GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: the European Union's top .. aid into Gaza and to support Ukraine.

GEOFF BENNETT: A legal settlement allows Florida teachers and students to talk about LGBTQ+ issues, but some restrictions remain.

AMNA NAWAZ: And the pregnancy struggles of both Israeli survivors of October 7 and cousins un... EMAN EL BASHLIKI, Displaced Mother From Jabalia Refugee Camp (through translator): I'm so exhausted.

I can't even get up to play a mother's role in my baby's life.

I can't walk or get up to feed him or hold him.

(BREAK) GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is taking on Israel's far ri.. war in Gaza.

AMNA NAWAZ: The highest-ranking Jewish elect.. scathing 40-minute speech today.

He charged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his way in the military drive to crush Hamas.

Schumer said that Netanyahu and his government are an.. new elections.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): The Netanyahu coal..

The world has changed radically since then, and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.

AMNA NAWAZ: Netanyahu's political party shot back that Israel is -- quote -- "not a banana republic" and that its war policy has wide public support.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, Palestinian officials said an aid warehouse was hit by an Israeli airstrike that killed eight people.

The Israelis said one was a Hamas commander.

The Palestinian Authority is getting a new prime minister, but the choice may not satisfy U.S. calls for reforms leading to a Palestinian state.

President Mahmoud Abbas today named economist Mohammad Mustafa to the post.

He is a longtime ally to Abbas, and whether he will undertake real change is unclear.

A federal judge in Florida has rejected former President Trump's motion to dismiss the classified documents case against him.

Mr. Trump is accused of illegally storing sensitive records at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving office.

Today's ruling came after Trump lawyers argued the law is vaguely worded and that he was allowed to keep anything he designated as personal.

Prosecutors disputed those claims and said Mr. Trump urged others to lie and cover up.

President Biden came out today against the planned sale of U.S. Steel to a Japanese firm, saying it would harm American workers.

That came as he made a campaign visit to Saginaw, Michigan.

It was aimed at building support from Black and union voters.

And, in Minnesota, Vice President Harris stopped at a Planned Parenthood facility that offers abortion services.

It was said to be the first time that a sitting president or vice pr.. kind of clinic.

Former Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has announced he's organizing a group of investors to buy TikTok.

That comes after the House voted to ban the video-sharing app in the U.. ties with a Chinese-owned parent company.

Mnuchin did not say who might be in that investor group.

In Japan, a high court ruled that denying same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

The court has no power to overturn existing laws that restrict marriage.

Instead, it urged the government to do so.

Crowds in Tokyo cheered and hailed the decision as a step toward equality.

But plaintiffs in the court case called the ruling only a partial victory.

MIYUKI FUJII, Plaintiff in Marriage Equality Lawsuit (through translator): I still think that we are so far behind other countries.

We can't really be compared to them.

It feels like Japan is the only country that's not changing.

Even though our society is really changing, Japan alone has not changed at all.

I am boiling with anger.

AMNA NAWAZ: Japan is the only member of the G7 industrial democrac.. legal protections for same-sex union.

The Elon Musk company SpaceX reached a kind of milestone today with the third test of its giant Starship rocket, but its luck didn't last.

The unmanned spacecraft blasted off from South Texas and had a flawless flight for about an hour.

But the rocket was apparently destroyed as .. Two previous test flights ended in explosions just after liftoff.

On Wall Street, mixed economic data led stocks lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 137 points to close at 38905.

The Nasdaq fell 49 points.

The S&P 500 slipped 14.

And a passing of note.

A leading civil rights activist of the 1960s, Dorie Ann Ladner, died M.. She began fighting for justice and equality as a teenager in her home state of Mississippi.

And she was involved in every major civil rights protest of the '60s.

Dorie Ann Ladner was 81 years old.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": outrage and concern over the treatment of Black women in higher education; how quantum computing could help us understand more about the universe and beyond; the mother of slain journalist James Foley discusses her new book about her son; plus m...

The Biden administration is struggling to find solutions to two major foreign policy challenges, creating a cease-fire in the war in Gaza and helping fund Ukraine's war against Russia.

In each case, it's working with the European.. Washington.

Nick Schifrin sat down with him today.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And we're now joined by the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy for the European Union, Josep Borrell.

Thank you very much.

Welcome back to the "NewsHour."

Let me start with Israel and Gaza.

Today, as you saw, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, made a speech at Congress, and he said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.

Do you agree?

JOSEP BORRELL, European Union Minister for .. on the mood of the public opinion in the U.S. with respect to what's happening in Gaza.

More and more people are feeling concerned with what I certainly can call a massacre.

We have 30,000 civilians killed.

It's a lot of people.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala has been saying that to many, certainly.

