your hands. stephanie: zelenskyy's comments followed a week of heavy russian bombardments. today, officials confirmed that two hydropower plants were knocked out in the assaults. meantime, a ukrainian drone attack today damaged an energy plant more than 900 miles inside russian territory. that's the deepest strike yet by kyiv's forces. russia focused on an old conflict today -- its defeat of nazi germany in world war ii. "victory day" brought parades and pageantry, orchestrated by president vladimir putin. on a cold, snowy day in moscow, military regiments marched and tanks rolled through red square. putin thanked those fighting in ukraine and said the country is united. pres. putin: we celebrate

victory day in the context of the special military operation. all its participants, those who are on the front line, on the line of combat contact, are our heroes. all of russia is with you. stephanie: putin has used world war ii to justify his invasion of ukraine, claiming without evidence that the goal is to root out a neo-nazi regime. back in this country, 25 republican attorneys general sued the environmental protection agency over carbon emissions. they're challenging a rule that would cut those emissions from coal-fired power plants by 90 percent, over 8 years. west virginia's attorney general said the mandate is "setting up the plants to fail and therefore shutter, altering the nation's already stretched grid." a federal appeals court panel ruled today that convicted felons who have served their sentences for non-violent crimes have the constitutional right to bear arms. in a 2 to 1 ruling, the dissenting judge of the 9th circuit court of appeals wrote that the second amendment only protects "law-abiding citizens."

other appeals courts have upheld the federal law, raising the possibility the issue could go to the supreme court. on wall street, stocks managed to gain some ground. the dow jones industrial average was up 331 points to close at 39,387. the nasdaq rose 43 points. the s&p 500 added 26. and, the world video game hall of fame in rochester, new york has five new honorees. the class of 2024 includes "asteroids" -- which debuted in arcades in 1979 -- plus "ultima," "resident evil," "myst" and "sim city." the hall of fame recognizes all types of electronic games, including arcade, console, computer, handheld and mobile. still to come on the "newshour" -- the biden administration proposes changes to the asylum system that would speed up deportations for certain migrants. a middle school's unique and successful approach to keeping students off their cell phones.

and a new book takes a look at the women who shaped president theodore roosevelt. >> this is "the pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. amna: more now on the biden administration's decision to suspend some weapons deliveries to israel, to pressure it against a large-scale invasion of the gazan city of rafah. nick schifrin is back here in studio. nick, as you've been reporting, president biden wants the netanyahu government to do more to limit civilian deaths in rafah, where more than a million people are now sheltering. nick? nick: amna, the decision pauses the delivery of 3500 bombs, about half of them 2000 pound bombs that the u.s. believes have caused the most civilian casualties in gaza. president biden also warned more weapons deliveries could be paused, if israel launches that

full invasion of rafah. so, will the decision have the desired effect? for that, we get two views. ambassador dennis ross played leading roles in the middle east peace process for more than 12 years. he is now a counselor and a distinguished fellow at the washington institute for near east policy, a washington think tank. and tom malinowski was assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor during the obama administration, and a former member of congress. he's now a non-resident senior fellow at the mccain institute. thank you very much to both of you and welcome back. will the israeli government now take more into account the biden administration's over rafah then it would have if you decision was not made and not made public? dennis: it is an excellent question. my sense is from a political standpoint it will be harder for prime minister netanyahu who to

respond to president biden not in terms of the body politic of israel as a whole but the right wing of his own coalition. how he manages that remains to be seen. having said that, i don't see him wanting to put israel in a position where suddenly it is losing access to some of the munitions it is likely to need not so much for rafah but because it still faces real threats from hezbollah in the north. it is not in israel's image -- interest to create a gap with the u.s. that could make a conflict with the north and hezbollah more likely. it is also not in israel's interest because it probably also increases the hamas leader in gaza, increases his sense that he doesn't need to make any decisions at all right now. he is going to play upon the divisions between the united states and israel. both israel and the united states have an interest in

finding a way to change that image that there is a division. nick: tom, same question. is bibi netanyahu more likely to take u.s. warnings seriously today than he was before it was made public? tom: he was not taking them seriously before and that is why the president made this decision. this is the most pro-israel president in american history. he has just reached his limit after months and months of trying to break through to this government in israel. we are still supporting israel. he is also the first president just last month to put american forces on the line defending -- shooting down hundreds of missiles. he would do it again tomorrow if he had to. he has just decided something i think should be noncontroversial. that we should not be arming a foreign country to do something that the united states thinks should not be done.

