GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: Israel and Hamas release more people held, in a sixth day of exchanges, while negotiators work to extend the pause in fighting.

GEOFF BENNETT: Congress wrangles over funding for Israel, Ukraine, and the Southern border, with a rapidly closing window to work out a deal.

AMNA NAWAZ: And Bangkok, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian cities face an existential crisis, as they sink into the ocean.

KOTCHAKORN VORAAKHOM, Landscape Architect: We grew, like, rapidly without even thinking about many capacities and many, like -- like sustainable urban planning.

(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

Tonight, mediators in the Israel-Hamas war are working to win another extension of a six-day-old pause in fighting.

The current temporary cease-fire ends early tomorrow.

GEOFF BENNETT: Israel says it's willing to continue the cease-fire if Hamas keeps releasing hostages.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also reaffirmed today his commitment to continue the war and seek the destruction of the terrorist group.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Prime Minister (through translator): In the last few days, I have heard the question if, after this phase of returning our abductees is exhausted, will Israel return to fighting?

So, my answer is an unequivocally yes.

There is no chance that we won't resume the fighting until the end.

AMNA NAWAZ: Meantime, Hamas released 10 more Israeli hostages, including one with American citizenship.

President Biden confirmed she is now safe in Egypt.

Hamas also freed two Russians and four Thai nationals who were driven into Egypt.

Israel was also releasing 30 Palestinians from jail, including 16 minors and 14 women.

Hamas also claimed that the youngest hostage, 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, was killed in an Israeli bombing before the cease-fire.

The group said that the child's 4-year-old brother and his mother also died.

The Israeli military said it's now investigating that claim.

GEOFF BENNETT: And in the West Bank, Palestinian health officials said Israeli troops killed two young boys during a raid in Jenin.

They were identified as Adam Samer Al-Ghoul, who was 8 years old, and Basil Suleiman Abu Al-Wafa, who was 15.

The Israeli military did not confirm the shooting, but it did say troops killed two Islamic Jihad militants in a separate incident.

Let's turn now to Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a longtime State Department official in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Thanks for being with us.

As we reported, talks are ongoing to extend the pause in fighting to allow for the release of more hostages and Palestinians held by Israel.

At this point, what are the prospects for another extension and what might it yield?

AARON DAVID MILLER, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: I think, from the Israeli perspective, the Netanyahu government has no choice but to play Hamas' cruel game.

If, in fact, Hamas has additional women and children, perhaps a number in the vicinity of 20, I think the Israelis are perfectly prepared to continue the hostage-for-prison release.

And diplomats, Americans, Qataris, Egyptians are still working, perhaps, on a broader set of exchanges that could involve adult males and females, reserve military, and active-duty military that Hamas is holding.

So I think it serves the interests right now both Hamas and Israel, if, in fact, you can create a predictable and reliable channel in coming days to continue the hostage-for-prisoner exchange.

At some point, the string's going to be played out, however.

There's no doubt about it.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, the military personnel who are being held hostage, the men young enough to be called up for military service, Hamas has said that it will demand a higher price for people who fall into those categories.

What might that be?

AARON DAVID MILLER: I think, if past is prologue here, it's another asymmetrical trade; 1985 and 2011, the Israelis trade, 2011, in particular, for the return of Gilad Shalit, it took six years to produce it.

In 2011, the Israelis traded 1,079 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails for Shalit's return.

So I think the price, I don't know what the ratio would be, but it'll be another asymmetrical trade.

I'm not entirely sure the Israelis are willing, depending on what Hamas' conditions are, to play that game.

Part of the problem is that these hostages are not all controlled by Hamas.

Palestine's Islamic Jihad has some.

And if reports are true, then some of these families or clans have taken hostages in the wake of October 7 in an effort to trade them for money or some other bargain.

GEOFF BENNETT: Prime Minister Netanyahu is adamant that fighting will resume when the truce lifts, but is there any universe in which these series of short-term extensions could lead to a longer-term cease-fire to bring this war to a close?

AARON DAVID MILLER: I think the chances of that are happening -- of the happening are absolutely zero.

That, of course, would hand Hamas an extraordinary victory.

To be able to survive this onslaught, to get Palestinian prisoners in the process, to pull off the largest terrorist attack in history in the state of Israel, in the single bloodiest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust, should such a cease-fire be proposed, I doubt whether the Israelis would accept it.

And, right now, America, its key ally, the Biden administration doesn't seem to be interested in it either.

Now, I think the ground campaign, in some fashion, here, I think the Biden administration can have an impact in shaping or reshaping what the Israelis plan to do in Gaza in an effort to try, to try to minimize the tragic deaths of -- exponential deaths of Palestinians that we have seen and the destruction in Northern Gaza.

GEOFF BENNETT: Israel's goal of rooting out Hamas, that's the objective.

What does the mission look like at this point?

AARON DAVID MILLER: If the war stopped -- excuse me -- if the war stopped today, the Israelis would have failed.

Hamas' military structure above ground, below ground, its leadership remains intact.

Even in Northern Gaza -- excuse me -- where the Israelis have operated, there's still a Hamas presence.

So I think the Israeli objective, eradication of Hamas, killing all of its senior leadership, if what the Israelis intend by that is that there will not be a residual Hamas presence and Hamas will not survive in some fashion, some form, even as a political movement, I think that probably is unachievable.

