AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

On the "News Hour" tonight: President Trump meets with the U.K. prime minister, as relations with Europe grow increasingly fraught.

AMNA NAWAZ: Elon Musk says DOGE accidentally cut funding for Ebola prevention.

A doctor who survived the disease speaks out about the risks worldwide.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we sit down with the country's two Black women senators, who are serving together in an historic first.

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS (D-MD): I believe representation matters, that all of us should be represented in these spaces and that the solutions are incomplete unless every single lived experience is represented in this Senate.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer continued a week of Oval Office diplomacy today, arriving at the White House for meetings with President Donald Trump and his team.

AMNA NAWAZ: Starmer is the second of three critical European allies to meet with the president this week.

French President Macron was here on Monday, and Ukraine's president arrives tomorrow.

On the agenda today, as with all three leaders, the brutal war in Ukraine, and President Trump's efforts to make a deal with the invader, Russia's Vladimir Putin.

Lisa Desjardins reports.

LISA DESJARDINS: As U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer pulled up to the White House today...

QUESTION: President Trump, can you get a peace deal done on Ukraine?

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Yes.

LISA DESJARDINS: ... Ukraine was top of mind before he and President Trump even got inside.

In the Oval Office: DONALD TRUMP: We're going to be discussing many things today.

LISA DESJARDINS: Starmer, the Labor Party leader, made his pitch for the U.S. to include Ukraine and all of Europe in negotiations.

KEIR STARMER, British Prime Minister: We want to work with you to make sure that peace deal is enduring, that it lasts, that it's a deal that goes down as a historic deal that nobody breaches.

LISA DESJARDINS: But for his tougher asks, Starmer brought a sweetener, a letter direct from King Charles inviting Trump for a historic second state visit seven years after his first.

DONALD TRUMP: The answer is yes.

We have our wonderful first lady, Melania, and myself.

The answer is yes.

LISA DESJARDINS: From there, Trump gave a show of confidence that a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow would hold.

Starmer, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron, have both agreed to send troops to the region to keep the peace if a deal is reached.

The U.S., on the other hand: DONALD TRUMP: I don't think we're going to even be necessary, but I don't think there will be any problem with keeping the deal with the security.

LISA DESJARDINS: Earlier this week, Starmer announced U.K.'s defense budget will rise to 2.5 percent by 2027, a move clearly aimed at pleasing Trump.

DONALD TRUMP: We get along very famously, as you would say.

LISA DESJARDINS: But, as Trump praised Starmer, he indicated he trusts Russian President Vladimir Putin to stick to any peace deal.

DONALD TRUMP: I have known him for a long time now, and I think he will -- I don't believe he's going to violate his word.

LISA DESJARDINS: That in stark contrast to how Starmer and the U.K. has viewed Putin, as the press noted.

QUESTION: It sounds as though one of you completely trusts President Putin, and one of you doesn't trust him an inch.

LISA DESJARDINS: At the same time, Trump played up his relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who will be in Washington tomorrow to sign off on a critical minerals deal.

Reporters pointed out comments Trump clearly made about Zelenskyy online just last week.

QUESTION: Mr. President, do you still that Mr. Zelenskyy is a dictator?

DONALD TRUMP: Did I say that?

I can't believe I said that.

LISA DESJARDINS: Trump stood by his push for tariffs, including with Europe.

And, throughout, both leaders stressed the importance of a strong U.S.-U.K. alliance.

But Trump not so subtly reminded his counterpart about their relative strength.

DONALD TRUMP: Could you take on Russia by yourselves?

KEIR STARMER: Well... (LAUGHTER) LISA DESJARDINS: Awkward moments became more open disagreement when a reporter asked about Vice President Vance's criticisms of the U.K.

Earlier this month, Vance decried the U.K. as censoring free speech, particularly religious expression.

Today, Vance seemed focused on the Internet and how to handle inflammatory, sometimes threatening speech, arguing British policy blocking some was a U.S. concern.

J.D.

VANCE, Vice President of the United States: What the British do in their own country is up to them, but also affect American technology companies and by extension American citizens.

So that is something that we will talk about today at lunch.

LISA DESJARDINS: Starmer immediately responded with a polite, back off.

KEIR STARMER: Well, no, I mean, certainly we wouldn't want to reach across U.S. citizens, and we don't, and that's absolutely right.

But in relation to free speech in the U.K., I'm very proud of our history there.

This has been a very good and very productive visit.

LISA DESJARDINS: Side by side at an afternoon news conference, the two leaders continued working on the latest version... DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

LISA DESJARDINS: ... of their country's special relationship.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Lisa Desjardins.

GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines: Controversial social media influencers, Andrew and Tristan Tate arrived in Florida today from Romania after a travel ban on the brothers was lifted.

The pair briefly addressed reporters after touching down in Fort Lauderdale.

They're charged with human trafficking in Romania, among other allegations.

Andrew Tate is also charged with rape.

They deny any wrongdoing.

The dual U.S. British nationals are vocal supporters of President Trump and have millions of followers online.

Andrew Tate has described himself as a misogynist.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said today that he had no part in allowing them into Florida.