nick: should the u.s. be arming a country, israel in this case, to do something it does not want done, namely, the invasion of rafah? dennis: it is hard to quarrel with that because the fact is israel has its set of interests but so do we. and if we think they are doing something is wrong or crosses a line or is counterproductive, which is the real reason the president adopted the position he has. yes, there is a moral dimension to this, but he thinks this is self-defeating if israel goes into rafah on the ground. having said that again, the administration's position is not different from israel's that hamas should not be in control not only of gaza, but rafah. there ought to be away for the administration and israel to reach an understanding on what is a way to deal with the hamas presence in rafah without putting at risk 1.3 million people crammed into a very small area. nick: that is certainly what the u.s. wants. netanyahu has said at least

publicly he needs to go into rafah. the impact on the hostage negotiations is the real divide here. israel has accused president biden essentially of relieving pressure on sinwar. john kirby made the opposite case that an invasion of rafah would hurt israel in the negotiations. what do you think? tom: i agree with john kirby but i also think for prime minister netanyahu to make that argument, it does not make a lot of sense to me because it was prime minister netanyahu who said repeatedly over the last several days that he would go into rafah whether there is a hostage deal or not. he took away his own leverage when making those statements and put the u.s. and our allies in the region and our other allies in the region in the difficult position of trying to convince hamas, you have to give up the hostages anyway and we will somehow try and restrain the israelis from doing this. so i don't think he can have it both ways. nick: your take on that point,

that netanyahu took away his own leverage by saying he was going into rafah regardless? dennis: it was a mistake for him to say that. he was saying that because he was trying to appease his ministers on the far right. the most important leverage israel has with sinwar -- and again, sinwar is different from the political leadership of hamas. i think the key putting pressure under him is him feeling that there is a noose tightening around his neck. from that standpoint the threat of going into rafah is far more impressive than actually doing it, number one. number two, if you were saying we will not go into rafah if there is a hostage release, that also increases the leverage. i am concerned if it looks like we are doing everything we can to prevent a threat against rafah, that that gives sinwar a certain degree of comfort. so there is a great value in the u.s. and the israelis reaching

agreement on, a, we share the same strategic objective as it relates to hamas in rafah and gaza, but b, we've reached an understanding about how to contend with how to remove hamas from rafah. i think that is something that can be achievable. i think the issue with netanyahu relates much more to the politics of his coalition than to the reality of what it would take to succeed in rafah and do it in a way consistent with what the u.s. can live with. nick: when it comes to the politics of the coalition we have a few graphics to show here. we have a tweet from a member of the coalition who is the national security minister in response to the decision tweeting, hamas loves biden. and a jerusalem post editorial, betrayal of allies. in the minute we have left, is some of the responses, especially within netanyahu's coalition, is that posturing, or

is that genuine anger ahead of israeli independence day, and does it matter? tom: i think they are amp and up the political drama. i think they are hoping to affect the american political debate on this, hoping they can somehow go around biden and have others pressure the administration to change course, which will not work. those statements, particularly from ministers who have been convicted by israeli courts for support of terrorism themselves, are not going to have a lot of impact on the biden administration's calculus, nor should they. i think when the drama subsides, i agree with ambassador ross that at the end of the day, israel and the united states need each other. israel needs the united states and the supply of weapons we provide and the political support we provide. and i think that the common understanding that ambassador ross rightly says is necessary about how to actually defeat hamas will be where we end up. nick: thank you very much both.