The cost here is an issue, and so is the amount of time that the Israelis would have to spend.

We're talking not weeks, but months, if we're talking about an eradication strategy.

I'm not sure it's achievable.

And one final point.

They're not going to eliminate Hamas as an organization.

It's the embodiment of an idea, and that idea is the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic State.

That idea is likely to live on, sadly, tragically, in the minds of too many Palestinians, who right now, an entire generation, I think, is going to be shaped by this war and traumatized, not to mention the Israelis, who will also emerge from this conflict traumatized.

It doesn't need much hope or promise for the emergence of leaders on either side to turn this parade of horrors into something that you and I would consider an equitable and durable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We're much farther from that point in the wake of October 7, I'm afraid.

GEOFF BENNETT: Aaron David Miller, thanks, as always, for your insights.

AARON DAVID MILLER: Appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: In the day's other headlines: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned against letting criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza fuel antisemitism.

Schumer is the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in U.S. history.

He gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, saying he felt a responsibility to use his platform, citing centuries of hate and violence against Jews.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): All Jewish Americans carry in them the scar tissue of this generational trauma, and that directly informs how we are experiencing and processing the rhetoric of today.

The vitriol against Israel in the wake of October 7 is all too often crossing a line into brazen and widespread antisemitism.

AMNA NAWAZ: Schumer also published an opinion piece in The New York Times in which he called the rise of antisemitism -- quote -- "a five-alarm fire."

A U.S. military Osprey aircraft crashed into the sea off Japan today, killing at least one of the eight people on board.

Video showed a helicopter searching the crash site.

A life raft believed to be from the plane floated in the water.

The tilt-rotor Osprey can take off and land like a helicopter.

It's had a troubled safety record, including a crash in Australia that killed three U.S. Marines in August.

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has been laid to rest after a funeral service in the Carters' hometown of Plains, Georgia.

Maranatha Baptist church was filled with close friends and family, including former President Carter, now 99 and in frail condition.

Grandson Josh Carter praised Mrs. Carter's lifelong focus on improving people's lives.

JOSH CARTER, Grandson of Rosalynn Carter: She worked with everybody, from world leaders, to people living on less than $1 a day.

And when she would tell us stories about the work that she would do, she would only ever focus on the people, on humanity.

Everywhere she went, she would tell us that the people were just as smart and just as capable as she was.

AMNA NAWAZ: Mrs. Carter's burial site is in view of the home where the former president still lives, now in hospice care.

The CDC reports that life expectancy in the U.S. has jumped by more than a year as the pandemic wanes.

A child born in 2022 could expect to live 77 years and six months, about the same as two decades ago.

That is still well short of the nearly 79 years projected for those born in 2019 before the pandemic.

A new forecast sees the global economy slowing next year.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris says that wars, inflation and interest rates will affect growth.

For now, though, the U.S. economy is expanding faster than expected.

The government's revised number shows an annual rate of 5.2 percent growth from July through September.

That is up from the initial estimate of 4.9 percent.

And on Wall Street, stocks mostly drifted.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 13 points to close at 35430, the Nasdaq fell 23 points, and the S&P 500 was down four.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": we speak to the families of the Palestinian students who were shot in Vermont; how challenges to the Voting Rights Act could reshape the nation's political landscape; plus much more.

With U.S. allies embroiled in wars overseas, members of Congress face a pivotal decision whether to green-light more aid.

Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins spent the day on Capitol Hill, where a deal could hinge on U.S. border funding.

Lisa, good to see you.

LISA DESJARDINS: Hi.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, help us understand.

This is a little confusing.

How are aid to Israel and aid to Ukraine tied at all to what's happening at the U.S. Southern border?

LISA DESJARDINS: This is complicated, so let's try and make it clear.

There are two ways these things are tied together.

One is from former President -- from current President Biden himself and his proposal for national security funding.

This is an emergency request he has.

Let's look at what he's requested from Congress.

You will see all of these things bundled together, Ukraine with the biggest request from him, about $60 billion, more than that.

Israel, he wants that money, about $14 billion.

For the U.S. border, he's added to that another almost $14 billion and some humanitarian aid.

So, already, he's saying, I want these things together.

Politically, essentially, he's saying, I want these -- Ukraine as -- money for our allies, but also I understand that there is need for work on our own border.

The other reason this is tied together, Amna, is timing.

Ukraine and Israel both need funding now.

We are running out of time in this calendar year.

Republicans realize there are not that many must-pass bills left this year.

They want border security, so they are also pushing for border security to be part of any kind of package for Israel and Ukraine.

AMNA NAWAZ: So let's drill down on the border piece then, right, because this is not an easy issue for Congress to reach consensus on.

What's on the table?

What could a deal look like?

LISA DESJARDINS: The last day has really been quite wild in terms of what's happening.

There is a small group of U.S. senators trying to forge a compromise.

Now, to explain this, it gets very technical, but I want people to understand two very broad concepts that we have in terms of border talks.

There are two key terms I want to talk about.

And you have talked about this on there before.

Parole, that is something that means that it's temporary and emergency.

That's allowing people into this country for brief periods of time.

The other is asylum.

That is a permanent kind of state.

Both of those things are things that Republicans want to limit, some very sharply.

Now, I asked Speaker Johnson about this today.

How important is it?

Are there any red lines for him for what has to happen for border security in order to get Ukraine and Israel money?