And it is not just in the U.S.

It's true that the whole world is concerned about what's happening there.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I think the majority leader's.. minister, to Benjamin Netanyahu.

Do you agree with his criticism of Netanyahu specifically?

JOSEP BORRELL: We at the European Union, we have priorities.

One of the priorities would be to look for a two-state solution and to give the Palestinians the right to have its own land, its own government.

And, certainly, we would prefer to have a leader who could be compatible with this approach.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And it sounds like you don't think Netanyahu is compatible with that approach?

JOSEP BORRELL: Well, Netanyahu has been saying and resaying that he is the most firm opposing to this solution.

NICK SCHIFRIN: This week, you told the Secur.. a weapon of war.

How so?

JOSEP BORRELL: Do you think there is a starv..

Yes, it is a starvation in Gaza.

Hundreds of thousands of people are starving literally, among them many children who have been dying by this nutrition.

If there is starvation, why there is starvation?

Because there is not enough humanitarian support entering to support these people?

And why is it?

Because Israel is controlling the border, and not letting humanitarian support to come in.

So it is the logical consequences, no?

You prevent humanitarian support from coming and people are starving, isn't it logical cause and effect there?

NICK SCHIFRIN: But accusing them of having -- of .. they are doing so purposely.

Israel specifically says that there is no restriction on the number of aid trucks g.. in or the amount of aid getting in, and they blame the United Nations and a lack of capacity for the lack of it.

JOSEP BORRELL: Well, I don't think so.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Why not?

What's your evidence that it is Israel's fault?

JOSEP BORRELL: There's a lot of evidence that the controls in the border .. to come in.

I don't think Israel can say that it's doing everything in order to support coming in to Gaza.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In the same speech where you .. war, you did not call on Hamas to release the hostages or lay down their arms.

JOSEP BORRELL: Oh, come on.

I'm saying that every time.

Every time I take the floor, I start saying that the freedom o.. and Hamas just to release it.

I have been saying and resaying and repeating.

And I don't care to say it again, that Hamas is considered a terrorist organization that launched an attack that is completely unacceptable, and the hostages has to be freed.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Let's switch to Ukraine.

Have you been able to speak to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to urge him to allow for a vote for the $60 billion military and economic aid support package for Ukraine that has been stalled in the House?

JOSEP BORRELL: No, not with the speaker of the House, but I had the .. with some members of the -- a member of the House from the Republican side.

And I tried to explain him and ask him to explain to their colleagues, just imagine which could be the consequences of a blockage of the American support to Ukraine.

Just imagine the Russian tanks breaking the defense lines of Ukraine, heading to Kyiv, putting a puppet government in Kyiv, putting Ukrainian people on an authoritarian regime.

And we know how the Russian authoritarian regime works.

Putting the Russian army on the borders of Poland and the Baltics, being a serious threat to Moldova.

The security cost for us, Europeans, and for.. Ukraine is so great, so big, so unbearable that I urge everybody to understand that the support to Ukraine has to continue, not only for generosity with the people who are defending themselves from an invasion, but also in our own interest.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Can the European Union provide military aid to Ukraine that is in enough quantity to replace American military assistance?

JOSEP BORRELL: From the military point of view, no.

You have been a stronger supporter because you have a stronger military capacity, you know?

Nobody can compete with the U.S. Army and th.. And, certainly, if you could stop doing that, no one else can take your place.

NICK SCHIFRIN: There are already questions in Europe, as you know, about us reliability.

I have been told that there's military planning, for example, in Germany if the U.S. withdraws from NATO.

There are even people considering whether .. a nuclear security guarantee to Europe.

Do you support some of those conversations?

JOSEP BORRELL: Well, there is not alternative for NATO to ensure Europe in front of.. territorial threat that Russia can represent.

But, at the same time, there is a growing feeling among Europeans that we have to develop more our own capacities, just in case, just in case that, in the future, we should take more responsibility from our side.

And this is not a bad deal.

By the contrary, I think that this war has represented a wake-up for the European strategic thinking.

It's a general feeling among the Europeans .. we make peace among us, but peace is not the rule.

And we have to be ready to face a challenge.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And is it not only about the war?

It also about the Republican nominee for president of the United States, Donald Trump,.. the European Union an economic foe and who has questioned whether the United States, if he were to be reelected, would defend NATO allies under Article 5?

JOSEP BORRELL: Well, if Trump is reelected, we will think about Trump.

At the time being, we think about Biden.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Josep Borrell, thank you very much.

JOSEP BORRELL: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Students and teachers in Florida can now discuss sexual orientation and gender identity in a classroom setting as long as it's not part of formal instruction.

