GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

Amna Nawaz is away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: U.S. military leaders pressure Israel to scale back it's assault on Gaza, with the civilian death toll mounting and hospitals struggling to treat the injured.

Trailblazing justice Sandra Day O'Connor lies in repose at the Supreme Court.

The women she inspired and the barriers they still face in the legal world.

And Judy Woodruff sits down with political thinkers to better understand the risks our divisions pose to the future of the country and our democracy.

J. MICHAEL LUTTIG, Former Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge: All of a sudden, it seems that we Americans don't agree on anything at all.

We certainly don't agree any longer on the principles and the values on which this country was founded.

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

America's top two defense officials are in Israel today with a dual message: The U.S. supports Israel and its right to self-defense, but it must stop killing so many Gaza civilians and focus its operations.

The war continues at a brutal pace, with hundreds killed this past weekend, and some of Israel's closest European allies now pressing for a cease-fire.

Hamas today released a new propaganda video showing three elderly male Israeli hostages still in captivity.

One man speaking in the video identifies himself as 79-year-old Chaim Peri, who was abducted by Hamas from his Kibbutz Nir Oz home on October 7.

Israeli media identified the other two hostages as fellow Nir Oz residents 84-year-old Amiram Cooper and Yoram Metzger, age 80.

The hostages are heard pleading for Israel's help in securing their release in the video, which the "NewsHour" is not showing, as it's not clear when it was recorded or under what conditions.

That's as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made his second visit to the region today since the start of the war, this time urging Israel to transition from its intense bombing campaign in Gaza to a more surgical ground operation.

LLOYD AUSTIN, U.S. Secretary of Defense: This is Israel's operation, and I'm not here to dictate timelines or terms.

We also have some great thoughts about how to transition from high-intensity operations to lower-intensity and more surgical operations.

GEOFF BENNETT: The U.K. and Germany today joined a growing list of European allies who are now calling for a cease-fire.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing to fight until the end.

YOAV GALLANT, Israeli Defense Minister: There is no clock that is running.

GEOFF BENNETT: Israel's defense minister today remained defiant.

YOAV GALLANT: We need to get to different performances on the ground before we move to the next phase.

GEOFF BENNETT: With each day that passes, the humanitarian situation in Gaza grows increasingly dire.

The United Nations' food agency estimates 56 percent of Gaza's households are experiencing severe hunger.

Displaced Palestinians are struggling just to get the basic necessities.

EYAD HELLIS, Displaced Gazan (through translator): Our life is tragic, very hard.

The situation is very difficult.

Sometimes, we run out of water by the evening and the kids have to sleep thirsty until the sun rises, and we can go out to fill up again.

GEOFF BENNETT: Several more trucks could be seen carrying humanitarian aid through the Rafah Crossing today from Egypt, but not nearly enough to respond to the crisis.

For Palestinians in Gaza, it was another day shrouded by the fog of war.

This was the scene moments after an airstrike pummeled the Nuseirat refugee camp in Central Gaza, a race to rescue survivors.

Witnesses say Israel attacked the camp last night and again this morning, killing at least 25 people.

MAN (through translator): Rescue teams are still trying to get a huge number of martyrs out from under the rubble.

This is our situation.

GEOFF BENNETT: Elsewhere, in Central Gaza, body bags pile up outside Al-Aqsa Hospital.

Loved ones of the victims gathered in prayer and disbelief.

And prayers were also held over the weekend for the slain Al-Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa, his mother bidding a final goodbye.

He was killed by what is believed to be an Israeli drone strike while reporting on the bombing of a school in Southern Gaza.

Israel says it does not deliberately target journalists.

Abudaqa is one of at least 90 journalists killed since October 7.

Dozens came out to pay him tribute on Saturday, including Al-Jazeera bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh, who survived the attack?

His wife, son, daughter and grandson were all killed in an Israeli airstrike at the end of October.

WAEL AL-DAHDOUH, Al-Jazeera Bureau Chief (through translator): We were targeted in a direct way, but it was God's will That I got injured and that Samer was martyred.

GEOFF BENNETT: Israel is also denying claims that an Israeli sniper on Saturday targeted the sole Catholic Church in Gaza, killing two Palestinian women who were sheltering inside.

TAL HEINRICH, Spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister: The IDF only targets terrorist and terror infrastructure.

GEOFF BENNETT: On Sunday, Pope Francis condemned the killings, adding this: POPE FRANCIS, Leader of Catholic Church (through translator): Some say this is terrorism.

This is war.

Yes, it is war.

It is terrorism.

GEOFF BENNETT: The health system in Gaza has collapsed.

Roughly 75 percent of the hospitals there are no longer operational.

Those that are open lack crucial medical supplies and are overcrowded and understaffed.

Amna Nawaz recently spoke with Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon who spent a month-and-a-half in Gaza tending to people at the peak of the Israeli bombing campaign.