I want you to listen to his answer for what kind of priority he has for that money.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): People are deeply concerned about their safety and security and all the things, all the societal ills that happen at the border.

So that is a top priority for us in all these negotiations to get that secured.

And we need policy changes, not just further funding to process people.

LISA DESJARDINS: OK, he wants policy changes.

That's a top priority.

Now, listen a few hours later to a Senate news conference I was at.

This is Senator Roger Marshall, how he puts the way he thinks border funding should be involved here.

SEN. ROGER MARSHALL (R-KS): My priorities one, two and three are the border, the border and the border, and that, unless there's meaningful reform that secures our border, we're hell no.

We're not going to vote for cloture on any type of legislation, supplemental legislation, unless it includes border security.

LISA DESJARDINS: In other words, border security or nothing.

AMNA NAWAZ: So what about the aid to Israel, aid to Ukraine?

What's on the table there?

LISA DESJARDINS: There are separate debates there.

Let's talk about some divides.

Israel, there is a very difficult discussion that Democrats are having over whether there should be conditions for that, perhaps limiting the way Israel uses some weapons that America funds, protecting civilians, somehow codified it.

Now, also in Ukraine, there are calls, especially from Republicans, for more checks on spending.

They are dubious of some of that money.

And then, for both of those, there are questions about how much should we give and for how long, are these endless wars, what kind of limits are there here?

Those are difficult discussions to have.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's a lot to work out in not a lot of time.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: What's the timeline here?

LISA DESJARDINS: OK, here we go.

Let's look at the calendar.

Just on the verge of December, this is the timeline we're looking at.

This is when the Senate is hoping to have a vote on some kind of foreign aid and border bill, maybe next week.

But then look at the entire calendar for this year.

Congress is only in session next week and the week following it.

So it is really hard to do the math to see how they get all of this done.

Hope springs eternal.

But it's all to say that there has to be a deal, essentially, this week.

And I'll tell you, walking here from the Capitol tonight, it seemed like they are farther away than closer.

Senator Chris Murphy, who was involved in that gun deal that we have talked about before, he said having a bipartisan compromise on guns was a cakewalk compared to what he is talking about now.

AMNA NAWAZ: It doesn't look good.

You will be following it all.

Before I let you go, you have been following this other story about Congressman George Santos of New York.

Will the House vote to expel him?

LISA DESJARDINS: It looks like it, but it's not entirely clear yet.

Mr. Santos is having a news conference tomorrow.

He has said he will not resign.

It is still not clear that the votes are there.

It takes two-thirds vote in the House to expel him.

Clearly, a majority wants to expel him.

That vote could happen as soon as tomorrow, but the latest was that they were leaning toward moving it to Friday.

It's going to be something we will watch very closely in the next couple of days.

AMNA NAWAZ: A lot happening in these last two weeks before the year ends in Congress.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Lisa Desjardins, always good to see you.

in Burlington, Vermont, where a white man shot three young men of Palestinian descent.

The attack has again stirred fears of rising Islamophobia and anti-Arab hatred.

William Brangham spoke with two of the young men's mothers.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On Saturday night, these three college students, Tahseen Ahmad, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Hisham Awartani, were shot and wounded by a stranger.

The attacker, whose motive is still unknown, has been charged with three counts of attempted murder.

Earlier today, I spoke with Hisham's mother, Elizabeth Price -- she had just arrived in the U.S. from her home in the West Bank -- and with Kinnan's mother, Tamara Tamimi, who had just arrived from her home in Jerusalem.

Thank you both so much for joining us today.

I would love to hear both how your sons are doing right now.

Tamara, how is Kinnan doing?

TAMARA TAMIMI, Mother of Kinnan Abdalhamid: He's doing all right.

He was discharged the day before yesterday - - yesterday, actually.

I was able to speak to his E.R.

doctor by phone.

The hospital has been amazing in giving us information.

The bullet that the defendant hit Kinnan with grazed his right glute, and it didn't penetrate deeply, so he was incredibly lucky.

He is, however, in a lot of pain.

He -- the adrenaline of all of this has suddenly subsided, and so he's having trouble sleeping.

I'm very anxious to get to him, because I have a feeling he's not just having trouble sleeping because of pain, but because of trauma.

So I'm quite concerned for him.

And -- but, otherwise, he was incredibly lucky, and he sits with a lot of concern for his friends that are still in the hospital.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, Elizabeth, I know Hisham was also quite seriously injured.

What is the latest on his prognosis?

ELIZABETH PRICE, Mother of Hisham Awartani: Well, he is -- he has what they call an incomplete spinal injury, which means that he has sensation in his legs, but he can't move them.

From what I heard today, talking with my husband, the bullet hit his clavicle.

And we're grateful that it hit his clavicle, because, if it hadn't, it might very well have just plowed through his spine and killed him.

I mean, we're just so grateful that they're alive.

I mean, we're just so thankful.

And it makes such a difference.

We're going to go see them.

We're going to hug them.

We're going to be with them.

They're going to get sick of us, and we're just -- I think we're just -- I don't know if I will let go of him for a while, because it was a breath's -- just a hair's breadth away from death.

And one -- I can -- I believe in my son, I believe that he will be able to walk again, but you can't bring a child back from death.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, as the country has focused on this, the tragedy that fell to your sons, everyone has been seeing these photographs of them as little boys knowing each other, obviously for many, many years.