GOV.

RON DESANTIS (R-FL): No, Florida is not a place where you're welcome with that type of conduct in the air.

And I don't know how it came to this.

We were not involved.

We were not notified.

I found out through the media.

GEOFF BENNETT: The Romanian case against the Tates remains open and they still must appear before the court when summoned.

And in the U.K., Andrew Tate faces a separate lawsuit from four women who accuse him of sexual violence.

Today, their spokesperson said a court lifted the seizure of some of their assets and that their bank accounts have been unfrozen.

Mexico is sending an infamous drug lord to the U.S., along with more than two dozen other prisoners requested by the U.S. government.

Caro Quintero was convicted of murdering a U.S. anti-narcotics agent in 1985.

It was considered one of the most notorious killings from Mexico's bloody narco wars.

The extradition comes as top Mexican officials are in Washington in a bid to ward off the Trump administration's planned 25 percent tariffs on Mexican imports.

In a social media post this morning, President Trump confirmed those tariffs will take effect next week, as planned.

The Pentagon is ordering transgender troops to be removed from the military within 60 days.

The new policy was announced late yesterday in a memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

It comes after President Trump signed an executive order last month calling on transgender troops to be prevented from serving openly.

It's a dramatic shift from prior policy, which had prohibited discrimination based on gender identity, though the memo calls for exceptions for those supporting war fighting capabilities.

There's more on transgender rights, this time in Iowa.

Protesters crowded Iowa's state capitol today as lawmakers passed a bill that would strip protections based on gender identity from that state's civil rights code.

If approved by the governor, Iowa would be the first state to remove such protections.

Opponents say it will expose transgender people to numerous forms of discrimination.

Today's vote in Iowa comes on the same day that Georgia's House backed off a plan to remove gender protections from that state's hate crimes law.

Turning now overseas, Israel's military released its first internal findings on the October 7 Hamas attacks today.

The highly anticipated report found that senior officials vastly underestimated Hamas and then missed early warning signs.

Meantime, an Israeli official says the military will not withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor along Gaza's border with Egypt, which is required by the fragile cease-fire agreement with Hamas.

The first phase of the deal is set to expire this weekend.

U.S. envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff is expected in the region in the coming days, and Hamas has said it's ready to negotiate.

Israel's foreign minister said today they will still participate in the talks for now.

GIDEON SAAR, Israeli Foreign Minister: Our delegation will go to Cairo and see whether we have a common ground to negotiate.

We said we are ready to make the framework longer in return to release more hostages.

GEOFF BENNETT: Also today, Israel confirmed that the four hostage bodies handed over in last night's exchange match the names Hamas provided.

Meantime, in Gaza, there were scenes of jubilation as some 600 prisoners who were detained by Israel, including women and minors, reunited with their families as part of the exchange.

On Wall Street today, stocks ended lower after a pair of negative reports on the U.S. economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 200 points on the day.

The Nasdaq sank more than 500 points, or nearly 3 percent.

The S&P 500 also ended firmly in negative territory.

And famed actor Gene Hackman has died.

Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead in their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, yesterday.

Authorities are still investigating the cause, but a search warrant affidavit described their deaths as suspicious.

Police say both had been dead for some time before their bodies were found, along with one of their dogs.

An open pill bottle and scattered pills were also found close to Arakawa's body.

As John Yang reports, Hackman was one of the great actors of his generation.

MAN: As best actor of the year, Gene Hackman receives his Oscar.

JOHN YANG: Gene Hackman, the versatile everyman actor who won two Oscars, appeared in some 79 films in a career that's spanned more than four decades.

He was widely praised for his ability to bring a grounded and nuanced quality to flawed characters.

It allowed him to play diverse roles across multiple genres.

GENE HACKMAN, Actor: She's a small town girl.

JOHN YANG: 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde" was his breakout performance, an outlaw who was fiercely loyal to his family.

He got his first of five Oscar nominations for the film.

Later, he was the paranoid and isolated surveillance expert in "The Conversation," the iconic villain Lex Luthor in Superman, and the no-nonsense FBI investigator in "Mississippi Burning."

GENE HACKMAN: So few people ever get what they really want in life.

It's a make-believe world, and, as I say, it's what I wanted to do as a child, and I fulfilled a lot of my dreams.

JOHN YANG: Many of his best remembered roles were gritty tough guys.

In 1971's crime thriller "The French Connection," he portrayed a New York City cop willing to get his man at any cost.

GENE HACKMAN: Popeye's here.

Hands on your heads!

Get off the bar and get on the wall!

JOHN YANG: And in 1992's "Unforgiven," he played a brutally violent sheriff opposite Clint Eastwood.

GENE HACKMAN: See what kind of books Mr. Beauchamp is packing here.

JOHN YANG: Hackman was adept at comedy too, as the manipulative yet oddly charming father in "The Royal Tenenbaums"... GENE HACKMAN: My God, I haven't been in here for years.

JOHN YANG: ... and the staunchly traditional senator in "The Birdcage."

As the years passed, Hackman faced the challenges of an aging actor.

GENE HACKMAN: The older you get, the tougher some of the dialogue becomes, you don't retain all of it.

