May 30, 2019 - PBS NewsHour full episode

Daniel Mendelsohn, author of our May pick for the PBS NewsHour-New York Times book club, Now Read This, joins Jeffrey Brown to answer reader questions about “An Odyssey.” Plus, Jeff announces the June book selection.

In our news wrap Thursday, President Trump renewed attacks on Robert Mueller and his probe into Russian election interference. Trump also tweeted that he himself had nothing to do with Russia's “helping me get elected,” but later tried to walk back the reference to Russian involvement. Also, another bid to pass a disaster aid package was stalled in the House by a Republican congressman.

The national abortion debate is raging with renewed fervor, as a series of states pass restrictive laws banning almost all instances of the procedure. Among those states is Missouri, where officials are also trying to shutter its only remaining abortion provider, a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis. William Brangham talks to Mallory Quigley of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List.

Israel’s legislature, the Knesset, has voted to dissolve itself barely a month after forming due to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to establish a coalition government within the given timeframe. An unprecedented second election will occur in September -- shortly after Netanyahu faces a hearing related to corruption charges. John Yang talks to The Washington Institute’s David Makovsky.

On the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, the world’s largest refugee camp houses a generation of lost Rohingya children. Because Bangladesh bans them from school, they face a hard choice: Break the law, or relinquish dreams of a better future. In response, some children have begun teaching each other. Special correspondent Tania Rashid reports on the lengths these persecuted children go for an education.

The Brief But Spectacular team recently brought attention to the volume of sexual assault cases in the Navajo Nation. Now, Meskee Yanabah Yatsayte, leader of an organization that looks for missing persons from the Navajo community, explains this silent epidemic.

General Russel Honore commanded an infantry division in Korea and saw action in Operation Desert Storm, but it was his service as Commander of the Joint Task Force Katrina in 2005 that won him national acclaim. The experience of viewing Louisiana’s industrial pollution up close, he says, also radicalized him. Now an environmental activist, the general is taking on big oil. Paul Solman reports.