AMNA NAWAZ: Dr. Abu-Sittah, welcome to the "NewsHour."

And thank you so much for joining us.

DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH, British-Palestinian Surgeon: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, as the war broke out, you went into Gaza to help with medical support in any way you could.

It's not the first time that you have done that.

Just explain to us, help us understand, what compelled you to go?

Why did you go?

DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: By the evening of the 7th of October, by -- and Sunday morning, I knew that what was coming to Gaza was absolutely going to be calamitous and that there was going to be a need to support the medical teams there.

I had been involved in a training program and setting up a residency program for plastic surgeons in Gaza in the year leading up to the war.

And I kind of knew what the capabilities were and what the capacity in the system was.

And that made me realize that it was critical that I would go, because there was a shortage of plastic surgeons, particularly in Gaza.

AMNA NAWAZ: And how did what you saw on the ground line up with what you expected to see?

DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Well, it was the difference between a flood and a tsunami.

Everything that I had seen, not just in Gaza before, but even in Yemen and Iraq and Syria, it was nothing compared to what we witnessed and what is still going on in Gaza.

The size, the magnitude of the killing, the ferocity of the violence is astounding.

It's beyond what I have seen in 30 years of warfare.

AMNA NAWAZ: Doctor, we as journalists have had to screen much of the footage that comes through and try to figure out how to verify it, what to bring to our audience.

You were living through it during a really intense Israeli bombing campaign.

Can you help us understand what you saw?

What stays with you?

What were those scenes like?

DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: It's just absolute carnage, when you go to the emergency department and just waves upon waves of the dead and the wounded come in, so many children, so many children.

I was operating daily on 10 to 12 patients, and 50 percent were kids, kids with horrific injuries, life-altering facial injuries.

And there was one night, one horrendous night, that I did amputations on six children.

And it was every day that you felt that this was a war on children.

The number of pediatric amputations in Gaza as a result of this war is around 1,000.

Just the sheer number overwhelms you.

And even in a good day, when you feel that you have managed to do as much as you physically can at the end of what most days was 18 hours of solid work, in each of these air raids, 80 to 150 wounded would come in.

And what you did was -- just seemed so infinitesimal.

AMNA NAWAZ: As the supplies ran out, as the aid was blocked, what kind of choices did that force you and other medical suppliers on the ground to make?

DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Initially, one had to improvise on replacing much-needed material.

At the very beginning, we started running out of antiseptic solution.

And I kind of made up this cocktail of washing-up liquid and vinegar and water to clean the wound.

But, as things got worse, you were having to perform really painful procedures on -- without antiseptic.

But the most difficult thing is, as the capacity of the system dwindled, triaging patients became extremely difficult, prioritizing who goes to the operating rooms and who doesn't, who gets operated on and who doesn't.

Where do you make the cutoff point of what is savable and what is not savable?

That became the most difficult of all choices.

People with head injuries were left to die.

People with major burns, we couldn't save, and you every day made even more and more difficult life-and-death decisions.

AMNA NAWAZ: You were also at Al Shifa Hospital, right, the biggest hospital in North Gaza.

The Israeli forces did enter that.

They said that that hospital, there was evidence, they said, that it was a Hamas command-and-control center.

They showed weapons and uniforms they said prove that.

It did beg the question among a lot of people who saw the evidence.

If it's not a place Hamas is operating from, why are those weapons there?

What do you have to say about all of that?

DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Anybody who's had an MRI can testify to the stupidity of what we saw is the presence of a machine gun magazine next to an MRI machine.

Anybody who's had an MRI who's repeatedly told to take even small rings and earrings and necklaces, it shows, had there been what the Israelis were saying, you would still be having teams of embedded journalists being taken on tour in these great command-and-control centers.

This narrative of Shifa aimed to actually distract from the fact that, while they were talking about Shifa, they destroyed four pediatric hospitals.

While they were talking about Shifa, they bombed the cancer hospital.

While they were talking about Shifa, they dismantled the whole of the health system in Northern Gaza, with the aim of making Gaza an uninhabitable place to dismantle all of the components of life, water and sewage, bakeries, schools, universities.

And you turn it into a death world, where life cannot exist, and those who are left behind have to eventually leave for the sake of their children.

AMNA NAWAZ: Dr. Abu-Sittah, everyone we speak to says there's no safe place in Gaza.

Yourself, I believe, have lost colleagues.

We know a number of medical professionals have been killed trying to help as well.

What about now?

Will you return to Gaza at some point?

DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Absolutely.

The only reason I left was because we had run out of the basic supplies, and I became redundant as a surgeon.

I couldn't get my patients to the operating room.

The last few days, I was just bandaging people up with serious wounds.

