August 4, 2021 - PBS NewsHour full episode

As many as 22 million people get drinking water from systems with lead pipes, and twice as many rely on systems that violate safe water standards. A large part of the Senate infrastructure bill aims to solve those issues. NewsHour correspondent Lisa Desjardins talks to community leaders about what they need, and Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council about whether the bill delivers.

In our news wrap Wednesday, as the world nears 200 million COVID cases, the World Health Organization calls for delaying booster shots until more countries get the vaccine, and the White House argues the U.S. has enough vaccine to do both if needed. Protests erupt in Lebanon a year after a deadly Beirut explosion. And California’s largest wildfire is growing again as hot, gusty weather returns.

As the U.S. grapples with the coronavirus, housing costs are skyrocketing. According to the latest S&P Core Logic Case-Shiller index, home prices were up almost 17 percent over the last year -- and in many places, the jump was worse. Economics correspondent Paul Solman turns to potential home-buyers in Boise, Idaho, one of the many areas in the country that has seen a stark increase in prices.

A year after a deadly explosion of tons of ammonium nitrate that sat for years in a Beirut port warehouse, people in Lebanon are still waiting for answers and government accountability. Special correspondent Leila Molana-Allen reports on how people across Lebanon are struggling to cope amid the ongoing collapse of the country's economy and shortages in fuel, food and basic services.

President Joe Biden’s administration has taken a very different stance from his predecessor on many immigration issues. But it also has also just extended a Trump-era rule that allows some asylum-seekers to be expelled during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amna Nawaz talks to Lee Gelernt of the ACLU about their lawsuit against the government, plus continuing efforts to reunite separated families.

Jorge Antonio Renaud says that the United States is enamored with the idea that certain individuals are just “crime prone.” At 20, he was arrested and put in jail, where he survived a traumatic attack. Feeling lost led him to drugs, theft and decades in prison. Now the national criminal justice director at LatinoJustice, he shares his Brief but Spectacular take on reimagining incarceration.