July 22, 2020 - PBS NewsHour full episode

According to preliminary data, drug overdoses killed nearly 72,000 Americans in 2019, a record high. Now, it appears that 2020 is on track to be even worse, as the U.S. has witnessed a startling rise in overdoses during the pandemic. William Brangham reports on how increased isolation, economic uncertainty and reduced access to care have exacerbated American addiction -- with deadly consequences.

More than 1,000 U.S. deaths from COVID-19 were reported Tuesday. As many states struggle with outbreaks, Dr. Tom Frieden, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the country desperately needs improved data collection to understand how the virus is spreading -- and to contain it. He joins Judy Woodruff to discuss critical metrics and how to obtain and learn from them.

In our news wrap Wednesday, President Trump will send federal agents to Chicago, Kansas City and Albuquerque to fight violent crime. They will be drawn from the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Department of Homeland Security. Also, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove a Capitol bust of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney.

The Trump administration has ordered China to close its Houston consulate -- the latest action in an escalating fight between the two countries. The State Department cited concerns about espionage and intellectual property theft as justification for the move. Nick Schifrin reports and talks to Yale Law School’s Susan Thornton, former acting assistant secretary of state, and author Gordon Chang.

The question of when a COVID-19 vaccine might be available is perhaps the most pressing in the world. There have been a number of recent headlines on this front, including early but encouraging results from trials. And on Wednesday, the Trump administration awarded a contract to Pfizer and a German biotech firm to potentially deliver doses this year. Miles O’Brien joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.

On Tuesday, President Trump signed a memo aiming to bar undocumented immigrants from being included in the census count that determines how many members of Congress are allocated to each state. The census is conducted once in a decade, but it shapes funding, policy and power for years. Lisa Desjardins reports and talks to Hansi Lo Wang of NPR about what this and the pandemic mean for the census.

Four years ago, the Chester Children’s Chorus, a Pennsylvania group based near Philadelphia, recorded an original song called “I Still Can’t Breathe.” It was their response to the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and other Black Americans. Now teenagers and young adults, the former chorus members see their song as tragically relevant in the wake of George Floyd’s death and Black Lives Matter.