If there is a cease-fire which allows medical supplies, medication to go in, which allows us to at least increase the capacity of the health system so that we can, as surgeons, operate on over 50,000 wounded, I would be back in Gaza in a heartbeat.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah joining us tonight.

Doctor, thank you so much for your time.

DR. GHASSAN ABU-SITTAH: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: In the day's other headlines: A front-line commander for Ukraine's army warned that troops have had to scale back operations as weapons and ammunition are in short supply.

That came as more U.S. aid is stalled in Congress and amid reports of declining morale among Ukrainian forces.

But the general also rejected talk of a stalemate on the battlefield.

BRIG.

GEN. OLEKSANDR TARNAVSKYI, Armed Forces of Ukraine (through translator): Currently, I can't say the enemy has stopped us.

In some areas, we move to defense.

We can't keep our strength in all front-line areas.

We are not reckless.

So, in some areas, we move to defense.

And, in some, we continue our offensive actions by maneuver, fire and by moving forward.

And we are preparing our reserves for further large-scale actions.

GEOFF BENNETT: Meantime in Washington, Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a defense agreement with Finland, the newest NATO member.

It allows the U.S. to place troops there and preposition equipment and supplies.

Pope Francis approved a landmark policy change today allowing priests to bless same-sex couples.

The change does not include condoning or conducting actual marriage ceremonies.

Instead, the Vatican statement says -- quote - - "When people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition."

Priests will decide on a case-by-case basis whether to give the blessings.

In Hong Kong, a landmark trial for democracy activist and publisher Jimmy Lai opened today, part of China's campaign to crush dissidents.

Security was tight as a prison van carrying Lai pulled up to the court building.

Supporters said the remnants of Hong Kong's freedoms and judicial independence are at stake.

EMILY LAU, Former Chair, Hong Kong Democratic Party: It's very sad that Jimmy and others, including my party members, have been locked up for many, many, many months and years.

I hope they will get -- Jimmy and others will get a fair, open and just hearing.

GEOFF BENNETT: Lai is 76.

He could get life in prison if he's convicted of sedition and collusion with foreign forces.

Elon Musk's social media platform, X, the former Twitter, is now under investigation by the European Union.

The E.U.

says it's focused on whether the company has gone enough to stop the spread of illegal content.

It's the first such investigation under new regulations aimed at hate speech and misinformation.

The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, signed a sweeping new law today that lets local police arrest migrants who cross the border illegally.

It also lets state judges order them to leave the country.

Opponents say it directly violates federal authority over immigration.

Texas Republicans say the Biden administration isn't doing enough to stop illegal immigration.

Southwest Airlines will pay $140 million in a record federal settlement one year after it wreaked havoc on holiday travel.

The airline left more than two million passengers stranded around Christmas.

Its crew scheduling system could not keep up with the thousands of cancellations from a winter storm.

Today's settlement includes a $35 million fine, plus compensation for future passengers.

And, on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was virtually unchanged to close at 37306.

The Nasdaq rose 91 points.

The S&P 500 added 21.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": Tamara Keith and Amy Walter break down the latest political headlines; police departments nationwide resist releasing body camera footage, despite promises to do so; and many U.S. school districts implement a four-day week to cope with staffing and budget shortfalls.

A bipartisan group in the Senate continues to negotiate over a border deal, while immigration rhetoric takes center stage in the Republican presidential race.

It's a good time to check in with our Politics Monday team.

That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

Great to see you both.

So, we have got Democrats and Republicans trying to strike a deal on changes to U.S. Southern border policy, which, as you both know, is linked to additional funding for Ukraine and Israel.

We will see if anything can be done by the end of the year.

By all chances, this will push until next year.

But, Amy, what could both sides do that would ultimately be a win for both Democrats and Republicans?

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Well, this is the challenge, right, because there's the short-term and the long-term piece of this.

In the short term, it's not just Democrats and Republicans -- Democrats versus Republicans.

On the issue of Ukraine, yes, it is a Biden priority, but it's the priority of a lot of Republicans too.

And we're seeing that divide within the Republican Party, those who would like to see more funding and those who say we have already spent too much, even on the presidential stage between, say, Nikki Haley and Donald Trump on this issue of Ukraine.

So, if we're talking about winners and losers, what do they want to see?

It's not just Biden who'd like to see that.

As I said, there are Republicans too.

When it comes to the border, that's another issue that both sides can be winners, but it's very hard -- or losers.

And it's very hard to find that middle ground.

You're asking to solve a long-term problem to get a short-term bill through, and that is really why this is hitting up against the brick wall.

This isn't just -- like, with Ukraine or Israel, we're talking about funding.

If this were a funding issue, I think that could be negotiated.

This is about massive policy changes that Republicans want to see, and that many Democrats say goes too far and will not just tie the hands of Biden in the short term, but it will help do things that Democrats do not want to see done by another administration.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, Tam, how can the White House use this as an opportunity to address what both sides say is a real crisis at the Southern border, and perhaps neutralize or at least soften a GOP talking point heading into the election?