So that part of it is becoming a little harder.

I like it so much that I find it harder to do now because I'm maybe more intent than I have ever been.

JOHN YANG: Hackman was also a published author.

He wrote or co-wrote five books from historical fiction to Westerns.

Filmmakers and fellow actors showed their love for Hackman and his work in online tributes.

Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola posted: "Gene Hackman, a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity."

Gene Hackman was 95 years old.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm John Yang.

GEOFF BENNETT: Still to come on the "News Hour": education leaders face a deadline to cut diversity initiatives under new Trump guidelines; the FDA cancels a crucial meeting to update flu vaccines, sparking concerns from health officials; and more pregnant women are experiencing life-threatening sepsis in the wake of strict abortion laws.

AMNA NAWAZ: Former USAID employees who have been fired or placed on leave by the Trump administration began making their final visits to the agency's headquarters today to pack up their belongings.

Carrying bags of personal items, workers were surrounded by supporters cheering them on.

They include Samantha Power, who served as the agency's administrator under President Biden.

SAMANTHA POWER, Former USAID Administrator: The people who are walking out of this building are American heroes.

They did not come to USAID for the money.

They didn't come for the glory.

We rightly honor our men and women in uniform.

These are heroes who don't wear uniforms.

And they are being treated in a manner that nobody should treat their worst enemy, and they're being treated that way by their own government.

AMNA NAWAZ: With nearly all of the agency's work abroad now suspended, our Laura Barron-Lopez takes a closer look at one USAID effort that's been caught in the political crossfire.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: In a meeting with President Trump's Cabinet this week, Elon Musk, the architect of the Trump administration's jobs cuts and contract cancellations, defended the actions his team has made over the last month.

ELON MUSK, Department of Government Efficiency: We will make mistakes.

We won't be perfect.

But when we make mistake, we will fix it very quickly.

So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola, Ebola prevention.

I think we all want Ebola prevention.

So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately.

And there was no interruption.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: But public health experts and current and fired USAID workers say Musk is wrong.

USAID's Ebola prevention efforts have been frozen since the agency was largely dismantled.

For more, I'm joined by Dr. Craig Spencer.

He's professor at Brown University School of Public Health and survived Ebola after treating patients in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders in 2014.

Dr. Spencer, you heard Elon Musk's claim that Ebola prevention is fixed and that there were no disruptions caused.

But the USAID workers I talked to say that's not true.

Where does Ebola prevention currently stand?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER, Brown University School of Public Health: Well, let's be clear.

What Elon is claiming, that Ebola prevention was turned off, but has been turned back on again, is just flatly untrue.

This is a theme that we have seen emerge, whether it's firing hundreds of nuclear weapons safety experts or bird flu experts at the USDA scrambling to try to hire them back and saying that we fixed the problem.

The reality is that there is no budget line for -- quote -- "Ebola prevention" either at the USAID or anywhere across the government.

The work that goes into preventing Ebola is the same work that goes into preventing other infectious diseases from breaking out in places around the country and around the world.

That involves funding for USAID, sure.

It also involves support for the CDC, where 750 employees have been laid off, some of our best disease detection experts in the world.

It also involves supporting and working together with the World Health Organization, something that our government has made impossible and strictly said that you're not allowed to do within the past few weeks.

All of these things together are what Ebola prevention is in this country.

None of them have been turned back on.

In fact, as of today, I can guarantee, after speaking with the people that would be doing these things, they remain turned off.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The Ebola outbreak in Uganda appears to be receding, however.

But in the immediate weeks after the January 29 outbreak, you said that there was a lot of confusion in Uganda about how to get help from the U.S. Can you just give us a quick sense of what that was like?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: Well, normally, we would have these communication chains, where the Uganda Ministry of Health would call the CDC, would get in touch with the White House, where they would mobilize people in treatment, support logistics.

USAID would help set up security screening and border screening at the airport in Entebbe in Uganda.

None of those things happened.

I know none of them happened, because I talk to the people that would have been on a plane normally to respond.

I talked to the people that just weeks prior had been in charge of the NSC of global health in the White House who said that there wasn't someone in that role for days, up to a week.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The administration seems to be claiming that they have created waivers or some of this aid is turned back on.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he signed waivers for key aid, including PEPFAR, which is the program that delivers medication to come down, which is the program that delivers medication to combat AIDS.

But the sources that I talked to and others have reported that that aid is not necessarily reaching the people it needs to reach.

How serious is that?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: It's incredibly serious.

And you're right.

I have spoken to a lot of people that lead USAID programs all over the world, and they have guaranteed to me and confirmed that those waivers, if they're coming at all, are not really helping.

You don't have USAID people to pay those out.

We have the funding that has been freed.

So, you're right, those waivers have not been much of assistance.

The result is that we had over 20 million people around the world, including 500,000 children, who were receiving HIV treatment as part of PEPFAR, the most impactful and successful global health program ever, started under George W. Bush.

Right now, 20 million people risk losing access to those medications.

The result is going to be more infections of HIV, more people whose infections were controlled that will be uncontrolled, greater risk of global spread.