That's an important change that's part of a new settlement reached between state education officials and civil rights attorneys who challenged a law labeled by critics as the don't say gay law.

Here's Stephanie Sy.

STEPHANIE SY: Geoff, this may be a state law, bu.. conservative states inspired by the prohibitions.

What the law has meant in Florida is teachers afraid to even use the words gay or transgender when speaking to students outside the classroom or even celebrating their own identity or support of the LGBTQ community with, say, rainbow stickers.

But with this settlement, at least some of those concerns may be put to rest.

Joe Saunders with Equality Florida, an LGBTQ advocacy group, told us this: JOE SAUNDERS, Equality Florida: There is no question that, following this settlement, students, teachers, parents of LGBTQ students and LGBTQ parents can say gay, can say trans, can be gay, can be trans in Florida's public school system and not be afraid of the bullying and the weaponization of this law to lead to sweeping censorship.

STEPHANIE SY: However, the law was not repealed and still forbids explicit class curriculum dealing with LGBTQ topics.

And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the settlement a major win this week.

For more on what this all means, I'm joined by Danielle Prieur, education reporter with WMFE, the NPR affiliate in Orlando.

Danielle, thank you for joining the "NewsHour."

Help us understand what this settlement actually changed.

I understand the text of the law was altered.

DANIELLE PRIEUR, WMFE Reporter: So it actually clarified the language of the law.

The law was quite vague.

And moving forward, as we heard in your clip, parents and teachers and st.. able to speak freely and write freely about gender identity and sexuality in classroom discussions, on essays, on projects.

Kids can read books again with gay characters.

Teachers can put safe space stickers up and also have gay-straight alliances and other kind of LGBTQ clubs at schools.

So it really gutted large parts of the law and clarified it.

STEPHANIE SY: But, Danielle, the law does still remain in effect.

What restrictions are still in place?

DANIELLE PRIEUR: Yes, so the law still bans outright instruction about gender identity and sexuality here in Florida.

So that would include like a class or a book or even a unit in a section of a textbook that would instruct people in any way about gender identity and sexuality.

So the law is still in effect, as well as a lot of the policies that were kind of inspired by the law, things like banning AP African American history because there was a queer theory unit, or making it so that sociology is no longer a core curriculum course for undergrads here because it talked about human sexuality.

So a lot of the law and the policies around the law still are very much in effect here in Florida.

STEPHANIE SY: It's interesting that it seems.. as well as Governor DeSantis, seem to view this as a good thing.

How do you figure that?

DANIELLE PRIEUR: Yes, so, basically, the law, it's not ove..

It's still very much in effect.

So that's a win for the governor and for his party.

This was a big win for his conservative base in 2022, when it was passed.

But it's also a big win for LGBTQ advocates, folks who have lived under this law for two years and were afraid to be out publicly in the school system, fearing what might happen if you said the wrong thing or as a teacher maybe have the wrong book in their classroom.

So, this is a really kind of huge moment for the state of Florida.

STEPHANIE SY: You have been reporting on the impacts, Danielle, of this law, the impacts it's had on kids and families who identify as LGBTQ.

What has it been like for them since this law passed and how are they reacting to the settlement?

DANIELLE PRIEUR: I have spoken to so many pe.. gay or a student who's gay, who felt like they really couldn't be gay, felt like they had to either stay in the closet or go back in the closet, felt just very hurt and very sad by the fact that a big part of their identity was something that was somehow not appropriate enough to have in Florida schools.

So this is such a win and such a celebratory time and celebration for them.

I spoke with several plaintiffs who were on the lawsuit that kind of resulted in this settlement.

And they said that their 10-year-old son just.. say gay?

Can we finally say gay, mom?

And look what we did."

So this is a big moment, I think, for LGBTQ pe.. STEPHANIE SY: And yet other conservative states used this Florida law as a template for their own prohibitions.

When it comes to Florida, where does it go from h.. impact its LGBTQ citizens?

DANIELLE PRIEUR: Well, our legislative session, our last one, just ended on Friday.

And most of our strongest anti-LGBTQ and anti-trans bills actually died in session.

So there's kind of a trend that we're seeing that this kind of anti-LGBTQ push that was so strong before is weakening a bit here in Florida.

And I know a lot of the plaintiffs on the lawsuit and people that were a part of the settlement really hope people in other states are paying close attention, because they said, look.

Look what we did.Look what we were able to ..

There were protests at local high schools when this bill became a law.

And, obviously, this lawsuit itself shows, sometimes, when you speak up, and you speak up and fight for a long time, that things can change.

So they're hoping to inspire other people in states that still have kind of strong anti-LGBTQ laws in place.

And, of course, Florida itself still has a lot of those laws in place, things like a ban on gender-affirming care.