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: So I was up in New Hampshire a couple of weeks ago talking to voters, mostly independent voters and Democrats, and you know what they kept bringing up unprompted?

Twelve thousand people apprehended at the U.S. border, a record-setting day.

And the fact that independent and Democratic voters were bringing this up indicates what a challenge this is for President Biden and Democrats going into 2024.

Immigration is going to be the thing, whether Donald Trump is the nominee or somebody else, immigration is going to be the thing that they bludgeon the president and his party with.

And, in fact, there are Democratic governors and mayors in states very far from the border saying, hey, this is an issue, this is a problem, we need to deal with it.

So, if, by some chance, and it is not a huge chance, they could come up with some sort of border security agreement that has some policy changes in it, it's a problem for Biden with a key part of his base.

It is a problem with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and with immigrant advocates and a lot of other people.

But it also potentially creates a shield for him to say, look, I got a bipartisan deal.

I worked with Republicans on this issue.

Now, are Republicans going to give them a break and say, oh, that's enough, it's problem solved, we own this?

No, of course not.

So both parties in some ways have, for more than a generation, had an interest in this as an issue continuing to be out there as an issue as a motivator for voters.

And that is one of the many challenges that stands between getting this done and not getting this done.

The other thing is, Republicans see this as border security.

They want to limit immigration.

And they aren't even talking about things like addressing dreamers, which have bipartisan support.

And so this is not comprehensive immigration reform that they're talking about.

Republicans don't even see it as immigration reform.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, speaking of immigration, the former President Donald Trump this past weekend said immigrants coming to the U.S. are -- quote -- "poisoning the blood of our country."

This is a remark that drew a quick rebuke from the Biden campaign for echoing the words of Adolf Hitler.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: They're poisoning the blood of our country.

That's what they have done.

They poison.

Mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world, they're coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.

They're pouring into our country.

GEOFF BENNETT: So Donald Trump is no stranger to using inflammatory, often racist rhetoric when referring to migrants.

In that same speech, we should note, he also praised tyrants and authoritarians.

But it drew silence and sidestepping from Republicans when asked about it.

GOV.

RON DESANTIS (R-FL), Presidential Candidate: Nobody has a right to come to this country.

When you come to this country, you have got to be somebody that believes in the values and wants to assimilate into this country.

We're going to be very tough on who's able to come into this country, because I think that what's going on now at the border in particular has been a total train wreck.

KRISTEN WELKER, Moderator, "Meet The Press": You have endorsed former President Trump.

Are you comfortable with him using words like that?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): We're talking about language.

I could care less what language people use, as long as we get it right.

If you're talking about the language Trump uses, rather than trying to fix it, that's a losing strategy for the Biden administration.

GEOFF BENNETT: Amy, you can argue that you can't separate the language from the policy, that the language leads to the policy and the language in many ways justifies the ultimate policy.

AMY WALTER: Right, and that the dehumanizing of people makes it easier to justify policy, right, and to say the people who are coming here are not deserving, they are not like us, we shouldn't accept them.

So that's clearly where Trump is going on this.

Where the Republicans are going, though, is where they have always gone, which is to say, well, I can criticize him for it, like I did on "Access Hollywood," like I did after January 6, or like I did in these other times, and it not only didn't motivate any Republicans to join or to distance themselves from Trump.

It actually -- if you were a Republican who did that, it only isolated you further from the party.

And this is really -- this is where we get into this place -- and we're going to be talking about it a lot during this campaign if Trump's the nominee.

Is all of the stuff that Trump says and believes baked into voters' perceptions of him, that they say, well, that's just what Donald Trump does, there's nothing new there, so we're going to move on?

Or are we to a place where, not yet, but we get into the campaign and voters say, this feels like we know where we're going with this, we have had four years with Donald Trump, and what he's saying now pushes us even further in a direction we don't -- we, as a voter could say, don't want to go?

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Tam, you have been on the road.

You were just in New Hampshire.

What do Trump supporters say about this?

Do they agree?

TAMARA KEITH: Well, he hadn't said that lately when I was out reporting.

And I primarily was around Chris Christie, who was saying this sort of language is bad, and he thought that what Ron DeSantis is saying too about shooting people trying to cross the border if they have a backpack is not - - it would be extrajudicial killing.

So the rhetoric is hot.

But, look, Donald Trump had four years 4,000 people in an arena and nobody was, like, booing when he said that.

And it wasn't the first time he has said that.

He a couple months ago said it, was widely criticized, and very much knew that it echoed language of Hitler.

GEOFF BENNETT: Tamara Keith and Amy Walter, thank you both.

AMY WALTER: Thank you.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.