♪ amna: the adult film actress at the center of former president trump's criminal hush money trial finished her testimony today after more than seven hours on the stand. stormy daniels spent the morning being questioned by trump's defense attorney in a tense cross examination that tried to paint her as an opportunist. she was just one of several witnesses who appeared in court today. our william brangham joins us now from new york. ms. daniels finished her second and her last day on the stand today. we are saying she is at the center of this trial but she is not really involved in any of the hush money repayments that mr. trump is accused of trying to conceal. so tell us a little about what she did testify to today. william: that is exactly right.

she testified that she has no direct knowledge of the charges at the center of this falsifying business records case. but yet as you said, she is also at the very center of this case. her testimony continued today with her finishing telling the story of this alleged one time sexual encounter she had with the donald trump at a celebrity golf tournament years ago at lake tahoe. and the then-$130,000 she negotiated to get paid to silence that story and make sure it never came out. and trump's legal team today, led by susan necklace, try to poke holes in inconsistencies she hated given over the years, trying to say she has not given a consistent story. there were a lot of little examples. one example, they spent a good deal of time trying to parse out whether stormy daniels ever said that she literally ate a meal with him in that room the night

of the alleged affair. necklace also try to paint her, as you mentioned, as solely being out for money and said, how much money were you making on the documentary and the book, and the interviews that you have given over the years. i mean, it was very testy, very combative. and there were times where daniels seemed extremely defiant, and there were times where she seemed to actually enjoy the jousting back-and-forth. in contrast to how she was tuesday, where she seemed much more nervous, today she seemed much more eager for the fight. there was one point at which necklace was trying to show all the merchandise she sells on her website and through her instagram page, where she is promoting appearances at strip clubs where she makes some mention of her relationship with trump. necklace was saying you are trying to capitalize on this. and daniels said, in essence, yes, that is my job, merchandising myself and selling things with my name on it, not

too dissimilar from what trump does, she said. so a very, very combative day today. amna: for a moment there were some witnesses who had a more direct relationship to those repayments at the center of this trial. what did they have to testify to? william: that's right. there was a junior bookkeeper from the trump organization who testified this morning and told basically about how chec were cut from the trump organization and sent to washington, d.c. to the white house for trump to sign them and send them back to new york. some of these checks are at the core of this case, of the alleged repayment to michael cohen. another former execuve assistant from the white house testified about receiving some of those checks and seeing donald trump sign some of them in the oval ofce. she also detailed scheduling a very crucial meeting where michael cohen came to meet donald trump at the white house while he was president, and allegedly they discussed this repayment scheme at the center of this case.

so, those were the other witnesses we heard from today. amna: and we know mr. trump's lawyers took issue with some of the details stormy daniels testified to. they again asked for a mistrial and a change to mr. trump's gag order. what happened there? william: two things. modifying the gag order, trump's lawyers argued all these details that came out today, now that daniels is off the witness stand, that trump should be free from his gag order and be able to directly try and rebut her publicly on social media. the second one is the argued for this mistrial, as you mentioned. and they were alleging, trump's lawyers were alleging that daniels was somehow telling a different story about this alleged sexual encounter, implying that she was saying there was some level of coercion going on there, and that this is completely unfair, that this is a new story they had never heard before, and that all these details she testified to for

seven hours are prejudicial to the jury, and they need to have the trial thrown out. the judge in both of these cases denied the motions by trump's lawyers. and trump was seemingly visibly angry towards the end of the day today. and at the end of the day's proceedings he went out into the hallway, as he often does, and today in a particularly angry way, lashed out at the judge. let's hear what he had to say. >> this judge what he did really was a disgrace. everybody saw what happened today. he is a corrupt judge and he is totally conflicted. william: both of those motions were denied by his team. testimony resumes tomorrow. as is always the case, we don't know who will be on the witness stand tomorrow. amna: that is william brangham covering the legal cases around former president donald trump joining us in new york. thank you. william: thanks, amna. ♪