So, we will have to see kind of the ripple effects of this settlement here in Florida and throughout the country.

STEPHANIE SY: Absolutely.

Danielle Prieur with WMFE in Orlando, thanks so much for yo.. DANIELLE PRIEUR: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Of the many horrors endured by Palestinians and Israelis since the Hamas attacks of October 7, perhaps none is more acute than those of expectant mothers.

For the last several months, special correspondent Leila Molana-Allen has been charting the progress of their pain, their pregnancies, their sorrows and their joys.

She brings us their stories now.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Each day in Gaza, mothers search desperately for food for their children.

By night, as Israeli airstrikes pound the strip, they pray those children will live to see morning.

Expectant mothers live in fear their babies will never be born at all.

An estimated 50,000 women in Gaza are currently pregnant, with about 180 babies being born each day.

Medical staff report newborns being birthed on blood-soaked floors and in dirty bathrooms of overwhelmed hospitals, and Caesarean sections carried out without anesthetic.

Three months ago, Eman El Bashliki had an emergency C-section after she went into labor while fleeing heavy bombing in North Gaza.

EMAN EL BASHLIKI, Displaced Mother From Jabalia Refugee Camp (through translator): They bombed all the hospitals in the north in the Jabalia camp, and the bombing was happening over our heads.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Her displaced family is.. from her Caesarean surgery have become badly infected.

With medical stocks almost wiped out, she's hoping the doctors will still have enough antibiotics left to help her.

EMAN EL BASHLIKI (through translator): I'm so exhausted.

I can't even get up to play a mother's role in my baby's life.

I can't walk or get up to feed him or hold him.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Trapped by bombing for weeks, three months pregnant, Eman Mashaeer finally made it here for a checkup.

The doctors had devastating news.

There was no heartbeat.

Worse still, they haven't been able to operate to remove the .. too many critically injured patients they have to treat first.

If Eman has to wait much longer, sepsis could kill her.

EMAN MASHAEER, Displaced Mother From Central Gaza (through translator): I have known for a month now that my baby is dead, and they still haven't removed it because of the huge numbers of people here.

I'm scared because I have to have an operation without any anesthesia.

The doctor says I might become poisoned by the failed pregnancy.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Severe malnutrition, scarce clean water and dire living conditions are leading to a massive rise in premature and underweight births, miscarriages and death of mothers and newborns.

Most of Gaza's hospitals have collapsed, thanks to Israel's aerial bombardment and the siege, cutting off medical supplies and electricity.

Rafah's Emirati Hospital is still hanging on.

Doctors and midwives here do what they can to cope.

Dr. Sanaa El Jazar is a resident pediatrician.

DR. SANAA EL JAZAR, Resident Pediatrician, Emirat.. high percentage of critical cases coming in and a high percentage of death.

A lot of women are giving birth prematurely as a result of fear and the war and chaotic living circumstances.

After the women go home with their babies, they come back a few days later because their babies have dehydration or they have diarrhea or they're vomiting.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: UNICEF's Tess Ingram was horrified by the condition she found mothers and babies enduring on a recent visit.

TESS INGRAM, UNICEF: It is unbelievable what is happening here at the Emirati Hospital.

The situation is very desperate.

Some of the mothers haven't made it through .. We're calling for an immediate cease-fire, .. UNICEF and other aid agencies can bring them the help that they need.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: As Hamas rockets continue to fall across the border in Israel, expectant mothers live in the shadow of this war.

Ilana Polat is a midwife at Sderot Hospital, one of the largest in Southern Israel.

The maternity clinic here has been moved into a reinforced concrete shelter after multiple rockets hit the hospital.

ILANA POLAT, Midwife: Very scary for women, very scary for the families and .. because any time we can hear a siren, and we are not in a protected area, we need to run, and women after birth with epidural cannot run.

Yes, it's here.

We can -- now maybe we will hear the siren here.

So, it's very emotional time and very stressful time.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Noa Tzarfati thought she wouldn't survive to see her second child born or be able to save her first.

On October 7, she, her husband and their toddler Michael hid for a full day and night as Hamas terrorists rampaged through their hometown of Kibbutz Kfar Aza on the Gaza border, killing everyone they could find.

NOA TZARFATI, October 7 Attack Survivor (through translator): I find it extremely hard to talk about those hours.

I sat there waiting for them to kill him.

I could barely look at my son because I understood in my head that his life was about to end.

And imagine thinking that for 25 hours.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: In her second trimester, as the hours ticked by and she grew weaker, Noa felt sure she would lose the baby.

Finally, they were rescued by IDF soldiers the next morning.

High school teacher Noa used to be liberal to her core.

She taught her students to value all life on both sides of the border.