And PEPFAR has also been essential for setting up disease detection systems all around the world.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Elon Musk claims that foreign aid is -- quote -- "waste," it's -- quote -- "fraud."

And in a court filing this week, the administration said that they terminated 92 percent of U.S. foreign aid contracts.

The White House argues that this money shouldn't be spent abroad, that it should be spent at home for Americans.

So why should Americans be concerned about the dramatic cuts to international health?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: Absolutely no one listening to this program has had smallpox.

Maybe some people have been vaccinated against it.

But the United States, along with the USSR, at the height of the Cold War, put together a plan to eradicate smallpox, one of the worst diseases in human history.

And, in 1980, they did.

They spent $300 million together to eradicate smallpox from the face of the earth.

And, because of that, we saved billions and billions and billions of dollars by stopping the disease from spreading internationally, from having to vaccinate or treat for smallpox here in the United States.

It was an unbelievably efficient and incredible return on investment.

The diseases that we're seeing in other places around the world can have a similar economic toll, in addition to a similar human toll.

It is in our best interest to detect and fight outbreaks where they occur, as opposed to waiting for them to come to where we are.

As of right now, if the U.S. is not going to show up and support health systems and this disease outbreak worker around the world, countries will have no incentive to be transparent.

They will have no reason to share with us that there is a disease outbreak.

They will get bigger faster.

They will create more of a risk on the ground, and there will be a greater chance that they impact us and infect us here in the United States.

I promise you, we will regret this.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Dr. Craig Spencer, thank you for your time.

DR. CRAIG SPENCER: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: The Trump administration has threatened to pull federal funding from K-12 schools and universities that consider race in any way.

The Education Department argues the Supreme Court's ruling outlawing race and college admissions applies much more broadly, including -- quote -- "using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects."

The deadline for schools to comply is tomorrow.

All of this is sparking confusion and legal challenges.

For a look now as part of our ongoing series Race Matters, I'm joined by Angel Perez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and David Law, superintendent of the Minnetonka School District in Minnesota and the incoming president of the School Superintendents Association.

Welcome to you both, and thanks for being with us.

Angel, I want to start with you, because based on the guidance the administration has sent out, is it clear to you what compliance looks like?

What does it mean to meet this deadline tomorrow?

ANGEL PEREZ, CEO, National Association for College Admission Counseling: Well, therein lies the challenge.

It's not clear.

The dear colleague letter was pretty evasive, and so colleges and universities have been really struggling, what does this mean?

So, for example, maybe some of the things that they might consider is eliminating student clubs and organizations that are race-based.

That might seem a little bit obvious.

But what's not obvious, is diversity is embedded into everything on college campus.

So, does that mean we can no longer have women's centers?

Does that mean we stop our disability services?

Does that mean that Hillel organizations for Jewish students should not exist?

And so it's incredibly confusing, and an incredible amount of anxiety is taking place right now.

AMNA NAWAZ: David Law, you get this letter from the Department of Education, and what do you think?

I mean, how is your district navigating this guidance right now?

DAVID LAW, Superintendent, Minnetonka, Minnesota, Public Schools: Well, the nicest thing about the public education across our country is that it is a guaranteed right.

So, race-based admission criteria is irrelevant to us.

Everyone who wants to come to public school or everyone of school age will come.

For the other items, there's a lot of confusion because we started out President Trump's term saying he was pushing a lot of the decisions for education back to the state.

And our state has very clear laws with the Minnesota Human Rights Act that protects the rights of students within our system and identifies the kinds of things that we should be looking for.

So, clarity is key.

There's a conflict between what our attorney general and our state legislation has happened and this executive order.

And superintendents are, like our post-secondary partners, scratching our heads saying, well, which guidance do we follow and what does this mean?

And specifically in terms of hiring, we're hiring the best candidate no matter what.

And I'd be happy to share some data on that too.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, Angel, we know the American Federation of Teachers have filed a lawsuit.

My colleague Courtney Norris spoke with them and they say they don't expect any significant movement on that lawsuit before this deadline.

So what are you seeing now?

Is there sort of like a wait-and-see approach or are colleges actively working to try to comply in some way with guidance that isn't necessarily very clear?

ANGEL PEREZ: It's actually a little bit of everything.

There are some institutions that are working to eliminate programming.

Some institutions are actually scrubbing their Web sites around DEI programs.

But then there's a lot of wait-and-see.

I have also spoken to some college presidents who are saying we will not change anything until we absolutely have to.

And so it's a mix.

AMNA NAWAZ: What about you, David?

What are you hearing from other superintendents?

How are they navigating the moment and are they rushing to put changes into play?

DAVID LAW: I don't think rushing to put changes into place is a good description.

I think specifically in Minnesota and across the country we're getting guidance about the executive orders as they come out through the Department of Education, and we're taking that guidance to our local state associations or state commissioners of education and legal counsel for our school districts to say, what applies to us?

It's a -- we don't think we're doing harm to our students.

We think we're doing -- and certainly in our staffing process we're just trying to fill open jobs.

So what we think we're doing is great work to support the public education of our students across the country.

And when there's something clear that's in violation, I think we will come back and revisit it.