GEOFF BENNETT: Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, lay in repose at the court today, giving members of the public a chance to pay their respects.

The former justice died earlier this month at the age of 93.

The court has changed substantially since O'Connor joined the bench more than 40 years ago.

And Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the four women currently serving, paid tribute to her predecessor's barrier-breaking role.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice: For the four of us and for so many others of every background and aspiration, Sandra was a living example that women could take on any challenge, could more than hold their own in spaces dominated by men, and could do so with grace.

GEOFF BENNETT: While the number of women on the court today is perhaps most notable, John Yang looks at the many other ways the legal profession has and has not changed in O'Connor's lifetime.

JOHN YANG: When Sandra Day O'Connor applied for a job at a big law firm after graduating near the top of her Stanford law school class, a firm offered her employment as a secretary.

While that was 70 years ago, surveys and studies show that progress for women at big firms is slow, especially in the top ranks.

A 2022 survey found that only 25 percent of law firm partners are women, and women make up 37 percent of all practicing attorneys.

What's been accomplished since 1981, when O'Connor shattered the glass ceiling, becoming the first woman on the Supreme Court, and how much still needs to be done?

Laura Zagar is managing partner at the San Francisco office of the law firm Perkins Coie.

Laura, I know that, in your office in San Francisco, that a majority of the partners are women, but that is the exception, rather than the rule.

How would you assess where the legal profession is now in terms of gender disparity?

LAURA ZAGAR, Perkins Coie: Generally, the industry, we're falling far short of where we should be.

Just to put it into perspective, I graduated with a nearly balanced class in 2002 at UCLA School of Law.

And we're still in an industry where, as you cited the statistics, we're still far below 50 percent in the partnership ranks at the top law firms throughout the country.

We are definitely an anomaly.

We have 62 percent women partners in our office, but that's twice as much as the average throughout our peer firms and within our firm and other offices.

So we still have a far ways to go, both translating - - we get 50 percent of our incoming attorneys are women, but we're not translating that into getting them into the partnership ranks and into the leadership ranks.

JOHN YANG: What are the obstacles that women face in big law firms?

LAURA ZAGAR: I think there are the ones that everyone expects, which are getting through to the promotion, getting the oppor -- a lot of the time, people focus on women being the primary caretakers for children being an obstacle.

And that's certainly one of them.

But we're also seeing the same trends with women that do not have children.

So it shows that there's more going on than might meet the eye.

I think there are problems that we just know through science that people do.

They tend to bring up and are attracted to working with people that are like them.

So, sometimes, the people who get the best opportunities are the men, not necessarily the women, regardless if they have children or not.

So I think it's -- it's -- there's a lot of layers and dynamics into this situation.

And it's important for firm leaders to look at that full dynamic to make sure that we get parity at the leadership end of the spectrum.

JOHN YANG: And what are you doing at your office of Perkins Coie that other officers could emulate and try to achieve the same sort of results you are?

LAURA ZAGAR: I think most firms are approaching this as a recruitment issue at the junior ranks.

And so I think they think, if we recruit 50 percent women, eventually, that will happen at the partnership ranks.

But what's happening is, they're getting through all of the hurdles to get to partnership.

We see women self-selecting out, often to go to in-house roles or to leave the legal profession altogether, because they don't see a future for themselves.

What we have done here in San Francisco at Perkins Coie is focus on the recruitment, retention, and success of our women partners.

And what we have seen is, that's important to have our junior associates come in, see role models, see success, and realize that they too can be promoted and be successful.

So I think the legal profession's focus needs to stop being on recruitment of the most junior attorneys and promoting the success and opportunities of the women already in the partnership and focus and target their lateral recruitment on partner -- successful women partners, because we need the role models for these women who are coming up through the ranks that there is indeed a future for them in this profession.

JOHN YANG: Talk about role models, to what extent was Justice O'Connor a role model when she became the first woman?

And now we have -- of course, we have since had Justice Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and now Jackson.

What's the effect of having women at the top level of this profession?

LAURA ZAGAR: I still remember -- I won't say how old I was, quite young.

(LAUGHTER) LAURA ZAGAR: But I still remember Justice O'Connor being confirmed.

I mean, it was one of the first moments in my life that I thought I could do this.

Like, I could be an attorney.

I could be a judge, instead of thinking I could be one of the careers that women were expected to go into, nursing, teaching, et cetera.

And by no means do I think that is -- those are -- I come from a long line of nurses and teachers.

But it's important that we have our brainpower and our capabilities across all professions, including law.

So, Justice O'Connor really was the first moment in my life that I thought, wow, I could do this.

And seeing Justice Ginsburg come in and say things like then we could have nine women on the Supreme Court were just mind-blowing.

And so I think it's just so critical to not just see the judges on the Supreme Court become increasingly women, but judges across all benches, the rest of the federal bench, and then on state courts as well.