Now she doesn't know if she will ever feel safe again.

NOA TZARFATI (through translator): Everything has changed.

I don't care about anyone in Gaza anymore.

I won't forgive them.

When something like that happens, something very, very deep breaks inside you.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Noa says she will never go back to Kfar Aza.

She's now had a baby boy, Yair, and hopes they will find a new home with what's left of their community.

Back in Gaza, displaced multiple times and under daily bombardment, new mothers have nowhere safe to go, but barely functioning hospitals have no space to keep them.

If they're lucky enough to survive a safe birth in these conditions, they go home to filthy freezing cold shelters living on a single meal a day.

Baby formula has run out.

To breast-feed, mothers need to drink 16 cups of water a day.

Gazans are currently lucky to find two cups.

DR. SANAA EL JAZAR (through translator): If peop.. the elderly, for children living on the streets, then I don't know what to say after everything they have seen.

Jawaher Asaad gave birth an hour ago, but she hasn't been .. yet.

He's in intensive care.

They're both facing life-threatening breathing issues b.. has been breathing in from the improvised stove they use to keep warm.

JAWAHER ASAAD, Displaced Mother (through translator): This pregnancy was really hard on me.

There is no food.

I haven't eaten in a week.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: Jawaher doesn't know how she will feed baby Yaman or the 12 o.. kids from her extended family waiting back in their tent.

JAWAHER ASAAD (through translator): Our kids don't deserve to live any of this, to be thrown into the streets without food, without shelter, even without clothes.

The rain and cold pour down on us, and we don't have anywhere to take shelter.

And now I have given birth.

God save us from what we're living.

LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN: The U.N. has called Gaza a graveyard for children.

Nearly 12,500 Gaza children have been killed since Israel's attack began.

That's more than the total number of children killed in all other global conflicts in the previous four years combined.

Mothers desperate to keep their children safe can do little but pray for an end to their nightmare.

As this brutal war lurches on, hopes of a peaceful fut.. children look starker than ever.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Leila Molana-Allen on the Israel-Gaza border.

GEOFF BENNETT: The death of an administrator at Lincoln University in Missouri earlier this year has sparked outrage and broader concern about the treatment of black women in higher education.

Antoinette Candia-Bailey died by suicide in January and left scathing letters where she alleged a pattern of bullying and harassment at the hands of the university's president, John B. Moseley.

He is now on paid administrative leave pendin.. That came just weeks after Harvard's former president, Claudine Gay, resigned under pressure, all of it leading to a dialogue in academia about the particular challenges and pressures that black women face.

We spoke to a few women about this as part of our ongoing coverage of Race Matters, and here's part of what they told us.

KECIA THOMAS, University of Alabama at Birmingham: I'm Kecia Thomas.

I'm at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

CANDACE PARRISH, University of North Carolina, Wilmington: My name is Dr. Candace Parrish, and I am currently a visiting assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

CHAYA CROWDER, Loyola Marymount University: My name is Chaya Crowder and I am an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

KECIA THOMAS: I certainly had not been exposed to a case as tragi.. for those of us in higher ed, especially those of us who are in senior positions or leadership positions, it is often a conversation around the chronic stress that we experience, the burnout that is experienced, but also the isolation that has followed us for our entire careers.

CANDACE PARRISH: I was very sad that it had.. not have the resources or what she needed to overcome this sort of situation.

And it just got me thinking about how many more people like myself actually experience the sort of travesties in academia.

CHAYA CROWDER: I have absolutely experienced microaggressions with regard to the intersection of both my race and gender.

In my entire time in my Ph.D. program, there was never another black person above me or below me in American Politics.

And so it was a very isolating experience.

KECIA THOMAS: I have had those experiences, as have my colleagues, and it's not simply within our career.

It starts in college and graduate school, and some of us even earlier.

And so many of us see our education as an investment in our future and the futures of our families.

CANDACE PARRISH: In my Ph.D.

Program, it was.. were several periods where I almost quit.

There was a lack of support and there were people who are in charge of my academic destiny as a Ph.D. student who were manipulating things to go against my favor.

CHAYA CROWDER: With everything happening in the world right now, when there are coordinated efforts on the part of individuals and institutions to attack the credibility of your academic work, and that's already something that brings anxieties, it can be particularly distressing.

KECIA THOMAS: Some of what we have talked about today, I have heard similar complaints from colleagues in law, in medicine, industries across the board.

I think higher ed is different because oftentimes we are so severely underrepresented.

CANDACE PARRISH: I have actually stopped recommending academia as a valid job and community position to young people who want to pursue Ph.D.s in teaching.

I cannot vouch for their experiences, knowing the horrible things that I have gone through and how much emotional time and space it has taken.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's talk more about the particular stresses that black women in academia face.