Can you just tell us a little bit about the relationship between these three young men?

TAMARA TAMIMI: Sure.

So, the -- Hisham and Kinnan, in particular, have grown up together.

So, Elizabeth was pregnant... ELIZABETH PRICE: We're best friends.

(LAUGHTER) TAMARA TAMIMI: Elizabeth was -- Elizabeth and I were pregnant very close in time.

So we were friends first and then the two babies were born being friends, because, quite frankly, they had no choice, because we were always hanging out.

And so the boys were hanging out.

So they will tell you if you ask them that they're actually more brothers than they are - - than they are just friends.

The third boy that was with them is very, very close to them as well.

They -- he met them when I think they were in fourth grade.

And they're all -- the three of them are very, very like-minded and spend -- they're the kind of boys that spend hours and hours and hours together huddled with their heads together in a room just talking, talking about everything, talking about science, physics, astronomy, astrology, talking about playing chess.

So they really grew up... ELIZABETH PRICE: As an inseparable team.

TAMARA TAMIMI: Exactly.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The night of the attack, the boys were walking down a quiet residential street to dinner at a family's house, when their attacker approached them, said nothing, and then opened fire.

ELIZABETH PRICE: Well, he came off the property and approached them.

They stood to the side to let him pass, since they were probably walking down in a row.

And he pulled out his gun, didn't say a word, shot them.

I think Kinnan was able to turn and run, to flee.

I think, from what Tamara has described, he was shot, so the man continued to shoot while Kinnan was fleeing.

Hisham and his friend fell to the ground.

Hisham said that, all of a sudden, he found himself on the ground.

He didn't know he'd been shot.

And he pulled his phone out of this pocket and there was blood on it.

And his friend was lying next to him screaming in pain.

And Hisham calls the -- called the ambulance, called 911.

And then the EMT came.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Kinnan, who is also trained as an EMT, ran for safety down the street.

TAMARA TAMIMI: I understand that Kinnan thought that his friends were dead and was picked up by an EMT.

And he, in the ambulance, said to the EMT: "I'm an EMT, and I couldn't save my friends."

So he thought that his friends were dead, and whereas her family thought that Kinnan was dead.

So, I mean, you can understand the trauma.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I can't imagine having to go through that experience and fearing for your friends and not being certain of what happened to them.

And, as you know, there is still no -- quote, unquote -- stated motive for this attack.

But you both clearly believe that your sons were targeted because they're Palestinian.

That -- is that correct?

TAMARA TAMIMI: Look, I don't know that.

I can't get into the assailant's mind, but I can say this.

They -- two of the three of them were wearing the traditional keffiyeh.

And if he was close enough to be within earshot, they were also speaking a mix of Arabic and English, as they tend to do.

Our boys were -- don't typically walk around with a keffiyeh, but, right now, in solidarity with what's happening to the Palestinian people, many Palestinians and other supporters of the Palestinian people are wearing the keffiyeh to recognize and be in solidarity with those who are suffering in Gaza.

I find it very, very difficult to believe that this was completely random.

And I can say even further that, if our boys looked like the assailant, if our boys spoke like him, if our boys were dressed exactly like him, I have a very hard time believing that this shooting would have happened.

And, in all cases, this was definitely motivated by hate.

No one -- no one can do an act like this that isn't entirely fueled by hate.

ELIZABETH PRICE: So, I don't think they're surprised by what happened, because I think they have been on edge, and they felt like they have been targeted.

And they have seen being -- targeting .

I mean, the killing of that young boy a few weeks ago beginning of -- in October means that there is -- there is a context in which this crime happened.

And, as Tamara said, it was a hate-driven crime, because he did something so hateful to young men who he had no contact with before.

So it was a vicious attack on them, as they were standing there and based on his how he perceived their identities.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Elizabeth Price and Tamara Tamimi, thank you both so much.

And we're wishing you a wonderful reunion with your sons later today.

ELIZABETH PRICE: We're looking forward to it.

We're going to hold them and not let go.

(LAUGHTER) ELIZABETH PRICE: They will be, like, squirming to get out, or maybe not Hisham, but... (LAUGHTER) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Thank you so much for talking with us.

ELIZABETH PRICE: Thank you.

TAMARA TAMIMI: Thank you, William.

AMNA NAWAZ: Coastal cities in Southeast Asia, including Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila, face a mutually risky future.

They are sinking as sea levels around them are rising.

Fred de Sam Lazaro has our report from Thailand.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Just 30 miles from Thailand's capital, Bangkok, sits a temple on a small spit of land.

The only way in is to walk or hitch a ride with a motorcyclist along a narrow concrete footbridge.

Over my shoulder here are about 2.5 square miles of what is today the Gulf of Thailand.

As recently as the mid-1990s, this was the village of Samut Chin.

Community leader Suwan Buaplai points to the lines of what were once power poles disappearing into the distance, marking roads which once connected houses, farms and markets in a thriving fishing village.

SUWAN BUAPLAI, Community Leader (through translator): The soil here erodes by 1.5 to two inches every year.

People have had to move houses six or seven times because the water has kept coming in.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: 50-year-old Buaplai has been fishing since he was 10.

SUWAN BUAPLAI (through translator): There's been a decline in mangrove forests, which has led to quite a few species of fish and shellfish disappearing almost entirely.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Slowly, he says, the buffer zone that shielded the capital from the worst is eroding away.