amna: the biden administration proposed a change to the u.s. asylum system today that would expedite the removal of certain migrants. the regulation under consideration would apply to migrants with criminal histories or deemed as national security risks who would be unlikely to receive asylum. following all of this is white house correspondent, laura barron lopez. laura, you spoke with some homeland security department officials earlier today who briefed you on this change. what did they share with you about the plan? laura: a senior dhs official essentially said this change allows asylum officers to take into consideration if they think that a migrant may be a threat to public safety, a threat to national security, at an earlier stage of that asylum process than is previously allowed under the law.

currently under the law -- currently in the asylum process, those potential threats are taken into consideration when they -- when the government is deciding whether or not a migrant can be granted asylum. it is typically when they are in court facing a judge, have a lawyer by their side. this makes it so that would be possible during the credible fear interview stage which happens within the first one to two days of a migrant arriving. so that is the big change, to the timeline. amna: do any of the proposals announced today have any impact on the southern border right now? laura: that proposed rule will not have an immediate impact because it is a proposal. and so of course it has to go through the process that all regulations have to go through but the dhs official who spoke to reporters today said the administration believes that they will go through this regulation, the process, expeditiously, that it could very well be finalized before

the november election. and one other thing that the homeland security department announced today that would take effect immediately is new guidance that was issued to asylum officers, revised guidance that said during that credible fear interview which happens within the first few days of a migrant arriving and whether or not they are determining if they are granted asylum, during the interview asylum officers can now try to figure out whether or not those migrants can be relocated internally to the country that they came from safely. and if they can safely return to the country that they are from and live there and not fear violence or retribution. and that is something that initially was not that asylum officers did that early in the stage. so that is something that is going to have an immediate effect. one thing i want to say about the proposed regulation if and when it does take effect is that the experts i spoke to said it

make on the impact a small number of migrants. the official did not want to tell us an exact estimate of how many migrants it would impact about the legal immigration experts i spoke to said it would be a small percentage. amna: so what about the timing of all of this? what is your reporting showing you about where the biden administration would propose these changes now? laura: as we have both reported, president biden has been considering unilateral actions because of the fact that his efforts to negotiate with congress, to seek out a bipartisan border agreement, totally failed because republicans killed it, despite the fact that he was trying to sign onto one of the most conservative bills that have considered in decades. the dhs senior official old me today they are clear eyed about executive actions. they don't solve all of the problems but because there has been no action in congress they felt they needed to take this step and they are consistently reviewing other steps they can potentially take in the coming months.

of course another factor here is that it is an election year and president biden has been facing a lot of pressure not just from republicans but also from democrats within his own party to take more actions on the border. amna: so what is the reality on the ground at the u.s. southern border right now? what are the facts that we know? laura: what we have seen in recent months, there was an increase at the end of last year in terms of the number of migrants encountered between ports of entry at the border. but there has been a decline in apprehensions at the southwest border. in december there were more than 200,000 apprehensions at the southern border. january that dropped to more than 124,000. in february, 140,000, a slight increase from january. again it dipped in march which is the month we had the most recent data for from customs and border protection, to 137,000. and the administration largely credits actions taken by allies,

taken by the mexican government to crack down on immigration as well for that dip in numbers. amna: all right. our white house correspondent laura barron-lopez reporting on an issue still top of mind for many voters this year. laura, thank you. laura: thank you. ♪ amna: as schools nationwide grapple with how to keep students off their cellphones, one connecticut school took a blunt approach. in manchester, illing middle school banned all cell phone use, requiring students to lock phones in a pouch until the end of each school day. the backlash from students and some parents was swift. illing even offered to have administrators unlock a student's phone if needed. but within weeks, school staff said that was not even necessary.