So, my first experience in law was actually interning for a woman trial court judge in Ohio.

And I learned a lot from there, and it seemed achievable because she was able to do it.

So the role model and Justice O'Connor's contribution to women in this profession is -- can't be quantified.

JOHN YANG: Laura Zagar of the law firm Perkins Coie, thank you very much.

LAURA ZAGAR: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: The use of police body cameras has become much more widespread in recent years, with the expectation that they will curb police violence and improve accountability.

As William Brangham explains, the promise of these cameras is falling well short of expectations.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Geoff, back in 2014, there were very differing accounts of what happened when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

Was it justified self-defense or a fatal overreaction?

There was no body camera video to help answer that question.

Since then, departments across the nation have spent tens of millions of dollars to put small wearable cameras onto police officers.

And, in some shootings, they have made a difference, including murder charges in the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Tyre Nichols in Memphis, and, more recently, Eddie Irizarry in Philadelphia.

But a new investigation by ProPublica and "The New York Times Magazine" found it can often take months or years before video is released, if it is released at all.

Eric Umansky is editor at large at ProPublica, and he worked on this investigation.

Eric, great to have you back on the "NewsHour."

The promise, as I mentioned, of these cameras was to have this unbiased record of an event, and the belief being that, if police officers knew they would be seen in action, it might curtail bad behavior.

But your investigation showed how a lot of factors have undermined that promise.

What did you find?

ERIC UMANSKY, ProPublica: Sure.

So, primarily, what you have is the police who have been left in control of the footage.

And it's up to police to decide when footage is released, who it is released to, and what is released, whether it's the full footage or only partial footage.

And, as you mentioned, what we found is that often footage isn't released at all, and also, when the police themselves are in the sole custody of footage, they have often not acted on it to discipline, punish, or fire officers who do engage in problematic behavior.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And you cite many examples of where body camera video comes out much, much later after some tragic encounter, and it often directly contradicts what police said had happened in that moment.

Are there -- is there a particular example that stands out to you from your reporting?

ERIC UMANSKY: Well, so it's -- the example that I get into in the most depth in my story was actually the first police killing in New York ever captured on a body-worn camera.

And it's a young man named Miguel Richards.

It was a tragic and unfortunately all too kind of common incident where somebody was - - he was having a mental health crisis and was holding a knife.

Police came to his apartment and 15 minutes later he was shot 16 times.

The police commissioner at the time basically praised the officers, cited their exemplary restraint.

And the NYPD, while it released some footage, didn't release all of the footage.

And what all of the footage shows is that the officers' conduct was problematic, that help had been on the way with specialized training, specially trained officers.

And the officers at the scene just didn't wait and fired and killed him.

And yet those full facts six years later are only now coming out.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Your report also details how Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd, which eventually killed him, had done the same thing in many multiple examples prior to that, had been captured on body camera doing that, but that had never come to light.

I mean, is there any way to know how often demonstrable misconduct is captured on these cameras and then not brought to light?

ERIC UMANSKY: Well, that's actually part of the problem, is that it's really, really difficult to know.

Three years before Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, supervisors had watched the footage.

They were the only ones who watched the footage, because the police had refused to release anything, and actually refused to release it even years after George Floyd's murder.

So it only came out after a judge ordered them to do so in a lawsuit.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: What do police officials say when asked why they are reluctant or hesitant or simply don't release this type of video?

ERIC UMANSKY: Well, there are legitimate concerns about privacy in some cases, and that is one thing that they cite.

There are also particular laws.

So, in Minnesota, for example, the police in the city there cited a law that, when I looked into it, had been in its final form written by three legislators who had previously been police officers.

So legislators and the law plays a part in this as well.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It does seem like the refusal to release this video, the hesitancy to do so undercuts the entire idea that police officers know that they might be held to account, and thus might act more appropriately.

Viewers will remember the case earlier this year of Tyre Nichols, who was killed in Memphis.

This is actually what got me started on the story, is, there was a line in The New York Times about it which noted that officers had noted that their body-worn cameras were on and then proceeded to beat him anyway.

And you think to yourself, well, how could that happen?

The answer is that footage in Memphis is exceedingly rarely released.

The fact that footage was released in his case was an extraordinary exception.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Eric Umansky, editor in chief at ProPublica, your reporting can be found in "The New York Times Magazine" and ProPublica.org.

Thank you so much for being here.

ERIC UMANSKY: Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: Across the country, more school districts than ever are making the change to a four-day school week.

Our St. Louis community's correspondent, Gabrielle Hays, traveled to one of those districts to see how teachers and parents are adjusting.

GABRIELLE HAYS: In Missouri, nearly a third of the districts have already made the switch.

DALE HERL, Superintendent, Independence, Missouri, School District: This was 100 percent about attracting and retaining the very best staff.

GABRIELLE HAYS: Independent school district superintendent Dale Herl led the change to a four-day school week this year.