But, right now, we're just looking for clarity about what does this mean in a time when we're committed to meeting the needs of our students.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, David, there was a part of the Department of Education letter I want to pull out and get your reaction to, because this was, again, sent to K-12 schools and university.

It's outlining the Trump administration's policy.

And this one part read -- quote - - "DEI programs, for example, frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not.

Such programs stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes."

The word certain there David is doing a lot of work.

I just want to get your reaction to that and what that means to you.

DAVID LAW: Well, across the country, our state set aside standards that are required to be covered within our classrooms, and we anchor our materials on those state standards.

And so there -- we have an obligation to our state to be instructing our students on what those state standards are, but we're certainly not trying to be divisive within our classroom.

We're -- the likeliest spot where that would happen would be in the history of our country and things that have happened.

Certainly not everything that's happened in our country are things that we're proud of, but we're not trying to divide our community through that process.

We're about informing our students so that they can become critical consumers of information.

So my colleagues across the state or across the country would say, the things we're teaching in our classroom are - - have been identified by our communities in our state as what our students need to know to be successful for the future.

So that word certain, it implies a lot, but we have all -- there's this long history of how we have defined what students need to know.

And we are obligated to be instructing our students about what our state determines to be critical.

AMNA NAWAZ: Angel, the threat here is that federal funding could get pulled.

What kind of impact could that have on schools and universities?

ANGEL PEREZ: That would be devastating.

The reality is, the majority of colleges and universities can't function or operate without federal funding.

But I think it would be devastating.

If you take it away, students are the ones who are actually going to suffer the most.

And I'd like to connect a few dots here that the reality is we actually have a demographic cliff that we're facing in this country.

There's actually starting this year fewer students in the pipeline to higher education, just fewer high school age students.

And the majority of students are actually going to be students of color, the largest, multiracial students, and then Hispanic, Latinx students.

And so if we don't figure out a way how to support, cultivate, retain them, we won't have a future work force.

We actually are going to have to do this through an economic imperative.

So it would be devastating for institutions, but for students and the future of our nation.

AMNA NAWAZ: I have got about a minute or so left, Angel, but regardless of how the legal challenges here play out, has this guidance already had some kind of an impact that will be hard for schools and universities to shake?

ANGEL PEREZ: Absolutely, yes.

And I think the other impact that we're not talking about is the psychological effect on students who are currently applying to college.

High school counselors are telling me that many of their students feel like colleges don't want them, or when they hear this news, they don't even want to go through the process anymore.

And so, again, this could be devastating, given that we already have fewer students in the pipeline to higher ed.

AMNA NAWAZ: Angel Perez from the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and David Law, the incoming president of the School Superintendents Association, my thanks to you both.

Appreciate your time.

ANGEL PEREZ: Thank you.

DAVID LAW: Thank you, Amna.

GEOFF BENNETT: The FDA has canceled a critical meeting of flu vaccine experts, making this the second vaccine policy meeting to be canceled since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took over as secretary of Health and Human Services.

The annual gathering is key.

Federal health officials must decide in advance which strains to target in the next vaccine since production takes months.

It comes amid one of the worst flu seasons in 15 years, with more than 19,000 deaths, according to the CDC, nearly 100 of them children.

We're joined now by Dr. Paul Offit, one of the FDA committee advisers and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

It's good to see you, Dr. Offit.

So why was this meeting in particular so critical?

And why did the FDA cancel it?

What justification did they give?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Well, it's critical because it takes about six months to make this vaccine.

So, every March, we meet.

And we meet with representatives from the World Health Organization, the Department of Defense, the CDC, and we look at a map of the world and we look at how these viruses are moving across that map as a way to predict what strains are likely to come into this country.

We then pick strains we think are most likely to cause this coming year's influenza epidemic.

And then the manufacturers, the vaccine manufacturers, then use that information to make the vaccine for what is the six-month production cycle, March to September.

So it's a critical meeting, and it just got canceled.

GEOFF BENNETT: And which justification, if any, was given?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: There was no justification.

We don't know who did it.

We don't know why it was done.

We were told later that the FDA will essentially take this in-house.

They're going to make the decision themselves, presumably based on the same information, but we don't know that.

What's good about this meeting is, it's open to the public.

It's transparent.

And you can hear how we discuss what should or shouldn't be in this vaccine.

And I think, more importantly, we often do sort of a postmortem for the previous year.

Did we get it right the previous year?

If we didn't get it exactly right, why didn't we, and how can that inform this year's selections?

And I think that sort of open, transparent process is critical, I think, for the public to know what we're doing and how we do it.

GEOFF BENNETT: This was not the first meeting of its kind to be canceled.

What do you think is happening here?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: I'm worried.

You have the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the CDC, which also had a meeting canceled.

And you worry that if you look at Project 2025 and the way they comment on the CDC is that they think the CDC should no longer be a recommending body about vaccines, to sort of eliminate expertise.

Just let the doctors and patients figure it out on their own.

They don't need an expertise.

And I just fear that we are slowly sort of tearing apart the public health process that has basically served us well.

I mean, we live 30 years longer than we did 100 years ago, primarily because of vaccines.