SUWAN BUAPLAI (through translator): Bangkok has a natural reservoir for water, and if the water comes in, it's very hard for it to get out.

If there's flooding and places like Samut Chin are no longer around, the water could potentially stay in Bangkok for months.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Thailand's capital was moved here 240 years ago on the banks of Chao Phraya River, lifeblood to acres of rice paddies, at the time the lifeblood of the economy.

Today, this dense, concrete megacity of some 10 million residents is sinking at a rate of up to two-thirds of an inch every year.

During high tides after some flooding events, the river has risen nearly 10 feet above sea level.

VARAWUT SILPA-ARCHA, Former Thai Former Minister of Natural Resources: Am I worried?

Yes.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: I met Varawut Silpa-archa, until recently Thailand's minister for natural resources and environment, in his high-rise office.

VARAWUT SILPA-ARCHA: Forty or 50 years from now, we might be sitting at the sea level here on the 20th floor.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Many who live at street level already know what that's like.

SURAPOL KEARNAKPU, Bangkok Resident (through translator): It's impossible to live here if you don't have a two-story house.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: How high the water was.

Surapol Kearnakpu, 65, is a retired soldier and lives on a canal in East Bangkok.

SURAPOL KEARNAKPU (through translator): What we can carry upstairs, we carry, but, sometimes, we just have to let it flood.

So, during the big floods of 2011, we couldn't move appliances like the refrigerators and television, so we just let it flood.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The 2011 floods, the worst in half-a-century, inundating the city for almost three months.

More than 800 people died, and it cost the Thai economy 40 billion U.S. dollars in factory shutdowns.

Thailand is a major manufacturing hub serving global supply chains.

The government has built some new dikes and floodgates to hold the water at bay in a future flood, but even Former Minister Varawut is skeptical.

VARAWUT SILPA-ARCHA: I don't think it's adequate enough.

We need to move much quicker.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Despite the high stakes, he says, the sense of urgency has waned as memories fade of the 2011 floods.

VARAWUT SILPA-ARCHA: Some of the infrastructure has been developed since 2011.

But, unfortunately, I think not many people is really concerned or realize how the magnitude of the problem is.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: One with multiple causes.

Rising sea levels are just one factor causing the Thai capital to sink.

Millions of new residents and thousands of new high-rises have drained groundwater levels.

And many canals that drained into the sea have been paved over.

KOTCHAKORN VORAAKHOM, Landscape Architect: We grew, like, rapidly without even thinking about many capacities and many, like -- like sustainable urban planning.

So, we are very addicted to growth.

Like, we still want to grow more.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom runs a social enterprise working to increase urban resilience in her hometown.

She says, in recent decades, the city has lost nearly half of its network of 3,000 canals that drain through the Chao Phraya River and into the sea.

KOTCHAKORN VORAAKHOM: Water is life to our culture.

But now, when you develop the city without concerning the benefits of the natural infrastructure, you shift to road, you have to drive more, you have to build more.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: She's working to build a more climate-friendly city.

Her hallmark design is Centenary Park, opened six years ago, a vast green space in the middle of the city.

Graded to harness gravity, the park collects and holds water in an underground reservoir, reducing the flood risk.

In dry periods, up to a million gallons is available for watering.

Another Kotchakorn project is Chong Nonsi Canal Park above a major canal now reconnected to fresh water to nourish greenery on parkland.

Like many waterways, this one had been disconnected from the canal network, leaving it stagnant and polluted.

KOTCHAKORN VORAAKHOM: This main canal is, like, in the heart of the city and is the true main canal that connects to Chao Phraya.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: So people moved in here migrating from rural areas to get jobs?

KOTCHAKORN VORAAKHOM: To -- yes.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: She took us to another canal and a community that was among the hardest-hit in the 2011 flood.

KOTCHAKORN VORAAKHOM: We need these people to serve the cities, but it's so expensive to commute, so they live in informal settlements.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Kotchakorn's group is working with community leaders to help rehouse families being displaced as authorities plan to widen canals to move floodwaters through faster.

She's like to see more green space ideas, not more concrete, to mitigate the impact of Bangkok's concrete binge.

KOTCHAKORN VORAAKHOM: It's such a lovely city that we still want to be part of it, even with the flood.

We used to live with the flood.

We are amphibious.

We can live in a wet season and dry season.

It's not about destroying it, but work with the concrete.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Are you optimistic that something will happen in time?

VARAWUT SILPA-ARCHA: Oh, I'm... FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Or do you think you're going to lose a lot of this city?

VARAWUT SILPA-ARCHA: I know something will happen.

It's not a matter of if.

It's a matter of when.

And it's not a choice, shall we do it or shall we not.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Meantime, not far from the bustling metropolis, in the once-upon-a-time village of Samut Chin, a large statue of Lord Buddha stands on a platform of concrete, facing the sea, hands outstretched as if holding back the tide.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Fred de Sam Lazaro near Bangkok, Thailand.

AMNA NAWAZ: And Fred's reporting is a partnership with the Under-Told Stories Project at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

GEOFF BENNETT: Legal challenges regarding voting rights in multiple states from Georgia to Arkansas could alter the nation's political landscape ahead of the 2024 elections.

Laura Barron-Lopez has a closer look.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Geoff, a special legislative session began today in Georgia to redraw its congressional and state district maps.