DALE HERL: Right from the start, we wanted everyone to know that this was not about saving money.

We know we're actually spending more on this model.

GABRIELLE HAYS: The average starting teacher salary in Missouri is the lowest in the nation, which has caused teachers to leave for better pay or leave the profession altogether.

Almost 14 percent full-time teaching positions were unfilled or filled with underqualified employees in the 2022-2023 school year.

GREGG KLINGINSMITH, superintendent, Warren County, Missouri, School District: We were one of the first rural school districts outside of the St. Louis suburban area.

GABRIELLE HAYS: In the Warren County School District, superintendent Gregg Klinginsmith led the change to a four day school week about five years ago.

GREGG KLINGINSMITH: I really wish this was a story about a school district finding ways to pay teachers the highest salary in the state, but, unfortunately, we just don't have the revenue to pay competitively.

And so we were losing teachers at a pretty high rate.

GABRIELLE HAYS: Aaron Pallas with the Teachers College at Columbia University says this new model is quickly gaining popularity nationwide.

AARON PALLAS, Columbia University: We have seen a sharp increase in the number of school districts around the country that have adopted a four-day school week.

GABRIELLE HAYS: Places like Missouri and Oregon have embraced the four-day school week.

In other states like Oklahoma, the government has limited which districts can make the change, for fear of students falling behind.

AARON PALLAS: There is some evidence suggesting that students do not learn quite as much in a four-day school week as in a five-day school week, in part because the school week is actually a little bit shorter.

Moving from five days to four often results in a slight reduction in the amount of instructional time that students experience.

And instructional time is a really strong predictor of what students learn.

ANGIE JUDY, Parent: So the first thing that came to my mind, of course, being a former teacher, is just the worry on the at-risk students.

GABRIELLE HAYS: Independence parents like Angie Judy are still adjusting to the changes this year.

ANGIE JUDY: It was told to us that it was to retain teachers.

But I really think there's different ways we can take care of teachers than to do this to a lot of people's families.

GABRIELLE HAYS: And while Independence offers childcare for K-8 students on those days off, it costs $30 each week.

ANGIE JUDY: And I have actually had a few friends who've left the district because they're like, well, if I have to pay for a full day, why not just send them to private school?

Because I want my kid in school five days.

DALE HERL: They're going to get into a routine, and you're not going to have the need for the childcare that you thought you were going to.

GABRIELLE HAYS: Pallas says he expects this issue to crop up more as more districts turn to this model.

AARON PALLAS: For many families, the fifth day is a challenge, because they have to provide care for their children who are not being supervised in school.

And that can be a direct cost for parents, either by having to hire childcare coverage or by staying home and supervising children, at the expense of other things they could be doing with that time.

GABRIELLE HAYS: As for whether the shift to four-days has been successful, Herl says it's too early to tell.

But the results they are seeing in Independence so far are promising.

DALE HERL: The number of applicants that we did have for our open positions, it went up by more than four times what we had the previous year.

So I think it -- yes, it's helping on the retention piece.

But then, as far as attracting qualified candidates, without a doubt, we saw a huge increase.

GABRIELLE HAYS: As for the concern over learning loss, Missouri requires that students must have the same number of instructional hours, regardless of how many days they're in school.

And teachers like Jeanna Dildine say the time is made up with slightly longer days, days where teachers themselves are rested and ready to teach.

JEANNA DILDINE, Teacher: I want people to know that, even though it's just four-days, you are getting four quality days.

And as the saying goes, it's quality over quantity.

And we're all very productive, I have noticed.

We don't waste time because we have four days.

And we are getting as much of their education in those four days as we can.

GABRIELLE HAYS: And Warren County Superintendent Gregg Klinginsmith says, the numbers show that students are not declining academically.

GREGG KLINGINSMITH: Reading levels are about the same for kids.

Test scores are -- now, that -- COVID threw a lot of our data off.

But what we're seeing is, we're about where we were before.

So it's not like we're seeing a big drop in student achievement.

We have tried to run two tax levies to try to increase teacher pay.

Both of those have failed.

And so this has really worked out well for us to retain our staff, give a positive working environment, and then have the best teachers in front of our kids.

GABRIELLE HAYS: As schools across the country juggle things like budget constraints and teacher loss, the shift to a four-day school week may be a new reality in years to come.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Gabrielle Hays.

GEOFF BENNETT: All this year, Judy Woodruff has been exploring the country's deep political, cultural, and social divisions.

Her reporting is part of a prime-time special airing tomorrow night here on PBS.

And for that, she recently sat down with noted thinkers to talk through their concerns heading into another contentious election year.

Here's a preview of that conversation, part of her ongoing series and special airing tomorrow night, "America at a Crossroads."