Dr. Bridget Goosby is professor of sociology and co-director of the LifeHD Health Disparities Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.

Thanks so much for being with us.

DR. BRIDGET GOOSBY, The University of Texas at .. GEOFF BENNETT: Two consistent themes we hear.. sense of isolation and a lack of support.

How does that square with what you found in your own research?

DR. BRIDGET GOOSBY: That is definitely commisera.. doing right now, collecting data on Black women faculty on the tenure track, that they do experience forms of isolation, feeling like they are left out.

Networks are not available to them.

They're available to their colleagues.

And the experiences of this lack of support that they have is definitely something that we're seeing in the work that we're doing.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we should say that academia can be a high-pressure, high-stress, intense, some might say toxic environment no matter one's background.

What are some of the particular pressures that Black women face in higher education?

DR. BRIDGET GOOSBY: This speaks to what the women.. is that we tend to be underrepresented.

We make up 3.7 percent of overall of tenure track faculty in the United States.

And so, when we think about the high pressure of the positions of being faculty members, this means that, on top of the stress and demand of being researchers, productive researchers, successful teachers, we also are in a space where people may not even recognize that we are the onlys, and that our experience is unique, and that we are more likely to experience racism and sexism, the intersections of those things in those spaces.

We're also more likely to be cut out of networks because we don't fit necessarily because we are so underrepresented.

So, there are a litany of different situations that.. in the stressful conditions that we face as tenure track faculty or faculty in higher education.

GEOFF BENNETT: What do viable solutions look.. DR. BRIDGET GOOSBY: Well, viable solutions would.. women are facing and trying to mitigate the situations that they're in, protections for women who are experiencing racism, harassment, discrimination in these spaces, recognizing the fact that we come from a historically disadvantaged group and are underrepresented, which means that, in these spaces, we are experiencing a lot of these kinds of stressors without the kinds now -- increasingly, possibly without the kinds of protections that we would like to see more of moving forward.

GEOFF BENNETT: How has the conservative crackdown on DEI initiatives, diversity, equity, and inclusion, how has that affected the effort to attract and retain Black women in higher education?

DR. BRIDGET GOOSBY: So, this is -- we're still .. say that it is definitely something that's going to continue to have a chilling effect on the ability to recruit and retain Black women in academia.

As was mentioned, can you really advise women to go into -- Black women to go into these spaces, when we're being publicly kind of singled out and discredited, and now without the kind of protections of DEI, which was -- as a system, was there to kind of help with increasing diversity and inclusion overall being gone?

This means that this could be complicated situation for Black women to be in, without having the kinds of protections that might have been put forward by DEI previously.

GEOFF BENNETT: Dr. Bridget Goosby, we appreciate your insights and your time this evening.

Thank you.

DR. BRIDGET GOOSBY: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Scientists, researchers, and some big companies are eager to jump-start the next generation of computing, one that will be far more sophisticated and dependent on understanding the subatomic nature of the universe.

But it's a huge challenge to take this new quantum leap forward.

Science correspondent Miles O'Brien has more.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's a chandelier that may soon shed light on the true nature of nature, a quantum computer designed to understand the rules of the physical world to find new ways to cure diseases, stop pandemics, develop renewable energy, and tackle the climate emergency.

DARIO GIL, Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research: If we want to understand nature, since nature obeys quantum mechanics, let's build a machine.

Let's build technology that works like nature.

MILES O'BRIEN: Dario Gil is senior vice president and the director of IBM research in Yorktown Heights, New York.

Computers today operate in the binary language of ones and zeros.

Fast and capable, sure, but they are, after all, digital totems of reality.

DARIO GIL: So, no matter how hard we try, the best we can do is to approximate the complexity of our world.

And quantum machines are the first technology that we have creat.. mimicking that behavior of the natural world of quantum physics, to be able to simulate it, to understand it better.

MILES O'BRIEN: These intricate machines are designed to do just that.

At the bottom are simulated atomic particles called qubits which act in mysterious, nonintuitive ways.

The manner in which they spin and interact .. of computers.

Besides being a potential game changer for solving problems in the natural world, qua.. computers may lead to greater optimization in manufacturing, logistics, transportation, and finance.

And they have the potential to challenge and revolutionize encryption.

DAVID AWSCHALOM, University of Chicago: I believe we are at the birth of a revolution in technology, a different way of thinking about information.

MILES O'BRIEN: Quantum physicist David Awschalom is a professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Physics at the University of Chicago.

DAVID AWSCHALOM: Well, I think our classical view of the world and classical modeling of the world has worked very well.

And it's helped us quite a bit and it continues to help us.

But some of us think about this moving a little bit from a world of black and white into color.