Lawmakers are beginning the work after a federal judge ruled Georgia's current maps violate the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of Black voters.

And, last week, the Eighth Circuit Federal Appeals court issued a ruling that could gut a key section of the Voting Rights Act.

A three-judge panel said only the federal government, not private citizens or groups, can sue under Section 2 of the civil rights law.

That could roll back decades of enforcement that protected minority representation.

Joining me now is Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Janai, thanks so much for being here.

I want to just start off by asking you, what could the impact of this Eighth Circuit Appeals ruling be, beyond its effect on redistricting?

JANAI NELSON, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund: Oh, the impact could be extraordinarily corrosive to our entire electoral system.

What it means, effectively, is that after almost 60 years of voters and civil rights groups and other advocates being able to bring lawsuits directly in federal court to make sure that voters are not discriminated against based on their race, that they will no longer be able to do so.

And that could easily provide a welcome mat for even more voter suppression and racial discrimination in our electoral process.

So the consequences are quite grave.

And it is something that we are deeply concerned about.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And this could apply beyond just redistricting maps, but also to where polling places are located, correct?

JANAI NELSON: That's right.

It applies to every aspect of voting.

So what Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does, which was the portion of that legislation that was unfortunately halted in many parts of the -- in all of the Eighth Circuit and the states that are covered by the Eighth Circuit, it covers every possible voting practice or procedure.

That means voter registration.

That means the location of polling sites.

That means how you draw district lines for congressional, state and local bodies that govern our population.

So there are many vast consequences from this ruling in the states that are covered by the Eighth Circuit.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And the American Civil Liberties Union told me that they plan to file a petition in the coming weeks for the full Eighth Circuit to rehear this case.

But in this specific ruling from the three judges, they said that the actual wording of the Voting Rights Act, Section 2, only allows the attorney general, the Justice Department, to bring these lawsuits.

What's your response to that?

JANAI NELSON: It really defies logic, it defies reason, and it defies the legislative history of the Voting Rights Act in its entirety.

It also defies the entire purpose of Section 2, which is to ensure that voters have an ability to vindicate their rights.

And it's important to note that this is such an aberrant decision from this Eighth Circuit panel.

And it is a three-judge panel, but only two of the three judges agreed, which is, unfortunately, enough to halt the use of this critical portion of the statute by voters and their advocates.

But this is not a normal decision.

This upends nearly six decades of critical precedent, allowing voters to vindicate their rights when they are discriminated against on account of their race.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And unlike that Eighth Circuit ruling, a federal court ruled that Georgia did violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and that means that Georgia is now going to be adding new majority-Black districts that will be added across the political map.

That includes one congressional district, two state Senate districts, and five state House districts.

What does this change mean for Black voters?

JANAI NELSON: It means that Black voters will finally have a fair shot at being able to elect candidates of their choice.

It means that Black voters will no longer suffer from being manipulated by partisan actors or actors who have a nefarious purpose as they think about how they draw lines for Congress, for state legislatures, for local power.

What it does is really level the playing field for all voters, and it makes our entire election process much fairer, and it makes our governing bodies free of racial discrimination.

Right now, the way the laws are drawn, it means that the entire Congress is infected by these racially discriminatory congressional districts.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Janai, with the 30 seconds we have left, when you look at the Supreme Court upholding Section 2 just earlier this year, but also continued challenges to Section 2 from Republicans in states across the country, what is the pattern that you're seeing here?

JANAI NELSON: Well, I am very pleased with what the Supreme Court did when it ruled in favor of a case that LDF brought last term, and it was very clear that Section 2 is still very viable in combating racial discrimination in redistricting.

So I have full faith that the Supreme Court will uphold its prior precedent and find that, yes, voters and their advocates can bring lawsuits to combat racial discrimination in voting in federal courts under Section 2.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Janai Nelson of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, thank you for your time.

JANAI NELSON: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: And we will be back shortly to explore a new art exhibit that displays the masterful and complex portraiture of painter John Singer Sargent.

GEOFF BENNETT: But, first, take a moment to hear from your local PBS station.

It's a chance to offer your support, which helps keep programs like this one on the air.

AMNA NAWAZ: For those of you staying with us, we get an encore now from a dynamic musical group.

While the pandemic caused heartbreak for millions, it also provided a chance for some artists to reset.

William Brangham spent time with the musicians behind the Tedeschi Trucks Band, who credit their time in lockdown, plus a centuries-old poem, with not only opening new creative paths, but with fusing their band even more tightly.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the world of musical marriages, there's none quite like this one, Susan Tedeschi's and Derek Trucks'.

As the creative duo behind the 12-member Tedeschi Trucks Band, this husband and wife have been called two of the best roots musicians of their generation.

But before joining together musically, they each had successful solo careers.

Susan's first major label record, "Just Won't Burn," now being reissued for its 25th anniversary, went gold, rare for a debut blues album.

With her soulful voice and guitar, she got five Grammy nominations and toured with some of the greats, Buddy Guy, B.B.

King, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones.

Derek is considered one of the greatest living blues guitarists.

He began touring at age 12, a sneaker-clad prodigy talented enough to take on Eric Clapton's "Layla."

At 20, he joined the legendary Allman Brothers and played with them for over a decade.

His blend of blues, jazz, Indian styles made him the youngest player named to "Rolling Stone"'s list of the 100 greatest guitarists, at number 16.