this comes as lawmakers in at least a half a dozen states are pushing their schools to curb cell phone use. illing middle school's assistant principal raymond dolphin joins me now. welcome and thank you for joining us. tell us a little bit about what the problem was you were trying to fix in the first place. why the ban? raymond: the number one problem is that the cell phones were interfering with the learning of our students in the classrooms. as we administrators were visiting to classrooms and listening to other teachers, we would regularly hear or witness ourselves as the teacher was providing instruction, students were being distracted on their cell phones. amna: you spearheaded this move. we should note this was not about limiting use during the school day or giving teachers the power to take phones away. you basically said no phones all day, that is at. why that approach? raymond: we as an administrative team led by our principal, what

we found is that even for adults it is very difficult for them to manage cell phone use. and for students it is even that much more challenging. to just tell them it is effective to use your tome at this time and that time, students were not able to handle that. anytime there phone would vibrate or an alert would go off, because they were curious, they would find themselves looking at their cell phone. amna: what kind of reaction did you get from students and parents? raymond: initially of course our students had major resistance. a lot of them were very careful. what does it look like for me to not have access to my phone, when this device is for something that for some students they even sleep with? so there was a lot of fear, a lot of frustration. but they soon adapted to it and responded very well. the majority of our parents, we have a philosophy here, we don't

just do things to our community, we work with them. we have sent out surveys and asked a lot of parents and they signed up on it as well. amna: there is an expectation, as i am sure you have seen in your school community, among some parents, that they want to be able to reach their kids during the school day and they want their kids to be able to reach them for emergencies or for support. how do you respond to those concerns? raymond: those concerns are legitimate we already have solutions built in. every single classroom we have in this building has at least one phone in it and most have two. so if something comes up where a student needs to reach their parent they can simply ask for permission and they can call their parent. if a parent wants to reach their student, they can call the main office and get a message to them. so you have access to the students. the only change is that the

immediate, this second reactions is no longer there. so families have to have a little more plans. amna: the phones in the classrooms are probably land lines. is this the first time some of your kids have had to use a landline? raymond: yes. [laughter] it is funny that you brought that up, because we had folks who were remarking about that at the beginning of the process, how many students were asking us, how do i use this phone. we were floored by that. but there were a lot of students who had that question. amna: when you look at the broader picture, the statistics are clear. the national center for education found in 2020, there were already cell phone bans in place in 76% of u.s. schools, but another survey found 97% of students who have cell phones are still using them during the school day for about 45 minutes. so what is your advice for

schools who want to try and enforce bans, take cell phones out of the classrooms, but don't know how to do that? raymond: that statistic does not surprise me. that discrepancy exists. we even had something similar. my advice to everyone is not treat the pouches as the magic solution. it is one tool that is a major part of your overall strategy to solve the problem. you need to elicit support from parents. you need to ensure the school community and administration are on the same page. and consistency, consistency, consistency is the most important thing. amna: that is assistant principal raymond dolphin joining us today. thank you. appreciate your time. raymond: thank you very much. ♪ amna: earlier this month, the federal aviation administration

approved the first training program in the country for electric aviation. the program is just one part of a small but burgeoning effort to develop greener air travel. our aviation correspondent, miles o'brien, has that report. miles: it was game day for nate moyer. a former air force test pilot, he was cool as a cucumber facing uncharted airspace ahead. his goal? fly a new kind of battery-powered aircraft through a tricky transition. it lifted off like a helicopter but then he stopped the vertical rotors, turning the craft into an airplane. it's called an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or evtol. it was a pivotal moment for a company that hopes to lead the transition away from fossil-fueled flight.