And I just think vaccines have become, I think, following this pandemic, to some, a dirty word.

GEOFF BENNETT: I mean, all of this confusion, we learned that the FDA and CDC are participating in an international meeting this week about flu plans for next year with the World Health Organization.

And that's after President Trump took the U.S. out of the WHO.

So what does that suggest to you?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: Well, you would think, if nothing else, the COVID pandemic would have taught us that it's an international community in terms of the way viruses move and affect people.

What happened in China, in Wuhan, China in 2019 clearly affected this world, as more than nine million people died of COVID.

And so we can withdraw from the WHO.

We can say America first and just hope that we can close our borders to viruses that are continuing to mutate and cause harm.

But it doesn't work that way.

It's an international community.

And I think our withdrawal from the WHO or our withdrawal from USAID was a mistake.

GEOFF BENNETT: This week, Texas reported the first death of a child in the U.S. for measles.

It's the first U.S. measles death in some 15 years.

How worried are you about the potential of a major outbreak here?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: Very worried.

We have had clearly a decline in immunization, right.

So, if you look at that Mennonite community, about 80 percent of those children were vaccinated.

That's not enough.

It has to be in the mid-95 percent range to protect against this disease, measles, which is the most contagious infectious disease, more contagious than any other infectious disease.

And so it will find those people who are unvaccinated and cause an infection.

I think this was a line that was crossed.

This is the first measles death in a child in almost 20 years.

That's a tragedy because, one, any death in the child is a tragedy.

This was a preventable death.

We basically eliminated measles from this country by the year 2000.

It's come back largely because people have chosen not to vaccinate their children, in part because they're scared of the vaccine, scared that it has safety issues like autism, something that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been promoting loudly and to many people for the last 20 years.

And I think this is the result of that.

GEOFF BENNETT: When it comes to measles in particular, are you confident that the surveillance that's in place right now is effective and prepared to meet the moment?

DR. PAUL OFFIT: The way this issue -- right.

Sure.

The way this usually works is that state or local health departments take on those local outbreaks.

And when they feel that it's gotten out of hand or they need more resources, then they turn to the federal government.

So I do worry that, with the federal government in some ways pulling back, I feel, in some ways in public health, that these outbreaks will continue.

We're now at nine states that have outbreaks.

We have gone from 58 cases in 2023 of measles to 285 cases in 2024.

And I am sure that number is going to be exceeded this year.

Get to a couple thousand cases, and children will then die every year of this virus.

And it's just unconscionable.

And what you want to hear from the White House, what you want to hear from RFK Jr. right now is, get vaccinated.

And you don't hear that at all.

Rather, what you hear is just this kind of glib statement from RFK Jr., well, every year we have measles outbreaks.

Well, we didn't use to.

By 2000, we had eliminated measles from this country.

It's come back because we have eroded faith in vaccines, largely because of efforts by people like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. GEOFF BENNETT: Sobering insights.

Dr. Paul Offit, our thanks to you, as always.

DR. PAUL OFFIT: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the years since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022 and since Texas instituted one of the country's strictest abortion bans, the state has seen an increased rate of sepsis among women who lost their pregnancies in the second trimester.

That is according to a new investigation by ProPublica.

Stephanie Sy has more.

STEPHANIE SY: Amna, ProPublica found that the rate of sepsis jumped by more than 50 percent in the two years since the Texas abortion ban went into effect.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by the body's extreme reaction to an infection.

In 2021, there were 67 patients in Texas who were diagnosed with sepsis after losing a pregnancy in their second trimester.

That number rose to 90 in 2022.

And, in 2023, it grew to 99.

Texas is one of 12 states in the country with a near-total ban on abortion.

To discuss all this, I'm joined by Lizzie Presser, one of the investigation's authors and a health reporter at ProPublica.

Lizzie, thanks for joining the "News Hour."

So your reporting team arrived at these statistics by looking at hospital discharge records of pregnant women who had experienced a second trimester miscarriage in the years before and after Texas' abortion bans.

What exactly were you looking for in these records?

LIZZIE PRESSER, ProPublica: We wanted to understand if there were statewide trends in the complications that women were experiencing when they showed up to the hospital with a miscarriage.

And when we looked at the data and we broke it out by different complications, sepsis was the one that we saw changed dramatically.

And you can see in the charts that, before the first abortion ban went into effect, the rate of sepsis for this patient population was remarkably steady.

After the first ban was passed in 2021, it shoots up by more than 50 percent.

And when we showed these charts to experts around the country, to doctors and maternal health researchers, they saw a really clear sign in the data.

And they said that it was exactly what they had worried would happen, which is that women were experiencing significant delays in care and were contracting infections and developing sepsis at far higher rates than they used to.

STEPHANIE SY: Just to dig into the data you found a little bit deeper, you compared the rate of sepsis in women who arrived at the hospital carrying their fetus with a heartbeat or not.

Following the abortion ban, patients who were miscarrying, but still had a fetal heartbeat, contracted sepsis at a higher rate -- you see that higher line on this chart, 6.9 percent -- than those whose fetus had already died when they arrived at the hospital, 3.1 percent rate of sepsis.