SUSAN TEDESCHI, Musician: And this, this up here, there's an osprey nest over there.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, after years of passing each other on the road, these two solo artists met, fell in love, and started a life together.

DEREK TRUCKS, Musician: Having a bit of a crash.

So, Sue calls.

Yes, we did it all out of order.

It was a pregnancy, marriage.

SUSAN TEDESCHI: Well, we bought the house first.

DEREK TRUCKS: House.

(LAUGHTER) SUSAN TEDESCHI: We bought the house first.

DEREK TRUCKS: Pregnancy, marriage.

SUSAN TEDESCHI: Then we got pregnant.

DEREK TRUCKS: And then, about 10 years in, you're like... SUSAN TEDESCHI: Then we got married DEREK TRUCKS: ...

I think we're ready to put a band together.

SUSAN TEDESCHI: Then we did a band after the kids were... DEREK TRUCKS: We had to be married for 10 years.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That is a really scrambled set of sequence.

(LAUGHTER) SUSAN TEDESCHI: Yes.

DEREK TRUCKS: Yes.

SUSAN TEDESCHI: Well, you do what you can, because we weren't -- we don't have a normal life schedule.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Their 2010 debut, "Revelator," went gold, won the Grammy for best blues record, and launched a new chapter.

Their band, including horns, double drummers, and keyboards, recorded a string of records, and spent 10 long years touring the globe.

By any measure, they were a success.

But it was draining.

Then, when beloved band member Kofi Burbridge died of a heart condition, a man Trucks called the beating heart of the band, they began to reassess.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The main story we are following, and that is the coronavirus pandemic.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And then came the pandemic and subsequent lockdown that brought life to a standstill.

DEREK TRUCKS: For us in a lot of ways, the pandemic kind of saved our band.

Like, we were really at a point of we were about to take time off to kind of... SUSAN TEDESCHI: Deal with the loss of Kofi.

DEREK TRUCKS: To deal with the loss of Kofi and just kind of reset and think about what we want to do and what is this thing?

SUSAN TEDESCHI: And then J.J. had left, right, in February.

DEREK TRUCKS: And it was a hard reset for us.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Longtime band member Mike Mattison says it was a rough period.

MIKE MATTISON, Musician: The tank was pretty low.

I mean, we had been touring pretty hard for over a decade.

And we had achieved what we wanted to achieve.

But I think what we realized, in going down this wormhole, is that we hadn't said what we wanted to say.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So Mattison had an idea.

During lockdown, everyone in the band would read a 12 century Persian poem Layla and Majnun.

It's an Arab Romeo and Juliet story about two lovers held apart by a male-dominated society.

Heartbroken Majnun wanders the wilderness, going mad.

Layla gets locked in a tower and forced to marry another man.

That poem inspired Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominos record "Layla," a record that the Tedeschi Trucks Band had recently recorded live.

But Mattison wanted to go back to the centuries-old source, all 258 pages of it.

MIKE MATTISON: The thing I was most concerned about is that I would be just shunned for being a nerd.

(LAUGHTER) MIKE MATTISON: That, oh, gee, now we have... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: homework.

MIKE MATTISON: Exactly.

DEREK TRUCKS: Mike's original thought was, let's just all read this poem and then just flip the perspective.

Instead of -- like, the "Layla" album is just this lovesick man that can't have this thing he desires.

And his was, what does she think about this?

Like, what was her perspective?

And we're like, well, that's perfect.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, mid-pandemic, the band gathered at Tedeschi and Trucks' home and studio and began writing.

An enormous number of songs poured out.

Multiple band members contributed ideas.

Some, but not all, of the songs touched on themes from the poem.

SUSAN TEDESCHI: I like when the music comes like that.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It sounds like a pretty beautiful experience.

SUSAN TEDESCHI: Yes, because you really don't have any control over it.

It is more like, if the muse is there that day and it just pours out of you, and you're in the moment where you can be receptive and write it down or feel it or play off of your bandmates or whatever.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Did you have any reluctance or hesitancy to looking at a book that was principally about the man and the woman at the center of this story that's basically you guys, and have everybody in the group reading about this central relationship?

(LAUGHTER) DEREK TRUCKS: You know, there's a little bit of that.

There were times the songs would come in, and I'm like, hmm.

(LAUGHTER) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's a little on the nose.

DEREK TRUCKS: Yes, wait a minute.

But it's -- one of the big takeaways from me in reading that story was -- and Mike alludes to this in a few of the tunes he wrote -- is, when you're in a relationship, the -- what's going on doesn't just affect the two people in the relationship.

Like, it can really spill out in positive ways or negative ways.

(CROSSTALK) SUSAN TEDESCHI: Or band.

(CROSSTALK) DEREK TRUCKS: Yes.

And we see in our situation that's absolutely true.

SUSAN TEDESCHI: Yes.

MIKE MATTISON: It's not just about a guy in the wilderness pining.

You know, there's so much more going on.

And in the poem, you hear from Layla, and she has very specific things to say about how she feels about this guy.

And not all of them are great.

And also her treatment at the hands of her father and the world, yes, I think she definitely picked up on that.

I think a lot of that very much resonated with her, especially being in the business she's in and the genre that we do.

SUSAN TEDESCHI: I see, as a woman, and all the things going on in the world, as women, and women really trying to stand up and have a voice in a different way, even though women are more vocal, that doesn't mean we -- our rights are more equal.