MILES O'BRIEN: He gave me a tour of his quantum measurement laboratory.

What is the goal of this lab anyway?

What are you up to here?

DAVID AWSCHALOM: Yes, so, here, we're developing.. look at individual electrons and atoms and see how they convey quantum information.

MILES O'BRIEN: They combine fast pulses of light and microwaves to experiment with individual atoms and electrons.

DAVID AWSCHALOM: And measure their properties.

This is a way to investigate them, atom and electron by atom.

MILES O'BRIEN: So you're able to manipulate at the atomic level.

DAVID AWSCHALOM: Correct.

MILES O'BRIEN: You're controlling atoms.

DAVID AWSCHALOM: With microwaves, and we pro..

MILES O'BRIEN: But controlling atoms is no small feat.

It turns out qubits are very delicate, creating a big engineering challenge in designing quantum computers.

ERIK LUCERO, Director, Google Quantum A.I.

Lab: So we are in the Google Quantum A.I.

lab and we are surrounded by a fleet of quant..

MILES O'BRIEN: Physicist Erik Lucero is a lead engineer for Google's quantum computing enterprise based in Santa Barbara, California.

ERIK LUCERO: Each one of these are testing something slightly different.

MILES O'BRIEN: Quantum computers look like a Rube Goldberg espresso maker in order to keep their finicky qubits happy.

For them to remain able to compute problems, they cannot be disturbed by the slightest bit of noise, electromagnetic or thermal.

ERIK LUCERO: We want to make sure that the thermal noise is well below our quantum signal, OK, so we make our systems out of superconducting electronics.

MILES O'BRIEN: Which means they have to be kept cold, extremely cold.

Everywhere we went, the computers had to be chilled to almost absolute zero, or about 460-degrees-below-zero Fahrenheit.

Simply sending commands to and receiving responses from qubits without disturbing them is a Herculean task.

ERIK LUCERO: We're learning about informatio.. that we have to interact with it.

When we go and actually interact with these systems, we can alter it.

MILES O'BRIEN: As a result, the quantum computers that exist today are riddled with errors.

Researchers deal with this through statistical analysis and sophisticated error correction techniques.

But achieving a fully error-corrected quantum computer is thei.. ERIK LUCERO: The summit for us is to build a fault-tolerant, error-corrected quantum computer.

MILES O'BRIEN: The race is on to be first.

And China appears to be the leader.

Its announced investment in quantum computing is more than $15 billion.

IBM and Google don't share the amount they are spending internally on quantum computing research and development, but, in May of 2023, the companies announced a $150 million gift to the universities of Chicago and Tokyo to try and keep pace with the Chinese.

JAY GAMBETTA, IBM Vice President of Quantum: You're probably standing between two of the biggest quantum computers in the world.

MILES O'BRIEN: So if I stay here long enough, I will get smarter?

JAY GAMBETTA: Possibly.

(LAUGHTER) MILES O'BRIEN: Back in Yorktown Heights, I ..

The company is already rolling out quantum computers that are not perfect, but are built with some error correction.

JAY GAMBETTA: If we can increase the rate at which we can scal.. make improvements on the performance, we will be in a point where these will be able to do something we could never do with classical computing.

MILES O'BRIEN: The company has already deployed more than 75 quantum computers.

Mostly, users are trying to find ways to program these machines.

It's entirely different than classical computer coding.

DARIO GIL: It is definitely going to be a huge competition.

I think this needs to be the decade where quantum computing emerges as a technology that will be a permanent part of the landscape of the world of computing.

But a race also has a connotation that, like, you run something and it ends.

I don't see this as ending.

MILES O'BRIEN: Researchers say a practical, error-free qua.. away, but the goal of solving huge problems with the smallest particles in the universe is alluring enough to quicken their work.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Miles O'Brien in Yorktown Heights, New York.

AMNA NAWAZ: Tomorrow marks 13 years since the beginning of the Syrian civil war.

What began as a civil uprising against President Bashar al-Assad is a conflict that's now killed an estimated half-a-million people.

One group fighting the Assad regime is the Islamic State, or ISIS, who also targeted journalists.

Jim Foley was an American journalist covering the war when he .. in 2012 and publicly beheaded two years later.

His murder shocked the world.

A decade later, his mother, Diane Foley, tells Jim's story and how she came to be a l.. advocate for Americans held hostage abroad.

That's all in her new book, "American Mother."

And Diane Foley joins me now.

Welcome back to the "NewsHour."

DIANE FOLEY, Co-Author, "American Mother": .. AMNA NAWAZ: So you have joined us here on the "NewsHour" many .. to talk about the extraordinary work that you do.

What was it that told you had to pull all of this together in a book right now?