>> i felt like my purpose was to fly. miles: engineer and avid aviator kyle clark is the founder and ceo of beta technologies, based in burlington, vermont. >> somewhere around 30 years old i had this realization like, damn, i do genuinely care not only about my own kids, but the future of the world, and that's when i realized that the electric aviation had an outsized importance. miles: right now, aviation accounts for about 3% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, but as airline travel increases and other transportation sectors get greener, that piece of the climate emergency pie is growing fast. is aviation responding quickly enough to this challenge? >> in my view, aviation absolutely isn't responding quick enough. miles: that's because aviation remains skeptical of electric flight.

lithium-ion batteries are about 24 times heavier than jet fuel for the same amount of energy. that might seem like a showstopper for an industry obsessed with weight watching, but the energy density of new lithium-ion batteries improves between 5% and 7% annually, doubling about every seven years. >> that means if we start development today on a 19, 30, 60 passenger aircraft, it will be flying 1300 to 1500 miles by 2032. miles: the beta craft is designed to carry cargo or five passengers plus pilot with a range of about 250 nautical miles. in october 2023, a fixed-wing version flew more than 2000 miles to the florida panhandle. flight test engineer emma davis coordinated the multi-leg journey. >> you can get in it, you can fly in it, you can carry cargo in it. this aircraft isn't a gimmick.

it is a real-world aircraft. it is reliable. it can be ready and available to pick up missions as needed. miles: proving that is why they brought the evtol here to duke field. this is where the air force does its helicopter flight testing. the pentagon is interested in seeing how well evtols might suit its needs in moving personnel, cargo, or on medevac missions. colonel tom meagher is with the air force innovation lab afwerx. >> so the things that we want to learn is, how do you operate an electric aircraft? so that includes not only the infrastructure, but the maintenance personnel, operations, the charging. we want to learn about all those facets that we previously don't have experience with. miles: over the course of three months, they flew about 100 test missions to civilian and military airports in florida, georgia, and alabama, testing its performance in the air and attached to chargers. it had a near 100% dispatch rate.

the pentagon hopes to bolster a flourishing homegrown electric aviation industry. a decade ago, the federal aviation administration moved too slowly, and china took the lead on commercial drone technology. it has not looked back. >> we want to make sure that did not happen with this part of the emerging aviation sector. so it's critical that we establish these companies within the u.s. so they have not only for near-term use, but also down the line for not only government use, but also commercial use cases. miles: but when it comes to electric aviation, china is not slowing down. the country dominates lithium-ion battery production and has already certified one fixed-wing electric airplane and two evtol models. evtol manufacturers are designing their aircraft to be flown autonomously, but it is far from certain when the federal aviation administration might approve that. so at first, beta's aircraft will fly with a pilot on board, carrying cargo.

ups is a customer, as is united therapeutics, a biotech company focused partly on organ transplantation. eventually, beta envisions unpiloted missions carrying both cargo and passengers. >> this prop right here. it's not pushing any motor, or an engine, so it spins freely. miles: kyle clark gave me a tour of beta's production facility where they aim to build 300 aircraft a year, a big number in the world of aviation. >> and we have aspirations of building more aircraft than that. there's a lot of folks in this industry that are talking about thousands of aircraft per year. and we believe we're going to get there as well. miles: one of the market leaders in the u.s., santa cruz, california-based joby, is aiming to build thousands of evtol aircraft that could serve as flying taxis in traffic-strangled megacities. >> we're excited about the day when this becomes a part of people's daily lives. miles: joeben bevirt is the founder and ceo of joby.

>> our goal is absolutely to drive it down over time to something that's affordable for many people to use on a regular basis. miles: delta airlines has invested $60 million in joby. the airline envisions flying its customers on joby evtols to and from the three existing heliports in manhattan to jfk airport. but delta ceo ed bastian says his company also invested to learn about electric flight and how it could be applied to reach delta's 2050 net carbon zero goal for its entire fleet. >> it's highly ambitious. if i said i had a pathway to that, i'd be kidding myself. we're a hard to abate sector, as defined. i mean, we just don't have a substitute for jet fuel currently. miles: the race to find a practical alternative will force federal regulators to explore and grasp some technologies that are new to aviation. michael huerta was the faa administrator from 2013 to 2018.