Unpack how you analyze this data and how it relates back to Texas' abortion bans.

LIZZIE PRESSER: The way the law is written, if you're a doctor in the state of Texas and a patient comes into the hospital experiencing a miscarriage, those doctors often have to wait until one of two things happens.

Either the fetus no longer has a heartbeat and the doctor can document that, or their patient experiences some life-threatening condition, like sepsis, and then they can intervene.

So what you can see in this data is that, if you are a patient who walks into the hospital in Texas and you are experiencing a miscarriage, but your fetus still has a heartbeat, you're more likely to develop an infection, because your doctor is waiting for you to get extraordinarily sick before they intervene.

And that's what's so difficult to wrap your head around in this data.

Like, what this shows is a statewide trend that doctors are saying to their patients who come in with miscarriages, whom they know are at a higher risk of developing an infection, they have to say to them, we cannot help you unless you become extremely sick with a complication like sepsis.

STEPHANIE SY: The assumption is that these women were given less timely treatment and that's what led to these potentially deadly infections.

Were there any other possible explanations that you explored for the jump in cases?

LIZZIE PRESSER: There are a number of different possible explanations.

And we spoke to many maternal health researchers and doctors about them.

One is that there's been an effort across the state to identify sepsis at a much quicker rate in Texas hospitals.

That effort, however, started long before the Texas abortion ban went into play.

And so, when we looked at the sepsis rates across all hospitalized pregnant women in the state of Texas, you saw a gradual increase starting around 2018.

It is a steady rate of cases up until 2021, and then the number shoots up.

STEPHANIE SY: Lizzie, how many of these incidents have led to serious injury or even the death of a woman?

LIZZIE PRESSER: We can't investigate these cases just by the statewide discharge data alone, but, last year, we dug into the deaths of two women who died after Texas banned abortion.

And both developed sepsis after experiencing long delays in care when they were miscarrying.

Right now, the state is not investigating deaths of pregnant women, maternal mortality in the state of Texas in the years 2022 and 2023.

And so it falls to journalists to investigate what's going on with specific individuals in the state.

STEPHANIE SY: What do physicians have to say about all this?

Do they acknowledge that the law may be putting women in unnecessary danger?

And is Texas doing anything about it?

LIZZIE PRESSER: They do acknowledge that.

And, last year, more than 100 OB-GYNs wrote a letter to the legislature asking them to amend the law.

And it seems to be that there has been some openness among legislators, even Republican legislators, even the author of the first abortion ban known as the heartbeat bill in Texas, to amend the law.

It just remains to be seen if the proposed amendments this session will receive a public hearing.

STEPHANIE SY: Lizzie Presser at ProPublica, thank you so much for joining us.

LIZZIE PRESSER: Thank you for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: For the first time in the 236-year history of the U.S. Senate, two Black women are serving simultaneously.

I sat down with Senators Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware for a conversation about breaking barriers, shaping history, and how Democrats aim to meet the current political moment.

Senators Alsobrooks and Blunt Rochester, thanks so much for making time.

I appreciate it.

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS (D-MD): Thank you.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER (D-DE): Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: I'd like to start with some news, because the GOP-led House this week passed a sweeping multitrillion-dollar plan that supports President Donald Trump's policy agenda.

How are Democrats planning to address it, especially if it makes significant cuts to the social safety net?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: The billionaires have gotten what they paid for.

You will see in this budget that there will be significant cuts for Medicaid and other significant cuts that matter to the American people.

There's nothing about this budget that really addresses the germane concerns of Americans around ability to afford health care and ability to be able to bring down the cost of groceries.

This hasn't been the focus of this administration.

Instead, it's been really lining the pockets of these billionaires and doing so on the backs of the American people.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you see it?

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: I totally agree.

I mean, a lot of times, people say, if you want to see their priorities, look at their checkbook.

They're showing us exactly what their priorities are.

When you have got 72 million people in this country who are on Medicaid in some way, it might be a parent who has a child with a disability.

It might be a family whose grandparent is in a nursing home.

People are going to be touched and hurt if these things move forward.

And so, for us as Democrats, we feel it's really important that, number one, we make sure people know what the stakes are, and, number two, make sure that they recognize that we're all in this fighting to make sure that the cost of eggs are not skyrocketing, even though this president said, on day one, he was going to address the economy.

We put our priority the American people, families of this country, and not on the billionaires, as Senator Alsobrooks said, which seem to be the intention with tax cuts.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you make that message stick?

Because one of the takeaways of the last election is that working-class voters, many of them, didn't see Democrats as their champion.

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: Well I think they will see after this period.

Again, the -- what we have heard is, bring down the cost of groceries,we're concerned about the cost of housing.

And instead you have seen anything but that.

You have seen Elon Musk, who is unelected, who has really focused heavily on making sure that we cut in a way that I believe has nothing to do with efficiency.

GEOFF BENNETT: When Democrats push back, I mean, do you risk being seen as defending the status quo, when people in November were saying they wanted change?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: I don't think the American people voted for this.

Did they vote for us to cut critical funding to the National Institutes of Health, the people who are researching cancer and who are coming up with cures to diseases?