It's kind of interesting.

There's a lot of things that really haven't changed.

I mean, obviously in America, we're much better off.

But there are plenty of countries in the world that are just like that.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It was a remarkably fruitful period.

The band recorded four albums and released them sequentially, "I Am the Moon," volumes one through 4, each with accompanying films by director Alix Lambert.

The Tedeschi Trucks Band continues their tour, a community on stage, 12 members' strong.

They are playing music inspired by a centuries-old poem, but, in this telling, the star-crossed couple made it, and the woman's not locked away in a tower, but commands center stage.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm William Brangham in Wilmington, North Carolina.

GEOFF BENNETT: The great painter John Singer Sargent, an American expat, is the subject of a new show at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, its only U.S. location before moving to London.

It reveals much about his methods and why his work remains relevant more than a hundred years later.

Special correspondent Jared Bowen of GBH Boston reports for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JARED BOWEN: Painter John Singer Sargent had a way, a way of rendering the architecture of an arm, a splaying of the fingers, or an elevation of the chin so that we could know exactly what he saw inside and out.

ERICA HIRSHLER, Senior Curator, Museum of Fine Arts Boston: There's some people who recalled that they saw a little bit too much and that it was a little bit nervous-making to go sit for Sargent.

JARED BOWEN: Sargent was an American artist who became the darling painter of the upper classes on both sides of the Atlantic from the late 1800s through the turn of the century.

His sitters had noble lineages and cascading jewels and paid six figures in today's money for the privilege of being painted by him.

ERICA HIRSHLER: He decided how they were going to pose, what they would wear in many cases and the backdrop and setting.

JARED BOWEN: Erica Hirshler is the curator of Fashioned by Sargent, a new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston that follows the threads of Sargent's process, even reuniting portraits with the original garments his sitters wore, like this opera cloak enveloping Lady Sassoon.

ERICA HIRSHLER: He takes it and he pulls it across her body, and he turns out the lapel, so that you get this great swoop of pink satin across her body.

And it makes for a much more interesting painting.

JARED BOWEN: While the society portraits may have been Sargent's bread and butter, his true nourishment came from society's fringes.

He relished painting bohemian poets, playwrights and musicians.

And, here, Sargent was as drawn to Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth as he was to her costume.

ERICA HIRSHLER: The costume is covered with beetle wings, which reflect the light and sort of shimmer blue-green.

And the excitement of being able to paint something that was so unusual appealed to him.

PAUL FISHER, Author, "The Grand Affair: John Singer Sargent in His World": I think there's a lot of Sargent's biography lurking in these paintings.

JARED BOWEN: Paul Fisher is a Wellesley College American studies professor and author of the recent Sargent biography "The Grand Affair."

Far from the Gilded Age drawing rooms, he says the painter was also drawn to the transgressors, and had the daring to paint them, and all at a time, not unlike today, when society was publicly wrestling with gender fluidity.

PAUL FISHER: Newspapers of the time often described this as the maladie du siecle, the illness of the century.

Women were out and about.

Men were seen as more complicated, maybe more effete.

So there was a lot of anxiety.

And Sargent capitalizes on that.

JARED BOWEN: He did it boldly in this portrait of a well-known Parisian, the gynecologist Dr. Pozzi.

For its startling intimacy, the painting was never shown publicly in Paris in Sargent's lifetime.

PAUL FISHER: He's wearing a blood-red robe.

And he's got cuffs and a collar that are highly pleated and somewhat feminine.

So, Sargent is really sporting with gender here.

Dr. Pozzi was a famous womanizer, but he had lots of queer friends in the circles in Paris.

And Sargent was kind of gripped by this man's charisma, and you can see it in the portrait.

He has warring instincts.

On the one hand, he's a very sort of shy, quiet, retiring man who loves his work.

On the other hand, the provocation is part of his making a career for himself.

JARED BOWEN: But provocation doesn't even begin to describe what Sargent did in 1884, when this portrait of the American-born Madame Pierre Gautreau was exhibited at the prestigious Paris Salon.

She did not commission Sargent.

Rather, he chased her.

ERICA HIRSHLER: Everybody in Paris wanted to make an image of Madame Gautreau.

One other American artist described her as black as spades and white as milk, and she sort of glided across the floor.

JARED BOWEN: But when the portrait was unveiled with Gautreau's revealing gown, one strap originally painted slipping down her shoulder, and her skin so white it looked lavender, society revolted.

ERICA HIRSHLER: One of Sargent's friends wrote that it was surrounded by shoals of jibing women.

And also, in the press, they say that it looks like her dress is about to fall down.

They say she looks like a corpse, she's so pale.

JARED BOWEN: Gautreau was mortified and Sargent was singed.

He later repainted the strap and found the experience bruising enough to leave Paris for London.

ERICA HIRSHLER: Sargent, when he sold it to the Metropolitan Museum in 1915, he said: "I think it's one of the best things I have ever done."

It's interesting.

She sort of retreated from society, but then, some years later, had another portraitist paint her portrait also in profile, also with one strap down.

JARED BOWEN: And validating John Singer Sargent as both socially and fashion-forward.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jared Bowen in Boston.

GEOFF BENNETT: And join us again here tomorrow for coverage of COP 28.

That's the annual international gathering to address climate change.

This year, it's hosted by the oil-rich nation of the United Arab Emirates.

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, thank you for joining us.