he now sits on the boards of joby and delta. >> it's not going to be sufficient to say, this is how we've always done it. we really need to be thinking about, what are new ways to get aircraft certified, to get pilots into the system, and to enable operations for what will be a growing segment of the aviation industry. miles: but there could be a solution that would reduce aviation's carbon footprint in the near term while it charts a course to a truly carbon-zero future. and the grease in this dumpster is a key part of that story. we will serve up more on that in our next installment. for the "pbs newshour," i'm miles o'brien in boston. ♪ amna: a new book offers a fresh

way to understand one of america's most important presidents. jeffrey brown sits down with author edward o'keefe for our arts and culture series, "canvas." jeffrey: theodore roosevelt was known as a rugged outdoorsman and naturalist, a soldier, a combative politician, and the 26th president of the united states, enshrined on mount rushmore. but as a new book puts it, quote,his most masculine president in the american memory was, in fact, the product of largely unsung and certainly extraordinary women. the book, "the loves of theodore roosevelt, the women who created a president," tells of tr, as he was known, shaped by five women: his morther, martha bulloch roosevelt, his first wife, alice, who died at 22 after just four years of marriage, his second wife, edith kermit roosevelt, and two sisters, anna and corinne, key political strategists and aides. author edward o'keefe, a longtime broadcast and digital journalist, is ceo of the theodore roosevelt presidential library foundation, and joins me now.

welcome to you. edward: it's good to be with you. jeffrey: i want to start with this is, you know, a president who's been written much of, but you came to him in a very personal way through your home state of north dakota. why was he so important to you? edward: when you grow up in north dakota, you suffer a surfeit of heroes. you've got roger maris, peggy lee, lawrence welk, maybe contemporary north dakotans, phil jackson. jeffrey: those are all good. edward: all good, but they don't compare to theodore roosevelt. i chose theodore roosevelt. jeffrey: he was your guy. edward: he was my guy. i mean, i went out to theodore roosevelt national park with my family as a kid, to the medora musical in the badlands, and i was a red river rough rider. so, this was providential. it was ordained that i would be a fan of tr. jeffrey: ok, a fan and then you want to write about him, but your way in is through the women in his life. why? edward: well, theodore roosevelt was -- the myth about theodore roosevelt is that he was a self-made man. that is just simply not true. all of us, if we are fortunate in our lives, have brothers, sisters, fathers, grandparents,

colleagues, friends, people who pick us up and push us forward when we're faltering, when we're suffering, or have some sort of disappointment or setback in our life. and that is true of theodore roosevelt, too. that's not the story that has been told by history. "the loves of theodore roosevelt " really sheds a light on some women that have been forgotten by history for far too long. jeffrey: so let's talk about a couple of them. i want to start with one of the sisters. sisters play an interesting role as behind the scenes political strategists. edward: bamie, she's known as bamie for bambina, and bamie -- jeffrey: everybody has interesting names, right? edward: they all have nicknames. absolutely. so bamie is what rfk was to jfk for theodore roosevelt. she is insightful and intelligent. she sees the political chessboard and knows exactly where theodore roosevelt should move next. i mean, she is an inspiration for tr in many ways.

she suffered a spinal defect as a child, and so she teaches her brother, her younger brother how to will through pain. i mean, that is one of the key facts we know about theodore roosevelt, his just almost superhuman strength and ability to to suffer these physical feats. he learned that from his sister, bamie. and she is the one that time after time, she puts him in the position of assistant secretary of state. she's the one who has the little white house down the street from the oval office. and it is said of bamie that had she been a man, she would have been president of the united states, not t.r., and none other than eleanor roosevelt agrees with that assessment. jeffrey: now, his wife edith is his second wife. you call her the first modern first lady. edward: edith kicks open the door of the american century and pushes theodore roosevelt through it. i mean, there's so much you can say about edith. i mean, she physically transformed the white house. she created what is known as the east wing and the west wing, the executive function of the white