We didn't vote for that.

We didn't vote, again, to fire people who have to make sure that we have air safety or that our water is clean.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: A third of the work force that they're cutting are veterans.

And so I think it's really important in this moment for us to amplify what's happening.

GEOFF BENNETT: I want to talk about your historymaking election victory.

To be a Black woman in the U.S. Senate is to be part of a small club, Carol Moseley Braun, Kamala Harris, Laphonza Butler.

What does this moment feel like to you and what does it feel like to do it together?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: We call ourselves sister senators.

And it's been just great to have her here serving with me.

We recognize the privilege that it is to represent so many people who fought hard for us to get here.

And you know what?

Our voices matter.

We believe representation, I believe representation matters, that all of us should be represented in these spaces, and that the solutions are incomplete unless every single lived experience is represented in this Senate of every background.

And so that means people from rural America should be here, the people from urban spaces, Black, white.

Every background, Latino, has to be represented so that our solutions are complete.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: And when you think about the quarter of a century it took to get from Carol Moseley Braun to Vice President Kamala Harris, and then almost a decade until we got from Kamala Harris to Laphonza Butler, the two of us came in immediately, seamlessly.

We don't really talk about, ooh, we made history.

What we talk about is, what kind of impact can we make on the lives of the people who sent us here, on our country, and, who knows, maybe the world with the work that we're doing?

It is really, for us, about the impact.

But we also don't lose the fact that there may be a kid -- just this week, a kid did a book report on me.

That was kind of strange.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: Yes.

Or, just recently, over the past summer, the way I got to this job was after the unexpected death of my husband.

And I had a constituent walk up to me and say in a diner: "You were sad, you were depressed, but you got up.

And so I got up."

And so you don't know whose life you're touching or impacting by being of service, but that's really what this moment is about.

And I will tell you, it is really important to have a sister senator next to me.

We sit next to each other in committees.

We are on the same row on the Senate floor.

And just to even say basic stuff like, well, what do you think about this, or how do you wear your shoes on these hard marble floors?

Like... GEOFF BENNETT: There's marble throughout this entire building.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: It's really different here.

But to have that kind of support has been really, really a blessing, a blessing.

GEOFF BENNETT: It's also important, I would imagine too to have mentors.

And I know Vice President Kamala Harris, you count her as a friend and mentor, both of you.

What advice has she given you?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: Well, so Vice President Harris is -- has been amazing.

She really has been.

And I have been really blessed to have her.

For at least the last 14 years, she's been there as an adviser.

She's told me a number of things that matter.

She told me that you should be joyful even in these times that are difficult, that we have the right to go into these spaces and to bring joy with us, to never forget, of course, the people that we represent.

But to not internalize it, to not make it personal has been helpful to me.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: After getting elected to the Senate, I was just kind of running almost on autopilot.

And it wasn't until the day that we were sworn in that I stepped on that floor and I raised my right hand and I looked in her face that it hit me, the significance of the moment.

And she hugged me and whispered in my ear: "Enjoy this moment."

And I think that was really important, because so many people were focused on, oh, we didn't win this race or we didn't win.

And it was almost like she wanted us to not negate the success that Delaware and Maryland had done when they elected, for me, the first woman sent to the Senate, as well as the first person of color.

And so that reminder, I felt, was really important.

Don't forget, as you said, the joy of this moment.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you reconcile this moment with the challenges posed by the current administration's stances on race and diversity issues?

Or do you reconcile the two?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: I think what we know is we have been in difficult times before.

When we speak about our grandparents, they have seen some difficulties.

They know what challenge looks like.

It gives us the resilience to walk through this moment.

And I refuse to justify my being here.

This administration has made and unfortunately had tried to make it almost a dirty word the fact that we should care about inclusion and equality and those things.

But I refuse to relitigate that.

I don't think it's necessary.

I think that we're going to continue working hard, myself and so many others, because we care about our country.

We love our country.

We love the people of our states.

And I'm here to serve them and to do everything I can to ensure that every one of us has the opportunity to experience the American dream.

That's what this is about.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: People have to ask themselves, who are you talking about?

Well, we have heard it's women, it's people of color, it's people with disabilities.

You could go down the list.

Well, who you're talking about is America.

Our strength is the fact that we bring these different professional and lived experiences.

At this month, Black History Month, the theme this year is African Americans and labor.

Of all times in our history to be pulling people out of the work force, telling people they don't have a seat at the table, this is not the time.

This is the time -- we're stronger when we recognize all of the talent, the brilliance, the excellence that all of us bring to the table.

And so folks can try to distract.

We're going to keep our eyes on the prize.

And that's making sure that people have good jobs.

That's making sure that people have clean drinking water and clean air.

It's making sure they have health care.

We have our eyes on the prize.

Ours is not about tax breaks for billionaires and ultra-rich people.

It is about making sure that all of us have opportunity and have a fair shot.

GEOFF BENNETT: Senator Alsobrooks, Senator Blunt Rochester, thank you again for your time.

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: Thank you.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

For all of us here at the "PBS News Hour," thanks for spending part of your evening with us.