August 30, 2022 - PBS NewsHour full episode

President Biden voiced new urgency in a speech touting the recently-enacted bipartisan gun safety law and promoting funding for police. He drew a stark contrast with some Republicans who have called to defund the FBI. Crime researcher John Roman and former head of Homeland Security and Intelligence for the District of Columbia Donell Harvin join Laura Barrón-López to discuss.

Mississippi's capital city is coping with a water crisis after a treatment plant broke down, leaving thousands without drinkable water. The governor declared a state of emergency and asked the National Guard to help distribute water to Jackson's 180,000 residents and businesses. Nick Judin of the Mississippi Free Press joined John Yang to discuss the concerns.

As students return to class, schools across the country continue to grapple with teacher and staff vacancies. The scope of the shortages, and what’s behind them, varies widely across America's nearly 14,000 school districts. Carlton Jenkins, the superintendent of Madison Metropolitan School District, joined Amna Nawaz to discuss the struggle he's facing to find and keep educators.

Rising mortgage rates and lingering inflation are forcing many Americans to put plans to buy a home on hold. That is pushing up rent prices for others. As economics correspondent Paul Solman explains, no one has experienced that more acutely over the last year than people of color. It’s part of our ongoing series, “Race Matters.”

The last leader of the Soviet Union has died at the age of 91. Mikhail Gorbachev passed away in Moscow on Tuesday after a long illness. He took power in 1985 and introduced sweeping reforms, but he could not prevent the collapse of the Soviet state at the end of 1991. Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace joins Amna Nawaz to discuss Gorbachev's legacy.