house and the residential function of the white house. she built a colonial garden, which became the rose garden. she had an office next to theodore's, and so she was in the room where it happened, because she designed it that way. but far beyond the physical changes to the white house, edith was theodore roosevelt's key political advisor. she read four or five newspapers a day. she was the first person that t.r. talked to in the morning, the last person he talked to at night. franklin d roosevelt said of edith that she managed t.r. very cleverly without his being conscious of it. no slight achievement, anyone will concede. jeffrey: you know, you flicked at this when you were talking about the sister, but it's worth saying, i think, these are all, in your words, extraordinary women, but of their time. so they had to do all of this behind the scenes. they weren't able to be out front. they certainly weren't able to run for office themselves. edward: oh, absolutely. i mean, we said of bamie that had she been a man and lived at

another time, she could have been president. they funneled -- the women in theodore roosevelt's life all funneled their energy into their brother or their spouse or their son. they wanted to see him succeed, and in fact, they obscured their role in history. "the loves of theodore roosevelt" shows, through meticulous research and brand new letters that have never been a part of the historical record before, the story that they didn't necessarily want told. they liked the myth of theodore roosevelt, the self-made man. but i don't think it diminishes t.r. to know that he had help, that he had his sisters, he had his mother. he had his wives who were there pushing him along the way. we all need that in our lives and are fortunate to have it. jeffrey: how much has the research changed? how much more do we know now? how much, as times change, as the culture changes, to look behind the scenes at the sort of great man theory, which is where t.r. has been shrouded, right? edward: absolutely.

when edmund morris and david mccullough did their books in the late 1970's, early 1980's, they did not have access to 24 love letters between theodore roosevelt and his first wife, alice. those letters are all in the loves of theodore roosevelt. while i was doing the research, there was a safe at sagamore hill that hadn't been open since 1954. harvard called it the greatest discovery of theodore roosevelt letters since his death in 1919. all 11 of those new letters are in the loves of theodore roosevelt. so believe it or not, we're learning more about history the more time goes on and these incredible women in tr's life. jeffrey: you referred to his wife, edith, opening the door to the american century. now, even that's a kind of fraught phrase, a complicated phrase. what do you mean by it, and how has our conception of it and tr's role in it changed? edward: well, i think that history doesn't repeat, it rhymes. and of course, if you don't learn from history, you're condemned to repeat it. you think about tr's time, right? there was rapid technological change.

they're flying in airplanes and driving in cars. he was born at a time before electricity. there's a change from an agrarian to an industrial society, in the economy. there's a mass wave of immigration, changing the composition of the culture. and there's a debate about whether america should be isolationist or whether they should be a global power. does any of this sound familiar? it's exactly what we're debating now. and i think when you look back in history, you really can better understand the present and hopefully make a better future. jeffrey: so lastly, i want to ask you about your other hat, which is, as i mentioned in the introduction with the library foundation, this is being built in your home state in north -- to take us back to the beginning, in north dakota. edward: yes. well, theodore roosevelt said, i never would have been president without my experiences in north dakota. and that is why we are constructing the theodore roosevelt presidential library in the badlands next to theodore roosevelt national park, the only park named for a person,

let alone a president. and we are scheduled to open on july 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of america. and it's really about tomorrow, not yesterday. it's about future generations getting in the arena and making a change that they want to see in the world. jeffrey: all right. we will look for that. and in the meantime, "the loves of theodore roosevelt.” edward o'keefe, thank you very much. edward: great to be with you, jeff. ♪ amna: and remember, there's more online, including a look at four key groups of joe biden voters to watch, six months out from the presidential election. that's at pbs.org/newshour. and join us again here tomorrow night, when we report from the battleground state of michigan on democrats' plan to keep abortion rights front and center in their 2024 election campaign. and that's the “newshour” for tonight. i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire "newshour" team, thank you for

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wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. xfinity internet. made for streaming. ♪♪ -"cook's country" is about more than just getting dinner on the table. we're also fascinated by the people and stories behind the dishes. we go inside kitchens in every corner of the country to learn how real people cook, and we look back through time to see how history influences the way we eat today.