DIANE FOLEY: I really think the way we remember where we have been and our challenges going forward is by telling stories.

Jim was a storyteller.

All that you do, you help us remember what is happening in the world.

And Jim, it was time.

I was feeling that it's been 10 years.

Some people were children when this happened to Jim.

And we have accomplished a lot as U.S. government.

I'm so grateful for all the good people who stepped up and made it happen, donated, been so generous.

But the challenges are great.

And I just felt it was time to tell the story and learn from it, if you would, and to.. others, take up the torch.

AMNA NAWAZ: I noticed, even as we're sitting here, your eyes occasionally flic.. the photo and Jim's face.

What's it like for you to see that photo?

DIANE FOLEY: Oh, Jim was such a -- he was the oldest of our five chi.. son.

But he's challenged me.

He's challenged me, because I failed him, Amna.

I did.

Our government failed him.

We failed these young Americans, not just Jim, Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig, and Kayla, as well as Luke Somers and Warren Weinstein were killed in that same time frame.

So we failed.

And we are learning.

President Obama fed up the Hostage Fusion Cell that still exists.

We have a brilliant current hostage special envoy at the State Department.

More than 100 people have come home since 2014, a lot of good things to celebrate.

But the challenge remains.

More and more countries are targeting our citizens.

And we're very challenged, as the Foley Foundation, as is our government, to handle it all.

AMNA NAWAZ: You open this book, Diane, with an absolutely astonishing moment, which is when you sit down in the same room across the table from one of the men who kidnapped your son and brutally tortured your son and had pled guilty to the role he played in your son's death.

And one of the first things you say to him as you s.. You can call me Diane."

DIANE FOLEY: Yes.

Well... AMNA NAWAZ: What made you want to go sit down.. DIANE FOLEY: A lot of things.

Jim would have talked to him.

Jim would have wanted to hear him out.

Jim had worked with a lot of disenfranchised young people like Alexanda, who was so vulnerable to all the radicalization.

But I also, as a mom, wanted to tell him who Jim was.

And I really wanted to be able to see him as a human being who had made some horrific choices.

And it was good.

It was good.

I was grateful that God gave me the strength to do it.

AMNA NAWAZ: You also write about yourself and your husband, John, at one point, and you say: "It is incredible, though, what you don't know about your own child.

Maybe it's the same for every parent, but it struck John and me years later that we didn't really know Jim all that well, not in his entirety, until after he was gone."

DIANE FOLEY: I know.

AMNA NAWAZ: What did you learn about your son?

DIANE FOLEY: So much.

Jim was our oldest.

And because we had four others, I was quite busy... (LAUGHTER) DIANE FOLEY: ... and with the younger ones .. as a nurse practitioner.

So, Jim, when he came home, wanted to interview us, wanted to know how we were.

What's up?

What's going on?

And really didn't share a lot about what he..

He really didn't share a lot, I realized.

And it was really only after his death that I realized how many people he touched, how many lives he mentored.

I had no clue about anything, because Jim never talked about it, you know?

AMNA NAWAZ: You mentioned the foundation that now carries his name, the James Foley Foundation.

You have already changed how this U.S. government handles hostage affairs.

You advocate for the dozens of Americans who are still held hostage abroad right now.

But I should note, I see how hard you work.

Others who know this work see that your own family has asked you to slow down.

What is it that keeps you so devoted and so dedicated and moving forward every single day?

DIANE FOLEY: Well, I'm challenged by the need.. We have definitely improved as a government, but we have a long ways to go.

We have nation-states that are targeting our citizens now and wrongfully arresting them.

We have got to figure out how to deter this practice.

We must, because a lot of people are still suffering.

And it's still hard to get the attention for some of these families, even with the wrongful detention process.

It's rather opaque.

We're struggling, working with our government to t.. where they are in the process and what is possible for the government, what is not, what we need third-party experts to help with.

Our government can't do everything.

So that's partly our role, trying to help families figure out how to get the attention they need to bring their loved one home.

AMNA NAWAZ: What do you think Jim would think of the work you're doing today?

DIANE FOLEY: I think he'd be doing some of that, to be honest, although I don't think he would have left his beloved journalism.

He believed in the power of journalism, and he really believed that we had to be in conflict zones,we had to bear witness.

He really believed in that.

So I think he'd be doing what he was doing, and I think he would want .. for those who are targeted and held hostage.

AMNA NAWAZ: The book is "American Mother," co-written by Colum McCann and Diane Foley.

Diane, always a pleasure to have you here.

Thank you.

DIANE FOLEY: Thank you so much, Amna.

GEOFF BENNETT: And join us again here tomorrow night for Amna's exclusive interview with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "NewsHour" team, tha..