JUDY WOODRUFF: A few weeks ago at the Lincoln Cottage here in Washington, where the 16th president spent time during the Civil War and where he conceived of the Emancipation Proclamation, I gathered a group of respected thinkers to talk through our divisions at this moment.

They were former federal appellate Judge Michael Luttig, a conservative stalwart, Vanderbilt political historian Nicole Hemmer, who has studied and written about the conservative movement, and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who now teaches leadership at Harvard.

Welcome to all three of you.

And I want to begin with you, Judge Luttig, and just this basic question.

We have been reporting on America's divisions.

Given that, how concerned are you right now about this country?

J. MICHAEL LUTTIG, Former Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge: Well, Judy, I'm gravely concerned about our country today, certainly more concerned than I have ever been in my lifetime.

All of a sudden, it seems that we Americans don't agree on anything at all.

We certainly don't agree any longer on the principles and the values on which this country was founded.

We don't even any longer agree on America's democracy and whether democracy is the greatest form of government in the world and indeed in all of civilization.

NICOLE HEMMER, Vanderbilt University: I share that sense of concern.

There have been many times throughout U.S. history that Americans have clashed over basic values, over the meaning of democracy.

Abraham Lincoln himself said we all use the word democracy, but, in using the same word, we don't all mean the same thing.

But I think it's this idea that maybe democracy itself needs to be abandoned that gives me the most pause, because it's the sense that maybe none of this is worth preserving, maybe none of this is worth defending that is shared by, it seems, sometimes a growing number of people in the country, and, more importantly, that there is a political party that seems at least curious about where that idea might take them.

And that, that skepticism about democracy, attached to a vehicle of institutional power that's something we should be really concerned about, especially given the outbreaks of political violence that we have seen in recent years.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Governor Patrick, what's your perspective as someone who served in elective office for a number of years?

You have been in the political arena.

FMR.

GOV.

DEVAL PATRICK (D-MA): It's -- I share the concerns and the gravity of concerns that my friends here have described.

It's amazing how it feels it has declined so rapidly since I left office in early 2015, because, at that time, it seemed to me there was still an appetite for the kind of governing that said you didn't have to agree on everything before you worked together on anything at all.

I still think that appetite exists in regular people.

I think that our politics have become so performative now, radical for attention's sake.

And the danger, of course, is that that leadership is internalized by lots of people.

You mentioned the issue of political violence.

The language is careless, and the actions that are taken, including up to January 6, are pretty scary.

But I will say this.

I think we have two interrelated challenges to our democracy.

One is how to make it function, right, how to make the rules and the systems straightforward, so that you can get registered, stay registered, vote, have that vote counted.

The hyperpartisan gerrymandering, the amount of money in our politics and policymaking, all of these have solutions.

There are good ideas out there, lots of people working on them.

They are important.

But there's another challenge.

It's not the same.

And I think this is the one I feel like we have been touching on.

And that is how to make our democracy meaningful, meaning, how is it that folks feel like the democracy delivers for them?

J. MICHAEL LUTTIG: Judy, the governor is, of course, correct.

Our politics today is poisonous, and it's eating away at the fabric of our society.

Today, for a number of reasons, I attribute this in no small part to our political leaders and to our political public officials, because it's in their best political interests, if you will, to portray Americans as enemies of each other.

And there's far more that we share and agree upon as Americans even today than there is that we disagree over.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Nicole, when I hear Judge Luttig refer to political leaders who want there to be dissension among the public, I mean, that's something that has -- maybe there's been a strain of that throughout our political history, but that's truly come to the fore in recent years.

And you have looked at this, haven't you?

NICOLE HEMMER: I have.

And it's one of those things that I think sometimes gets confused when we talk about polarization.

We talk about polarization as though it just describes the political landscape that we're in.

But polarization is actually a tool of politics, right?

It's something that political leaders can use to both tear down their opponents and to drive their base closer to them.

It's something that we saw in the politics of the 1990s.

Newt Gingrich, as speaker of the House, saw polarization as a powerful weapon.

He circulated rhetoric that talked about Democrats as disgusting and evil as a way of having voters recoil against this group, seeing them as enemies, rather than opponents.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Judge Luttig, when you and I spoke a few months ago, you talked about how, as long as there is still a body of belief out there among our elected officials that the 2020 election was not legitimate, that it was stolen, that our democracy isn't safe.

J. MICHAEL LUTTIG: No question, Judy.

In my congressional testimony, I included many allusions to the Civil War in this country.

I believed at that time -- and this was a year-and-a-half ago -- that we were perhaps on the cusp of a literal civil war.

I would say that we are that much closer to a literal civil war today than we were a year-and-a-half ago.

GEOFF BENNETT: That conversation continues tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern/8:00 p.m. Central on PBS with the one-hour special "America at a Crossroads With Judy Woodruff."

And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

Thanks for joining us, and have a great evening.